User talk:Fred Hsu

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[edit] Savanna theory

Savanna theory. I thought you might be able to shed some light on this due to your work on the MRCA AFD. And you need to update your user page, you've deleted the article you say you're trying to delete, kudos.

My comment about the page...really? This is the page on wikipedia for the savanna hypothesis, and it portrays it as the losing alternative to the aquatic ape hypothesis? Given that I was under the impression the AAH was considered suspect, spurious and somewhat nutter, I'm surprised to see the content of this article referring to it so much, and being so light on its own content. Looks like a coatrack for AAH. WLU 19:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Will take a look. Fred Hsu 02:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tales in the The Ancestor's Tale

Great work on The Ancestor's Tale. I have started to change the tale titles to the capitalization used in the book itself, and bolded the tale titles as well. I am too busy to finish this off now, but I hope you will continue this trend as you include newer tales. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 09:23, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I like your new "non-" prefixed subsection names and the tale names in bold. Cool. I will change the rest of them tonight if you don't get to them first. Thanks. Fred Hsu 11:59, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I would have preferred section headers without using "non-", but I am not sure any of those groups have distinct names as such (e.g. what do you call all "non-primate mammals"?). − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:08, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New story

Remember this? http://stillwatersca.blogspot.com/2006/09/evolution-of-christianity-short-story.html

After a long hiatus, I'm in the process of making another firmly tongue-in-cheek Christianity-related story, "Parva fabula", which is also my first attempt at writing Latin: http://stillwatersca.blogspot.com/1990/11/parva-fabula.html

Still not quite complete, though. I've been posting episodically, and it's up to part five now. Ideas and comments are welcome, if you have any. :3

--Euniana/Talk/Blog 06:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I especially like the ending of segment 5 ;) I posted it to RichardDawkins.net Fred Hsu (talk) 17:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Why did the robot removed a interwiki link?

Hi, the problem is caused by the Chinese traditional (zh-tw)/simplified (zh-cn) double orthography.

The page links to zh:哈里·謝頓, but if you go to the page, you'll see you actually end up at zh:哈里·谢顿. This is the same in simplified instead of traditional characters, and when you try to go to a page in traditional characters, you are automatically taken to its simplified equivalent (under standard settings).

Unfortunately, the same does NOT occur when using Special:Export. That's what the bot uses, and when there a traditional title is given, no page is found. Because of this the bot assumes the page does not exist. Some users have submitted this for correction in MediaWiki, but it doesn't seem likely it will actually be solved there anytime soon (see http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9419).

In future change zh links in the Chinese simplified (zh-cn) orthography. Thank you. --Alleborgo (talk) 16:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, got it. Thanks for fixing the page again. Fred Hsu (talk) 03:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Stephenson Book Zodiac.png

Thanks for uploading Image:Stephenson Book Zodiac.png. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content carefully, then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies for fair use. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it will be deleted within a couple of days according to our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot (talk) 06:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I fixed it. Thanks. Fred Hsu (talk) 02:09, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A (somewhat cryptic) thought...

