I have always had enormous respect for Richard Dawkins. However, I saw one of his interviews which really disappointed me! People are allows to make mistakes, but I think here Richard Dawkins takes the idea of governing a society based on the Darwinian, kind of, philosophy inadequately simplistic. Surprisingly, he accepts that “if we worked out the society on Darwinian grounds, it would be a very very unpleasant rightwing society”, and by rightwing he means a free market sort of society!

Professor Dawkins, human is a social specie. Unlike all of the other species which interact with each other in the nature and they have fluctuations in their population, the number of humans has almost always increased in time on the earth, (and sometimes also on the moon!). That is because of their mental abilities and their power of creation. They already know about the Nash Equilibrium and game theory. They can think of the fact that the fittest who will survive is the group of people who control their market to avoid economical crisis. A Darwinian philosophy can end up in a very socialist lefty society if you like. It will be as pleasant as you wish!

PhD Comics is one of the greatest sources which best fits nerds’ interests. Have fun

There are many programs on the web which allow you to volunteer computing power for a range of scientific ventures, which they need a huge computational resource, powered by BOINC. Among these, there are two programs that I feel responsible to invite you to take part.

The first one “is the largest experiment to try and produce a forecast of the climate in the 21st century”, as they say. If you are interested in using your idle computer to help calculate global warming then log on to www.climateprediction.net .

The second one is the D-Wave’s AQUA (Adiabatic QUantum Algorithms). Whether you believe they have a quantum computer or not you can take part in this very low cost but important project. Once D-Wave collects the results of the simulations and processes the information, it will compare the simulation against an actual run of its latest quantum computer, which should be completed in the next few months. If the figures match up, then D-Wave will have shown that it really has a quantum machine. “Either the hardware will agree with the prediction or it won’t,” Mr. Rose said. “If it doesn’t agree, then you don’t have a quantum computer. On the other hand, if the data tracks the predictions, you have smoking gun evidence that what you built is a quantum computer.”

Some of our routines are absolutely incomprehensible for me and each time I look deep inside of them I get more confused! You have seen many of them in everyday life! They are more visible in traditional and developing societies. They are mainly been imposed in two ways: Legislative rules and culture. Examples of the first type are easier to recognize. It may be funny for you to know that drinking alcohol, regardless of the volume and other conditions, will take you into custody in Iran! Let’s analyze it: this is my throat. Here is my own room with my own friends who are happy to be with me. This is a glass of wine… I drink the liquid that is in this glass and just this one… WHAT? YOU GONNA ARREST ME?

However, this is not the issue. I am inviting you to think of the matter of culture in this way. Culture is a set of social rules that everybody within the society is obliged to accept! It is all the values shared by the society and if you neglect them, they will call you abnormal! In Iran, as an example, you are abnormal if you are a man and wearing a skirt! You are abnormal if you call a person, older than you, using a singular pronoun! (Note that we have both plural and singular pronouns for second person in Persian. However it is polite to use a plural pronoun, even if he or she is single). You are abnormal if you laugh too much… These examples were at the lowest levels of social behaviors. Sometimes culture prevents you from reaching your greatest wills! Once a friend (Azadeh), who is a fan of culture, brought me an example to show culture is a necessary thing for any society. She told me that eliminating culture and letting people do what they want to do is like wishing a place in which people can both play football and study Quantum Computing in a same time! My answer is no! In fact, if I want to model culture as a rule of football and Quantum Computing, I will say for example, having a culture in a society is like a city in which everybody always are playing football and there is no room to study Quantum Computing! Maybe I am male but wish to wear a skirt! Where should I go?!

Nevertheless, you may ask if culture is nonsense, then why it has came into existence and why it remained powerful? The answer is convergence! Two fire-flies, which are asynchrony flashing, will flash synchrony if you put them together! A group of people who are walking around a circle will synchronize their footsteps, if you play a rhythmic drum-like sound for them. People do the same in a greater manner in their societies and call it culture!

While on one hand I demand that culture is bullshit. On the other hand, I also believe that it can’t be removed from any society! There are three reasons. Firstly, as I have discussed above, the rule of convergence will not let us do so! Second, culture is flag of a nation and unfortunately since we are not totally globalized, your nation and nationalism are tools of power! You will lose your obvious rights if you do not belong to anywhere! Third, ordinary people, not the elites, need a set of rules to control them!

So in one sentence I conclude that culture, like tradition and legislative rules, hobbles us. Nonetheless, it is natural and unavoidable!

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A few years ago, Harvard University president, Lawrence Summers, has been harshly criticized for suggesting that the under-representation of women in engineering and some scientific fields may be due in part to inherent differences in intellectual abilities. Moreover, if you look at the history, you may find that most of the leaders of science, technology, philosophy and politics were men! This is while it has been shown that the average IQ is the same among both genders. The main purpose of this post is to seek for the reasons of this fact.

