EclectEcon

One of the weirdest personality tests I've ever seen.

is here: 

Not only is the test itself unusual, to say the least, but the diagnosis is so multi-dimensional I cannot imagine it doesn't have portions that apply to just about everyone, albeit different portions for different people. My diagnosis:

You are in a perpetual quest to find the new, the exciting. Emotionally volatile, you are known for sudden changes of opinion, of appreciation, and behavior. Following rules and established methods is difficult for you and the difficulties of higher education are usually quite daunting. Knowledge is best gained through an intimate association with the matter at hand. Usually driven by attitudes and desires of the group, you are talented in an established field of endeavor. Emotions come and go without a strong understanding of their causes. They are unexpected guests in an otherwise placid landscape. You live by your own codes of conduct, which can be noble or terrible depending on the individual. Authority is meaningless to you. You hate to be predictable, at all costs. Rarely verbally effusive, you can at times feel as if your feelings are too deep for words. You are very observant, but rarely express these observations to others.

So I guess I get to pick and choose which of all these statements applies to me now and which might have applied to me 60 years ago?

Correlation, Causation, and Chocolate

There is compelling evidence from the New England Journal of Medicine that countries that eat more chocolate produce more Nobel prize winners. 

I tried to follow the links in the article to see how they measured chocolate consumption. Unlike many of my friends, I strongly prefer milk chocolate to dark chocolate.

At any rate, the correlation is bound to lead to considerable discussion about cause and effect.

Gobekli Tepe

Jack sent me this last week. It's fascinating.

Gobekli Tepe:
The structures on this site were built about 12,000 years ago (10,000 BC) and perhaps intentionally buried with sand about 8,000 years ago.  No one knows who these people were, what the massive buildings were for, or why they were buried.  Just for reference, these structures were built during the last ice age and are more than 7,000 years older than any other structure we have yet discovered on our planet. 

        http://www.wimp.com/unexplainedstructure/ 

I wondered if the whole thing was a hoax, but apparently not. Snopes has no entry for it, and the Wikipaedia entry treats it as legitimate. So does the Smithsonian magazine. What a blow to the common anthropological explanations about human evolution! I realize this probably isn't new for many people, but it is really fun to think about.