The environmental group, Goldman Environmental Prize has recently highlighted their 2011 winners.   The North American winner, Hilton Kelley did an admirable job cleaning up pollution in his home town of Port Arthur Texas, but as usual the press can’t seem to leave a good story alone and just let it be good.

Instead, they used bad math, with no evidence & no context, to transform Mr. Kelley’s pollution cleanup efforts with the “C” word… as posted @ Phsyic’s Today (here):

…his hometown… was troubled by the pollution—the city and surrounding county had one of the highest levels of air pollution in the US, and residents suffered from cancer rates that were 23% higher than the state average, according to the Texas Cancer Registry.

The problem is this statement seems to imply that this particular “pollution” led to higher cancer rates, yet no evidence is presented.

Not only is no evidence presented, but additionally statistics teaches us that in any broad distribution, pockets within that distribution will contain statistical anomalies.

As a thought experiment – try this analogous (numbers based upon TX population versus Port Arthur), yet meaningless statement:

“when testing the 50/50 proposition of coin flips, out of 24 million total flips, in a group of 55K of those flips, there as a 23% higher incidence rate of ‘heads’ than in the total.”

Infinite Monkey Theorems

Headlines 

Worth Reading 

….or at least pondering and forgetting….. 

From the First Amendment Center, the new Alabama governor displays amazing religious intolerance and arrogance.  I thought this was 2011….. (whole thing here): 

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley told a church crowd just moments into his new administration that those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior are not his brothers and sisters, shocking some critics who questioned yesterday whether he could be fair to non-Christians. 

“Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother,” Bentley said Jan. 17, his inauguration day, according to The Birmingham News. 

From the Obama Administration: Remember Obamacare?  Which was going to add 39 million previously uninsured people to the status of insured (here via CBO)?  

Well, here we are in 2011 – a time when Obamacare is *not* implemented and the provisions that have gone into effect only went into affect on January 1, 2011. 

Apparently that’s a very long time though….. as according to the WhiteHouse via the Department of Health and Human Services, repealing Obamacare will put 129 million insured at risk (here via HealthCare.gov). 

Seriously?  I wonder if DHHS is still accepting information on those (here via DA) dealing in misinformation with regards to Obamacare? 

From Wired, a meaningless, and based upon presented evidence, a false headline [emphasis added] Supreme Court Upholds Intrusive Government Background Checks.   

The actual article?  

The Supreme Court ruled that private contractors working for the government cannot be shielded from background investigations based upon a right to privacy.  That government contractors can in fact, by virtue that they are basically government employees, be treated just as any other federal employee. 

Maybe it’s just me, but subjecting yourself to a background check that resembles the exact same background check of others you work with doesn’t seem to be intrusive.  

Which is irregardless for Wired anyway, as even *if* this decision could be argued logically as intrusion, the article doesn’t even attempt to offer proof of such an assertion. 

From eScience News, US Office of Naval Research announces big news on the “Cool Things That Kill” front (here): 

Scientists at Los Alamos National Lab, N.M., have achieved a remarkable breakthrough with the Office of Naval Research’s Free Electron Laser (FEL) program, demonstrating an injector capable of producing the electrons needed to generate megawatt-class laser beams for the Navy’s next-generation weapon system. 

Artist's Rendering "PHALANX WITH LASER CANNON" Source: Raytheon

To put a little context into what megawatt means (1,000 kilowatts), Scientific American reports in July 2010 (here): 

In a grainy, black-and-white video that looks like a home movie of a UFO attack a sleek aircraft streaks through the sky one minute, only to burst into flames the next and plummet into the sea…. 

Using a 32-kilowatt laser (article cont’d): 

The defense contractor says it depicts part of a test conducted in May during which the U.S. Navy used a solid-state laser to shoot down unmanned aerial vehicles over the Pacific Ocean…. 

& Lastly – ESO’s Hidden Treasure Contest reveals winner (here): 

M78 for ESO Processing contest. WFI camera on 2.2m telescope

Hidden Treasures gave amateur astronomers the opportunity to search ESO’s vast archives of astronomical data for a well-hidden cosmic gem. Astronomy enthusiast Igor Chekalin from Russia won the first prize in this difficult but rewarding challenge…. 

More amazing astronomical artwork here: Top 100 from ESO

Over @ Freedom In Our Time blog, you can read a perfect example of finding facts in order to confirm an already preheld belief (whole thing here).  In this case, that preheld belief is none other than one shared by a large number of libertarians, that cops are bad.

In the article, he starts with some interesting stories about individual cops committing illegal acts against those they’ve sworn to protect.  Like most freedom loving people, I too abhor these stories and hope that the punishment fits the crime.