Scientists claim that there are many differences between men’s and women’s brain. ”Among people who do the research, it’s not so controversial. There are lots and lots of studies that show that men’s and women’s brains are different,” says Richard J. Haier, a professor of psychology in the pediatrics department of the University of California, Los Angeles medical school.

In recent years, neuroscientists have found that male and female brains are wired differently because of the role of testosterone and other male hormones during gestation. Brains growing under the influence of male hormones are slightly larger and have denser concentrations of neurons in some regions. Male brains also contain a greater proportion of gray matter, the part of the brain responsible for computation, while women have relatively more white matter, which specializes in making connections between brain cells. Intelligence tests have found that men, on average, perform better on spatial tasks that require mentally manipulating objects. Men also do better on tests of mathematical reasoning. Women tend to do better on tasks requiring verbal memory and distinguishing whether objects are similar.

Nevertheless, this is not the case! We can’t judge single individuals by the statements above! Moreover, these tell us that we must see women on top of many fields, including linguistics. While we know that most of the linguists are men. 

I believe that, curiosity, hard working, aspiration and being optimist are four absolutely essential things to be at the top of anything.

Undeniably, women work so hard. To my experience, they do quite well in research groups. They obtain great placements both in university entrance exams and during their studies. However I think that they are less curious and that is because they can’t risk much. They are also less optimist. This will cause a less consistency that forces them to leave the job, exactly when they are just one step to their goal! More important, generally men aim much higher than women. You rarely see a woman, deciding to solve a hard mathematical open problem! However, there are many among men. An old adage says think global, act local; I say think global, act global!

Update 15-May: Take a look at the first comment I’ve dropped for this post, (a reply to Mehrdad’s comment) to see another reason. I believe that it is the most important one!

My father’s friend, Farhad Rahbar, the present chancellor of the University of Tehran has a great news for us! He has informed me of a very new contract, made between The University of Tehran and the Stanford University. Due to this contract the Stanford University’s delegates will supervise researches done in the University of Tehran!!! Delegates are professors from their school of engineering. This will highly increase the international rank of the University of Tehran.

Update 9 PM: Apologies for the April Fool’s Joke!

[In this post you may see some words, spelled with extra capital Qs! They are just to escape from being fQiQlQtered!]

Good news for lQeQsQbians who want to have biological children related to both parents: a new stem-cell technique could allow scientists to convert female cells into sQpQeQrm. Use that sQpQeQrm to fQeQrQtilize an egg, and voila: children with two female biological parents. [From the Technology Review]

Once I read this news and decided to write a post on it. Unfortunately, I still live in Iran! I have an unlimited access to the fQiQlQternet! I searched for the issue, then I achieved the following result:

The Persian text means: “According to the laws of Islamic Republic of Iran, access to this website is forbidden.” I wonder how do Iranian biologists, sQeQxQologists and other scientists find their articles through the fQiQlQternet! By the way, I’ve found this a good one to start with! Then you can search for “Karim Nayernia” in PubMed for more information.

Oh, I mentioned Karim Nayernia! He is a Persian biomedical scientist and a professor in the University of Newcastle.

I by myself believe that the answer to the title of this post is NO! Because not all the women are lQeQsQbians!

Few days ago we met one of the most distinguished professors in Iran, Dr. Rokni. He’s got his PhD in control from Cambridge University. There is no incertitude in his proficiency in dynamical systems and control. On the other hand he is an outstanding philosopher.

The only thing we expected to get was a reasonable answer to our question: “Why do you think Mathematics also is an experimental science?” But we managed to extract a noteworthy conversation which can help any scientist in his way.

Dr. Rokni believes that, for example, as you use a meterstick in physics to calculate distance between two points, we have a distance function in maths. He believes that whole the sciences have a same nature and structure. He says our intuition of it is so restricted, even if there is a metaphysical mathematical structure. The same as if there exist a physical law, governing hole the universe. But we are not able to capture all aspects of it. So we observe that metaphysical mathematics and then define our own laws.

We discussed the problem a lot. But we didn’t notice our big mistake. We wanted to prove our beliefs from the philosophical point of view. Dr. Rokni mentioned that philosophy helps us identify the reality we believe in. But it does not prove it. We have to try to make knowledge of the system.

I by myself believe that there must be a fundamental difference between physics and mathematics. Maths can remain all subjective while physical concepts must have an objective reality. And this helps mathematics define the same concepts more precise.

However maybe the most important advice from Dr. Rokni which we must keep in mind is that never miss anybody’s ideas because of your preconceptions. Let every comment subtilize your mind. Maybe you find your key concept in a comment which seems to be a silly one from a foolish man! Open your mind to every comment.