Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with a couple of engineers from Google who are working on a product known as Google Flu Trends". This is a very simple, yet elegant and important application of what might be termed predictive analytics; if there were awards given out for such things (the Jameys?), it would be a good candidate to win one.
The product, which launched last year, works by analyzing searches that have correlated strongly in the past with flu statistics as put out by the CDC and other governmental agencies; a fuller write-up of the technology can be found in this article in Nature. The advantage of this is that whereas the CDC typically works on a 10 to 14 day lag before new flu statistics are published, the Flu Trends numbers can be turned around literally overnight. Flu Trends does not predict the future per se, so much as it "predicts the present", as the engineers describe it.
The other nice thing about the Flu Trends data is that it is all publicly available. Here, for instance, is when the Flu Trends index hit 5,000 in each U.S. State, a level that would correspond to the peak of a fairly bad annual flu outbreak in the January or February.
This map is fascinating on a number of levels. Although the initial outbreak of H1N1 back in April was centered on Texas, California, New York, Illinois and South Carolina, the place where the flu first hit critical mass several months later was in Louisiana. It then slowly radiated its way outward to most of the neighboring states -- Maine finally hit the 5,000-point threshold just last week. There also appear to be other points from which the flu spread -- a less prominent 'epicenter', for instance, centered in Minnesota and the Dakotas. And somehow, there came to be quite a lot of flu at various points in both Alaska and Hawaii -- Hawaii's peak actually came way back in June and July, well before the one in the Deep South.
The flu has not been especially widespread in Florida, perhaps because Florida has a lot of old people and -- unlike the seasonal flu -- H1N1 has mostly attacked younger individuals. The other state which has yet to hit the 5,000-point barrier is Utah, which is somewhat culturally isolated from the rest of the country.
The good news is that, according to Flu Trends, the flu is pretty much on the decline in all states except Northern New England. The bad news is that we're starting to approach the point where the seasonal flu usually starts to grow in advance of its typical January or February peak; how these two trends will intersect, I don't purport to know.
11.13.2009
How the Swine Flu Has Spread
@ 2:12 PM
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115 comments
So did the vaccine cause the decline, or did the flu burn out and fade away?
Oh Lord. Don't let any Beck fans see this map. They'll conclude this is being spread by FEMA officers to wipe out heavy Republican held states with the help of ACORN and the liberal elites.
I'd wager the same people that buy into Beck's paranoia are living in the states where its spreading like wildfire and will avoid the h1n1 shots like the plague, resulting in more cases of it.
The southern paranoid racists are a perfect case of evolution in reverse.
The southern paranoid racists are a perfect case of evolution in reverse.
Funny how some of you "caring" and "compassionate" liberals can't make one statement about Southerners without hurling insulting generalizations.
Of course, you used flawed reasoning when you continue on by ranting about "evolution in reverse."
More aptly, you would start with, "We are all endowed by our Creator with certain characteristics..."
Ah, never mind....I don't want to say anything to set off another pointless creation vs. big-bang/evolution debate.
There are a lot of people that work AL oil patch that rotate in from Gulf Coast where they live. That might be a factor in how that spread?
If you believe in strict creationism, I think that this website may be a little too sciency for you.
That being said, its important to remember that there are good things about the South. Like the Allman Brothers Band, both types of Carolina barbeque, and football. And literally millions of good people. Is it a little backwards culturally (as a whole)? Sure. But the whole point of liberalism is that through reasoned discourse, even the most hard-bitten ignoramus, no matter what his geography or political leanings, can be enlightened. If you don't believe that, you might as well become a conservative.
Humidity. Florida has a sub-tropical climate of year-round humidity. Viruses get weighed down with water molecules and become too heavy and fall out of the air, resulting in less airborne transmission of the virus.
Is there data available for regions smaller than the state level?
Mule, I'm in the south.
I never said all southerners are racists. I spoke directly of the southern paranoid racists.
Touchy touchy.
If you believe in strict creationism, I think that this website may be a little too sciency for you.
I don't. I believe there is some fundamental truth to evolution.
But I believe that strict big-bang/evolution is baloney and foolish too.
@l_d_o_f,
I hope you extend me the same courtesy, then, if I make a comment one day in the future about the Arrogant Coastal Elites or the Corrupt Midwestern Liberals and realize that I'm not talking about everyone from the coasal regions or the Midwest, only the smug and corrupt bastards.
FYI: Paranoia and racism aren't limited to the South - they are ubiquitous throughout this country. Racism is more prevalent in Northern states than many libs would like to admit. I've spent time in the Northeast...there are many parts of New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts where blacks are less welcome than most of Alabama and Mississsippi.
In Mule's defense he is right on that one. My beef with the South is not so much racism as their obsession with the bible (which is okay) and telling me how they are the only ones who know the fundamental truth (which is not okay).
As a scientist I have a healthy disdain of anything being fundamentally true.
On the map, red doesn't mean that the flu's peak is or was more intense than green, it just means that it reached high intensity earlier in the year (and may have started declining earlier).
But I believe that strict big-bang/evolution is baloney and foolish too.
Strict, what do you mean by that word? Perhaps "not ignoring the evidence when it gets in the way of what you wish it was otherwise" is strict? Or is there some other definition of strict that you have in mind?
Oh wait, you don't want to have this discussion. You just want to drop it out there and then disown it and walk away. :) Nevermind then....
For example, if you click through to Google Flu Trends, you can see that Maine's peak (current, or nearly so) is much higher intensity than those of Mississippi and Alabama, both of which peaked in late August or early September.
Hmmm...Google guys, Vegas, Poker. I am so ready for this book, Nate. Need an advance editor? A review from a Public Policy and Planning angle? I'm cheap. Need a poker wingman? I'm in.
@Nate: The "Jamey's" would be an interesting award. Perhaps 538.com can organize such an award competition, with nominations and the like. Maybe you could invite participants here, as well as friends or family, to help to referee.
Humidity. Florida has a sub-tropical climate of year-round humidity.
