Manuel "Moe" G.

Nice sarcastic invite for blog comments

2012-02-27T14:16:00.000-08:00

Image via WikipediaWhile reading Reddit Politics, I spotted this comment pointing out the solicitation for comments on the site "The Big Picture":

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ftpis/president_of_fox_news_will_be_indictedmaybe_even/c1ijv3p

The Big Picture - http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/

"Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous."

The importance of stupidity in scientific research

2011-03-04T11:32:00.000-08:00

Image via WikipediaFrom a comment to

Only In It For The Gold - Michael Tobis - "Bad Media Advice"

by Dan Olner March 4, 2011 1:11 AM:

Here's Feynman on the 'terrible uncomfortable feeling called confusion'. And here's a great little paper on 'the importance of stupidity in scientific research' - "actively seek out new opportunities to feel stupid."

The importance of stupidity in scientific research

Martin A. Schwartz - 9 April 2008 - jcs.biologists.org

Excerpt:

I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major environmental organization. At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else.

I had thought of her as one of the brightest people I knew and her subsequent career supports that view. What she said bothered me. I kept thinking about it; sometime the next day, it hit me. Science makes me feel stupid too. It's just that I've gotten used to it. So used to it, in fact, that I actively seek out new opportunities to feel stupid. I wouldn't know what to do without that feeling. I even think it's supposed to be this way. Let me explain.

For almost all of us, one of the reasons that we liked science in high school and college is that we were good at it. That can't be the only reason – fascination with understanding the physical world and an emotional need to discover new things has to enter into it too. But high-school and college science means taking courses, and doing well in courses means getting the right answers on tests. If you know those answers, you do well and get to feel smart.

A Ph.D., in which you have to do a research project, is a whole different thing. For me, it was a daunting task. How could I possibly frame the questions that would lead to significant discoveries; design and interpret an experiment so that the conclusions were absolutely convincing; foresee difficulties and see ways around them, or, failing that, solve them when they occurred? My Ph.D. project was somewhat interdisciplinary and, for a while, whenever I ran into a problem, I pestered the faculty in my department who were experts in the various disciplines that I needed. I remember the day when Henry Taube (who won the Nobel Prize two years later) told me he didn't know how to solve the problem I was having in his area. I was a third-year graduate student and I figured that Taube knew about 1000 times more than I did (conservative estimate). If he didn't have the answer, nobody did.

That's when it hit me: nobody did. That's why it was a research problem. And being my research problem, it was up to me to solve. Once I faced that fact, I solved the problem in a couple of days. (It wasn't really very hard; I just had to try a few things.) The crucial lesson was that the scope of things I didn't know wasn't merely vast; it was, for all practical purposes, infinite. That realization, instead of being discouraging, was liberating. If our ignorance is infinite, the only possible course of action is to muddle through as best we can.

Links on Rational Discussion

2011-01-03T12:18:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

Currently, I see that Rationality is all about a very high standard for yourself and for your allies. Worrying about the standard of rationality of enemies and opponents should be a very small part. There is a finite amount of energy, and that energy is best used to keep the self from deluding the self with comfortable ideas.

It is interesting that nobody wants to be seen as irrational, but very few happy assume the burden of a very high standard for rationality for their own thoughts.

John Wilkins - Evolving Thoughts - A Code of Conduct for Effective Rational Discussion

The Fallibility Principle
The Truth-Seeking Principle
The Clarity Principle
The Burden of Proof Principle
The Principle of Charity
The Relevance Principle
The Acceptability Principle
The Sufficiency Principle
The Rebuttal Principle
The Resolution Principle
The Suspension of Judgement Principle
The Reconsideration Principle
Fleck’s Addendum

Some of my own posts on Rational Discussion and Rationality:

How trusted is the "Big Five" Personality Traits in mainstream psychology?

2010-12-29T10:32:00.000-08:00

flickr | Graela "Bathroom Personality Assessment - Part 2"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9441263@N04/3984047524/

From Andrew Gelman, Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science, December 29, 2010 9:10 AM

Comments to "Brain Structure and the Big Five"

Sanjay Srivastava | December 29, 2010 10:36 AM

Walter Mischel's famous critique predated the Big Five. His critique was of the concept of a personality trait more broadly. If you ask around at Mischel's home department they'll probably tell you that Mischel won the argument, but that's not the mainstream view among personality psychologists elsewhere. In fact, I don't think there's a single mainstream view on traits or the Big Five, but I'd guess that many personality psychologists would endorse, at a minimum, "useful enough until a better model comes along." Some might go a lot farther. (Some of my own views on the Big Five are in this paper, if you're curious.)

Russell Almond | December 29, 2010 11:15 AM

A quick comment about the Big-5. A couple of years ago, I did some consulting with a psychologist who was developing new personality measures. The standard practice for validating the new measure was to give it as part of a battery to a sample of the target population, along with the Big 5, and other known measure that were similar to the target. I got the impression that it wasn't that the Big 5 were thought of as the answer to everything, but that it was a starting point that most people in the field understood. The burden of proof was to show that your proposed measures was something other than a composite of the 5 factors in the Big 5.

My comments: trying to get a fix on the Big Five. George E. P. Box: "All models are wrong, some models are useful"

Fetishizing p-Values - The Cult of Statistical Significance

2010-09-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

en.wikipedia.org William Sealy Gosset

Fetishizing p-Values; Tom Leinster - The n-Category Cafe

Recovering the insight of "Student" Gosset from the over-simplification of Ronald A. Fisher

http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2010/09/fetishizing_pvalues.html

Leinster: Now there’s a whole book making the same point: The Cult of Statistical Significance, by two economists, Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey. You can see their argument in this 15-page paper with the same title. Just because they’re economists doesn’t mean their prose is sober: according to one subheading, ‘Precision is Nice but Oomph is the Bomb’.

http://www.statlit.org/pdf/2009ZiliakMcCloskeyASA.pdf

Leinster: it is true that p-value does not measure the magnitude of the effect (but then, anyone who has taken at least one course in statistics should know that)

I think Jost, Ziliak and McCloskey would completely agree that anyone who has taken at least one course in statistics should know that. They’re pointing out, open-mouthed, that this incredibly basic mistake is being made on a massive scale, including by many people who should know much, much better. Bane used the term ‘collective self-deception’; one might go further and say ‘mass delusion’. It’s a situation where a fundamental mistake has become so ingrained in how science is done that it’s hard to get your paper accepted if you don’t perpetuate that mistake.

That last statement is probably putting it too strongly, but as I understand it, the point they’re making is along those lines.

From the 15-page paper "The Cult of Statistical Significance":

In 1937 Gosset, the inventor and original calculator of “Student’s” t-table told Egon, then editor of Biometrika, that a significant finding is by itself “nearly valueless”:

...obviously the important thing in such is to have a low real error, not to have a "significant" result at a particular station. The latter seems to me to be nearly valueless in itself. . . . Experiments at a single station [that is, tests of statistical significance on a single set of data] are almost valueless. . . . What you really want is a low real error. You want to be able to say not only "We have significant evidence that if farmers in general do this they will make money by it", but also "we have found it so in nineteen cases out of twenty and we are finding out why it doesn't work in the twentieth.” To do that you have to be as sure as possible which is the 20th—your real error must be small...

