Religion and the secular left

"My hope is that the analysis presented here may help us better understand one of the crucial paradoxes of the contemporary world. This is the question of why the decline of radical left wing secular movements is so often accompanied by the flourishing of religious movements that can be harnessed by extreme right wing forces." says Alpa Shaw in Religion and the secular left: Subaltern studies Birsa Munda and the Maists Apprently Birsa Munda story will come out in a new book by Synil Khilnani.
Report on a recent paper 'Moralistic gods, supernatural punishment and the expansion of human sociality' (behind a firewall) in Washington Post and a discussion by Razib Khan who quotes from the paper "Our results support the hypothesis that beliefs in moralistic, punitive and knowing gods increase impartial behaviour towards distant co-religionists, and therefore can contribute to the expansion of prosociality."

The problems here are social as much as everything. You are seen as weak if you don’t steal.

Post-war Iraq:'Everybody is corrupt from top to bottom. including me' says iraq's anti-corrption chief.
I heard similar thins in India. In dowry negotiation 'The salary is 5000 rupees but extra earnins are 20000 rupees foe month'.

A nation which can't cope with a few anti-national slogans isn't much of a nation.

http://www.ndtv.com/opinion/can-india-really-not-cope-with-a-few-anti-national-slogans-1278410?pfrom=home-lateststories

Turbulance in 'The Starry Night'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMerSm2ToFY
There are several articles like this :

“In a period of intense suffering, Van Gogh was somehow able to perceive and represent one of the most supremely difficult concepts nature has ever brought before mankind.”

David Shulman wins Israel Prize

Education Minister Naftali Bennett approved Prof. David Dean Shulman for the award, stating that his affiliation with left-wing activist group Ta'ayush has nothing to do with the honor.
Review of Dark Hope by David Shulman

During Azuri 1980 visit to india

An interesting article for filmi buffs http://hindi-films-songs.com/articles/Azurie-kaustubh-pingle.pdf via a comment by SK in Richard Singer's post https://roughinhere.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/azurie/#comment-12270

One of the ways that NRIs can help rural India

with a few phone calls. But think of JagLAG group http://forbesindia.com/article/30-under-30/guneet-kaur-isha-khandelwal-and-parijata-bhardwaj-bringing-law-to-the-land/39601/1 and their current status http://scroll.in/article/803821/how-the-chhattisgarh-police-succeeded-in-hounding-out-those-who-questioned-it

Mathematics seems to be hard

I have been trying to do mathematics again with a collaborator after a long gap. It takes long to understand even the stuff one used to know and longer to sort out simple mistakes. After a few days with a lot of help from Peter, I got into thinking mathematics. But it was difficult to put those things on paper and when I tried they kept changing. Finally after a month, I have been able to write six pages which may help. The ability to keep a problem in front and thinking about a problem for days which I acquired late in life still seems to be there and strangely it seems to make me feel physically better. At the moment I can walk longer and work more than before in the garden if there is enough time. What is surprising is that it takes so long to get some thing sensible. If it is like this in mathematics (for me) I wonder how much I goof outside mathematics. One guess is that many ideas and words are not precise in one's thinking and there is a sort of band width to them. In a subject like mathematics, there are mechanisms of proof which helps sorting things out and fitting them together. It is not so clear cut in many other areas.

Some Irish writers

I am not a literary person but read some stuff off and on for no particular reason. Once I read J.M. Synge plays like 'Riders to the sea' which I found moving. Apparently there is anothergood Irish writer who is not so well know. 3quarks daily links to this article about James Stephens. May be the clue is as Marianne Moore says 
"The Irish say that your trouble is their
trouble and your joy their joy?
I wish I could believe it;
I am troubled, dissatisfied, I am Irish."
Wikipedia article about 'Riders to the sea' and it has a link to the play.

Dietrich Vollarth remembers a paper of Greg Clark

I have read this very peripherally and am posting this for future reference since I am busy with other things now.
Why is not the whole world developed?

Maryland's Route 40 role in Civil rights Movement

The Junction:The Cold War, and the African Diplomats of Maryland's Route 40 by Nicholaqs Murray Vachon via J.K.Mohana Rao:
"But the significance of the Route 40 incidents does not stem from the success or failure of the campaign for civil rights legislation it produced. Rather, it lies in the fact that such a campaign occurred, born on a Maryland highway out of the collision between foreign and domestic forces. In their attempts to end discrimination against African diplomats, civil rights organizations and the Kennedy administration alike enacted strategies that revealed the difficulties of comprehending the various forces at work on Route 40. Both groups made missteps as they tried to navigate simultaneously the politics of Cold War, Civil Rights, and colonial Africa, and ultimately addressed the uniqueness of the Route 40 incidents with uncharacteristic actions. The Kennedy administration, having vowed not to pursue civil rights legislation during its first year in the White House, led a campaign for public accommodations legislation in Maryland. And civil rights organizations, having removed themselves from the international sphere since the 1940s, promoted a policy that would benefit the United States’ global struggle against the Soviet Union. The Route 40 incidents, therefore, serve as a window to the issues of the 1960s, a lens through which to observe the uncertainties created in the context of a changing world."
Pedro Sanjuan's obituary