Unlike Louisiana in August...
hm -- old people in Florida, "cultural isolation" in Utah ... Could it be that the white spaces on the map are actually due to different internet usage patterns, rather than to differences in the spread of the flu?
The problem with the comment is not that it does not cede ground to magical-thinking, but that "evolution in reverse" doesn't mean anything, because evolution is neither goal-directed nor ordered.
Dumber, less-educated humans, or simply humans with irrational preconceptions, are not "less evolved" or anything like that.
Philipp Angermeyer said...
hm -- old people in Florida, "cultural isolation" in Utah ... Could it be that the white spaces on the map are actually due to different internet usage patterns, rather than to differences in the spread of the flu?
Utah perhaps. But Nate has a very good point about how N1H1 doesn't hit old people nearly as hard as the regular flu does. If I recall the figures correctly N1H1 hospitalizes people roughly evenly across age categories (although oddly far more for females than males). For regular seasonal influenza the elderly (65+) constitute something like 80%-90% of hospitalizations.
That means that if your normal weighting is geared towards seasonal flu it's going to be skewed for places with higher elderly populations. I don't know if that's the case for the model or if FL has that much difference in population profile? Especially during summer months?
I'm not a statistics guy, but isn't it possible that the south has a higher search prevalence than other areas of the country not because there is higher prevalence of the flu, but because of their political leanings and are more :scared: of the flu? (or vaccine...)
Strict, what do you mean by that word? Perhaps "not ignoring the evidence when it gets in the way of what you wish it was otherwise" is strict? Or is there some other definition of strict that you have in mind?
I mean an explanation that totally ignores the possibility of an outside influence or higher power.
The "randome cosmic accident" theory. Even if you don't believe it, you have to at least consider the possibility of a supernatural being setting it in motion. And that says nothing about you having to take a step further (actually more like 100) and believe in the God of the Bible who is revealed through Jesus Christ.
Nope, just "consider" the "possibility" of an outside supernatural force in all of this. A belieft that igonres that "consideration" or "possibility" is what I'd deem as "strict," for what it's worth.
Mule Rider may not understand methodological naturalism and effortlessly conflates cosmology and evolutionary theory like Ben Stein when attempting to take issue with ontological naturalism.
Define 'randome (sic) cosmic accident,' 'supernatural being,' 'set in motion,' and place them within their respective frameworks. Describe how these offer greater explanatory power than competing mainstream theories in their respective frameworks. Explain how adding magic to models of the universe would contribute to a better understanding of nature.
It seems suspicious to me that the flu according to the Google flutrends peaked in Canada right when there was the most controversy over availability of the h1n1 vaccine.
I find it difficult to believe that the flu is now receding in intensity.
@Mule Rider
I mean an explanation that totally ignores the possibility of an outside influence or higher power.
This is a valid point - but unfortunately, it smacks up against the actual definition of "science", which deals with what is observable. Since is required to "ignore the possibility of an outside influence or higher power", or else it isn't science.
Nevertheless, I agree with you. I'm not Christian, but I am deeply religious. And devoutly scientific.
The "randome cosmic accident" theory. Even if you don't believe it, you have to at least consider the possibility of a supernatural being setting it in motion.
Agreed, but then the question comes, where did that "supernatural being" come from? You're only pushing the question of origins off a step. The "supernatural being" theory merely begs the question.
And that says nothing about you having to take a step further (actually more like 100) and believe in the God of the Bible who is revealed through Jesus Christ.
True, and thanks for admitting that - it could have been Vishnu or any of thousands of other creator-gods.
Anyway, this is wildly off-topic, but it would be interesting to have a real discussion sometime - a real discussion, without the vitriol and posturing that o often gets involved.
Every scientific theory ignores the possibility of an outside influence of higher power.
Relativity
Aerodynamics
Quantum Physics
Germ Theory
etc.
Theories can be wrong because they lack the full information on what is causing what the theory explains. Newtonian theory was the operating theory until relativity came along and explained that it had missed a few things. It then incorporated those things that were "outside" Newtonian models and came up with the new model.
That's what science is. You have a problem with that, you have a problem with science in general, not just the parts that touch on your religious beliefs.
I mean an explanation that totally ignores the possibility of an outside influence or higher power.
Ah, so strict is "not creating fanciful explinations that have no basis in evidence, and usually aren't even falsifiable".
The "randome cosmic accident" theory.
Mischaracterization.
Even if you don't believe it, you have to at least consider the possibility of a supernatural being setting it in motion.
This isn't actually discounted. There simply is no credible evidence for or against it. There is though credible evidence for the universe as we know coming from a Big Bang and a crapload of evidence for life on earth evolving from a single point.
Nope, just "consider" the "possibility" of an outside supernatural force in all of this. A belieft that igonres that "consideration" or "possibility" is what I'd deem as "strict," for what it's worth.
That is an entirely different thing. It's called "faith", and it gets to cheat on logic, and has no place in Evolution or Big Bang. It can ignore numbers and the type of analysis that 538 is about.
Look at the map! It's obvious. The Republicans started the swine flu!
Nate,
I don't think the lightness in Florida is necessarily due to it not being hit as hard.
As you mention, Florida has a high elderly population. Isn't it possible that it's coming out low in this analysis because the elderly are much less likely to use Google to search for information about flu symptoms?
I am a little uneasy about statistical tracking of the flu, given the way it is being diagnosed. I know of many people being told over the phone it is just presumed they have the swine flu... I know of many others who decide for themselves they or their kids have swine flu, even though their symptoms are wrong... And I know of many people who exhibit the symptoms of swine flu and basically deny it.
So how does one decide the actual rate of infection in any area of the country?
So how does one decide the actual rate of infection in any area of the country?
I believe the CDC numbers rely on actual lab test confirmations (although there are some question about false negatives?). That's part of the reason for the 2 week delay.
It can ignore numbers and the type of analysis that 538 is about.
For what it's worth, I think non-believers hide behind "numbers" and "science" as much or moreso than believers hide behind "faith."