Gosset to E. S. Pearson 1937, in Pearson 1939, p. 244.

Gosset, we have noted, is unknown to most users of statistics, including economists. Yet he was proposing and using in his own work at Guinness a characteristically economic way of looking at the acquisition of knowledge and the meaning of “error.” The inventor of small sample econometrics focused on the opportunity cost of each observation; he tried to minimize random and non-random errors, real errors.

Edit 11/12/10

A very nice write-up here, along same lines: Significance Tests in Climate Science -- Maarten H. P. Ambaum -- http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~sws97mha/Publications/jclim_ambaum_rev2.pdf

Consider a scientist who is interested in measuring some effect and who does an experiment in the lab. Now consider the following thought process that the scientist goes through:

My measurement stands out from the noise.

So my measurement is not likely to be caused by noise.

It is therefore unlikely that what I am seeing is noise.

The measurement is therefore positive evidence that there is really something happening.

This provides evidence for my theory.

This apparently innocuous train of thought contains a serious logical fallacy, and it appears at a spot where not many people notice it.

To the surprise of most, the logical fallacy occurs between step 2 and step 3. Step 2 says that there is a low probability of finding our specific measurement if our system would just produce noise. Step 3 says that there is a low probability that the system just produces noise. These sound the same but they are entirely different.

This can be compactly described using Bayesian statistics...

This comes from a summary of the paper: How significance tests are misused in climate science -- Guest post by Dr Maarten H. P. Ambaum from the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, U.K. -- http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=456#

Edit 11/21/10

Significance Tests, frequentist vs. bayesian

Open Mind | tamino.wordpress.com | much-ado-about-something

Dikran Marsupial | November 14, 2010 at 10:49 am

When we perform a test of statistical significance test, what we
would really like to ask is “what is the probability that the
alternative hypothesis is true?”. A frequentist analysis
fundamentally cannot give a direct answer to that question, as
they cannot meaningfully talk of the probability of a hypothesis
being true – it is not a random variable, it is either true or
false and has no “long run frequency”. Instead, the frequentists
gives a rather indirect answer to the question by telling you the
likelihood of the observations assuming the null hypothesis is
true and leaving it up to you to decide what to conclude from
that. A Bayesian on the other hand can answer the question
directly as the Bayesian definition of probability is not based
on long run frequencies but on the state of knowledge of the
truth of a proposition. The problem with frequentist statistical
test is that there is a tendency to interpret the result as if it
were the result of a Bayesian test, which is natural as that is
the form of answer we generally want, but still wrong.

The frequentist approach avoids the “subjectivity” of the
Bayesian approach (although the extent of that “subjectivity” is
debatable), but this is only achieved at the expense of not
answering the question we would most like to ask. It could be
argued that the frequentist approach merely shifts the
subjectivity from the analysis to the interpretation (what should
we conclude based on our p-value). Which form of analysis you
should use depends on whether you find the “subjectivity” of the
Bayesian approach or the “indirectness” of the frequentist
approach most abhorrent! ;o)

At the end of the day, as long as the interpretation is
consistent with the formulation, there is no problem and both
forms of analysis are useful.

This was my favorite comment, the whole sub-thread underneath is interesting. The original Open Mind | tamino.wordpress.com article has good qualifications to Dr Maarten H. P. Ambaum's Skeptical Science post.

Valuing stewardship of the environment for future generations, or not

2010-09-21T15:18:00.000-07:00

commons.wikimedia.org Sheep_eating_grass_edit02.jpg

Attempted to post comment to Offsetting Behaviour - Eric Crampton : Yer either fer us or agin us

[ I am not speaking to the game-theoretic analysis of New Zealand leaving Kyoto -- Bjorn's swaying this way or that notwithstanding, there is no rational reason for NZ to stay inside Kyoto, unless it was seen as the price for signaling environmental concern. ]

The same climate scientists that Lomborg disparaged for stating evidence of high sensitivities for carbon emissions are now the same climate scientists he will trust to run geo-engineering. This is the the most embarrassing contradiction of Lomborg's evolving stance.

The Copenhagen Consensus cost-benefit analysis put carbon taxes at the bottom by valuing stewardship of the environment for future generations at zero. The same way pre-school for my toddler would be at the bottom of a cost-benefit analysis of all uses of my money, if I valued his own future earnings and quality of life at zero.

If you are standing on the train tracks with a freight train coming in five minutes, you have the choice to leap off the tracks. A "compromise" position of shifting over a few inches will have no effect, no matter how much you value "moderation and reasonableness". If you limit your analysis to only the next step minutes and fifty-nine seconds, the energy expended in the leap is a waste.

I wish we had the choice to live in an "warmer average" world -- it would be nice. If you put two bullets in a six chambered gun to play Russian roulette, on "average", you are still alive but with a headache. But the "average" is an abstraction, and in reality you have to deal with the consequences of the spun barrel. The risk is not a warmer world -- the risk is an over-energetic world that no longer has the climate stability that allowed civilization and large-scale agriculture and inexpensive & quick transportation to be developed and maintained.

It is fine to consider all possible humanitarian uses of scarce capital. The weight that stewardship of the environment for future generations should not be infinite, lest you indulge in pointless profligacy towards but a single goal. But that does not imply that stewardship of the environment for future generations should be weighted at zero.

[ This implies value placed on trying to give future generations a "western/first world" standard of living much like what we currently enjoy. If we are satisfied with a few hundred thousand on each continent living under conditions like indigenous peoples, living along the new raised coastlines and grasslands freed from permafrost, with climate instability but the net warmth & wetness still giving the ability to feed from the meat of small grazing animals, the costs we would bare would be slight. ]

Edit 9/21/10: Reply via Google Buzz from Eric Crampton:

If investing in tech reduces more warming per dollar spent than do other things, what's the problem with redirecting spending towards tech?
Copenhagen valued future generations the same way that cost-benefit analysis typically values future generations: by applying a standard discount rate. That doesn't say that future people don't count; rather, it says that future people might prefer being given cash.

My reply:

"""That doesn't say that future people don't count; rather, it says that future people might prefer being given cash"""

If I am the victim of blunt trauma, I may not value a cash dispersal later over a medical intervention now. There is a rational case to be made that the two are hardly substitutes in some circumstances.

I agree that I should have been more careful and said "valuing stewardship of the environment for future generations, *particularly* in reducing the risk of the very worst outcomes". I will be more careful in future.

"""If investing in tech reduces more warming per dollar spent than do other things, what's the problem with redirecting spending towards tech?"""

