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Finding The Butterflys
No claim to genius status from this corner. Just want to add some
confirmation of the simple logic rule of not making things too complex. A
few years back when in residence at one of the country's prestigeous
universities, my now X wife was researching the migration path of the
Monarch butterflies. Her research was based on capturing them at their
overwintering sites on the California coast and then analyzing their body
parts using thinlayer chromatography. She was looking for cardiac
glycocides that are sequestered when the butterfly larva feed on milkweed
plants. These identifying markers stay with the larva through the
transformaiton into what we see flying amongst the flowers in an apparant
random path. In reality these flapping things have a migratory path they
have been following prior to man getting into their path. The butterflies
that pass through Florida and Texas, having flown from Canada, disappear
over the gulf of Mexico. Botanically milkweed plants are geographic
specific and by combining information from the botany department with the
sacrificing of thousands of butterflies a migratory path is mapped. For
decades a professor in Canada was using a tagging approach and traced the
path between Canada and the southern border of the US. My wife in
conjunction with a professor from Amherst preferred the chemical dissection
route. From my perspective as a nuclear physics researcher there seemed to
be a more logical approach to finding out where the butterflies spent the
winter than years of tagging and chemical research. These folks even went
so far as to use satellite photos to select the ideal overwintering sites.
My simple suggestion to them was to take a VW bus to Mexico and ask the
locals where the butterflies hangout during the winter. The story ends
when my wife's party arrives in a VW bus at the camp of the Canadians in
the mountains above Mexico city a week after the Canadians had arrived.
BobR
At 04:14 PM 8/19/97 -0700, nwinski wrote:
>Walt Downs wrote:
>>
>> Dear Mr. Murray,
>>
>> Up until now, I have remained on the sidelines, watching your posts
>> with interest, and some dissapointment.
>>
>> I am responding now in order to balance the scales a bit, and make
>> sure that newer traders understand the situation, and are able to
>> accept both the pros and CONS of your methodolgy.
>>
>> Mr. Murray, you seem to be a person of some intelligence. I found it
>> sad that a person of "rare intellect" , should state that any trader who
>> failed to follow his methodolgy was "ignorant".
>>
>> The dictionary defines ignorance as:
>>
>> 1. Lacking knowledge : Uneducated. 2. : resulting from or showing
>> lack of knowledge or intelligence.
>>
>> I have talked with almost everyone on RT at one time or another.
>> >From these conversations, I might assert many things about my
>> fellow traders, but "ignorance" certainly wouldn't be one of them.
>>
>> There are two possible interpretations of your assertions:
>>
>> 1. You are simply using the term "ignorance" to mean uneducated in
>> your methodology. This argument is valid.
>>
>> 2. You are using the term "ignorance" as an emotional club to
>> assert that anyone who is not educated in your methodology is
>> using up valuable oxygen that a more intelligent life form
>> could be using to greater benefit.
>>
>> If you are versed in the
>> basics of rudimentary logic Mr. Murray, you will note that
>> this form of argument is refered to as "Ad Bacculum". This
>> means that you respond to well thought out questions and
>> arguments with : "Your Mother wears army boots!! " This
>> type of argument is not valid.
>>
>> Sadly, from the tone of your posts, I fear your usage is the later
>> and not the former.
>>
>> Your last post was a wondrous display of esoteric "facts" that
>> beguiled the mind, and addled the senses. I found it amusing to
>> note that one who claims to be such a lover of harmonics would
>> present such a cacophony of verbage.
>>
>> You ARE amazing Mr. Murray, but I think I understand the difference
>> between a prophet and a magician.
>>
>> Your assertion that traders are too unintelligent to use 8TH grade
>> math, might also lead to the logical assertion that YOU are
>> incabable of using anything else.
>>
>> But let me put my personal views aside and approach this coldly and
>> logically.
>>
>> I have an IQ of 185. Under standard psychological testing procedures
>> currently accepted the "genius" level is 160.
>>
>> Therefore, under the likely possibility that you were addressing me
>> under the second argumentative form stated above, your arguments are
>> unfounded, fallacious and inconsistent.
>>
>> Therefore, I am adequately qualified to state a few arguments of my
>> own. I have reviewed your work, and your statements regarding trading,
>> and it is my assertion that your statements are insupportable, and
>> untradable. So many points of entry and egress are called in your
>> methodology, that a trader would be at a loss in picking the ONE
>> right turning point.
>>
>> These are my arguments and assertions. Disproving them should be easy
>> for you. Simply provide a "realtime" trading record of your profitable
>> transactions, and I will gladly recant.