Now I realize that math and science are relatively sound and solid concepts to "hide" behind and I'm not trying to discount what they tell us; however, you're fooling yourself if you think the big picture can be defined entirely by those parameters.
Hawaii almost certainly got it from Japan.
It cracks me up how dismissive someone like Dwight is about having a "serious" discussion about God vs. science, though. He is quick to castigate someone for "hiding behind their faith," not realizing that he's relying on just as much faith in science telling us things that supposedly happened billions of years ago that can't possibly be known with reasonable certainty.
I might be relying a lot on "faith," but at least I'm deriving a lot of it from archaelogical evidence and hitorical accounts of events that have happened in the last 10,000-15,000 years, and in particular, something that happened 2,000 years ago.
It may be "observable" science, but you gotta admit that what you're trying to do is put the pieces of a puzzle together that supposedly happened millions and billions of years ago.
Guess it depends on your own brand of logic. For some, it's believing a series of reported supernatural events over the last few thousand years, culminating in the resurrection of one in particular about 2,000 years ago that forms the core of their existence.
For others, it's choosing to follow a timeline of existence that supposedly played out over millions and millions of years based on minute changes in characteristics among a variety of living things.
Mule Rider said...
It cracks me up how dismissive someone like Dwight is about having a "serious" discussion about God vs. science,
You are completely missing the point. I'm NOT talking about God vs. science.
not realizing that he's relying on just as much faith in science telling us things that supposedly happened billions of years ago that can't possibly be known with reasonable certainty.
Ah yes, there we have the tired old, busted-ass fallacy of "A < 100% certainty and B < 100%, therefore A = B".
No Mule, it is NOT the same magnitude of certainty. Not. Even. Close.
No Mule, it is NOT the same magnitude of certainty. Not. Even. Close.
You're right. Archaeological evidence and historical accounts of the last 2,000-4,000 years are much more accurate and give us much more certainty than estimating the collapse and expansion of energy and how it ultimately morphed into "living" tissue several billion years ago.
My ultimate goal in life is to convert Dwight into a believer.
I always enjoy a hearty challenge.
Guess it depends on your own brand of logic.
No, it depends on whether you consider wishful thinking to be "evidence".
"...not realizing that he's relying on just as much faith in science telling us things that supposedly happened billions of years ago that can't possibly be known with reasonable certainty."
Hmm, well the "evil deciever" idea is one of philosophy. An interesting question maybe, but in terms of scientific analysis there is no reliable non-empirical method, so we just have to work within the assumption that the material world is what it seems to be.
That's not to say that counter-explanations are wrong, they're just irrelevant. It may be that a superbeing set the world in motion or that an old man with a trident commands hurricanes or that a dead carpenter will save humanity or that a flying spaghetti monster changes levels of carbon-14 isotopes with his noodly appendage.
When the question is what do I want to believe, there are no wrong answers.
But when the question is what do we know based on empirical evidence, then answers must be empirically verifiable.
You're right. Archaeological evidence and historical accounts of the last 2,000-4,000 years are much more accurate and give us much more certainty than estimating the collapse and expansion of energy and how it ultimately morphed into "living" tissue several billion years ago.
We've actually measured against the estimates. Because we can, with a little help from tools to convert the EMT into the spectrum of our natural vision, observe the event that occured roughly 13 billion years.
That 4,000 year ago stuff? What we've got is a number of different texts written by a number of different very long dead people, some claiming to be firsthand accounts, that don't actually match up to what we observe now and not even to each other at times.
You'd be laughed out of court if you tried to bring the later before a judge. For good reason, it sucks as objective evidence.
Mule:
Of course this whole argument is an incredibly moot point. Science has nothing to do with religion and vice versa. The only time they intersect is when people claim that their religion predicts something that can easily be disproven by science (e.g. the Earth is only 6,000, 10,000, 15,000, etc. years old).
Otherwise, it's like saying literature and interpretive dance somehow conflict with one another.
I mean an explanation that totally ignores the possibility of an outside influence or higher power.
Huh? There is absolutely no explanation, to my knowledge, of the Big Bang. "We don't know" is not the same as "There is no God". No one knows why the Big Bang happened - that means that any real scientist will NOT discount the possibility of God kicking it off. But at the same time, he or she cannot say that there is any empirical evidence for it.
It's like gravity. There's no empirical evidence for why gravity happens. You're welcome to claim that God makes matter want to move towards each other. It isn't "science", but it's a perfectly reasonable explanation.
The part where God gets dismissed is when God is used to explain things that have reasonable external explanations, particularly when the God-explanation flies in the face of everything we can observe, such as the insistence that the Earth is 6,000 years old. If it is really 6,000 years old, God went way out of his way to make it appear older than that.
Indeed, I think it's fascinating that Christians want to discount the Big Bang. The universe and time itself appears out of nowhere, packed into something smaller than an atom, in a manner that is completely unexplainable by science... and Christians tell us that that couldn't happen because God created the universe! :facepalm:
Hell, even the Intellegent Design con-artists didn't even try to do that. Of course they
still got laughed/scolded out of court. Because they don't really have anything better for evidence or a logical argument. *shrug*
Where science DOES conflict with religion is in the are of dogma and authority. As in the above example, the dogma of Earth being a few thousand years old can be handily disproven with science. But that's not surprising, because it's a scientific statement that the earth is "X" years old. And it clashes with the authorities who stake their authority on upholding dogma.
Science provides a way of any lowly commoner of disproving the dogma handed down by an authority, when that dogma makes statements of a scientific nature.
Science will never have anything to say about those other parts of religion that are inherently unscientific. Hell, the entire field of String Theory has been on shaky ground simply because there was a question of whether it was actually science since it appeared there was no way you could possibly disprove it. This wasn't because "science hates String Theory", it's because science can't deal with issues that are not science and still be science.
No, it depends on whether you consider wishful thinking to be "evidence"
I could just as easily say that you are hiding behind your own wishful thinking as "evidence" because you don't like the idea of living a life accountable to and respecting/honoring a higher power that is responsible for your very being.