No argument here. But the lack of breakthrough tech *now* implies non-zero carbon taxes *now* (and there is a moral argument for quite substantial taxes now). I am certain it will take a few decades of people seeing global military preparation for the worst possible outcomes of climate disruption before it is plain that environmental stewardship may be worth 5 or more points of global economic activity. It is not surprising that substantial carbon taxes have near zero political traction in the two largest economies, now.

Selling Fantasies: Breakthrough Institute

2010-09-13T17:10:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emperor_Clothes_01.jpg

Comment on Michael Tobis post "The Breakthrough Idea"

Breakthrough Institute works like the Copy Protection technology wizards selling their tech to record companies. It cannot work, because the pirates will always find a workaround towards copy protection - you are merely punishing your customers and training them to be pirates when they try to use your product in convenient ways. The Copy Protection technology wizards are not selling a working solution - because a solution is impossible - they are selling a pleasant fantasy to the record companies in the few years their business model has left.

People do not confine themselves to buying working products. Sometimes they will purchase fantasies. Look at the exercise gizmos that people buy from TV.

The Breakthrough Institute doesn't have to provide solutions that work - it will provide fantasies that it can sell. So lets try and figure out who their customers are.

If you are in the top 0.5% of incomes, you are intelligent and you may be slightly distressed that your great grandchildren will be born into a boiling world (when you can be bothered to consider the issue). You have the ability to direct funding, and in these few years before the climate disruption really hits human agriculture and infrastructure, you are in the market for fantasies, sold to you by the semi-knowledgeable folk (who are probably sincere, because their confidence in their tech solutions surpasses their scientific capabilities). That is what people like the Breakthrough Institute are selling. For example, Warren Buffet doesn't consider himself a bad person, and he cares for his grandchildren. But he has also made a huge bet on coal transport infrastructure. He would love to support the Breakthrough Institute by some means, to reconcile his position on the responsibility of environmental stewardship for future generations.

"The Breakthrough Institute, a project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc." lets you know about the customers they are after. How did good ol' John D. make is money?

Lets predict their structure. They will rarely speak in absolute moral terms - they will never flatly state that it is craven to leave future generations a boiling world just because a handful of generations could not bare to lower their standard of living. The absolute moral issues will always be left unspoken. Those that talk about the moral issues will be marginalized as "un-serious" or "alarmist".

They will strive to distance themselves from the worst of the denialists. Pielke Jr and Fuller practically fell over their own feet trying to run away from Virginia State Attorney General Cuccinelli. But they will take "warmist" commentators that have a record of limiting themselves to the published science, like Romm, and equate them with denialists that spout off bat-shit nonsense - even thought the implication of equivalence is ridiculous. But you will know them by their actions, because they will spend most of their energy arguing against those with the clearest grasp of the facts, and moral issues, and political challenges.

It is the foolish "moderate" position of shifting your stance a few inches when you are standing on tracks, freight train coming. The half measure doesn't leave you just half-dead.

All you can do is make the case to ethical decision makers that they are being sold a bill of goods, by comparing the statements and techniques and rhetorical stances of the Breakthrough Institute to bunglers that stood in the way of decisions of moral courage, and the weavers of the Emperors New Clothes. These are the "moderate" apologists for moral failures - like those who stood in the way of eradicating slavery, or were the audience for the Letter from a Birmingham Jail, or were willing to negotiate with Hitler, or were willing to overlook Stalin's crimes. In all these cases, you could find "moderates" that participated in moral failures, and argued for positions with shabby facts and shabby rhetorical devices.

Edit: 09/14/10

Reply by Steve Bloom:

Moe, Rockefeller is the BTI fiscal sponsor; the main funder throughout has been the Nathan Cummings Foundation. By itself the fiscal sponsorship doesn't mean much,although it may well in this instance.

How can we define "Useful", when it comes to our models of reality?

2010-08-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

Wikimedia Commons: "N-Gauge Cassiopeia E26 & EF81 from Kato"

A comment to "Useful models, model checking, and external validation: a mini-discussion" by Andrew Gelman - Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

Gelman wrote (with Cosma Shalizi) a very fine philosophical justification for real-world, effective Bayesian techniques, which differs greatly from the usual philosophy associated with Bayesians.

Gelman, Shalizi: Philosophy and the practice of Bayesian statistics in the social sciences

My own recurring criticism of Gelman is of using Bayesian/statistical models to the exclusion of others. I am more comfortable with the idea of models of different type in competition.

http://manuelmoeg.blogspot.com/search/label/Model%20building

The multiple models you then have will now compete in different uses - based on predictive power, accuracy, ability to calculate meaningful error ranges, cost of collecting data, cost of computation, cost of comparison, ability to predict outcomes from interventions, cost of understanding, etc.

quoting Gelman:

"We always talk about a model being "useful" but the concept is hard to quantify."

My comment:
Simply build a model of costs and gains and methods of comparison between models! If a model is good enough for your work, a model must be good enough as a working definition of "useful"!

Sometimes the best answer to "Why" is "Just because". Sometimes the best mechanism for rating different models is another model. The Skeptics will always howl, so you simply have to demonstrate that their own behavior is consistent with putting undue confidence in their own model, whether a conscious model or unconscious. (And, it must simply terminate with a model, because of the limits of the tools available to the human brain. Only a model, probably over-simplified, can be manipulated with the agility needed to predict future outcomes of the universe from actions considered now, in real-time.)

Just keep asking the Skeptic "Why" with regards to their own personal actions, and when they hit the "Just because" point, they probably have described a model of utility, assumed true without proof, as an answer to "Why" in the previous step.

If the Skeptic refuses ultimate responsibility over their personal actions, and tries to plead pure capriciousness or mystery, then their model is simply statistical, based on stimulus and internal states (like stress) that can be approximately discovered with objective external measures (like galvanic skin response). Of course, it is easier to plead pure capriciousness or mystery than demonstrate it - if their behavior is well predicted by a deterministic model suggested by another, the Skeptic is shut up. Most times the reason for behaviors is gross and banal, no matter how elevated the sophistry of the Skeptic.

Thoughts on Roger Pielke Jr. | Stand-Up Economist - Yoram Bauman

2010-07-30T15:52:00.000-07:00

wikipedia.org - Childe's_Tomb

Thoughts on Roger Pielke Jr. | Stand-Up Economist - Yoram Bauman

As an economist, I found Roger’s lack of discussion of climate impacts to be extremely disturbing. If—totally hypothetically—the science said that hitting 450ppm would cause the planet to explode, I’m pretty sure Roger’s talk would have looked different. (At least I hope so!) The economic point here is that cost-benefit analysis has two halves—costs and benefits—and you can’t do it by just talking about one of the two halves. Why Roger failed to talk about both halves has me totally perplexed and leaves me questioning how much he actually knows about economics. (For the record, he’s not an economist, so I think this is a legitimate question, not an insulting one. He’s a political scientist, but his talk was not about the intersection of science and politics; his talk was fundamentally about economics.)