>>
>> Until such a time, I will quietly go my own trading way, but everytime
>> you post such claims and assertions as you have been making, in
>> the interest of making sure that new traders understand both sides
>> of the coin, I will , quietly and with much regret, re-post this
>> message.
>>
>> I look forward to your response, and the "enlightenment" I am sure to
>> experience. Until then I shall approach you with the method I have
>> found most practical in dealing with these types of situations:
>>
>> .......... silence
>>
>> Walt Downs
>> CIS Trading
>
>Walt,
> Mr. Murry and you are both way over my head with his genius and your
>185 IQ. I barely scraped thru 8th grade math and probably flunked that
>IQ test. Interestingly, it is my understanding that Albert Einstein
>flunked 8th grade math. But there is a funny correlation that I have
>observed that pulls all of this together. When I was a market maker on
>the CBOE, I traded at a post which was near the exits (smart huh?). So,
>any new traders that came on the floor tended to stop by and browse at
>our post first. If I wasn't busy I would talk to them and try to get to
>know them. I noticed after awhile that the more degrees and education
>they had the worse they were at trading. This became very profitable for
>me, as I would know that any guy with a couple of masters degrees and a
>PhD. was a real good pidgeon for me to take the other side of his
>trades. These are the guys I would invite and encourage to join our
>trading crowd
>at our post. So, while these guys were boosting my trading profits,
>I also got a free education from talking with them...kind of an earn
>while I learn program. In contrast, the most successful and wealthiest
>traders at the CBOE and the CBOT were lucky if they got thru highschool.
>Many of these top trades were former cab drivers and newspapers stand
>people. So why did the overeducated ones do so poorly? I noticed that
>they tended to overanalyze everything. The market would start to move
>and they would stand there frozen asking "why?", until the pain
>got so great they had to go with it and then they would paniced just
>like
>the so called "uninformed" investment public. It was at this moment
>that "stupid me" would take pity on these geniuses and help them
>get out of their losing positions. It is the least I could do for
>them having shared their advanced knowledge with me that I otherwise
>could never access due to my low grades and low intelligence.
> Please don't misunderstand me. I am a big advocate of education and
>learning. But, I am not so sure that this path is one that is helpful
>in the markets. Perhaps being a genius would help? But, what is a
>genius?
>Is it scoring high on a test? I think all would agree that Albert
>Einstei
>was a genius. Albert flunked 8th grade math. He said the key to his
>genius was that he never grew up, that he was still a child at heart.
>PhDs, like the above traders on the CBOE, are good at knowing alot
>about a little and can extrapolate on minutia ad infinitum. In contrast,
>Albert Einstein took a profound concept, relativity, and made it simple.
>Albert even wrote a simple example of riding on a train that I could use
>to explain to my 5 year old son in about one minute, so that he would
>understand relativity. This reminds me of an anecdote about my Uncle
>Abe, when he was Director of NASA's Lewis Research Center.
><http://sulu.lerc.nasa.gov/history/abe.html> This was back in
>the 50s when they were trying to perfect the liquid hydrogen rocket
>engine which was later used in the Saturn V to get to the Moon. One
>of Abe's engineers had been working day and night trying to solve a
>problem with the liquid hydrogen engine. He had formulaes and blueprints
>streched out over yards of desk space. After several days of this guy
>racking his brain, Abe strolled by and ask what he was doing and what
>seemed to be the problem? Abe studied the blueprint for about a minute
>and said, why don't you just move this over there and connect the two?
>They built it just the way Abe suggested and it worked. Again,
>simplicity
>wins out over the complexity of "high intelligence".
> Earlier, I told you that my son, when he was 4 1/2 showed he could
>pick out winning trades with the best in the business. I don't know if
>he did this totally based on his inherent talent or what he learned in
>pre-school, but I doubt he would score anywhere near genius on one of
>those tests. He is a normal kid, hasn't written his first symphony yet
>or been accepted to Harvard.
> I am not so sure there is a conclusion to draw from all of this, as
>much as a question as to what "genius" and high IQ really mean and
>whether this type of mentality is an asset or a liability in trading. I
>do know that the utlimate "IQ test" in trading the markets is one's
>track record and the resulting REAL TIME REAL MONEY profits or losses.
>Those
>who publicly lay claim to being geniuses on a trading forum should be
>willing support this by having their indepenently monitored real time
>track records made readily available to all interested parties.
>
>Simply,
>
>Norman
>
>
>
>
>
>
>My 5 year old son proved that he could trade futures with the best
>in the business.
>
>
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