You keep trying to claim the upper hand and superiority via purpoted evidence, but there's every bit as much reason (or more) to believe what I propose as what you suggest.
Keep yelling all you want about how I'm hiding behind faith, but you're hiding behind your very own brand, and the "evidence" you hang your hat own is exponentially more suspect.
You're right. Archaeological evidence and historical accounts of the last 2,000-4,000 years are much more accurate and give us much more certainty than estimating the collapse and expansion of energy
This above statement is false. Astronomers and physicists can actually observe what was going on in the universe all the way back to about ten billion years ago, when the universe was still at a temperature of 10,000 degrees Kelvin from the Big Bang, due to the time light has taken to travel the distance. As they say, seeing is believing. In contrast, the archeologists cannot observe the past 2,000 - 4,000 ago but must make inferences from the artifacts that have survived since then.
"Keep yelling all you want about how I'm hiding behind faith, but you're hiding behind your very own brand, and the "evidence" you hang your hat own is exponentially more suspect."
Oy vey. You may have is much reason to believe what you believe based on your faith, but you don't have scientific evidence.
You don't have to believe that scientific evidence is automatically superior to your personal inclinations in the abstract, but it is superior in positing answers to scientific questions.
The religious issue is very much OT, but I just have to add my two bits:
Einstein, as I understand, believed in God.
But his God was far bigger than the tiny God of most so-called Christians.
I consider myself a Christian because (1) like Einstein I believe in God, and (2) in general, the teachings of Jesus jibe with my determinations of (a) what makes us tick as humans, and (b) our purpose in this universe.
In short, I am an Interpretist Christian, not a Fundamentalist Christian. Thus, I find no conflict between being a Christian and being a scientist.
Keep yelling all you want about how I'm hiding behind faith, but you're hiding behind your very own brand, and the "evidence" you hang your hat own is exponentially more suspect.
*blink blink* The evidence you're hanging your hat on for evolution is Genesis. Could you tell us who wrote Genesis?
Meanwhile I can see a Labrador retriever from my office right now, which we know was not created by God at the same time as the other animals.
Sorry - a random book about an event that the author didn't even see is not exponentially less suspect than the dog I can see from my office. Try again.
(In case you were thinking about the word "microevolution", think real hard about who defines what a species is before you do that.)
I could just as easily say that you are hiding behind your own wishful thinking as "evidence" because you don't like the idea of living a life accountable to and respecting/honoring a higher power that is responsible for your very being.
Yes, it would be easy for you to assert that. You just typed it up. But you'd be dead wrong in so many ways.
Remember that "idiot" thing you do? You are doing it now.
Remember that "idiot" thing you do? You are doing it now.
Troll will out.
"But his God was far bigger than the tiny God of most so-called Christians."
Although Einstein was really more of a deist or a pantheist than a strict theist (although he was avowedly Jewish), and saw God more as a force than a superbeing, i.e:
"I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."
Incidentally Einstein was also a pacifist and dabbled in socialism, so I guess nothing he said could be considered valid :)
Sacto Joe said...
The religious issue is very much OT...
Sadly there is a link back to the topic of N1H1 via vaccinations' albeit somewhat tangentally. :/ The widespread confusion and misapplication of faith in scientific matters has this corrosive effect leading to functional ignorance and anti-vaccine hysteria. :/
Einstein, like Spinoza before him, used 'god' as a metaphor for nature. Not that it matters, but theists certainly like that subject for some reason. There are quite a number of scientists that are religious. Who cares, though? Magic has no place in science, and only the quacks and non-scientists try to inject it into the process.
The evidence you're hanging your hat on for evolution is Genesis. Could you tell us who wrote Genesis?
When did I say this was what I was hanging my hat on?
Archaeology supports the events from King David through Jesus' time, and there is even scientific evidence to suggest the world experienced a flood like what is described in the Bible in the days of Noah.
This isn't just me saying, "I read it in Genesis so it must be true."
Some of these events have been validated or corroborated in some way by archaeological finds and other (non-Biblical) historical accounts.
Thanks for throwing out a mindless strawman, though. Better luck next time.
....and there is even scientific evidence to suggest the world experienced a flood like what is described in the Bible in the days of Noah.
Oh, this should be good. Please link.
Mule Rider:
Don't you see the inherent flaw in the path you're going down? There's quite a bit of archeological evidence to support events described in Homer's Odyssey. But there's nothing that supports the supernatural parts of it.
Leaving aside the flood thing for a minute, nobody here is arguing that the (to their mind) fictional events in the Bible are set in a fictional universe.
Thanks, Jacob, for not resorting to smug condescion and mindless belittling and for simply disagreeing or making your points in a polite manner.
@Dwight,
I'm unaware of that "idiot" thing I do. I do know, however, when my efforts are futile because the person I'm talking to is a Level IX sophist and is more interested in tearing down arguments with word games and illogical refutations rather than just discussing common sense in a polite way.
Hey, you reject the idea of God's existence while I embrace it. Let's just leave it at that.
We'll either both transition into eternal unconsciousness at some point and never have any further awareness of our previous state or we'll wake up to answer to a Higher Power for how we've come to know Him in our brief existence as a living human being in the flesh.
I don't believe the former is true for a second, but you're welcome to.
Mule Rider really is this site's William Kerney.
Meh, forget it. We all know this conversation is pointless, so why keep it alive.
It's the beauty of being a human. You have free will to believe what you want to believe, be it purely on what you think science tells you, be it purely on faith or wishful thinking, or some combination of the two.
"We'll either both transition into eternal unconsciousness at some point and never have any further awareness of our previous state or we'll wake up to answer to a Higher Power for how we've come to know Him in our brief existence as a living human being in the flesh."
But how do you know it's just one of those two options? It could be that we're judged for our capacity to sacrifice goats to the mighty Ahura Mazdah, or that we're judged by how well we live our life to the fullest, or that we're judged for the cogency of points we make on political blogs.
Or maybe it's all about whether we pick the "right" religion--my money's on the Mormons--they just seem so sure of it ;)
Or maybe we are never judged by this Higher Power.