RPJr's rhetorical trick "there is a lot of misunderstanding and misrepresentation displayed in this post... Fortunately, my new book covers all of these points so that there should be no ambiguity in my views." is annoying.

As if a book is a tomb for the ideas of a public intellectual, and it makes them incapable of stating plainly their views in public forums.

Y. Bauman refuses to play ball:

"Okay, here are some questions: (1) What did you say about the tenets of climate science? (Then I’ll try to get a video of your talk and see if I owe you an apology.) (2) How would you quickly characterize the main points of your talk? (3) Since you note above that you “did not discuss costs or benefits”, I’m curious about why. Do you not think cost-benefit analysis is important? (4) How (if at all) would your talk have been different if the scientific consensus was that 450ppm would destroy the planet?"

Is RPJr so craven as to simply "hit-and-run" from this forum, now that the questions are specific? Stay tuned!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Related posts:

[Edit 7/31/10]

To my surprise, RPJr replied; his answers:

1. I used a “bathtub” model to describe the challenge of stabilization and I argued that everyone in the debate on all sides agree that CO2 has impacts. Where there are debates is when those impacts become dangerous (the height of the bathtub, e.g., 450 ppm) and the consequences of spilling over. Such debates are of course legitimate.

2. Three points: A. Targets and timetables for reducing emissions now being discussed or even enacted in law (e.g., in the UK) are not credible (I think I proved this), B. Stabilizing concentrations requires advances in technology deployment and innovation rather than GDP contraction (shown a bit, but largely asserted), C. Acccelerating decarbonization requires much greater public investments in technology (asserted not proven).

3. I’ve written a lot of CBA, and teach it as well. This talk was not about CBA, but policy evaluation. I am happy to discuss the topic.

4. I have no idea.

flickr.com/photos/psd/1806225034
"Moral Compass" by "psd"

My comments to (1): "Such debates are of course legitimate." RPJr has a problem with the debate coming to provisional conclusion, on the side of the science and the moral question of future generations being left a livable world - a provisional conclusion where we begin work on drastically reducing carbon emissions and mitigate previous carbon emissions, where GDP takes a major haircut if need be. RPJr's fretting and fussing is consistent with the moral question of future generations being left a livable world always taking a backseat to today's GDP/standard of living - but he doesn't have the guts to admit that, or he realizes that if his cravenness is so obvious, he gives up any chance of political effect.

My comments to (2): Actually, this is the first sensible thing RPJr has ever said, to my knowledge. It is very true: we have exactly zero experience with asking citizens to voluntarily cut their standard of living for the moral outcome of future generations being left a livable world. "Warmists", it can be argued, don't have the guts to admit this, or they realize that if they are so truthful they give up any chance of political effect.

My comments to (3): Why talk to economists about policy evaluation without reference to cause and effect? That was Y. Bauman's original puzzlement.

My comments to (4): Pathetic. Again, RPJr cannot deal with science predicting catastrophe (catastrophe, because it is hard to imagine the moral monsters that could cheerfully leave future generations an unlivable world), because his goal is that he moral question of future generations being left a livable world always taking a backseat to today's GDP/standard of living. That can be used to perfectly predict his reaction to anything.

Protect American Jobs! No Soot Tax!

2010-07-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

news.stanford.edu/news/2010/july/soot-emissions-ice-072810.html

flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/2960116125/
Ice cased Adelie penguins
after a blizzard at Cape Denison /
photograph by Frank Hurley

"The quickest, best way to slow the rapid melting of Arctic sea ice is to reduce soot emissions from the burning of fossil fuel, wood and dung, according to a new study by Stanford researcher Mark Z. Jacobson.

[...]

Soot from the burning of fossil fuels and solid biofuels contributes far more to global warming than has been thought, according to a new Stanford study. But, unlike carbon dioxide, soot lingers only a few weeks in the atmosphere, so cutting emissions could have a significant and rapid impact on the climate. Controlling soot may be the only option for saving the Arctic sea ice from melting."

I smell Stealth Issue Advocacy! I smell a Dishonest Broker! (I smell a witch)

Protect American Jobs! No Soot Tax! In my new book, soon to come out, I argue that there are huge technical barriers, costs are too high and that we lack political will.

The Nathan Myhrvold and the Freeman Dyson recommend painting black penguins white with lead based paint.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Related links:

Can it be Irrational to prize Rationality? What is Rationality?

2010-07-28T16:58:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melancholia

I am a big fan of Scott Plous's The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making, because not only does it call out cognitive failure modes, but it also suggests remedies. The book is written in a non-technical style, so uses the conventional language of modes of thought being "Rational" or "Irrational", and "biases" leading to "Irrational" decisions.

I found a blog post "Is postdecisional dissonance functional?" that takes exception to calling "Post-decision dissonance" irrational (post-decisional dissonance is where the self-judged value of a chosen item increases, and the value of a declined item decreases, compared to the self-judged values before the choice is made: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance#Post-decision_dissonance ).

"Is postdecisional dissonance functional?" seems like a yes/no question, but the answer can change from situation to situation. We can construct a situation where this bias is "Irrational/dysfunctional", or is "Rational/functional".

Example: If postdecisional dissonance is the way that one "stops" the decision process, instead of endlessly revisiting a decision and wasting time and energy, then postdecisional dissonance is functional (this is the point raised by Konrad Talmont-Kaminski). If postdecisional dissonance keeps you from switching decisions when later you are offered the alternate choice along with a small but real payment, because you deny yourself the additional payment even though the options were judged to be identical in value, postdecisional dissonance is dysfunctional.

Which is the most likely scenario? What is the cost of a more rigorous and rational analysis? Different answers from subtle changes to these questions...

All of these biases, because they are manifest in humans today, cannot absolutely prevent reproductive success or success in cultural transmission of ideas, obviously. So you are on very shaky ground calling these biases non-adaptive. And if you cannot call them non-adaptive, what is the exact basis for calling them "Irrational/dysfunctional"?

Modeling, instead of using the language of Bias and Rationality and Functionality

George Mason University,
Dept of Statistics,
Gallery of Great Statisticians,
George E. P. Box
http://statistics.gmu.edu/pages/famous.html

That is why it is not always wise to use the culturally defined notion of rationality, or assume an implied sound situationally defined notion of rationality, and why *sometimes* there is benefit to specifically stating:

(1) the failure mode of decision that you are trying to avoid and

(2) how you are modeling the
(2A) cost of falling victim the failure mode and the
(2B) cost of remedy

(3) how you are modeling the likelihood of different scenarios taking place.

And different models will give different answers. As George E. P. Box says "All models are false but some models are useful."

[Edit 7/29/2010]

Very helpful reply [ http://deisidaimon.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/is-postdecisional-dissonance-functional/#comment-1675] from academic Konrad Talmont-Kaminski, but my profound ignorance prevents me from getting much from it. I am self-taught exclusively from an engineer's perspective of decision making from Decision Analysis texts [ term coined in 1964 by Ronald A. Howard ].