"The History of Science has suffered greatly from the use by teachers of second-hand material, and the consequent obliteration of the circumstances and the intellectual atmosphere in which the great discoveries of the past were made. A first-hand study is always instructive, and often ... full of surprises." I am not a dog (talk) 15:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not know what your comment is about. Indeed I do not know if this comment was a praise or an insult.
If this was an insult based on something I have done (most likely the recent dispute over Autostereogram and visual perception), I can only say that wikipedia is by its nature a second-hand material. It represents the current mainstream ideas based on first-hand research material. Wikipedians try their best to accurately represent first hand material by writing well thought out articles with proper inline references, as I have done with Autostereogram, Mitochondrial Eve and Parental expenditure, with the last being a term you would recognize, judging by your edit history and the quote above. We should be skeptical about extraordinary claims. Such claims necessarily require extraordinary evidences. I have already ordered the Bennett book despite my expressed skepticism. Until I read the book, I do not have first hand knowledge.
Perhaps this was a praise. I did create autostereograms by hand in photo editing programs and later wrote a piece of program to generate them. In fact, I created all images except one in the article. Perhaps you see it as first hand knowledge on the topic in question ;) Fred Hsu (talk) 03:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, um. I'm gently teasing you a little. Try to go back to the original literature (if possible). Try to remember Richard Dawkins is a very good science journalist, good at explaining things, though an average scientist -- but they're not usually his ideas (most of them seem to come from W.D. Hamilton and J. Maynard Smith). Look at his sources and attribute things to them even if you can't read them. Fisher's Genetical Theory is online (p141) if you know where to look, (you don't have to buy it), but his literary style is awful. W.D. Hamilton (1967) gives a better explanation with numbered bullet points. A.W.F. Edwards (1994), looks at the argument and finds that it doesn't originate with Fisher, but Darwin (Descent of Man, 1st ed), though Fisher missed it there because he only had later editions. The point is Dawkins only gives a review. In other words, use both secondary and primary sources. And use "offspring" rather than "child". Maybe I'll fix it when I have time -- that's the idea of a wiki, right? ;) I am not a dog (talk) 09:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

You are, of course, right. Feel free to fix the article. Like you said, it's a wiki after all :) But I do have to point out that, were it not for Dawkins' immensely readable books, I would not have contributed to that article or many others on evolutionary biology. Just like Dawkins gives credits to Fisher, Hamilton and Smith every time he expounded on their theories, we should give Dawkins credit for advancing understanding of science amongst the laypeople, eh? Fred Hsu (talk) 13:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Dawkins is a great starting point. I have moved it to Fisher's principle (which is its most common name), and have put in two quotes, which is a start. The rest I'll pull out of Edwards when I have the time, which probably means rewriting your material (sorry). I would however make two points:

  1. "Parents' choice of producing children" is very bad language, and possibly a misconception -- parents are, at least in higher species such as seals, incapable of "choosing" sex of their offspring, it is determined by the XY system genetically. Whether a seal pup receives XX or XY is down to chance, but the probability function of that (the argument supposes) is controlled by genes which are in turn under the influence of natural selection, and natural selection pushes it to equilibrium point (ESS, fitness peak).
Of course parents do not 'choose'. Genes do. There should a another article which discusses this type of evolutionary languages. Dawkins explains this way of phrasing evolutionary choices very clearly in almost everyone of his books. I think it deserves an article of its own. It is so much more convenient to be able to say the former. For instance, in the article, i used "Such inequality in reproductive success would give parents (in evolutionary speak) an incentive to produce more boys". I would be nice to be able to link "in evolutionary speak" to an article which explains what this means. Fred Hsu (talk) 03:10, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Not really. The basic solution (with equal parental expenditure) is a mixed ESS with pbar=0.5 for either sex (it is actually possible that individual strategies p=/0.5 long as these are equal and opposite they cancel each other out). There is no choice involved either genetically, though there are strategies. You unlikely to see "choice" written anywhere, even Dawkins who takes a few liberties with language. I am not a dog (talk) 11:13, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
  1. I don't think solution the harem paradox is "surprising" since you just derived the solution in the previous paragraph!?!
Perhaps did not make it clear in the second paragraph. The first paragraph really is talking about monogamous species, as an introduction to the 50:50 ESS, even though the introductory paragraph talks about seals. The second paragraph is illustrating the sentence "At first, this seems to make sense, if one considers a monogamous species such as humans". The third paragraph then uses the same logic to explain that it follows that even in a harem-based species, the same ratio will be maintained. Fred Hsu (talk) 03:10, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Well that's an unnecessary assumption to make isn't it? I am not a dog (talk) 11:13, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Hope that makes things a little clearer? I am not a dog (talk) 20:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind at all that you are improving it (greatly). That's the wiki spirit :) I am quite busy lately, so I won't be able to help you much. But obviously you already put a lot of thought into it. I trust you will do the right thing. Fred Hsu (talk) 01:59, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
BTW, if you mean to replace the seal example with something else, I hope you find a good example. It took me a while to figure out how to best structure the paragraphs to make them "flow". I hope you keep this flow, unless you can think of a better way :) Fred Hsu (talk) 03:10, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fisher's principle, previously "parental expenditure"

Hey, I am not a dog, I am not quite happy with your treatment of the parental expenditure. Perhaps you are still working on the article, and will add back what I believe were good points in the original article. If so, please add a under-construction template to the article. If not, please read on.