Your faith doesn't give you any greater "coverage" than does atheism.
Substantiate your claim of evidence for a global flood, since whatever AiG thing you link to should be absolutely hilarious.
I'm unaware of that "idiot" thing I do.
What you are doing now, that's it.
Hey, you reject the idea of God's existence while I embrace it.
But that is NOT what I'm talking about. I, and a number of people up thread, are trying to get through to you that you don't have choose between self-imposed ignorance and rejecting G-d. You just have to ditch a bunch of dogma (like sizable chunks of the early OT).
So, where's that link? Oh...
Let's just leave it at that.
ChickenshitsmacktalkersaysBRAWWWWK. :P
When did I say this was what I was hanging my hat on?
Archaeology supports the events from King David through Jesus' time, and there is even scientific evidence to suggest the world experienced a flood like what is described in the Bible in the days of Noah.
:rolleyes: What does any of that have to do with evolution?! Yes, the Bible tells a largely-true story of Jewish history, I don't think anyone would question that. How in the world do you get from "King David was a real guy" to "I believe that strict big-bang/evolution is baloney"?
Thanks for throwing out a mindless strawman, though. Better luck next time.
Yeah, I'M the one with the mindless strawman.
@Nate: You need to learn from this experience -- what happens when you write about creationism. Wait a minute! You didn't write about that? Germs and microbes aren't God's little gift to mankind? They weren't marched two by two into the Ark along with the brontosauri, dogs, snakes, doves, cretins, etc.?
Well then, never mind!
@Juris
They weren't marched two by two into the Ark along with the brontosauri, dogs, snakes, doves, cretins, etc.?
The dinosaurs didn't make it into the Arc. That's why they went extinct. Don't you know anything?
@shrinkers: Yes, juvenile dinos were marched into the ark. I learned that at the Museum of Earth History in Eureka Springs, Arkansas -- so it must be true.
@Shrinkers: See, here's a pic from that museum with a fearsome tyranosaur on the front page.
On another completely off-topic topic (which is fine because the basis of the original topic is shaky at best and the secondary topic MR started is somewhat intractable):
Boy, these are some classy new ads running at 538:
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Sorry, Pan, I appreciate your effort here but I have a juicy quote from the Museum website, just to show Shrinkers the revealed truth:
"In spite of the harsh conditions they faced, there is evidence that some dinosaurs did live after the flood.
For example, in the Book of Job, the author discusses the behemoth in chapter 40. The animal described clearly matches the description of a Sauropod (commonly known as a Brontosaurus). However, the Book of Job was written about 300 years after the flood; the present-tense description of the beast indicates that the animal alive at the time had to have descended from the survivors on Noah’s ark."
The reason Florida has a lower rate of H1N1 is indeed because of its older population, which is showing more resistance to H1N1 than are younger people.
The reason, almost certainly, is that it resembles a strain of flu virus to which the population was exposed some years ago (I've heard 1976 mentioned) and therefore a lot of them have acquired an immunity to it, which younger people lack.
Hawaii got hit earlier because it's closer to Asia, which is where most flu strains originate. Why Louisiana and the Gulf states got hit earlier is more of a mystery, but may have something to do with the proportion of older people in the population.
I apologize to anyone who posted these explanations earlier in this thread. Once Mule Rider and his liberal baiters get into a thread it completely deteriorates into irrelevancies (and no, I DON'T care who started it -- you're all idiots), so I just skipped past all that crap.
Muley is right. We needed those Smurfberries to power the school. Do you realize how much power is in just ONE Smurfberry? They refused to relocate. We had no choice.
I wasn't saying anything, I was just asking questions.
@Slasher: I brought up the point earlier that Florida's population doesn't have as high a proportion of elderly as people assume. 9.5% of women are 65+, compared to 7.5% in the country as a whole.
I lived in Florida at two points in my life and believe me it's not all Geezerland.
As for the differential susceptibility of age cohorts to H1N1, the relevant year that I heard is 1957. It was on that basis that people in the 65+ age group were given lowest priority for the vaccine (unless they had certain respiratory diseases, etc.). Now maybe there was another flue in 1978 that provided exposure, and that would explain the age 25-64 group being second priority (after the 6 months to 24 years-old group, which has highest priority)
Juris -
Thank you for setting me straight.
That's what I love about 538. I learn something new every damn day.
“Big bang/evolution is baloney and foolish…”
There’s a stupid statement for you. One jerk ignoramus without the benefit of education or intelligence sweeps a century worth of science out the door because he “can’t understand it”.
Let’s see—do I take the word of hundreds of thousands of scientists who work every day in both cosmology and evolutionary biology, or the word of some Ozark bozo who rejects everything that doesn’t fall within the realm of his experience?
Gee, that’s a hard one.
:o) :o) :o)
First of all, the Big Bang has nothing to do with evolution, for those of you untutored in the sciences, or reality in fact.
The Big Bang and evolution both rely on physical evidence—
♦ Radioactive decay proves unequivocally the age of rocks on Earth, providing an age of the planet that is within a couple percent error margin (4.5 billion years). This technique is also used on meteoritic material as well as samples returned from the moon and shergottites which are rocks from Mars that have fallen to Earth.
♦ Stellar evolution models (Hertzsprung/Russell) have been verified hundreds of thousands of times, in fact each time a spectrographic analysis of a distant star (even those in other galaxies) have been done. We know exactly how stars are born and evolve, and how galaxies are born and evolve, and how each ends its life. Winding this backward we figured out where everything came from.
♦ The Big Bang theory is verified every time a particle accelerator is fired up. Despite Ozark hillbillies who “don’t understand such things” physicists do, and have experimentally seen and identified every theorized elementary particle except the Higgs boson. Despite the silly claims made here, there is no need to “go back in time” to see what happened at the Big Bang. The existence of the cosmos has been traced back and mapped to the first billionths of a second after the singularity. (Look the word up, Fifi, if you don’t understand it.)