I fixed the post above, to add

1) specific examples as to how postdecisional dissonance can be functional or dysfunctional,

2) why one is unjustified to call manifest biases non-adaptive, and

3) the need to model the likelihood of different situations arising, or else the the analysis is nonsensical.

[Edit #2 7/29/2010]

Konrad Talmont-Kaminski recommends the writings of Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize winner in Economics 1978.

The link between Judith Curry and John Christy

2010-07-21T17:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oobrien/15139012/ oobrien

Judith Curry has the annoying habit of constantly recommending articles that she, herself, has not read closely and cannot personally vouch for. As if she is feeding the text of opposing arguments to a mailing list, in partial real-time, and parroting back the links.

Plus the reality of Singer, Lomborg, and John R. Christy being spent forces for irrational climate inaction and denialism, because prior talking points have been proved absolutely ridiculous over just a few years.

So the next wave of voices, with watered down arguments and moved goalposts, are Pielke Jr. and Judith Curry.

Offering articles that you cannot stand behind yourself is just another "heads I win, t~~ails you lose~~ tails I don't lose" trick in the Art of Controversy. So at least I can inform myself about the original source of the weak-soup arguments.

With not much to go on, and probably too much leaping without looking, I sense a link between the new voice of Judith Curry and the spent force of John R. Christy, made famous for his hatchet job on Al Gore in the Wall Street Journal opinion page.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/ess/index.html

NASA EARTH SCIENCE SUBCOMMITTEE REPORTS

Last updated August 29, 2009
The NASA Earth Science Subcommittee (ESS) advises the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) on priorities within the Earth Science Division (ESD), focusing on tactical implementation of the strategic vision expressed by NASA Initiatives and by external inputs from organizations such as the National Research Council (NRC). ESS was organized by NASA in April 2006 and presently has the following membership: Byron Tapley (chair), Daniel Jacob (vice-chair), John R. Christy, Judy Curry, James Hansen, Raymond Hoff, Gregory Jenkins, William Large, Patricia Matrai, Patrick McCormick, Anna Michalak, Jean-Bernard Minster, Michael S. Ramsey, Steven Running, Kamal Sarabandi, Robert Schutz, Hank Shugart, David Siegel, Mark Simons, Konrad Steffen, Charles Vorosmarty. Executive Secretary for ESS is Lucia Tsaoussi.

http://terryfrank.net/?p=2725

Nobel Laureate Dr. John Christy: “Without energy, life is brutal and short”
DAILY NEWS & COMMENTS
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal pointed to an interesting notable quote:

And when we build — and I’m one of the few people in the world that actually builds these climate data sets — we don’t see the catastrophic changes that are being promoted all over the place. ??For example, I suppose CNN did not announce two weeks ago when the Antarctic sea ice extent reached its all-time maximum, even though, in the Arctic in the North Pole, it reached its all-time minimum.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1919858/posts

JOHN R. CHRISTY: My Nobel Moment (2007 Nobel Peace Prize)
Wall Street Journal | November 1, 2007 | JOHN R. CHRISTY
Posted on Thu Nov 01 2007 18:35:15 GMT-0800 (Pacific Standard Time) by neverdem

I've had a lot of fun recently with my tiny (and unofficial) slice of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But, though I was one of thousands of IPCC participants, I don't think I will add "0.0001 Nobel Laureate" to my resume...

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/wiki/index.php/Deniers:_John_Christy

Calling "Climategate" for what it really is - Kerry Emanuel

2010-07-21T16:34:00.000-07:00

Image by http://www.flickr.com/photos/ikaink/3858586716/ IkaInk (Julian Wearne) via Flickr

“Climategate”: A Different Perspective - July 19, 2010 By Kerry Emanuel

ClimateProgress: Kerry Emanuel calls Climategate “the latest in a series of coordinated, politically motivated attacks that represent an aggravated assault on scholarship” - July 20, 2010

Slams Lindzen, Singer and Happer as liars

ClimateProgress:

MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel has been at the forefront of trying to explain many aspects of climate science to the public, especially in his field of expertise — hurricanes. He has written a good essay on the hacked emails, ” ‘Climategate’: A Different Perspective [ http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?doc_id=1444 ],” originally published at the National Association of Scholars [NAS] website. Near the end, he notes:

While the climategate email authors are castigated for not being paragons of virtue, the sins of others go unremarked. In the summer of 2009, a one-page letter was sent to Congress, signed by one actual climate scientist and six physicists with little or no background in climate science, three of whom were retired.

Among other untruths, it contained the sentence, referring to evidence of anthropogenic global warming, “There is no such evidence; it doesn’t exist.” I confronted the sole climate scientist among the authors with this statement, and he confessed that he did not hold that to be the case. Last I checked, lying to Congress was a federal crime.

Emanuel doesn’t mention Richard Lindzen by name, but that is who he means (as is made clear here [ http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2010/05/16/global_warming_debate_makes_climate_tough_on_friends/ ]). The laughable letter itself is here [ http://www.examiner.com/x-11224-Baltimore-Weather-Examiner~y2009m7d1-Read-scientists-open-letter-to-congress-You-are-being-decieved-about-global-warming ]. Emanuel is thus calling out his old friend Lindzen, plus William Happer and S. Fred Singer, as liars on climate science. No argument here.

Kerry Emanuel:

"those interested in treating the issue as an objective problem in risk assessment and management are labeled “alarmists”, a particularly infantile smear considering what is at stake. This deployment of inflammatory terminology has a distinctly Orwellian flavor. It originates not in laboratories and classrooms, where ideas are the central focus and one hardly ever hears labels applied to researchers, but in the media, the blogosphere, and political think tanks, where polarization attracts attention and/or turns a profit.

But it turns out that there are not enough mavericks in climate science to meet the media’s and blogosphere’s insatiable appetite for conflict. Thus into the arena steps a whole host of charlatans posing as climate scientists. These are a toxic brew of retired physicists, TV weather forecasters, political junkies, media hacks, and anyone else willing to tell an interviewer that he/she is a climate scientist."

The whole Climate Inactivist circle-jerk:

"But, but, but... we must not hamper "spirited debate"... um uh... guilty of "stealth advocacy"... hurr durr... let's be "Serious" and "Reasonable"... herp derp... over-zealous scientists are most responsible for a warming earth..."

Kerry Emanuel is a welcome remedy to prattle.

Uncertainty is not an argument for the status quo

2010-07-06T15:57:00.000-07:00

The cognitive errors that lets some take demonstrations of uncertainty and confuse them for arguments for continuing the status quo:

(For the following, substitute for "plausible" the phrase "developed/confirmed to such a degree that it is perverse to withhold provisional assent")

1) To inform a rational choice of actions, plausible full narratives compete solely with other plausible full narratives. If I open a door, and in the bright light of the room see a breathing tiger across the room, it is rational to step back out of the room and close the door. Any demonstration of uncertainty of my ability to tell a living tiger from a amusement park animatronic tiger is not an argument to stand motionless at the open threshold. The demonstration of uncertainty can be used to choose between plausible full narratives by discounting some narratives, but it (the demonstration of uncertainty) doesn't have the power to construct a plausible full narrative in opposition to the one under consideration, much less make the opposite of the considered action rationally attractive.

