Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- October 24, 2019

First things first: a belated "Happy Diwali!"

Word for the day: cachinnation.

We're number one! From the Powerline -- all about the success of the US shale revolution.  A must read, very short, two minutes. 

Los Angeles: huge wildfires.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, career, travel, job, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

The market, before the opening: quiet, quiet, quiet. Everything slightly negative. Looking for good news. Hard to find. Even TSLA is down slightly before the market opens.

Dividends: three sites I find very, very useful:

• stock dividend calendar; 
• ex-date; and,
• pay dates
• there are many more out there but for now, these seem to work best for me. 

Slow. Things are so slow I am looking at consumer sentiment in Germany, based on a telephone survey of 2,000 Germans:

• Germany: consumer sentiment, released today --
• prior: 9.9
• consensus: 9.8
• actual: 9.6
• I have no idea what those numbers mean but the chart at this site should help. It looks like the Germans are in a dour mood. 
• monthly consumer sentiment in the US will be released later this morning, about 9:00 a.m. CT
• Americans are in a much better mood (at least based on the last two surveys)

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The Book Page

Along with Camille Paglia's Provocations, which I mentioned yesterday, I am also re-reading The Plausibility of Life, Resolving Darwin's Dilemma, Marc W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart, c. 2005, Yale University Press.

I've read the book before but I had trouble enjoying it. My notes at the time are posted here.

I'm trying again, to give the book a second chance. Already I'm enjoying it more, reading it from a different perspective.

One of the problems I have with the book is a personal problem and probably not dissimilar from others. We are taught how things are, or at least how we think things are. What is often missing is the history of how we got there (or how we got here). 20/20 hindsight often make things appear so simple, but the struggle to find answers is the bigger story, and if told well, would help students understand the subject matter, regardless of the discipline: biology, literature, math, history, art, physics, music.

It took me a long, long time to sort out what was meant by neo-Darwinists. Or is Neo-Darwinists? Whatever. That's because all those years in high school and college I was a Darwinist; in fact, my colleagues and I were neo-Darwinists and we did not know that. Our teachers in high school and our professors in college never made the distinction between Darwinism and neo-Darwinism.

In hindsight, it's such an obvious "thing" that no one really gives it a thought, the difference between Darwinism and neo-Darwinism.

I'm not going to define the latter at risk of really screwing things up. But at least I feel much more comfortable with my worldview, my myth, regarding evolution.

Scientists have answered many of the little questions, like how to breed horses, dogs, and wheat, but the answers to the big questions are still out there.