Working with Peter Scott

Doing mathematics again

since January 13 after a gap of at least two years. Even before, after retirement in 2015, it was only off and on work when Peter Scott wrote to me on older joint projects.It is a bit strange.but because a collaborator was in constant contact, it was not difficult to start working. First it was difficult to understand the statements and more difficult to understand proofs. After a little while I could start seeing some things in the particular topic. But when I started writing down arguments what I thought that I have seen did not work out the same way and after several attempts, the proofs were nothing like what I imagined first. Finally I was able to get some traction on the topic and it is looking progressivly clearer. This is in a topic where I supposedly developed expertise over years since the early 1960s and with an active mathematician constantly answering my questions.I wonder why one so easily responds on social topics with opinions and comments, partcularly on Facebook. I wonder whether Facebook is trivializing discussions.

Review of a biography of Michael Harrinton, the author of 'The Other America'

The (still) relevant Socialistby Harold Meyerson reviews The Other American by Maurice Isserman.
An article on Michael Harrington by Maurice Isserman

Ramarao Kanneganti among mathermaticians

Next to him are Peter Scott from The University of Michigan, Hyam Rubinstein a nd Chuck Miller from The University of Melbourne. Ramrao's homepage
 

Rohith Vemula story

from severtal people Rohith Vemula-An Unfished Portrait
I am enclosing some of the comments I made on different FB walls: Benjamin P Kaila, Pramadahnath Sastry, and J.K. Mohana Rao. I made contacts with some Dalit activists through Benjamin Kaila about ten years ago.
1)I am a bit surprised by this statement in the article "He says that there were only a few casteist elements on campus and most of the teachers were secular at the Hindu College in Guntur." If it is true, there is hope. I used to chat with people of my father's generation who studied in this college. My impressions is that many kammas who studied here in thise days resented the brahmin dominance ( many leaders in political parties , Pattabhi Seetharamaiah, Perepa Mrityijajudu... , were brahhmins) and cut their teeth there for political representation and later dominance. Anyway, my imporession is some of the castes who came up, did that throuh cooperative societies, hostels, entrepreneurs who were helped by their communities to start new enterprises (kammas, Nadars, Iranian chai restaurants..). Most communities have poor people and in our endoamous societies people tend to help their relatives. So one strategy may be somewhat seperate casteist enterprises by dalits.
2) Related thoughts from a few years ao (some of the links do not work now) http://gaddeswarup.blogspot.com.au/.../a-report-about...
3)More recent. For the last ten years, I have been invoved in some dalit struggles but from afar. Two years ao, i met a dalit boy who finished B.Tech. via resrvations , but could not find a job and was working as a agricultural labourer along with his parents. Interestingly a brahmin classmate of his who came up through regular channels did well and immediately ot a job. She liked the boy and wanted to marry him. He did not want to marry until he got a job and helped his parents. I advised him to take training and job-placement courses and forced some money on him He went to Hyderabad but tried to save money on food and got sick. Meanwhile I wrote to several people for advice and placement possibilities. There was no response from any dalit activists I contacted. I saw an advertisement about a dalit placement aency in Vijayawada and could not decide whether it was bogus or not. One brahmin Ph.d. student and another non-dalit IT professional Avineni Bhaskar offered to help. Meanwhile the boy got an apprenticeship in an a government enterprice, just enouh to get by, and is progressing. It seems that dalits are not really using their market power to build enough institutions in which they can help themselves. There should be some focus on building cooperative socities, institutions which help dalit entrepreneurs... And role models are movin away to cities or foreign countries to avoid oppression back home. Some stray thoughts from an outsider.

Death of Dalit student

Rohit Davula: The student who died for Dalit Rights (from BBC News)
A documentary from 2011 I'M DALIT HOW ARE YOU? (via Madhukar Shukla)
Ancient prejudice, modern inequality by Anjaya vajpaye from The Hindu
MHRD's Trail of Letters Hounding Dalit Students of UoH (via Lavanya Kolluri)

From The Hindu 19/01/2016 (via Rahul Siddharthan)

Sean Rice on Price Equation

Peter Scott has braught me a copy of Sean H. Rice: "Evolutionary Theory:Mathematical and Conceptual Foundations" which is not available in our library. It seems excellent, though, with my weak background in biology, it may take several moths to get some grip on the topics. At the end of Chapter 6, he says:
"In deriving equation 6.4, Price started with only a basic description of the kind of quantities involved in evolution; phenotypes of parents, phenotypes of their offsprings, and numbers of offspring. He then asked mhat mathematical relations must hold between these basic pieices, without imposing any further restrictions.
The resulting equation initially seems so simple that it is hard to seehow it relates to actual evolutionary questions. When we look closely at this result, though, we see that it shows an underlying unity that was obscured by our special case models. It also provides a foundation on which to build new models, a fact that we will use in the following chapters of the book.

