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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • Fun fact. In statistics, we often use bootstrapping, where a single dataset is repeatedly resampled to provide estimates of the uncertainty/variance.

    The idea that you can get reliable estimates of variance just by re-sampling the same data seem illogical, and the term bootstrap derives from the phrase to pull oneself up by one’s bootstrap, widely thought to be based on one of the eighteenth century Adventures of Baron Munchausen, by Rudolph Erich Raspe. (The Baron had fallen to the bottom of a deep lake. Just when it looked like all was lost, he thought to pick himself up by his own bootstraps.)










  • If you look at all the traits animals and plants have, there are correlations and patterns unrelated to the environment, consistent only with a pattern of descent with modification.

    For example, all the animals that produce milk also have fur, while all the animals with beaks and hollow bones also have feathers.

    These groups of correlated organisms are found regardless of their environment, so penguins have all the bird traits even though they live in the ocean, seals have all the mammal traits even though they live in the ocean.

    This pattern only has one consistent explanation: life on earth is a result of descent with modification: evolution.