♦ Neither is it necessary to “go back in time” to understand evolution. Evolution was figured out very successfully using only morphology, and now that we can do it with DNA all the important earlier morphological conjectures have been neatly confirmed.
The most dangerous “philosophers” are the stupid, uneducated ones who claim to have no association with religion.
@Juris
N1H1 was last a threat to go pandemic due to an outbreak in Russia in 1977 (it showed up in a military base in NE US in 1976 but never broke out). It was included in the seasonal influenza shot that year, so anyone that got a shot that year might have some marginal protection.
@Slasher
The problem with the idea that "Hawaii peaked first because it's closest to Asia" is that it appears that Asia is lagging South America, by a lot, in the outbreak. It seems more likely Hawaii peaked quickly due to being a heavily tourist driven economy, so you get a lot of people passing through off of long air flights and a high percentage of the population interacting directly with outsiders.
Although it is possible there is enough inherent immunity in Asian populations due to 1977 to slow it there, I'm not sure that hypothesis fits the population age profile outside of China itself?
Here's some interesting facts about Florida and the two states that directly border it:
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2008:
- Florida had an estimated population of 18,328,340, of which 21.8% of that population was under 18 years of age. 21.8% of 18,328,340 is about 3.996 million. 17.4% of the Florida population was over 65 years of age. 17.4% of 18,328,340 is about 3.281 million.
- Georgia had an estimated population of 9,685,744, of which 26.3% of that population was under 18 years of age. 26.3% of 9,685,744 is about 2.547 million. 10.1% of the Georgia population was over 65 years of age. 10.1% of 9,685,744 is about 0.978 million.
- Alabama had an estimated population of 4,661,900, of which 24.1% of that population was under 18 years of age. 24.1% of 4,661,900 is about 1.124 million. 13.8% of the Alabama population was over 65 years of age. 13.8% of 4,661,900 is about 0.643 million.
So let's see - H1N1 hits the young much harder than those older. The number of those under 18 in Florida is just under the TOTAL population of Alabama. You would expect that with the much larger total base population, Florida's number of H1N1 incidences should be fairly close to Alabama.
Look at the map, and you will see it is different, very different.
The same with Georgia, although to a different scale.
And the number of those aged 65 and older in Florida is somewhat under the total population of Alabama, and quite a bit under the total population of Georgia.
The age of the population may be having some effect in the incidence rate, but it is not the only cause of the incidence rate difference. Otherwise, Florida would have hit the 5,000 or greater mark very close to when Georgia and/or Alabama did.
Mike in Maryland
seems to me that this model has an inherently reactive metric
like an internet poll compared to an IVR or live poll model
wonder what one would get for a GOOGLE PALIN TRENDS analysis...
bet that would also track which states she & her bus will be appearing in to support her book tour
would you call that predictive ? or just curiously interesting...
So let's see - H1N1 hits the young much harder than those older.
To keep this straight it would be better described that this strain of H1N1 is hitting the old roughly as hard as other age groups, which is atypical for influenza. The elderly are typically at much higher risk for hospitialization/death from influenza, due to being more medically vulnerable as a group.
would you call that predictive ? or just curiously interesting...
Nate mentions that they are open about this being more a "prediction of the current". It's basically a faster method of estimating current conditions. Bearing in mind that all measurements of note are estimates, you could even describe it as a faster method of measurement.
@Mike in Md: The "Google Flu Trends index" doesn't measure flu cases, it measures flu-related Internet search items (I didn't know this when I made my original post). Using six years worth of data and some tweaking Google has done, it appears to predict actual flu case growth quite well.
This being the case, I have no idea what to make of the Florida and Utah anomalies. The higher proportion of over 65s might cause less computer literacy but one would intuitively expect that Alabama would have less computer literacy than Florida as a whole. Of course, Google's formula may take those factors into account.
It also seems possible that Google has tweaked its formulas to take into account relative ages in the various states and built in a skew for that. The formula is described in an article in
"Nature," which demands that I pay money I don't feel like spending to read it. Anybody out there got a subscription?
But, essentially, this is somewhat the equivalent of someone predicting that the Republicans will take over Congress in 2010 based upon sophisticated models using Internet search data. While I suppose somebody could actually build such models based upon a lot of data, we wouldn't consider that much of a substitute for dirty old polling, and I think CDC counts of real, live flu cases are probably a superior technique as well.
The only thing about the article that I now find interesting is that it does seem to track the TIMING of the spread of the disease, and that's interesting information. The Florida and Utah anomalies are less compelling.
@Juris -- I had not heard the 1957 theory but having been around that year and remembering the intensity of that epidemic, it makes a lot of sense to me that it might have immunized a significant portion of those alive at that time. Just about everybody I knew, myself included, got it. It would have to be a direct immunization, because I do not recall that there was a vaccination for the 1957 bug.
see, I am not so sure that the GOOGLE trend actually tracks the real population of H1N1
I mean, how could anyone possibly know for sure ?
the vast majority of infection/exposures are never reported since many people do not get that sick or require hospitalization
that alone may account for anomalies to some degree
also local/regional differences on whether to seek treatment, etc.
that also goes with the correlation of GOOGLE searches, but that could also be media [inc GOOGLE] driven
fwiw - here in FL the media seems to have decided to quit leding with KILLER FLU scare tactics [which would drive up both GOOGLE searches AND Dr visits]
so perhaps the GOOGLE trend tracks along with Dr visits/confirmed cases - but no way to know for sure if it tracks the real trend of any flu bug in the entire general population since everyone is not tested or even polled
since it is not a real killer strain, why would most people even go to the Dr rather than just stay home ?
perhaps that is the sensible thing that floridians have chosen to do [hehe - sensible flo ridas]
then again, perhaps not
either way ? meh...
now if GOOGLE trends works to 'predict' other illnesses like cancer through searches - but again seems to be a self-serving prophecy in many regards imho
I still liken this to an internet poll that is open to anyone to respond
who will be most likely & with what motivation if no controls built in
GOOGLE searches are driven by MSM & other external factors so very probably self-fulfilling based on those influences
just like searches for Levi Johnston [a pandemic or media driven & regionally 'spreading' virus]
How is there now Swine Flu in Florida?