Not all fields of science have the kind of foundational analytical results that we have used in this chapter. In many subjects, building special case models is the only approach to theory. It is hardly surprising, though, that evolutionary biology has such foundations. Since the initial work of Darwin and Wallace, it has seemed to many people that at its core evolution has simple and universal principles. What we have seen in this chapter is that phrasing these universal principles mathematically need not narrow them, but rather allows us to see their full significance."

With Peter Scott

Friend since 1968 and coll;aborator since 1986. Some of the hardest work (and Peter says the same) that I have done is with Peter, mostly on problems that bothered me for a long time. Though it is not popular, that work gave both of us a lot of satisfaction. That is how it goes in research.  Even though, we have not met for three years and I have not done any mathematics for two years, we started working as soon as we met and could find a small mistake in one of our papers to be completed.

Depressing links

RBS tells investors:'Sell everything'
More at Automatic Earth
Aaron Swartz died three years ago
NASA study about the end of ivilization
HBR on income inequality
Africa hit by China's woes
Gender descrimination in scientific credit
The case of Lise Meitner

Economic prosperity and religiosity

Eighty per cent of Indians consider religion 'very important' in their lives, against 3% Chinese from Scroll.in
Karl Marx and some others on religion from Wikipedia

Sankranti days

A film song from my childhood. More about the film here.

Telugu dhoti those days: NTR in Shavukaru https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSlWcbc_jD0
And the new generation from https://www.facebook.com/Tollyfilms/photos/a.286380191479117.66282.257212947729175/873667872750343/?type=3&pnref=story:

David Bowie in Australia

David Bowie - Let's Dance (Official Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2HWuR2mq5M
from The Guardian article via Chapati Mystery

Nearly 400,000 people under siege in Syria

Communities under siege in Syria

Links, January 12, 2016

Bloomberg Business on Bowie Bonds:"The man behind “The Man Who Sold the World” was the first recording artist to go to Wall Street to tap the future earnings of his music, paving the way for a thriving market for esotericsecurities backed by everything from racehorse stud rights to commercial washing machines."

Razib Khan discusses in a thread "The secret of our success" by Joseph Henrich: "I’m done with Joe Henrich’s The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about the field of cultural evolution (the author is one of the major people behind the idea of WEIRD psychology). For myself, one of the main upsides was that the book had a lot of empirical illustrations I wasn’t familiar with. Unfortunately some of the references to genomics are out of date, because he was writing the book in 2014. Also, I found the chapter on language somewhat unsatisfying."

Lot of links on development in this post by Chris Blattman (also in the comments)

MinHacks discussion of an article in The Guardian on CBT vs psuchoanalysis 'Psychotherapies and the space between us' : "There’s an in-depth article at The Guardianrevisiting an old debate about cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) versus psychoanalysis that falls into the trap of asking some rather clichéd questions."
Language Log on Spoken Sanskrit. Check also the discussion on Suresh Kolichala's wall

Peter Scott visting

for six weeks. I met him in 1968 (Liverpool. He left for University of Michigan in the mid eighties) and have been actively collaborating with him since 1994 though I have not been active mathematically in the recent years. But we have some work to complete and hope to finish it in the next few weeks. So, there will be very few postings in the next few weeks: most probably things that I find interesting but have not read carefully or done any backround checking (not that I do it all the time).

Meet Aravinda and Ravi

The inspiration behind Shah Rukh Khan Movie Swades
There have been posts about Ravi Kuchimanchi before. From one of them, this:
 http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/ravi-kuchimanchi-tapping-the-potential-of-non-resident-indians-to-help-the-rural-poor/

P.S. The report seems to be more or less what was reported by Madhukar Shukla in 2008. Internet search has not yielded any further information.

Sharon Lowen's Odissi dance in Swarna kamalam

Sharon Lowen notices Minai's post from 2012 on her dance nd responds to Minai's queries. Minai is pleased.
Found: Sharon Lowen's Odissi dance in Swarnakamalam (Telugu, 1988)

Status and prestige

While reading 'The secret of our success', I was reminded that status seemed to be particularly important among Indians and started searching. It seems that there are some evolutionary reasons mentioned in a few places. On the otherhand, Joseph Henrich discusses its positive role in learning, imitation and fostering cooperation. It is also in this paper co-written by him: The Big Man Mechanism: How prestige fosters cooperation and creates prosocial leaders
On the otherhand, rembering that status and prestige are not quite the same, it seemed that among many Indians that I met (others too but more intense among Indians), status pursuit seems to be for its own sake. Some of the conversations from Telugu people from coastal Andhra who normally do not read books outside what is needed in their professions: " I have not really met any who is more intelligent than me". " Same in my case". " I have international standing. What do these people think?" The first two were reactions to my statement about some wonderful mathematicians that I met like William Thurston. The third was somebody who resents lack of promotion from a lecturership and has not been treated with great respect and admiration in a Telugu party. 

