PERSONAL INFORMATION
I am married to a smart and beautiful woman, Christina. I have four wonderful daughters: Tyler, Frances, Amelia and Ruby. I also have two of coolest dog in history, Walter and Lula.
I grew up in Vermont, perhaps the greatest plance on Earth.
I am a big fan of the University of Arizona men’s basketball team.
If you are interested in learning more about statistical computing and graphics check out R.
Check out Doug Cowpeck on YouTube.
I am a big RUSH fan, on of the greatest rock bands ever.
If you are interested in the heavier, yet chill, side of the of the jam band scene, check out Umphrey’s McGee. Rage! Rest! Repeat!
And, of course…
HERE ARE SOME QUOTES TO MAKE YOU THINK
- "L'expérience est la source unique de la vérité: elle seule peut nous apprendre quelque chose de nouveau; elle seule peut nous donner la certitude. Voilà deux points que nul ne peut contester."
H. Poincaré—
- “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.”
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
- “And I think of an apple core when you start thinking of God."
—Lou Reed, Into the Devine
- “I may be mistaken, but the present-day writer, when he takes his pen in hand to treat a subject which he has studied deeply, has to bear in mind that the average reader, who has never concerned himself with this subject, if he reads does so with the view, not of learning something from the writer, but rather, of pronouncing judgement on him when he is not in agreement with the commonplaces that the said reader caries in his head.”
—Jose Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses, 1932
- “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog it’s too dark to read.”
—Groucho Marx
- "Science is empirical. Knowing the answer means nothing, testing your knowledge means everything."
—Lawrence Krauss, A Universe from Nothing, 2009
- "Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds."
—Richard Feynman
- "Never grow up...just learn how to act in public."
—Unknown Genius
- "Read more! Think more! Talk less!"
—Dale Knobel
- "It is odd to watch with what feverish ardor Americans pursue prosperity. Ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they may not have chosen the shortest route to get it. They cleave to the things of this world as if assured that they will never die, and yet rush to snatch any that comes within their reach as if they expected to stop living before they had relished them. Death steps in, in the end, and stops them before they have grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes them."
—Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1838
- "The true test of a first-rate mind is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time."
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
- "Better the pride that resides, In a citizen of the world, Than the pride that divides, When a colorful rag is unfurled"
—Neil Peart, Territories
- "Never go straight, always go forward!”
—Bryant Cunningham, somewhere in Missoula
- "When deciding between two competing theories, always go with the one that doesn't involve a magic spell.”
—Emo Philips, on Evolution vs. Intelligent Design
- "I've got bad news for you: five out of five people are going to die anyway.”
—Lewis Black, on healthcare reform
- "Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be but what will happen in all the days that ever come can depend on what you do today."
—Ernest Hemingwasy, For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940
- "It is beyond ironic to ask juries to rely on human genetic variation and DNA evidence in determining the life and liberty of suspects, but to neglect or to undermine the teaching of the basic principles upon which such evidence, and all of biology is founded.”
—Sean Carroll, The Making of the Fittest, 2007
- "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.” *
—Ayn Rand
* Despite my fondness for Ayn Rand's novels and philosophy, I do not consider myself to be an Objectivist.
- "Biology never stoops to a perfect correlation.”
—Nick Lane, Oxygen: The molecule that changed the world, 2004
- "Animals may be evolution's icing, but bacteria are the cake."
—Andy Knoll, Life on a Young Planet, 2004
- "Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error."
—Thomas Jefferson
- "What luck for rulers that men do not think."
—Adolf Hitler
- "Strange beautiful, grass of green, with your majestic silken seas, your mysterious mountains, I wish to see closer."
—Jimi Hendrix, Third Stone from the Sun
- "An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field."
—Niels Bohr
- "No one can become really educated without having pursued some study in which he took no interest. For it is part of education to interest ourselves in subjects for which we have no aptitude."
—T. S. Eliot