2) Rational action and rational inaction are both born of rational choice. By changing the language, changing the viewpoint, changing the scope, we can phrase action in terms of inaction, and inaction in terms of action. So what is temporally/culturally/situationally described as an action/intervention is under no extra burden of rational justification than what is likewise described as inaction/absence-of-intervention, and inaction does not have a lesser burden of rational justification than action. (Imagine that the decision to burn fossil fuels is remade on the 1st of each year, for example, with a corresponding decision of how much. So burning fossil fuels in the new year is the intervention, and we wish study if that intervention is rational.)

3) Demonstratively persuading plausible full narratives are not in competition with a swarm of idiosyncratic narratives that are each in contradiction with all others of the swarm. The contradictions inside the swarm renders the whole swarm repellent to the rational. From the swarm should emerge a small number of demonstratively persuading plausible full narratives, first, to challenge the mainstream narrative, second. Or else it is more likely the idiosyncratic narratives are just a symptom of the opposition to the mainstream being handicapped by debilitatingly idiosyncratic minds, incapable of meaningful rational persuasion.

Consider the inability to construct a plausible full narrative for a wide conspiracy to assassinate JFK from those who find fault with details of the many investigators that agree that Oswald was the sole gunman. Consider the inability to construct a plausible full narrative for a wide conspiracy throughout the US government to bring down the Twin Towers by controlled demolition from those who find fault with the details of the many investigators. Consider their pathetic nature. Likewise, note that those who would dispose of the mainstream narrative about carbon emissions and climate disruption and ocean acidification shirk from the burden of supplying an persuading plausible full narrative in opposition. How quickly they rush to use the art of controversy! Is it because they have no alternative?

Inspired by comments to the blog posting...

Only In It For The Gold: There Are Skeptics and Then There Are Skeptics

People who do not support vigorous policy can only be skeptics if they offer very high certainty that the science is biased to overstate the risks. Nobody does this very successfully. Some pretend to do this; at least their position is coherent, if not very well supported.

The Post-Email-Hacking phase of climate denialism - What can we expect?

2010-07-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

Below is a great reply to RPJr from Bart Verheggen/ourchangingclimate

[To go along with Michael Tobis' http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/07/roger-jrs-top-ten-opinions.html]

I really appreciate Bart quoting of David Keith:

http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering/msg/d5955c3b1446194e

"However when people and the political community hear technical people say “can’t be done” they assume we mean that technically can’t be done and that is untrue and destructive.

It’s destructive because it hides the central moral choice: we could cut emissions if we want to, we could have started decades ago when the scientific warnings about climate change were first raised, but we decided not to. It was a choice, implicit or not. A choice that, in effect, we cared more about current consumption than we did about preserving our grandchildren’s chances to enjoy a climate like the one in which our civilization developed."

Where do I agree with RPJr's list, and the viewpoint of the very-very-balanced never-dare-call-us-deniers boys and girls? The most I would grant to RPJr, Fuller, et al. is that the lack of political will is as least as important as the science. (I will not grant any more, because their behavior is consistent with a mania to provide intellectual cover for the powerful who refuse to consider a change in consumption consistent with the mainstream scientific view of the risk of climate disruption and ocean acidification. The behavior consistent with mania (squealing for false balance and blubbering from hurt feelings from those naughty scientists) separates them from rational actors.)

These fellows cannot help but telegraph their moves, and, reading the above from RPJr, we can infer that in the near future morality and moral consequence will completely vanish from scope of their analysis. It is a three-legged stool - science, morality, policy - and it is sufficient (and efficient) to attack a single leg to compromise the whole. Their arguments (along with Kloor and Curry), now we are in the post-email-hacking phase, will suddenly be devoid of moral language, and they will open up the waterworks with Glenn-Beck-like whaling sniveling if any mainstream climate scientist dares to use moral language or draw out moral imperatives.

RPJr has already practiced with the term "stealth advocacy" for any climate scientist who has not suffered frontal lobe damage - in other words, for any scientists who is a whole human and cannot resist finding out the consequences of common moral imperatives (that we human individuals owe the future of the same quality (if not quantity) that we owe to the past that born us), and acting accordingly.

Comment on Pielke Jr’s main conclusions « ourchangingclimate/Bart

9. In their political enthusiasm, some leading scientists have behaved badly. (Pielke)
Without specifics, this is impossible to answer, and is bound to lead to even more misunderstanding. I could try reading your mind of course. You probably have some of your critics in mind, notably some RealClimate scientists as well as Hansen, who you have criticized. I find this very problematic. In most instances that I followed (involving Gavin Schmidt, Michael Tobis, Eric Steig, Hansen, Briffa at different occasions), I have found your and others’ criticisms off base, besides the point, largely irrelevant to the bigger picture and having the smell of a smear campaign (science-bashing). As I commented regarding the latest McIntyre affair (see my review here): “A lot of scientists are getting understandably frustrated with self-proclaimed auditors of science (and their supporters) who cast doubt about a whole scientific field by blowing minor flaws out of proportion and insinuate accusations of scientific misconduct”. Against this backdrop of a lot of people ready to embrace any little nitpicked criticism as if it overthrows the whole scientific consensus, and ignore the mountain of evidence in favour of this consensus, I can perfectly well understand that a lot of scientists (and their supporters) are getting frustrated having to deal with this behavior and (mostly) fake arguments. In the grand scheme of things, the big problem as I see it is the contempt of science and its practitioners by a sizeable segment of the general public and some high profile bloggers; if a scientist responds to faux criticism in a frustrated tone, I find that a minor flaw in comparison. Granted, they (climate scientists) are your subject of study, so you naturally focus on their behaviour, but at the same time, please consider the context in which they operate, as well as the main message they are trying to convey. In light of this, your claim that “bad behavior by the folks at Real Climate does more to hurt the cause for action than the political actions of the skeptics” is preposterous. William Connolley brought up Fred Singer as the most obvious example.

Krugman takes on the Pain Caucus - but aren't they simply Paper Tigers?

2010-07-06T11:03:00.000-07:00

[To the right: a photo from an early morning white-paper presentation by the economists of the Pain Caucus. The pages of the paper in question must have been scattered during the passionate post-presentation Q&A session.]

Krugman, below, correctly takes the insufferable David Brooks to task for mindlessly agreeing with the Pain Caucus - the idiots that, independent of evidence, think that inflation is a risk and stimulus must stop now, recovery or not. Anything that takes these dopes down a notch is welcome.