Savitri's first film

It seems to be Samsaram 1951 (Telugu). She was selected for the role of heroine but too nervous and was replaced and had a small role in the film. In the dubbed (remade ?) Tamil version with the same, she is standing on the extreme left in the back

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cklW1BKPgeQ

A dubbed film and a song

In Prema Lekhalu 1953 A. M. Rajah starts the duet. In the Hindi version Lata Mangeshkar. The Telugu version here, video not available https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmNU6GrY810&feature=youtu.be
Hindi version by Lata Mangeahkar and Mukesh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sver9O8K3t8&feature=youtu.be
In the Tamil version Avan  is similar to the Telugu one, both sung by A.M.Rajah and Jikki. Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLiTZKt-G9Y&feature=youtu.be

Reading 'The secret of our success'

Just finished reading 'The secret if our success' by Joseph Henrich. Because of the imminent arrival of a collaborator, I rushed through the later parts of this very interesting book. Because of the scope of the book, there are bound to be some discrepancies. I will probably start with chapters 6, 15, and 17 in the next reading. Razib Khan will probably write a detailed review soon. Apart from saying that it is very interesting and that I will read it again, I cannot say any thing concrete now.

Mother and baby wars

Sazanne Sadedin last year in Aeon War in the womb
Carl Zimmer in Sptember this year A pregnancy souveir: Cells that not your own

Idli

From The tale of Idli: "K.T. Acharya, the food historian, speculates that the modern idli might have originated in the region that is now Indonesia (also about what ancient characters ate), which has had a long tradition of fermented food. According to him, cooks employed by the Hindu kings of the local kingdom may have invented the steamed idli there, and brought the recipe to India during the period 800-1200 CE. But this theory is being questioned by modern food historians such as Lizzie Collingham, Kristen Gremillion, Raymond Grew, Makhdoom Al-Salaqi (Syria), Zahiruddin Afiyaab (Lebanon). "
Some information about K.T.Acharya here. Another Indianfood expert Pushpesh Pant
More on what Rama and Sita ate (by D.Balasubramanian, here too) rom K.T. Acharya: "Lords Rama, Lakshmana and Devi Sita ate a vast menu that contained fruits, leafy vegetables, rice and meat. Achaya quotes a book stating that Rama and Lakshmana, while in exile at Dandakaranya, hunted animals for the pot, and that a favourite of Sita was rice cooked with venison, vegetables and spices (the dish called Mamsabhutadana). Of course, Lord Rama enjoyed eating the fruit ber (zizyphus) that Sabari tasted and gave him." Probably more in his book, some quotes here.

Pentagon carbon footprint

Missing from the Paris agreement: the Pentagon's monstrous boot print (via Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism)

A passage from "The secret of our success" by Joseph Henrich

From chapter 10, 'Intergroup competetion shapes cultural evolution': "As I discuss intergroup competetion, keep in mind that there are manyu other cultural evolutionary forces that do not favour proscial institutions. When the fotrces of intergroup competetion are spent and weakened, success-biased cultural learning (or purely rational self-interest) will cause individuals to seek out any "cracks" in their roups' institutions to manipulate or exploit for their own benefit or that of their kith and kin.Ovet time, history suiggests that all prosocial institutions age and eventually collapse at the hands of self-interest, unless they are renewed by the dynamics of interroup competetion.That is, although it may take a lon time, individuals and coalitions figure out how to beat or manipulate the system to their own ends, and these techniques spread and corrode any prosocial effects."

Henrich takes great trouble to explain his ideas lucidly and many of the statements are based on research and often he gives references. But there are none for the above. As Razib Khan said "...I think that he wrote at an unfortunate time when it comes to drawing lessons from human genomics, because some of his assertions have been falsified! (he wrote the preface in January of 2015, a year ago)."
I think that it is an excellent book but the statements should be treated cautiously and one should look for reviews and such for comments.

