The prisoner's dilemma

I had a good discussion with a couple of fellows from the Science College that produced perhaps the most visual example of why it is so difficult to find solutions to problems that affect several parties. Put simply, multilateral agreements are closely related to the prisoner's dilemma.

The prisoner's dilemma illustrates how two people could refuse to cooperate despite the fact doing so would be beneficial to both. Here's one of several versions of the game:

Two criminals are arrested, isolated and prosecuted separately. The judge tells them they can either confess or remain silent. If A confesses and B remains silent, A will be released and B will serve a life sentence. Likewise, if A remains silent and B confesses, A will be the one to serve the life sentence. Should both confess, they will each get early parole. If they both remain silent, they will be released for lack of evidence.

The idea behind the prisoner's dilemma is that cooperation benefits the other while defection benefits the player. Furthermore, the optimal results are obtained if and only if everyone cooperates. However, the more players there are, the harder it is to justify cooperation as one defector is enough to hurt everyone.

With that said, one can see why the Coopenhagen conference produced poor results. Limiting CO2 emissions would potentially slowdown the economy of larger countries giving an advantage to those who ignore the agreement. But in reality, with the way climate changes affect our lands, everybody lose.

Summer recap

Yes, it's been a while and a few hot topics have emerged since then. Let's recap:

The LHC, the giant particle smasher, did not create a black hole that destroyed the world. In fact, the project was initially a failure due to the machine breaking down. Then it got delayed because of lenghty repairs and ties to Al-Qaeda. It has recently been tested at a fraction of its full capacity. But rest assure physicist will eventually use the collider's full potential as they believe "seeing nothing is really not an option."

One of the more interesting stories of the summer has to be the launching of the first clown in space. Cirque du soleil founder, Guy Laliberte, added space traveling to his curriculum this year, spending a little less than two weeks in orbit. He used the opportunity to create Moving Stars and Earth for Water, a show that's literally "out of this world." Moving Stars and Earth for Water is available online through www.Onedrop.org.

We can safely say that the demotion of pluto from a planet to... well, something short of a planet rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. The little planet that could was always a misfit but people love underdog stories and are ready to go to the barricade for what they believe is an unwarranted injustice towards, frankly, a mass of space debris... Fear not though, for the Kepler telescope was launch this year in hope of finding an earth-like planet in the inhabitable region of our solar system. Basically, a replacement for when we're done messing this planet.

Swine flu has given headaches to autorities around the world. The latest worldwide pandemic has become such a threat that here in Canada a vaccination program is currently underway. I, for myself, have not taken the shot. The relatively low turnout for the program is in part due to scepticism toward the potency of the virus. We'll have to wait for the end of the season to evaluate whether authorities were right in pushing for mass inoculation.

The big event these days is the debate climate change is generating. World leaders met at Copenhagen to determine their post-Kyoto actions. I won't say much about it since it will likely be the topic of my next post but needless to say, there are some interesting patterns to analyse from this episode.

Evolution for everyone

American evolutionist David Sloan Wilson recently gave a public lecture on evolution in Montreal. Of course, he discussed evolution and concentrated on showing that the theory was applicable in everything.

Overall, I must say I was pleasantly surprised at how he avoided turning his talk into a war of arguments between creationists and evolutionists. Instead his talk explored how the world is built on a framework that is reliant on evolution.

Evolution is easily explained and observable in biology. The contradictions with many religious beliefs explain why there is strong opposition to a theory that champions evolution. But what if the theory was more profound and could be used to explain more than biological changes over time?

Wilson believes that evolution is universal, a way of life or even a school subject of its own, much like philosophy or economics. He also thinks it does not receive the recognition it deserves. "The fragmentation of knowledge explains why spreading evolutionary theory beyond biology is a failure," he said.

He made a couple of interesting statements including one where he claimed that thinking in terms of evolution theory leads to a "kind of transcendent knowledge."

To show his point, he proposed a thought experiments which I will leave you with:

Evolution and morality Take a piece of paper and write the qualities you associate with a vituous person. Then repeat the exercise, but this time write down the qualities you would give to an evil person.

1. What would happen if you place one virtuous person with an evil person on an island?
2. What would happen if you had two separate island? One full of virtuous people and the other filled with evil people?
3. What would happen if one evil person was allowed to go on the virtuous island?

Within the prism of evolution, one can propose answers to all three questions. The thought experiments begs the question: Is group survival more important than individual survival? If so, what would be the make up of the populations on each island after several generations?

Science minister in hot water

The Canadian science minister, Gary Goodyear, does not practice what he preaches according to the Globe and Mail. His stance on evolution has been a contentious issue in the science community and many believe he may not have the moral authority to hold the position he now occupies in the government.

When asked whether he believed in evolution, he avoided a direct answer saying the question is irrelevant. I will argue this is a valid answer. A person should not have to agree with every aspect of his or her job. Would it be fair to judge a lawyer based on his defense of men who will later be found guilty of criminal acts?

Learning to defend views you do not personally embrace is promoted through the teaching of critical thinking and ethics. It is perfectly natural and exists in every field.

Now, I find there are problems that warrant us to question Goodyear as science minister. The scientific community doesn't have much faith in him for protecting their interests. He is held partly responsible for the cuts in science funding programs. This could be unjustified, but I can see why others may be skeptical of his goodwill given his background and his party's philosophy toward science.

Finally, he proposes to focus on the commercialization of science rather than fundamental research. If you know me, you know I advocate for strong fundamental research programs for the country. While commercialization is the end or the process, science cannot progress if there’s no money going into fundamental research. Curiosity and risk need to be rewarded if we want to keep on making new discoveries. Funding safe research simply won’t produce satisfying results.

Purple and cancer free

Green means they’re young, red means they’re ripe and purple means they fight cancer. The tomatoes plant geneticist Cathie Martin is growing in her lab are genetically modified and packed with anthocyanin, a pigment that gives tomatoes a purple taint and acts as an antioxidant.

Martin and the John Innes Centre in Norwich fed cancer-prone mices on a diet of purple tomatoes, those mices out lived their peers that didn’t have the engineered tomato by about 50 days living 182 days compared to 142 for those that weren’t on the diet or were in a red tomatoes diet. Her results are publised in Nature Biotechnology.

Peeling adhesive tape can produce X-rays

Moving two contacting surfaces create energy that sometimes translate into visible light. This is a pheonoment called triboluminescence. In the case of adhesive tape peeled in a vacuum, X-rays are emited.

Using plain old Scotch Tape mounted on a rotary motor, The Deparment of physics of the University of California proceeded in unwinding the tape and used a detector to measure the X-rays.

How powerful would adhesive powered X-ray scanners be? The average X-ray power generated by the experiment is 2 nW.

Using decay to study spoilage

Chemists at the ENEA research centre in italy are using a new technique to look at the effect of food packaging on the product itself. A preliminary study involving nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) demonstrate that packaging slows down the spoilage of cheese. They're hoping to take their study one step further and use NMR to determine how different packages fare against each other.