I think you have greatly reduce the quality of the article in the name of citing first-hand reference. These should be two compatible, not mutually exclusive goals. A wikipedia article aspires to be encyclopedic in citing reference, and to be accessible to the lay people. I do not think your new version as of now is accessible to anyone but those who already understand the concept. Compare this to the previous version.

Specific problems I have with the new version (despite the excellent replacement references) are:

  • You dropped the problem statement. Why does the 1:1 ratio require any explanation in the first place? Of course you know. But a layman does not. There is no mention of monogamous vs harem-based species (at first, a layperson may forget that each mating requires exactly one male and one female). There is no mention of the puzzle of the seemingly bizarre 1:1 ratio in the face of male seal's 2-to-3-times weight which a layperson may imagine contribute to more "expensive" upbringing.
  • There is no example with real animal and real numbers (weight, harem ratio) to illustrate the article. Perhaps Fisher never addressed these additional issues (e.g. weight acquired after nursing period). But there is no need to exclude such derived work, simply because Fisher did not discuss it (again, I don't know if he did not). We do not limit the article on natural selection to only things Darwin said either.
  • You dropped the connection between Fisher's principle and gene-centered view of evolution. Why? The seal example shows how natural selection does not work to benefit a group of animals nor individual animals.
  • Quoting a paragraph of Fisher's text is no substitute for a few well-written paragraphs which illustrate the problem as well as solutions for the lay people.
  • The 1:1 "sex ratio" vs 1:1 "parental expenditure" is no longer explicitly discussed.

In general, I feel that you have turned a well thought out article into a stub with excellent first-hand references. I spent many hours thinking about the logical flow, the problem statements and the explanations for these. You obviously spent many hours already rewriting it. Please figure out a way to recycle my material.

Thanks. Fred Hsu (talk) 00:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Fisher's model is not gene-centric, indeed that only comes later with Williams (1966) and Dawkins (1976). The level of selection it concerns is the individual. One of the model's assumption is that . This is not the case Y chromosomes are inherited patrilineally; mitochondrial DNA and W chromosomes are inherited matrilineally. Suppose a new which kills some percentage of male embryos occurs in mitochondrial DNA; it puts itself at a selective advantage because instead of a male dead-end, by killing the male embryo it gives other copies of itself a chance to be in a daughter. However, this skews the sex ratio in favour of females, and there is then selection pressure on nuclear modifier genes to suppress the action of the male-killing mtDNA. That is an example of gene-centric thinking. Fisher's model isn't, though as we note, Fisher rejects group selection and it is an early non-group selectionist model.
  • Hamilton's explanation, in what is a landmark paper (I do have a copy), is the best that I know of and indeed others have said the same thing. It is introduced without parental investment to make the argument clearer. That in the comes in the second part where Fisher's original argument is displayed. I cannot do better than Hamilton, and I doubt you could either.
  • Every fact in biology requires explanation. Simply stating a fact (that for most species the sex ratio it is 1:1) implies the question; it does not need to be asked as a rhetorical trick, doing so just looks amateurism (unless you're perhaps writing a pop sci book).

Or turn it on its head; the sex ratio is 1:1 due to the XY/XO/WZ sex determination system, what's the parental expenditure going to be?

I am not a dog (talk) 14:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Does philosophy belong in visual perception?

I was going to offer to send you a PDF of:

Bennett, M. R., & Hacker, P. M. S. (2001). Perception and memory in neuroscience: A conceptual analysis. Progress in Neurobiology, 65, 499-543.