More on abc conjecture

Hope Rekindled for perplexing Proof from Quanta Magazine
An earlier article in Nature by Davide Castlevecchi: The biggest mystery in mathematics: Shinichi Mochizuki and the impenetrable proof

Razib Khan on 'The secret of our success'

"I’m about halfway through The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. Yes, it’s as good as readers have told me. But, I’ll be honest and state that I knew most of it already in the generality, though not the ethnographic details (for example, I did not know that Inuit ate deer feces like “berries”; thanks for that Joe!). Part of this has to due with the fact that I’ve kept up on the author’s research since 2004, when I encountered his models of skill decay in Tasmanian Aboriginals. And, I’m familiar with the fields of cultural evolution more broadly. Additionally, I’ll bring it up in my review, but I think that he wrote at an unfortunate time when it comes to drawing lessons from human genomics, because some of his assertions have been falsified! (he wrote the preface in January of 2015, a year ago)." in the recent post.

Men coping

Woman coping

via Facebook Feed

Voices of women

Rahul Banerjee : Here is an invigorating quote from nineteenth century Argentinian feminists to start the year on a revolutionary note - 
“fed up as we are with so many tears and so much misery; fed up with the never ending drudgery of children (dear though they are); fed up with asking and begging; of being a plaything for our infamous exploiters or vile husbands, we have decided to raise our voices in the concert of society and demand, yes, demand our bit of pleasure in the banquet of life.”
- La Voz de la Mujer (The Voice of The Woman, the mouth piece of Argentinian Anarcha-Feminists)

 From Women writing in India, vol1, Songs of the nuns, sixth century BC. Sumangalalatamata, pages 68-69 :

A woman well set free! How free I am

 How wonderfully free from kitchen drudgery.

Free from harsh grip of hunger,

 And from empty cooking pots.

 Free too of that unscrupulous man,

 The weaver of sunshades.

 Calm now, and serene I am,

All lust and hatred purged.

To the shade of the spreading tree I go

 And contemplate my happiness.

And one from Mutta: 

So free I am, so gloriously free,

 Free from three petty things-

 From mortar, from pestle and from my twisted lord,

Freed from rebirth and death I am,

And all that held me down

 Is hurled away.

Seymour Hersh on military strategies in Syria

Military to Military in LRB. This sort of perception is around for some time but I think Obama is playin a deeper game. He wants continued US economic hegemony and easy solutions in the Middle East may help Russia and China.

Culture driven genetic evolution

Lactase persistence (the ability to of older children, adoloscents, and adults to access milk's nutrition) is apparently 63% in North India and 23% in the South. This is from Chapter 6 of 'The secret of our success' by Joseph  Henrich, where he outlines three best documented cases examples of culture driven genetic evolution, the others being 'blue eyes' and booze-inhibiting genes co-evolving with rice cultivation. Apparently, these evolutions took different routes in different places.
P.S. Another difference between North and South India was mentioned by Emmanuel Todd. He distinguishes the North and South Indian family systems as Exogamous Community Family and Assymetrical Community Family respectively. Part of the difference, outside Kerala which is more matrilinear, comes from the marriage stem where the children of brother and sister can marry. Apparently, this gives women a bigger role in the society though not as much as in matrilinear societies.

Two posts from Songs of Yore

The latest by Shalan Lal "During the last April I went along with some friends to see the arrival of the New Yorker Hudsonian migratory birds called “Godwit”, who were supposed to be flying back to Canada, just a journey about two hundred miles from New York. But their magnetic field in their heads changed due to too much electrification in New York and they got in a different current of the air (AK also noticed this in his reading of the news and mentioned it in his email to me on another matter) and made a non-stop four thousand miles journey to England. Some say they got unwittingly in another caravan of migratory birds and made off-beam and very wide of the mark journey." Story here.That starts her off on bird songs in Hindi films and some others.
and an old puzzle "Twin songs: A front runner and a laggard" by AK; "If you somehow block the memory of the male versions and listen to the female versions of the above songs, they are technically sound and quite melodious. Then why even Lata versions pale in comparison to their male counterparts seems inexplicable. Perhaps it has to do with something abstract in the way our senses respond to when the same song is sung by a male and a female singer, and we always seem to be favouring the former."
Some theories of music

Links 1st January, 2016

Economists' evolving understanding of the zero-rate liquidity trap from The Economist
One country, but no single market from The Economist: "India’s excitable politics is blocking the best chance of promoting growth"
The concentration of U.S. wealth from Federal Reserve Bank of St.Louis
Will "innovation from the edge" help with global warming? by David Warsh at Economic Principals
Turkey's dangerous game in Syria from WSJ and Turkey's campaign against kurdish militants takes toll on civilians from NYTimes
Angela Merkel says that refugee crisis is 'opportunity' for Germany in New Year's Eve address 
Joseph Henrich Edge page

A new book on cultural evolution

I am half way through the book and liked it so far. Some of the flavour of the book can be gleaned from the customer reviews: The secret of our success by Joseph Henrich. Table of contents with a free chapter here. A review by Joe Brewer at Evolution Institute