I will even go a step further and state clearly; I think the institution which is law enforcement has some serious issues with which should concern all Americans.  Not the least of which is the seeming ability for bad cops to keep or get new jobs, even after they’ve shown a propensity to abuse their discretionary power (not for now, but one can make the argument that with so many laws on the books, a law enforcement officer’s discretion increases – forest tree thing again).

Having said that my concerns about an institution, can’t be seen as an indictment on individual police officers.

Not so much with this author… starting with a story about bad cops, he finally, after many, many words later, reaches the real point:

What this means, of course, is that our system of “public safety” is built on a population of armed functionaries invested with the power of discretionary killing, many of whom are so emotionally unstable that they pose a potentially lethal threat even to themselves.

The proof offered?  Poorly understood stats:

Contrary to what we’re told to believe, law enforcement is not a particularly dangerous occupation, at least when measured in terms of acts of violence directed at police officers. However, police are frequently a lethal danger to themselves: According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, each year “twice as many cops … commit suicide as are killed in the line of duty.” Significantly, another Kenosha police officer killed himself just weeks prior to Strausbaugh’s suicide….

& an advocacy organization’s statements:

Former Maryland police officer Robert Douglas, executive director of the National P.O.L.I.C.E. Suicide Foundation, describes suicide as “the number one killer of law enforcement today.

Oh… and many, many, many words on some very bad cops who deserve very serious punishments.  Did I forget to mention that?

But easily enough, we can put that all aside and say by what we know in public, thanks to a somewhat informative press, and our interactions with the law enforcement community, that it’s highly likely that many of our law enforcement officers are not emotionally unstable.  If they were, we’d have fears larger than the price of the speeding ticket every single time we encountered an officer in uniform…. but we don’t.

So where’s the disconnect?

Well, firmly in the author’s mind, as this truly is a case where the author seeks to find specific anecdotes, combine those, evil as they may be, with insignificant statistics, and round us all up to the inevitable conclusion: police are in fact the boogeyman!

Police Officers in Reality

Other's Version of Reality

Armed with an understanding of reality is enough to refute this, but let’s take a closer look at the actual stats with respect to suicide and the statement “twice as many die of suicide as are killed in the line of duty”.

Let’s start with the word twice, and ask the analytical questions.  Twice of what?  Cause twice of zero, is well… zero.  So what is the killed in duty rate?  Police officer suicide rate?  & do these rates actually differ (more…)

Yesterday, DA posted an article on the Economist’s debate over language (here) with the following [emphasis added]:

Irregardless, she goes forward to talk about more interesting research, including ethnic bias, gender specific nouns, and even points to a study which attempts to show Hebrew-Arabic bilinguals speakers seem to show more favorable attitudes towards Jews when tested in Hebrew than Arabic.  (I find that claim dubious, but without more access to the research, I’ll leave that point for now.)

My initial concerns with this research were how it was conducted and what assumptions were made.  After some searching, I’m unable to retrieve the actual study, but did find some underlying issues worth nothing.

The study Ms. Boroditsky cites above, used a test known as Implicit Association Test (IAT) (here via Association for Psychological Science – APS):

The study used a computer test known as the Implicit Association Test, which is often used to study bias….

The question at hand then, is whether IAT can actually show true bias.  The way it works (APS continued):

…Words flash on the computer screen, and subjects have to categorize them by pressing two keys on the keyboard as quickly as possible. It’s a nearly automatic task, with no time to think about the answers. The trick is, the subjects are classifying two different kinds of words: words describing positive and negative traits and, in this case, names – Arab names like Ahmed and Samir and Jewish names like Avi and Ronen. For example, they might be told to press “M” when they saw an Arab name or a word with a good meaning, or “X” when they saw a Jewish name and a word with a bad meaning. In this example, if people automatically associate “good” words with Arabs and “bad” with Jews, they’ll be able to do the classifications faster than if their automatic association between the words is the other way around. In different sections of the test, different sets of words are paired….

 The idea being that a quick test might help to show hidden biases, even for those who are actively attempting to prevent such displays.

Intuitively however, this test seems unlikely to prove bias for a few reasons. 

The first of which is our knowledge that human’s subconscious isn’t conscious.  By its very definition, we don’t know what it is and we still have little idea of how, or even whether, these hidden thoughts interact with our conscious mind or thinking.

The second is our knowledge of overall human development.   Take a child raised and consistently indoctrinated with racist ideals.  While not simple, some of these children do grow up and by themselves learn the truth:  hating others based upon their race, religion, or other superficial factors, is not just stupid, but also marks one of the lowest or immoral thoughts.

But take this person… Any guesses on how this person might do on this test, even if they now live a life of a non-biased person?  Speculation  for sure; but I think ultimately logical.

Which dovetails to the third basic critique, brought to us by basic ideas in critical thinking. 

Nominally, one of the things a critical thinker must do in order to minimize bad decisions, is to understand their own biases.