On the other hand, too much is made of the Pain Caucus. Where is the government with the guts to cut their stimulus before the full recovery? Maybe Ireland displayed real guts, maybe the ex-Soviet satellite states displayed real guts - these are practically the only places with leaders with the guts to pull off real structural reform (cutting the stimulus without a plan for structural reform is just meaningless self-flagellation). Greece will go down that road toward structural reform kicking and screaming, but, *now*, *other* places in Europe have more violent protests. Everywhere else you see wimps - they talk about pain, but they keep paying off the voters today, with debt to be serviced by future generations, without the benefit of a foundation of sound structural reform. The Pain Caucus are paper tigers, so it is hard to get too worked up by their stupidity and hypocrisy.

Economics and Politics - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com - David Brooks and the Pain Caucus; Arguments From Authority

A quick note on David Brooks’s column today. I have no idea what he’s talking about when he says,

The Demand Siders don’t have a good explanation for the past two years

Funny, I thought we had a perfectly good explanation: severe downturn in demand from the financial crisis, and a stimulus which we warned from the beginning wasn’t nearly big enough. And as I’ve been trying to point out, events have strongly confirmed a demand-side view of the world.

But there’s something else in David’s column, which I see a lot: the argument that because a lot of important people believe something, it must make sense:

Moreover, the Demand Siders write as if everybody who disagrees with them is immoral or a moron. But, in fact, many prize-festooned economists do not support another stimulus. Most European leaders and central bankers think it’s time to begin reducing debt, not increasing it — as do many economists at the international economic institutions. Are you sure your theorists are right and theirs are wrong?

Yes, I am. It’s called looking at the evidence. I’ve looked hard at the arguments the Pain Caucus is making, the evidence that supposedly supports their case — and there’s no there there.

And you just have to wonder how it’s possible to have lived through the last ten years and still imagine that because a lot of Serious People believe something, you should believe it too. Iraq? Housing bubble? Inflation? (It’s worth remembering that Trichet actually raised rates in June 2008, because he believed that inflation — not the financial crisis — was the big threat facing Europe.)

PyFilesystem and "filepath": abstracting the file-system in Python

2010-06-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

PyFilesystem 0.3 released

Will McGugan: I am pleased to announce a new version of PyFilesystem (0.3), which is a Python module that provides a common interface to many kinds of filesystem. Basically it provides a way of working with files and directories that is exactly the same, regardless of how and where the file information is stored. Even if you don't plan on working with anything other than the files and directories on your hard-drive, PyFilesystem can simplify your code and reduce the potential of error.

PyFilesystem is a joint effort by myself and Ryan Kelly, who has created a number of new FS implementations such as Amazon S3 support and Secure FTP, and some pretty cool features such as FUSE support and Django storage integration.

[MMMG: Compare this to "filepath 0.1" from Jp Calderone]

http://jcalderone.livejournal.com/56137.html

Jp Calderone: I'm happy to announce the initial release of filepath.

filepath is an abstract interface to the filesystem. It provides APIs for path name manipulation and for inspecting and modifying the filesystem (for example, renaming files, reading from them, etc). filepath's APIs are intended to be easier than those of the standard library os.path module to use correctly and safely.

filepath is a re-packaging of the twisted.python.filepath module independent from Twisted (except for the test suite which still depends on Twisted Trial).

The low number of this release reflects the newness of this packaging. The implementation is almost entirely mature and well tested in real-world situations from its time as part of Twisted.

You can find the package on PyPI or Launchpad:

http://pypi.python.org/pypi/filepath/0.1
https://launchpad.net/filepath

MMMG: This is all great stuff. From what I saw, the API of PyFilesystem seems like the winner, at least to my eyes. I will steal the best code from "filepath" to augment my personal version of PyFilesystem, then I will see what I can contribute back to these two wonderful projects.

Is climate science unique? Do the scientists need to be protected from themselves?

2010-06-25T18:07:00.000-07:00

I discussion of bias, or is it a license to dispense with scientific results that are displeasing? Where are the outside mechanism to help scientists when they cannot help themselves, because of their own bias.

Why is the mechanism of publication insufficient, when in all other scientific fields it has been exactly the way that the scientific community/mainstream dispensed with invalid results and replaced them with valid ones?

Collide-a-scape » Blog Archive » Collide-a-scape >> The Unbearable Lightness of Bias

If these (don’t-you-dare-call-them-deniers) “bias-busters” could point to successes in other scientific fields for other scientific questions, all thanks given to their “bias-busting” scrutiny, a lot of people would see the benefit and drop suspicion.
Otherwise, we must pre-suppose that climate science is a “nonesuch” science — the only scientific domain where the practitioners must be protected from themselves.
Where is the rich history of success of outsiders providing “bias-busting” services for scientists? The outsiders that really help scientific progress get to know the practitioners and labs and journals so intimately, they end up having choices about how they ultimately publish and add to the literature — and that is, in fact, how it ultimately plays out successfully. And *not* by providing outsourced “bias-busting” services.

reply to Hector M. #14
I don’t deny that some assert that climate scientists must be protected from themselves. I am curious to learn of the historical cases where outsiders’ free-lance bias-busting was found to be successful.
Because similar arguments were made that a cabal of Darwinists suppress papers that show intelligent design, and a cabal of medical regulators suppress papers that disprove tobacco carcinogenicity, and a cabal of dentists suppress facts about fluoridation’s mild control properties.
If I could consider the historical cases of success of outsiders’ free-lance bias-busting, when scientific practitioners needed to be protected from themselves, I could discern between clear-eyed skeptics and delusional denialists, and see if the proposed cure fits the illness.
Much like the judgement of the need for carbon taxation may be informed by the history of regulatory prohibitions of fluorocarbons. (Or the regulatory prohibitions on the sale of alcohol in the United States, they don’t all have to be positive examples of regulation.)
I am genuinely interested to learn more about outsiders’ free-lance bias-busting in science, where it had an effect, maybe good, maybe bad. You overlooked part of my original remark in your reply.

It would be much easier see the good intentions of these denialists, if they didn't demand that everyone assume that climate science is a nonesuch science.

[Ugh, more]

reply to Judith Curry #24

"Scientific biases are challenging enough, but when these are augmented by political bias and a policy agenda, then the bias issue becomes the overwhelming challenge for the science."

This is asserted, but not demonstrated.

As a process that embraces self-correction, it is hard to come up with examples of errors that science has allowed to let stand, for all time, because of political bias and a policy agenda. I can't think of any.

[Aside: The closest I can think of is the denying of the possibility of a numerical intelligence quotient in the polite company of scientist, even though it is at least as well established as the Big Five Personality model, which is uncontroversial. But does that even count? Nobody is barred from publishing and the truth is available to the motivated. I am genuinely curious - Are there any examples of errors that science has allowed to let stand, for all time, because of political bias and a policy agenda?]