Subir Sen RIP

A write up about his work in Songs of Yore

Recalling an article I liked reading this year

There is no theory of everything by Simon Critchley
One quote "There is a gap between nature and society. The mistake, for which scientism is the name, is the belief that this gap can or should be filled.......What is needed is a clearer overview of the occasions when a scientific remark is appropriate and when we need something else, the kind of elucidation we find in stories, poetry or indeed when we watch a movie or good TV (Frank watched a lot of TV).....We don’t need an answer to the question of life’s meaning, just as we don’t need a theory of everything. What we need are multifarious descriptions of many things, further descriptions of phenomena that change the aspect under which they are seen, that light them up and let us see them anew.."
Another: "Some years later, I went back into his office to ask permission to switch from one course to another. “Which courses?” he said indifferently. “I’m meant to be reading Foucault, but I want to do a course on Derrida.” “Man” he replied “that’s like going from horseshit to bullshit.” "

Piketty Retrospective

at Crooked Timber. I have spent a lot of time on Piketty's Capital21 which was fascinating but I got only glimpses of parts of it. In a recent seminar in CT, I came across this article by J.W. Mason It's bargaining power all the way down which seems clearer than most. (I also liked Seth Ackerman's review in Jacobin). Apparently Piketty will respond to the seminar in January next year.
Comments in the CT article with some resonses from J.W. Mason are also worth looking.
Fun part: Comment 39. Re Barbara Solow and family – an article by her on Eric Williams and slavery has one of the all-time great acknowledgements:

“I would like to thank my sons, Andrew R. and John L. Solow, for assistance in producing the mathematical results, and my husband, Robert M. Solow, for assistance in producing the sons”.
Reference. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0304387885900240

More links on Price Equation

Making some progress.  'Multilevel Selection Processes in Economics: Theory and Methods' by Natalia Zinovyeva (http://www3.druid.dk/wp/20040008.pdf )has a little example which helped. Another paper 'Understanding microbial cooperation' by James Damore and Jeff Gore (Supplement http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/james/files/damore_jtb_2012_supp.pdf?m=1363388631, to orinial paper http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3176967/)has a fairly comprehensive discussion and also a discussion of some of the difficulties.

Regimes of perceptibility

Rediscovering the 1%: Economic Expertise sand Inequality Knowledge
Abstract
In the 2000s, academics and policymakers began to discuss the growth of top incomes in the United States, especially the “top 1%.” Newly analyzed data revealed that top income earners in the 1990s received a larger share of income than at any point since the Great Depression, and that their incomes had begun a dramatic upward climb in the early 1980s. This paper investigates why it took two decades for this increase in top incomes to become politically and academically salient. I argue that experts assembled two “regimes of perceptibility” (Murphy 2006) for producing knowledge about income inequality, and that neither of these regimes was capable of tracking movements in top incomes. Macroeconomists focused on labor’s share of national income, but did not examine the distribution of income between individuals. Labor economists, on the other hand, drew on newly available survey data to explain wage disparities in terms of education, age, work experience, race, and gender. By relying on surveys, these scholars unintentionally eliminated top incomes from view: surveys top-coded high incomes, and thus were incapable of seeing changes in the top 1%. Studies of top incomes that relied on income tax data thus fell by the wayside, creating the conditions under which experts, policymakers, and the public alike could be surprised by the rise of the 1%. This historical narrative o↵ers insights into the political power of economic expertise by clarifying the complex linkages between observations, stylized facts, causal theories, and policy attention.

Still struggling

with stuff related to Price Equation. So postings will be less frequent. When I do not understand stuff, I employ what an old friend used to cal 'glance therapy'.  Stare at it for hours and dream about it. Slowly some names and formulae start appearing like old friends. Of course, it is easier to understand through discussions, but when no one arouind is that interested in the topic, one has to resort to adhoc methods. A collaborator is visiting for six weeks starting January 12, and I think it will take me months to get some grip on Price Equation. Meanwhile, here are some links updating old topics.
Spread of antibiotic-resistance ene does not spell bacterial apocalypse - yet from Natuire News
US bee numbers decline as land is converted for biofuel 
The scientific limits of understanding complex social phenomena from Naked Capitalism
The science myths that will not die from Nature News
A discussion on high economic rents in Economist's View
Military to military by Seymur Hersch
Puncuring myths about India, review of a book by Sanjay Subrahjmanyam and an inrerview with the author
and an old article by George Monbiot Gift of Death

Standard text books

I was recommended chapter 10 of Sean Rice: 'Evolutionary theory: Mathematical and Conceptual Foundations' for an account of George Prioce's work. apparently it is a standard text book in parts of USA but is not available in our huge Melbourne University library. It is surprising that even these days what is considered standard differs even in developed countries.