Brandon
Just South of North
http://www.justsouthofnorth.com
@ slasher14: There's a pdf of the Nature article on the google.org site here
I might be relying a lot on "faith," but at least I'm deriving a lot of it from archaelogical evidence and historical accounts of events that have happened in the last 10,000-15,000 years, and in particular, something that happened 2,000 years ago.
Mule, much though I appreciate your leaning on the staff of archaeology, I do need to point out a few things.
There's very little in the way of independent firsthand historical accounts of Jesus. He is mentioned briefly a couple of places (e.g. Josephus), but that's about it. (Note that, with the possible exception of Thomas, the gospels were written sufficiently after his time that they are probably not firsthand accounts).
The archaeological evidence, despite the arguments of some minimalists, does suggest some historicity to the bible.
At this point, neither archaeology nor independent historical record can comment one way or the other on the validity of the religious interpretation held by modern (or ancient) Christians.
Archaeology plays a lot like any science in this regard, and may always. Use archaeology to support your faith, but it will probably never provide proof of God.
Check out this site for Biblical archaeology. bib-arch.org
slasher14,
Yes, I understand how the Google tracker works in concept - based on the number of Internet searches and where they come from, it interpolates the actual number of flu cases.
Mike in Maryland
'interpolate' ? hhhmmm
'extrapolate' ? maybe
or perhaps 'guesstimate' is a better fit in this case...
maybe the feds are using this to determine how & where to dispense the H1N1 vaccine
that would explain why Wall Street firms got doses before hospitals & Drs...
otoh, my local county decided to aim their recent vaccination clinics at the young & school aged + teachers
they just held a clinic with 15 shot stations set up at the HS & had 5,000 shots available - but only 2,500 showed up during the 6 hour window so they were disappointed
bad decison making based on poor assumptions imho
also no big public panic fwiw
Sorry I missed this conversation. As probably the only one here who has have ever worked on an H1 vaccine I can honestly say "Wow, virtually all of you are complete idiots". Very insightful ... I now realize how little the regular posters (including Nate) actually know about anything. Not sure I'm coming back here ... what a waste of time.
Hey mule just wanted to let you know that when you look up at stars at night you're seeing what they looked like billions of years ago due to the whole speed of light thing..
Einstein did believe in god which is why he has that famous quote "god doesn't play dice with the universe" that he said in response to quantum mechanics..
Sorry I missed this conversation. As probably the only one here who has have ever worked on an H1 vaccine I can honestly say "Wow, virtually all of you are complete idiots". Very insightful ... I now realize how little the regular posters (including Nate) actually know about anything. Not sure I'm coming back here ... what a waste of time.
Huh? Any explanation for this? Virtually no one discussed Nate's post.
bleepul…
If I had a nickel for every time a Freeptard such as yourself said he wasn’t coming back here yet reappeared within 24 hours Warren Buffett would be shining my shoes instead of the other way around.
Why don’t you give yourself some of that vaccine? Deliver it deep and right between the eyes… One liter ought to do the trick.
Search trends concerning "flu" must be different this year. (Given the tremendous amount of media attention and the high profile vaccine campaign, it seems highly likely that there is a much larger number of people this year who don't have a flu of any sort executing flu related searches.) I wonder how robust the model is and if this year's predictions will be as stunningly accurate as they've been in the past.
On an unrelated note, there have been some grumblings about about the idiocy of those uninterested in a flu vaccine. I am wondering what the logic is in that, especially if one allows for lying -- along the lines of signaling to the world that I got a vaccine even though I didn't. I see the logic in wanting positive influences that lead to a vaccinated population, but I don't see how this translates to the idiocy of an individual who decline a (H1N1) vaccination for himself or herself.
bleepul said...
[...]Not sure I'm coming back here ... what a waste of time.
And nothing of value was lost.
Why all this talk about the Bible? The real holy book is the Koran. Wait, I'm wrong, it's the Torah. Nix that, it's the Vedas. Sorry, I meant to say The Book of Mormon.
Anyone that thinks to find knowledge of the universe in a holy book is looking in the wrong place.
The only knowledge gained in a holy book is knowledge about the state of the human experience of the universe.
The two are not the same.
What's helpful and interesting (and unusual) about 538 is the geeks who live here arguing about statistics and methodologies and other "sciency" stuff. The internet is stuffed with sites where you can go to engage in ideological rants why not leave that crap to them.
Ideologues: shut up.
Geeks: Geek on!
@LinCA: Thanks for pointing me at the site which explained how Google does it. While a lot of it is way over my non-stat oriented head, I got the general idea.
@Mike: The point I was trying to make vis-a-vis your post which discussed numbers of people in FL, GA, and AL is that absolute population numbers don't matter to the method, which derives its most critical value from the ratio of Internet hits on flu-related subjects to total Internet hits (to oversimplify the case). Thus it does not matter what the population in the state is, since by using this ratio Google removes that as a factor.
Coming back and reading the comments made after I logged off last night, I came to realize just how sad and pathetic the life story is for so many of you that literally live here in the comments of fivethirtyeight.com.
Standing up to the anger and smug condescension, personified by the likes of people such as Dwight and Persuter, may be noble but it's not in my best interest, and over the long haul it will only bring me more angst as I go about my daily life.
It doesn't matter if we're talking about economics or God or anything in between, I don't see how anything that can be said between myself and the people I've mentioned can be of any value or productive in any way.
As it stands, I'm hanging it up and retiring for good. From henceforth, you'll never see me in the pages of fivethirtyeight.com. I wish you all well, even those who remain so vehemently opposed to me and everything I stand for.
I've enjoyed chatting with many of you over the past year-and-a-half, but it's time to move on to bigger and better things.
And now for an apropos sign-off when you consider the topic that spun out of control on this thread...
Whether you belive in Him or not, God's speed and blessings to all of you. Goodbye!
