Re: This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics (Week 223)

tessel@xxxxxx wrote:

> (Randomly selected trivia item: at the opposite extreme from the
> beneficial pedagogical activity of someone like Rota, which former Ph.D.
> student of Leo Kadanoff and Patrick Billingsley has achieved remarkable
> success in his strenuous efforts to -dismantle- science education in the
> U.S. over the past decade? Barf! Mumble mumble nonmetaphorical religious
> war... mumble mumble belief in the void ... mumble mumble avian flu...
> mumble mumble lethal stupidity...)

In October of this year, Leo Kadanoff gave a talk at the Fields
Institute in Toronto about complex systems and their emergent
properties. The slides and an audio recording of his talk can be found
on the Fields website:

http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/audio/05-06/public_lectures/kadanoff/

He actually takes a few interludes to talk about this debate going on
in the US, with his former student Bill Dembski being close to the
center. I guess this answers the trivia question.

Igor

.