A picture of the present and near future in some parts of the world

The mystery of India's deadly exam scam by Aman Sethi in The Guardian

Three versions of a song

"AV. Meiyappan has disclosed in his autobiography, ‘ Enadhu Vazhkai Anubhavangal ’ (My Life’s Experiences) that though he launched the movie in Hindi, he later thought that by making it in Telugu and Tamil also, it would become a more commercially viable project. But call-sheet problems delayed the shooting causing production costs to go up. While Ladki was released on October 30, 1953, Penn got released on June 26, 1954 and Sangham on July 10, 1954." from an article in The Hindu Sangham  (1954) by M.L.Narasimham. In one of the popular songs, the Hindi version sounds a bit different from the Tamil and Telugu versions.  Hindi versionby Lata Mangeshkar and Geeta Dutt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d-MJTaoBoE

The Tamil version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnc0cHgUR4g&feature=youtu.be by T.S. Bhagavati and M.S. Rajeshwari

The Telugu version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrdf5owDgUs&feature=youtu.be by T.S.Bhagawati and P.Suseela

Update on Foldscope

The $ 1 microscope by Ed Yong:
"At first, Prakash set up a makeshift factory in his lab and printed around 50,000 of the Foldscopes. He and his team members have since shipped 10,000 of those out by hand, as part of a broad beta-test.

Pomerantz was one of the lucky recipients. “It has been so useful for my fieldwork,” he says, having used it to study plant cells, mites, fly larvae, and single-celled parasites. “It feels like holding a piece of paper, because that’s what it sort of is. It’s also really robust. I take really long hikes in the jungle, so it gets dumped on by rain and mud—and it still works.”"

Another from The NewYorker by Carolyn Kormann.

Friend from 1970, Jack Morava

Whenever I am stuck for references, I write to Jack. Even if he does not know about the topic, he always finds somebody who can give useful references.

Two books

A book that I enjoyed very much but forgot to mention is  "Life's greatest secret: The story of the race to crack the genetic bode" ny Matthew Cobb reviewd here.
Another popular book around that time is Nick Lane's The Vital Question" reviewd here. I did not complete it since it seemed a bit speculative.

Year end reading

Nature's Oracle: The Life and Times of W.D.Hamilton by Ullica segerstrale and
The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness by Oren Harman, mainly the parts to related to George Price and his work during the London stay. These seem to help a bit with the papers of George Price (1972) and William Hamilton (1975) that i have been strugling with. Perhaps to catch up some of the modern developments, I should add "Unto others..." by Sober and Wilson at some stage.

Links December 14, 2015

About Benidict Anderson's 'Imagined communities' from 2006  In a pomegranate chandelier by T.J. Clark
Why Poland is Turning Away from the west from NY Times.
The article links to an article The Political economy of liberal demcracy by Aharun Mukand and Dani Rodrik which looks promising but I have not read it yet.
Melbourne's anti-vaccine hot spots: Rich suburbs have low immunisation rates
ISIS in Libya from Business Insider
Turkey in Iraq: Turkey misfires in Iraq from Al-Monitor, What are Turkish troops doin in Northern Iraq from The NewYorker. Check also Are Turkey and Iran reviving 16th century conflict?

WΔZ

Still struggling with William Hamilton's 1975 paper on group selection. The 1972 paper of George Price seems a bit easier because it is more mathematical. Since a mathematician collaborator is coming soon and then there is a planned trip to India, it may be months before i get a grip (if at all) on this stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S8BAW9xVkg&feature=youtu.be

P.K.MAHANANDIA

An article on him by Vidya Bhushan Rawat. Another in Swedish with automatic translation. On Facebook.

Vasili Arkhipov

Arkhipov Day: Celebrate the man who saved the world
More ar the wikipedia and this documentary.

Some Indian links December 13, 2015

Why is industry fleeing Punjab? by M.Rajshekhar. Along the way, he mentions 'cow cess ' in electricity bill about 1.4% of the power bill. That seems to be recent. From a July 15 report "In a first, the municipal bodies of Punjab will introduce cow cess, to protect cows and rehabilitate them at the ‘gaushalas’ (cow shelters)."
Dr. Brahma Dev Sharma passed away. Two reports about him:
B.D. Sharma, Officer and a revolutionary from Outlook
The hero of Bastar: remembering BD Sharma and his efforts for tribals by Akash Bisht
Rahul Banerjee gets some recognition for his solutions to manage water supply and sanitation issues in his house in Indore
The anti-democratic verdict of the unelected "Earlier this year, the state of Haryana – following the state of Rajasthan –amended its Panchayati Raj Act. Through the Amendment, it introduced certain restrictions upon the right to contest Panchayat elections. These restrictions included the requirement of education (up to a certain level), having a functional toilet in one’s house, and being debt-free. As any student of history knows, educational, property and debt restrictions upon voting and standing for elections, were a standard tool used by regressive States to contain the political power of suppressed constituencies, whether it was the blacks in Jim Crow America, or Indians under the colonial British government. Haryana’s move was promptly challenged in the Supreme Court. In a judgment that came as a surprise to many, on December 10, 2015, the Court rejected the challenge, and upheld the law, disenfranchising a significant number of people."