Mule Rider, over and out
Mule Rider said
Whether you belive in Him or not, God's speed and blessings to all of you. Goodbye!
Where do your multiple threats to beat up the posters you don't like fit into His plan? Is this part of His blessings? If so, no thanks.
...over the long haul it will only bring me more angst as I go about my daily life.
Ah yes, the Ignorance Is Bliss strategy. You want to avoid "more angst" in your life? Go away.
let's see now...
how many times does that make it that MR has PROMISED he was going away for good - always to return...
not holdin' my breath
I have just ignored him since last fall since he likes to fling crap & has such a crazy jealous jones for Nate
good riddance - if only it was true
I predict there is a 99% chance that ol' MULEHEAD will re-emerge under another handle [or perhaps pretend to be his submissive wife ala that clownish mess Walker/Missy]
I'd be interested to see the disease spread charted against vaccine use.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/14/Expert-Pediatrician-Exposes-Vaccine-Myths.aspx
something strange is goin' on here in FL re: vaccinations
Volusia County had another well publicized H1N1 clinic today in Deland at the HS targeted for young + teachers
turnout was so low & slow that at the mid-day news they were openly encouraging ANYONE to show up for a shot [no one will be turned away]
once again, it appears they will vaccinate only half as many people as they could or wanted to do
that seems to be the average - bad turnout
why ??? seems a few folks are paniced, yes - but most seem to be ignoring the 'scare'
of course there is that growing viral fear that the vaccine itself is worse than the flu
personally, I went to my local FD station last week to get a regular flu shot [also no lines & just 5 blocks from where I live]
but they have no plans to distribute H1N1 that way
I am not gonna go wait in a potentially long line [like they show on the news] at a mass clinic 25 miles away at a cattle call with a crowd of potentially sick/ill folks crowded around
only if I worked in health care or as a teacher would I personally bother to
central FL at least seems to be not falling for the 'scare tactics' & is reacting by apparently rejecting the demands to attend mass vaccination clinics imho
WV - nerse [what a FL cracker calls an RN]
Doesn't 'Flugle' sound like the right name for this service?
:)
Coming back and reading the comments made after I logged off last night, I came to realize just how sad and pathetic the life story is for so many of you that literally live here in the comments of fivethirtyeight.com.
I love self-referential wit, it's just so clever!
I didn't realize how many people on here are dogmatic adherents to various faiths. Faith and fact are opposites. If one only seeks to find evidence to fit a narrative, they will find it wherever it exists.
I don't have a preconceived "truth", so I'm unencumbered by those annoying "facts" that stand to sway my beliefs. That's the beauty of science with all its falsifiability. It doesn't demand belief, but offers to prove it.
I'll miss the blepul people, but I can't wait to see who he appears as tomorrow. Maybe Palin4christ is a good new name to wear out.
I bet a little research will show that Louisianna, one of our poorer states, has little to offer in the way of a public health service. The flu spread more rapidly and reached critical mass more quickly there. Whether or not it was brought to LA through oil rig workers, is interesting. What if any connection is there between oil rig workers and Mexico?
Standing up to the anger and smug condescension, personified by the likes of people such as Dwight and Persuter, may be noble but it's not in my best interest, and over the long haul it will only bring me more angst as I go about my daily life.
I don't believe there was any "smug condescension" in my posts and I certainly don't see any anger in it. Indeed, my first post was entirely sympathetic to what you were saying. You were the one who made the claim that the evidence for evolution was "exponentially more suspect" than creation. That is patently ridiculous.
If you want to have FAITH that creation occurred, that's fine. But attempting to pretend that the evidence for evolution is shaky and that the thousands of scientists who study this for a living are just ignoring that in some bizarre quest to deliberately undermine God, especially when you were not able to list a single bit of evidence beyond the fact that there was a large flood at some point in the Middle East, is insulting and wrong.
You can call me names all you want. It doesn't change the fact that there is an overwhelming amount of clear empirical evidence for genetic changes in animal populations over time being the result of natural selection.
I didn't see anyone comment on the normalization of Google's metric. What is "5000"? I'm guessing it's actually regionally normalized to the typical peak for seasonal flu. If that's the case, then any state that is proportionally harder hit by the H1N1 pandemic than the seasonal flu is going to stand out on this map.
I do not have data to verify my hypothesis, but it goes like this: H1N1 is less climate-sensitive in its epidemiology, so the ratio of H1N1 infection to seasonal infection is greater in Hawaii or Louisiana than it is in Maine or Michigan. That is to say that Hawaii and Louisiana cleared the 5000 metric earlier because the bar was set low there---the seasonal flu does not hit those states hard, so "5000" just doesn't represent a lot of cases there. In contrast, H1N1 doesn't need as much help from bad weather to spread...that's why it's spreading so much earlier in the year.
Like I said, I don't have the data to confirm (or refute) my hypothesis, but it explains the map pretty well. (I'd explain Utah the way Nate did...they've been a little epidemiologically isolated from H1N1. I'd explain Florida by the reverse, though---that elderly population gets hit by the seasonal flu, so 5,000 isn't such a low hurdle to clear.)
The real problem here is perpetuating the H1N1 flu hysteria. Sure we need more vaccine, but the death rate is not all that different from that of other forms of influenza. It's not exactly a pandemic, and Google seems to be feeding the panic.
Sure we need more vaccine, but the death rate is not all that different from that of other forms of influenza. It's not exactly a pandemic[...]
A pandemic has nothing to do with the death rate from a given virus, Jacob. A pandemic is simply any global epidemic, and an epidemic happens when there are more cases of a disease than normal.
According to the WHO, at any rate, H1N1 has a global spread, as can be seen here: http://gamapserver.who.int/h1n1/cases-deaths/h1n1_casesdeaths.html and here: http://gamapserver.who.int/h1n1/geographic-spread/h1n1_geographic-spread.html.
Death rate would be part of the function of the severity of the pandemic, which the WHO discusses here: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/frequently_asked_questions/levels_pandemic_alert/en/index.html
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