I see above that you have ordered Bennett and Hacker's book. If you still want the article however, send me an e-mail (if you Google search using my real name, I am the first hit, from which you can find my e-mail address). I imagine that working through an entire book will take a little longer than working through this article. Nevertheless if Bennett and Hacker write as persuasively and as clearly in their book as they do in their article, then I am sure you will be convinced, if not of their position, then at least that saying something like "An autostereogram ... [creates] a three-dimensional (3D) scene ... in the human brain" is a challengable assertion. For example, where does the 3D scene exist in the brain? How does it fit? As usual with challengable assertions, it requires a citation. And as I am not a dog points out, that citation has to contain (primary) evidence about the assertion, rather than merely being another person's use (secondary) of the assertion. Robert P. O'Shea (talk) 15:49, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I should receive the book shortly. Thanks for the offer. Let's take this slow. I don't think there is a need to rush to change the article on autostereogram just now. You may want to try the other visual perception articles first. But I promise, I'll get back to it. As you can see, I have been slowly merging your changes back.
Since I am reading the book you recommend, perhaps you can check out Pinker's How The Mind Works as I suggested before.
I must confess I have not read that book. But I have read some of Pinker's other works. He is a smart guy and I am sure his explanation of autostereograms is correct. He is also very careful about the language he uses, and I very much doubt he says anything like, "The brain tricks itself" or "a 3D scene is created in the brain". I did poke around the web a little to get a sense of what is in Pinker's book, and this seems to show that he does not provide the evidence you are searching for. The title of his book is not "How the Brain Works" but "How the Mind Works". Pinker is a cognitive psychologist and he does not care how the brain works. He treats the brain as a series of modules, a series of black boxes, designed to accomplish various tasks. The author of this page, http://flowstate.homestead.com/pinkass.html, clearly has read the book and criticizes it for not dealing with the brain. Robert P. O'Shea (talk) 06:45, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
In the Preface, Pinker said the book intended to weave "the computational theory of mind" and "natural selection of replicators" into one cohesive picture. In page 8, he said "The next problem is seeing in depth. Our eyes squash the 3d world into a pair of 2D retinal images, and the third dimension must be reconstituted by the brain." Let's both refrain from making comments on books we haven't read, until we read them. Fred Hsu (talk) 15:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
There is no mystery to how the brain re-creates the 3D scene. It's a known problem with known solutions.Fred Hsu (talk) 20:14, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I can tell you that you are wrong about this. Depth perception is a thriving research area with lots of unsolved mysteries. Here are some of my contributions to this research:
Blake, R., & O’Shea, R. P. (1988). “Abnormal fusion” of stereopsis and binocular rivalry. Psychological Review, 95, 151-154.
O’Shea, R. P. (1983). Does stereopsis have a fusional component? Perception & Psychophysics, 34, 599-603.
O’Shea, R. P., & Blake, R. (1987). Depth without disparity in random-dot stereograms. Perception & Psychophysics, 42, 205-214.
O’Shea, R. P., & Crassini, B. (1982). The dependence of cyclofusion on orientation. Perception & Psychophysics, 32, 195-196.
O’Shea, R. P., & Crassini, B. (1983). Vertical disparities lead to the “induced effect”. Vision Research, 23, 113-114.
O’Shea, R. P., Govan, D. G., & Sekuler, R. (1997). Blur and contrast as pictorial depth cues. Perception, 26, 599-612.
Robert P. O'Shea (talk) 06:51, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
That the brain perceives 3D scenes are known for decades.
This is unknown. As Bennet and Hacker say, if this were true it would be astonishing. We would want to know how it is that a brain can do something that we hitherto had evidence only for humans doing. Robert P. O'Shea (talk) 06:54, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Do I live on a different planet from you? Are you saying that monkeys don't perceive 3D scenes and can jump around in a forest without 3D perception? You have NEVER clearly stated what exactly is it that makes humans special. Why can't you pin down the entity which is doing the perception? If it is not a tangible organ such as the brain, what is it? The soul? But I should wait until I have time to read your book before I opine further. Fred Hsu (talk) 16:07, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
And I have cited first hand researches.
Some of what you have cited could be classed as primary sources. The bibliography contains most of these. But the rest, including Pinker and even Julesz's and Tyler's books, are secondary sources. Robert P. O'Shea (talk) 06:59, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