Suzette Jordan's rapists convicted

Article with a letter from her father and excerpts from an essay by her daughter Rhea
In Memorium by Sandip Roy, March 13, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KddbxFDhDOc

Price equation and related topics

Work in progress. I have been trying to understand a bit about altruism via Price Equation. It is not too easy since I do not have background in that type of biology or mathematics. But mathematics seems quite simple and the equation is abstract and does not really require much biology except when it comes to some applications. An overview is two book reviews of different books. The first is a review of book by D.S. Wilson by H.Allen Orr The biology of being good to others. Another a review of book on George Price George Price, The Price equation and cultural group selection by Karthik Panchanathan. The second paper has formulae without proofs but mentions the references where details are available. Many of the details are in Steven A. Frank's papers, in particular this paper. In the section 'Abstract properties: Recursion and Group selection', he says "Essentially all modern discussions of multilevel selection and group selection derive from Price (1972a), as developed by Hamilton (1975). Price and Hamilton noted that the Price equation can be expanded recursively to represent nested levels of analysis, for example, individuals living in groups." The particular paper of W.D. Hamilton  is 'Innate social aptitudes of man: an approach from evolutionary genetics'. I have read about half of both these papers and they seem readable with some work.

An overview of Price Equation

Here is a quick overview of the scope of Price Eqation. I am trying to fill in the gaps in my understanding bit by bit and it may take several months.
The Price Equation by Andy Gardner

Links, December 8, 2015

Omar Ali (a physician who lives in USA, I think) on San Bernadino Terror Attack
The end of Walking by Antonla Malchik, at the moment in USA but I have seen In Hyderabad people drivin to Brhmananda Reddy park to take walks.
What led to end of Kerala's matrilinear society? from The Caravan
Mathematics for democracy from AMS blogs and Let math save our democracy from NY Times
Two on Kurt Vonnegut:
How Jane Vonnegut made Kurt Vonnegut a writer
Kurt and Bernard

H. Allen Orr on Price equation

H.Allen Orr writes (unfortunately a gated article in The New York Book Review) "Now comes the deep part. Price saw—and it is far from obvious when put into words—that this transmission term can be rewritten mathematically in a way that allows for natural selection at a different biological level. So, to take a simple example, the evolution of height might reflect natural selection between individuals within populations and between populations of individuals. In fact, this mathematical maneuver can be performed recursively, over multiple levels of the biological hierarchy. In the end, the Price Equation allows one to partition evolutionary change in a trait into the possible effects of natural selection acting simultaneously at multiple biological levels, e.g., the species, population, organism, gamete (sperm or egg), and gene.....Crucially, the Price Equation showed that group selection arguments for altruism need not be offered tentatively or apologetically; they could be offered with mathematical precision.....No equation, however elegant, can solve the problem of altruism because the problem, like most in science, is partly empirical. The Price Equation shows that evolutionary change in a trait can be partitioned into the effects of natural selection at different biological levels. But this tells us nothing about the sizes of the effects at these levels." from Is goodness in your genes?

George Price and his equation.

Off and on, I have been trying to get some idea of Price equation but have not been really able to get a handle on it. Does anybody know some readable references? Here are a couple of articles about him.
Death of an altruist by James Schwartz
The homeless scientist who tried to prove that selflessness does not exist by Theo Jolliffe

P.S. (5th December, 2015)
Here is a nice write up of a simple discrete case which seems to give a start.
There is also a book by Oren Harman on George price which has some explanations but as this review says "Harman makes a few attempts to explain the equation and its biological meaning, but in my judgment the explanations are too brief and too vague to be of much help to those who don’t already understand the mathematics."
That is only a beginnin. It may take me an year or two to et some grasp of it and there will be more posts on the topic off and on. 

Links, December 2, 2015

How the American-style seggreation is feeding division in Europe
Top CO2 polluters and highest per capita
Izabella Kaminska on simulacrum future
Nearly half of India's districts are draught hit as crisis accelerates (via Madhukar Shukla) : "Obsessed with the latest, hyper-emotional social media trend, India’s people and mass media are all but oblivious to Bharat’s emergency situation. The only national newspaper that has consistently followed collapsing farms and failing rains is Mint. As of last week, nine of India’s 29 states had officially declared a drought, and 302 of the 640 districts are living in drought-like conditions. If you ask why none of this is on India’s primetime television shows or splashed on front pages, I will only say that the media, in general, are not interested and neither, dear reader, are we."
Underworld still has stron connections with Bollywood
Zero Hedge on ISIL oil trade