Trees Grow Faster

At least one has.
On a lark, I made some predictions on 30 Dec 2008 for 31 Dec 2009. Here is one of those:

Besides, scientists have discovered that the trees - with all the excess carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere - have actually grown taller and bigger. As a result, the excess CO2 has been neutralised by the oxygen produced by these trees. Man must therefore take care not to destroy trees. Governments all over the world have hailed this discovery and have promised to dedicate at least 30% of their country's land to maintain forests.

And guess what? Forests Are Growing Faster, Ecologists Discover; Climate Change Appears to Be Driving Accelerated Growth

Am I thrilled or am I thrilled!!!

Ok so I got lucky.
Read the rest of my predictions here and tell me what you think of these. No they did not come true, but it is fun reading anyway.

Astrology & Free Will

I never had any faith in Astrology.

Let's take the zodiac, for instance. Now, can one take this seriously? I mean, how could 1/12th of humanity fall under one category? And on top of that the predictions are so generic. One could swap around the predictions that appear in the dailies and you wouldn't know the difference.

But what about horoscope? That does not divide mankind into 12 parts. Each horoscope is unique and depends on the latitude and longitude and the time of birth. Can planets and stars have any impact on human actions?

Hmmm... let us investigate.

The multiplicative difficulty leading to the need of greater and greater precision in assumptions can be illustrated with the following simple exercise concerning the prediction of the movements of billiard balls on the table. I use the example as computed by the mathematician Michael Berry. If you know a set of basic parameters concerning the ball at rest, can compute the resistance of the table (quite elementary), and can gauge the strength of the impact, then it is rather easy to predict what would happen at the first hit. The second impact becomes more complicated, but possible; you need to be more careful about your knowledge of the initial states, and more precision is called for. The problem is that to compute the ninth impact, you need to take into account the gravitational pull of someone standing next to the table (modestly, Berry's computations use a weight of less than 150 pounds). And to compute the fifty-sixth impact, every single particle of the universe needs to be present in your assumptions! An electron at the edge of the universe, separated from us by 10 billion light-years, must figure in the calculations, since it exerts a meaningful effect on the outcome.

This information is mind-blowing, and I will assume it to be correct. So perhaps ancient Indian astrology did have a point. The planets do have an influence on us.

But does it make us puppets of a deterministic system? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I wouldn't be able to say. I have friends who swear by astrology. But then they have at least one friend (me!) who does not believe in astrology at all.

However, just because there is no scientific proof does not mean it is incorrect. If there is enough evidence of something, we need to take that into cognisance.

But what about free will? Human beings are not bound by past or future. We can think and make a difference. That has been my stand.

On the other hand, I  could take the above extract from The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to its limit. If every person on earth can be influenced by a set of planet, then what appears to be free will is actually a pre-determined action influenced by the universe.

Perhaps, it doesn't matter. As long as we do the right things and get the right results whether it is being done under the influence of some planet or a result of chaotic interaction of free will does not matter.

However, I have been taught a lesson. Just because a bizarre idea does not fit my existing thought framework, it need not be incorrect. I may not accept it; at the same time, I cannot reject the idea.

I still do not believe in astrology. But at least I will not make fun of those who do.

Picture courtesy: ADMANE Samir

Prediction by Experts

I continue to be impressed by what Taleb has to say in The Black Swan and how it can be applied in real life. (One immediate impact on me has been the reduction of TV viewing time. That helps me a great deal in the domestic front too.)

In any case, this is about how good (or poor) are predictions by experts.

[Psychologist Philip] Tetlock studied the business of political and economic "experts." He asked various specialists to judge the likelihood of a number of political, economic, and military events occurring within a specified time frame (about five years ahead). The outcomes represented a total number of around twenty-seven thousand predictions, involving close to three hundred specialists. Economists represented about a quarter of his sample. The study revealed that the expert's error rates were clearly many times what they had estimated. His study exposed an expert problem: there was no difference in results whether one had a PhD or an undergraduate degree. Well-published professors had no advantage over journalists. The only regularity Tetlock found was negative effect of reputation on prediction: those who had a big reputation were worse predictors than those who had none.

Now this is interesting as I have made some predictions for 31st December 2009 and I am no expert.

But what is more important is to check out the predictions made by economists on the present crisis. I have seen in innumerable news reports that the present economic crisis is likely to last throughout the 2009 and most possibly into the first few months of 2010. The good news: these predictions were made by experts. So, they are bound to be wrong. The bad news:, they could err on both sides: perhaps the economic gloom will lift with the next few months ... or last for the next few years.

Ditto with the environmental predictions.

In any case, you can track my predictions by subscribing to it. We shall know by end-2009, how far I was from reality.

Note: The picture used here belongs to Gabriel Bulla. For more such pictures visit his gallery.