& in this case, I don’t mean to limit this to racial biases brought about through family or societal pressures, but consider the word bias as more encompassing to include any consistent mode of thinking which negatively affects decisions.

From that point of view, the biases one should look for in critical thinking outside personal life, (more…)

MasterCard made a decision to stop taking credit card transactions for donations to Wikileaks and hackers struck back (here):

The website of MasterCard has been hacked and partially paralysed in apparent revenge for the international credit card’s decision to cease taking donations to WikiLeaks….

Though not very inventive nor innovative, they used an old and mostly discarded technique by anyone claiming the title “hacker” known as DOS (Denial of Service) – continued:

…A group of online activists calling themselves Anonymous appear to have orchestrated a DDOS (“distributed denial of service”) attack on the site, bringing its service at www.mastercard.com to a halt for many users….

& if that weren’t enough to prove a bunch of third graders have too much computer time on their hands, they decided to name their playground bullying an “operation”:

…”Operation: Payback” is the latest salvo in the increasingly febrile technological war over WikiLeaks. MasterCard announced on Monday that it would no longer process donations to the whistleblowing site, claiming it was engaged in illegal activity….

Irregardless, the truth is oppression by government or oppression by mob rule, is still oppression and by covertly attacking private business to try and punish specific policies or to try and force a change in policies is little better than taking your money forcefully at gunpoint.

There’s an interesting research paper on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by the Journal of Judgement and Decision Making (whole thing here):

The paper extends research on fixed-pie perceptions by suggesting that disputants may prefer proposals that are perceived to be equally attractive to both parties (i.e., balanced) rather than one-sided, because balanced agreements are seen as more likely to be successfully implemented. We test our predictions using data on Israeli support for the Geneva Accords, an agreement for a two state solution negotiated by unofficial delegations of Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 2003. The results demonstrate that Israelis are more likely to support agreements that are seen favorably by other Israelis, but — contrary to fixed-pie predictions — Israeli support for the accords does not diminish simply because a majority of Palestinians favors (rather than opposes) the accords. We show that implementation concerns create a demand among Israelis for balance in the degree to which each side favors (or opposes) the agreement. The effect of balance is noteworthy in that it creates considerable support for proposals even when a majority of Israelis and Palestinians OPPOSE the deal.

Or restated, it seems our sense of justice prefers balanced deals over seemingly one-sided deals, even if the balanced deal is opposed by the majorities of both interest groups.  Seems intuitive.

NBER has a great new research paper out discussing the size of social networking cliques versus their ability to aggregate information among of sources and whether size of the group is a correlative factor to asymptotic of learning (abstract here):

We develop a model of information exchange through communication and investigate its implications for information aggregation in large societies. An underlying state determines payoffs from different actions. Agents decide which others to form a costly communication link with incurring the associated cost….

We define asymptotic learning as the fraction of agents taking the correct action converging to one in probability as a society grows large…..

Our result shows that societies with too many and sufficiently large social cliques do not induce asymptotic learning, because each social clique would have sufficient information by itself, making communication with others relatively unattractive. Asymptotic learning results if social cliques are neither too numerous nor too large, in which case communication across cliques is encouraged….

The short version: If your social network is small enough in size, you can gain information aggregation and asymptotic learning by conversing outside your normal circle, by conversing with friends of friends…. which among other things, means if your social network is kept to a certain level, you are more likely to have more interactions with different social groups than if your group is too large.

For instance – if you have 100 friends, you might have time to wade through some stuff, even post on a few statuses here and there.  You also have the option of seeing other people post on that status whom you might not even know.  That simple interaction can open a new individual source of information and dialog you might never have encountered otherwise.  I can personally think of a few people this is definitely true with me, but that’s a side note.

From the other side – the opposite side is also true.  When your social network becomes too large, your time, ability, and even willingness to move past all the communications you have to view to possibly even interact with others you might not know becomes prohibitive.  IE – the cost of adding yourself into additional social networks and though which learn more, becomes too high.

Take a mundane example – let’s say you love hot dogs and they’re on sale for cheaper than ever, say 50 cents a package.  Why not buy them all?  Because of the law of diminishing returns.  The first 5 packages you pick up might be worth $2.50 easily, but each additional package you retrieve results in spending a higher percentage of your income on something you already now have 5 of.  So each additional package above some individual amount, becomes worth less and less.

Of course this social network size has implications in government as well.  This line of reasoning can be taken to contemplate how large societies in general should be.  Not that there’s a perfect size and I wouldn’t advocate force for any perfect number, but how many people is truly efficient to be under one local government and when does having a larger community under the same local government possibly discourage social interactions & even a feeling or sense of community.

It seems obvious that 300 million under one federal banner isn’t a good idea & the same can probably be said to be true of most large urban areas.   This isn’t to say 20 million people can’t live in a relatively densely populated place, but that even in that sense, there would be many micro communities of much smaller size to encourage interactions, involvement, & true compromise.

