A wonderful phrase that Rumsfeld just used in his press briefing. He means that in the mathematical sense, of course. Catastrophe theory is about how one can see huge and abrupt changes from small inputs, and it's exactly applicable here. USA Today (via Donald Sensing) has a good wrapup of how it happened, including the story of how a captured colonel resulted in the rapid fall of Baghdad.

He really went off on the doom'n'gloom reporting today as well.

Martin Gardner is of the opinion that catastrophe theory
is bogus. Of course, Gardner is a liberal, so his views probably don't carry much weight around here.

The link in my previous comment doesn't seem to work, so here's the URL:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=8130

I didn't know (or care) that Martin Gardner was a liberal. To talk about "liberal mathematics" sounds a little like "Jewish science."

I wasn't aware that catastrophe theory was even controversial, but I haven't paid much attention to it since it first came out.

Regardless, I still like the phrase.

Or was the phrase, "Jewish physics"?

By the way, I consider myself a liberal (in the classical sense) and resent the misappropriation of the word by collectivists and statists.

> I didn't know (or care) that Martin Gardner was a liberal.

Oh? Then explain this to me:

> Rabid leftist professors continue to live the lie.

Why did you brand them "rabid leftist professors" instead of, say, "rabid Yale professors", or "rabid Connecticut professors"? It seems to me that you do care whether or not someone is a leftist (which is a synonym for liberal whether you like it or not -- see http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=left-wing).

> To talk about "liberal mathematics" sounds a little like "Jewish science."

Not a valid comparison at all. "Jewish" in "Jewish science" refers to ethnicity. "Liberal" in "liberal mathematics" refers to political ideology. Mathematics (and science) often have political overtones, particularly in political applications, like the justification of economic or military policies (which is precisely the topic at hand). The Laffer curve and supply-side economics are "conservative mathematics." I can't think of any examples of liberal math offhand, but e.g. studies of the genetic origins of homosexual behavior are arguably "liberal science."

> By the way, I consider myself a liberal (in the classical sense) and resent the misappropriation of the word by collectivists and statists.

The term "liberal" has indeed been misappropriated but not by collectivists and statists, at least not in the U.S. First of all, there are not nearly enough collectivists and statists in the U.S. to be able to pull off something like that. Second, what on earth would collectivists and statist have to gain by turning "liberal" into a dirty word?

No, the term "liberal" was "misappropriated" by the Republican party in order to dicredit (classic) liberalism. The strategy worked precisely because collectivism and statism is so unpopular in the U.S.

I do not equate leftist with liberal, even by the modern definition. A leftist is someone who wishes that the Soviet Union had won, and believes that that Amerikkka is the source of all evil of the world. Professor De Genova is a perfect example. I certainly wouldn't call him a liberal by any definition.

And economics is not mathematics, though mathematics is required to do it well. Sorry, I still believe that math and science are above ideology (though the applications of them often are not).

Our anonymous friend either misunderstands classic liberalism, or he misunderstands what the liberals of the 1980s and since stand for.

If the policies of Mondale ("We're going to tax their asses."), Dukakis , Clinton (nationalize one-seventh of the American economy), et al, are not collectivists and statists, I'd really be interested to know who is.

Anonymouse:

Neither mathematics nor science (properly done) is either liberal or conservative. The purpose should be to seek the truth, regardless of leanings and slant.

The politics begins at the edge of the field, where it is applied. Politics, of whatever stripe, is more interested in power, usually, than truth.

But to presume that a science is of an ideological coloration, that science is liberal or science is conservative, is, IMO, to fundamentally misunderstand the meaning and purpose of science (incl. math).

Those who don't like catastrophe theory could always turn instead to Tolkien's term "eucatastrophe". Not a bad description of the news from Baghdad, come to think of it.

For the record, the anonymous posting was mine. My browser usually fills in my name, but I guess it glitched this time.