This is a guest post from Occam’s Razor, whose wife is expecting a baby. Mini Occam is due this fall…
A bit from the social sciences…. Did you know that your friends have more friends than you? It’s true. But wait, you say, I’m very gregarious. I’m the president of the civic association. I host Lost parties! Too bad, according to the “friendship paradox.” The paradox says that for any person chosen at random from a population, her friends will have more friends and connections than she does (and vice versa, which is the part that makes my head hurt). This is why when girlfriends have broken up with me over the years, in my exit interview I’ve asked for referrals, figuring they know more attractive women than I do, partly evidenced by the fact that said girlfriend’s attractiveness was iffy, at best. Practically, the paradox is being used by researchers at Harvard. Applying it, they found that randomly selected professors were three times less likely to be incredibly pompous than their fellow …er, actually, it was used to study the spread of the flu by following associates of randomly chosen students – and not the randomly chosen students themselves – making it somewhat easy for them to track the disease’s spread. It’s a fascinating look at the world of social networks.
These considerations of social networks are important to me now because my wife and I are about to have a baby and I want the best for the child. I need to know to whom to introduce him as he grows, so that he has the best connections and networking opportunities possible. Some of my responsibility for guidance and protection starts in utero, of course, as shown by this fascinating story about crickets. These cricket parents let their eggs know when they may be endangered by a predator upon being born, perhaps by sending a sensory signal to them. I must try to learn similar communicative skills to send warning signals to my baby so the child knows upon entering the world when trouble may be looming. For instance:
The sound of a $50 cigar being lit by a burning $100 bill indicates an oil executive may be about to oversee mind-boggling natural devastation.
The sound of a mistyped keyboard key means baby’s college savings will be wiped out by a Wall Street plunge.
The scent of pommade and feta means the Greeks are about to go on strike over the fear of losing their 14-hour work weeks.
The flapping of a Terrible Towel may indicate that Ben Roethlisberger is drunkenly lurking in a club.
The appearance of weeds overtaking a garden means another state has passed an Arizona-like immigration bill.w
My older child hasn’t fared too bad, I guess, although I suspect that’s in spite of me. At 16, we’re at dating age with her, which raises a whole new level of concern and I’ve tried to tell her that when dealing with men she consider the now PROVEN FACT that men are in part Neanderthals – it’s no longer just a figure of speech now that we know that Neanderthals and humans were mating. This, of course, raises the question of just who was putting the moves on who way back when? Was it the segments of human population who just couldn’t meet anyone else…they’d tried speed dating and stone-Harmony but nothing worked so they crossed the river and hooked up with the Neanderthals? Or was it the other way around? I can envision the scene now: A Neanderthal male strolling all casual like over to some human ladies, showing off his large occipital bun, supraorbital torus, and “club.”
Either way, my everyday behavior just got a lot easier to explain away.