As they say, all politics are local.  For me – I can only say I’ve met quite a few friends through this method.  People I call friends who, like most, agree with nothing I ever say, but for whom I’m a richer person for having met all of them.

The moral of the story – I guess the same old thing, everything in moderation.  But again we see the real genius of the internet, in decentralized information sharing.  Without this mechanism making this possible at all, we wouldn’t even be discussing the size of our social networks.

Not that most humans seem destined to challenge themselves or their beliefs… the data shows most people still seem to only seek out confirmation sources instead of new information (here & here)….meh.

Hopefully someday lots of people will use all that wonderful information to question to their beliefs instead of constantly reinforcing their perceptions, but for now – I wouldn’t hold your breathe

What’s going on around the web?

Jon Stewart on the “Mosque @ Ground Zero” (here).  Well worth the 6 minutes and highly illuminating.  While all news reports seem to state the same “Mosque @ Ground Zero” it’s more appropriate to say the truth:  it’s an Islamic Cultural Center close to ground zero – not on it.

Maybe it’s just me, but there seems to be a lot of faux outrage on this one.

@ ScienceBlogs.Com they have a bizarre reading of what they are calling a bizarre reading (here):

CNSNews, formerly the Christian News Service, has the most bizarre way to frame Judge Walker’s Prop 8 ruling that I’ve seen yet:

U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who ruled last week that a voter-approved amendment to California’s constitution that limited marriage to the union of one man and one woman violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, based that ruling in part on his finding that a child does not need and has no right to a mother. Nor, he found, does a child have a need or a right to a father….

But if you go to the full article on CNSNews, they are specifically disputing claims the judge used in “finding of fact” papers, which ultimately were then used as justification for his ruling.

So while I probably don’t agree with CNSNews 99% of the time, they didn’t frame anything.  They didn’t make any assertions.  A judge, wrote papers which are now considered legal facts (as if a jury had made the same decision) & CNSNews responded directly to those papers.

Even if you disagree with CNSNews, I think the judge is the one who framed the debate, they just followed it by responding directly to them.

In Psychology news, apparently they’re running out of problems.   Even as the DSM has grown from 182 disorders and 34 pages long in 1968,  to 297 disorders in 886 pages in 1994 (via Wiki here), it’s not big enough.

Speakers on Sunday at the 118th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association have a new scourge to talk about:  super heroes in comic books (via EScienceNews here):

Watching superheroes beat up villains may not be the best image for boys to see if society wants to promote kinder, less stereotypical male behaviors, according to psychologists who spoke Sunday at the 118th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association. “There is a big difference in the movie superhero of today and the comic book superhero of yesterday,” said psychologist Sharon Lamb, PhD, distinguished professor of mental health at University of Massachusetts-Boston. “Today’s superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence; he’s aggressive, sarcastic and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity. When not in superhero costume, these men, like Ironman, exploit women, flaunt bling and convey their manhood with high-powered guns.”

The comic book heroes of the past did fight criminals, she said, “but these were heroes boys could look up to and learn from because outside of their costumes, they were real people with real problems and many vulnerabilities,” she said….

Even if I were to accept the idea that everything they are stating is true in that a) today’s superheroes are giving superheroes a bad name & that b) this affects some percentage of readers – the numbers are still too low in my estimation to warrant further research.

I mean really, what exactly is the percentage of population who routinely read comic books?

& out of all of them, not all will be effected in the same way, while most will not be impacted either way (other than knowing the comic book material itself).

My point is that while figures aren’t easy to come by, we’re probably talking about less than 1 percent of the population who routinely read comic books and only a very small percentage of them will ever be overly effected by it.

Maybe it’s just mean, but seems like a waste of time and research money.

Side note: for a better understanding of the pressing issues facing pyschology today, there is a great article via FAQs.org via The Skeptic Magazine here.

Lastly, will Israel attack Iran (debate via The Atlantic here):

In the few days since the current issue of The Atlantic came out, Jeffrey Goldberg’s cover story, “The Point of No Return,” has already prompted sharp thoughts, big feelings, and intense discussion. Among the early responses, we’ve seen a quick, widespread recognition of scope of Goldberg’s reporting and the depth of his analysis. Fred Kaplan comments over at Slate….

I don’t always concur with Mr. Goldberg, but his analysis is spot on.  The question isn’t whether Israel will do it, but when (assuming Iran continues forward with their ambitions).  The possible results of Israel having a neighboring country whose leaders have consistently espoused the complete removal of Israel and all Jews from the area, puts them at a risk level where the alternatives are limited.

To put it another way – Israel’s government, the US government, the Russian government…. all of them have the primary responsibility of keeping their nation secure & a nuclear Iran not only makes Israel quite a bit less safe, but increases the risks of a nuclear bomb being released to a degree which is simply too high for Israel to ignore.