This is an article on autostereogram, not visual perception. Let us focus on autostereogram not visual perception. For pete's sake, Julesz invented the random dot stereogram and Tyler the random dot autostereogram. If I am not to cite their workk throughout the article, who should I cite? Bennett? Magic Eye popularized autostereogram, and credit is given to them throughout the book. Pinker's book is the first one I can find which discusses autostereogram in a language a layperson can understand (compare this to Julesz). Kinsman's is the first book which shows software program for generating autostereogram.
If you can find better first-hand references to this article, please do add them. If not, please stop your baseless attacks. Fred Hsu (talk)
If you bother to read any of the references in the article, you would know. Please do not confuse this problem with the rewrite of parental expenditure.
On looking at your correspondence about it, I seem to see the same pattern. Someone makes some changes to an article you feel you own, and you reject them. Perhaps you could check Wikipedia:Ownership. Robert P. O'Shea (talk) 07:06, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
It is human nature to look after something you have spent time and effort cultivating. Anyone who has spent time doing major editing work or rewrites on article will invariably run into conflicts. No ones owns any article, but some prefer to watch particular set of articles they care about to monitor how they grow over time with improvement from other editors. Good improvements are welcomed. Detrimental edits are fixed or removed.
If you do not buy my argument, check out the history page for mtEve. When I rewrote the article, I actively incorporated previous revision into the new one, and recycled good material and article flow. Rewrites should build upon the collective wisdom of previous editors. And the rewrites should be improvements, not a step backward. New changes must comply with existing references, or cite new references. You do not want to turn a paragraph previously inline-cited into a non-compliant one. Compare the revision before I rewrote it to the version right after major edit.
For another example, check out rewrite of MRCA. See how careful consideration was given to work by previous editors. See how the article was made even better by subsequent edits by other and myself.
Please do not confuse genuine care with narcissism. In the case of "parental expenditure", I applaud the new editor's effort to cite Fisher and Edwards. But let's not pretend that the new revision is a 100% improvement. It is like editing the article on evolution to make it cite only Darwin, to trim out any other insights not directly attributed to Darwin, and then referring readers to books for these "advanced topics". Fred Hsu (talk) 15:50, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I said that any wikipedia article is necessarily second hand material, because wikipedia is not a research journal.
Yes. That was to misunderstand that user's comment. Robert P. O'Shea (talk) 07:08, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
No original research is allowed. Wikipedia articles are summaries of well-received, published first-hand material. The autostereogram article is a second hand material just like all other wikipedia articles. But it cites first-hand research. On the other hand, your changes to the article goes against all cited first-hand material and are not backed by mainstream research. I'll read your book first before I opine further, if you don't mind :) Fred Hsu (talk) 20:16, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
If you are happy to keep the article full of challengable assertions, original (uncited) research, and confusing explanations, then I am happy too. Robert P. O'Shea (talk) 07:12, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Lastly, let me say "thank you, Robert". You have actually added many valuable information to the article. See how I am slowly merging them back in.

What you originally perceived as "redundant" material are in fact not redundant. The article is structured in a way to help readers understand the concepts behind autostereograms gradually. So, 3D perception is only hinted at in the initial sections, and only explained later. If you bore readers who click on some autostereogram link to see this page with visual perception in the first few sections, they will stop reading. This is a wiki after all, if a reader desires to interrupt their autostereogram reading, they can alway click on 3D, visual perception, depth, etc. to read details on these topics.

You have actually added to the redundancy by trying to explain many concepts which are discussed in later sections. Your additions do not help people who already know about this concepts, but are simply trying to understand what an autostereogram is. Your additions do not help novices to visual perception, because a few words will not clearly explain these concepts either. When you make edits to a well-established article, you should always read the full article first. Consider how it is structures and make your changes accordingly to preserve context. If you disagree with the whole structure, you should discuss it on talk pages first. Fred Hsu (talk) 16:24, 13 April 2008 (UTC)