Is there really a need for a unique outside agent to police bias in climate science, alone? The same process of refereed journal publication, that serves the scientific community/mainstream in other fields to dispense with invalid results and replace them with valid ones, breaks down *only* for climate science? And where is the model for successful outside policing of scientific bias? Does one even exist? That would be even more controversial than the already controversial remedy of carbon taxation, because there is already research on the economic effects of taxation, and a history of taxation to counter perverse externalities.

Or is the issue of bias - a bias so insidious science should not dare to leave the extermination to mere scientists - a red herring?

The demand to treat climate science as a "nonesuch" science is the rub. How can I distinguish a prickly intolerance for the possibility of bias from an excuse to discard results that are unwelcome from an excuse to disregard consequences of status quo behavior?

Reply to Bill Stoltzfus #26

Part of the reason that Judith Cury's "Team B" idea went over like a lead balloon was that the name "Team B" had an unfortunate historical connotation to the "Team B", commissioned by Director of Central Intelligence George H. W. Bush, of "outside experts" who attempted to counter the positions of intelligence officials within the CIA. In reality, the CIA failed to represent USSR as enough of a military threat for the liking of defense hawks, so Team B manufactured Soviet military capabilities from whole cloth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B

I would rather 100% of published scientific results be attempted for replication by third parties, rather than 20% of funding be spent on fishing expeditions. Because, if this is a mechanism outside of current scientific publishing guidelines, a group of outsiders would choose where the 20% was directed. Leaving aside the issue that the comparative invulnerability to political and other agendas of this extra-scientific group is being simply asserted without basis.

Then there is the strange issue why science is singled out for hobbling. What percentage of business, family, or personal decisions (the analog of scientific results) must be legislated for scrutiny by third parties? Because is the track record of science worse than the tract record of business, family, or personal decision making?

[double ugh, even more]

Reply to Steve Fitzpatrick #29

I am looking for ways to distinguish accusation of insurmountable bias in climate science from such claims made against in evolutionary biology, tobacco carcinogenicity, vaccine research, etc.

You bring up FDA regulations, but then conflate the issue by stating "Note that these regulations exist in good part to eliminate as much as possible the influence of biases", when in fact these are strictly to try to prevent direct harm to patients by the treatment intervention under investigation. Demonstrated by how they do nothing to prevent biases that don't strictly harm patients directly -- how else could the bias for over-reliance on pharmaceuticals stand?... if these were, by design, to try to eliminate bias?

"But a more relevant question is “Are there examples of errors that science has allowed to stand for a significant period of time?” A search for these kinds of examples might not be so difficult." Then humor me. The remedy, to fit the topic, must be an extra-scientific mechanism to eliminate bias that scientists are fundamentally otherwise unable to. To best understand the beast being discussed, I would appreciate examples. If it never existed, and never will, then that is the very definition of a red herring to discard results that are unwelcome and an excuse to disregard consequences of the status quo. I would like to see this is a good faith argument.

I don't deny that the public demands more from climate scientists than protein folders. But I want to see the distinction of the demand from the demands put on evolutionary biologists by members of the public, from the demands put on mathematicians by those who trisect the angle or square the circle, from the demands put on medical animal researchers by the property destruction and harassment by anti-vivisectionist protesters, etc. Are the demands, for the most part, strictly to promote scientific truth found in the least time in the efficient way? Or not?

From the Ladies of Reddit: how "nice" guys are usually "not nice"

2010-06-15T09:33:00.000-07:00

Growing up, I had the mistaken belief that I was a "nice guy", and that my lack of luck with women was because "women don't like nice guys".
This Reddit posting hit home, and felt like a slap across my face. It is absolutely true:

2X - Can I rant about this "Girls don't like us nice guys" shit? : TwoXChromosomes:

Once again, a 'girls are stupid for not liking us nice guys' link is #1 on the comics subreddit and #1 on my main reddit homepage.

These things piss me off.

Why? Because I like nice guys. I like shy introverts. I mean, I'm a geek girl myself, so yes, I heart nerds.

And despite all that it was nearly fucking impossible to get a date in high school or college because I'm (frankly) ugly. I mean, ugliness and shyness/introvertness/nerdiness normally go hand-in-hand, right? These guys were never handsome, but by my being just as unpretty as they were, I was invisible. I was unclean.

So every time a guy is bitching and moaning that girls aren't flocking all over them, I want to slap them, because I showed interest in his type, time and time again, and got rejected because I lost the facial genetic lottery, just like he did.

Stop fucking whining that girls suck for not looking past your shy awkward exterior and seeing you for who you are on the inside; you never gave me that courtesy either.

[another commenter]

AHHH, I just read this from /r/bestof and I was hoping someone would have posted about it on 2XC.

Some of the comments (like that one) just don't get it. Women like nice guys.

The problem is that most people who think they're "nice guys" just aren't. In many respects, they're just as shallow as all the promiscuous "assholes" they detest: they'd fuck around if they could, and they put just as much weight on looks as anyone else. The main difference between "assholes" and "nice guys" is that the "nice guys" a usually a combination of: uninteresting, awkward, uncharismatic, not confident, not relatable.

The worst part is that they're (inherently!) jerks. Women actually tend to like nice men! If you, Mr. "Nice Guy," are going to assume that they don't, then that's just insulting and presumptuous. It's your way of saying, "women are dumb enough to not like men who are genuinely nice people." With a presumptuous attitude like that, it's no wonder that these "nice guys" don't tend to do so well.

I think it's a matter of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionarily speaking, it makes sense for men to detest the guy who gets women, hence guys tend to call promiscuous men "assholes." But the truth is, most of these assholes simply aren't assholes. They tend to be fun, interesting, sociable, and kind of nice people. Yes they're promiscuous, but the majority of men would be if they could. Not all of them, but the majority of them. (Men literally do have a larger sex drive than women.)

A rule of thumb: If you think you're being "nice," then you're actually being a jerk. If you think you're "the nicest person in the world, holy shit I am putting my heart and soul into pleasing everyone and not being annoying," then it means you're being kind of nice.

There's a lot of other things I could say... but I feel it would all come off as extremely presumptuous.

[another commenter]

The problem is that most people who think they're "nice guys" just aren't. In many respects, they're just as shallow as all the promiscuous "assholes" they detest: they'd fuck around if they could, and they put just as much weight on looks as anyone else. The main difference between "assholes" and "nice guys" is that the "nice guys" a usually a combination of: uninteresting, awkward, uncharismatic, not confident, not relatable.

Totally agree with all of this, except for the last sentence. Let me fix it for you...

The main difference between "assholes" and "nice guys" is that the "nice guys" expect that doing nice things for hot women alone should make the hot woman attracted to him, they think that "being nice" ought to be the only quality necessary to entitle them to a hot girl of their own.

And this is absolutely, something totally different from actually being a genuine nice guy. Genuine nice guys are nice because they are actually nice, not because they want to get something out of it. By contrast, the nice guys we are talking about are usually just as asshole-ish as the rest of us, except when in the presence of a hot girl that they want. That's the only time that they feel any real need to be any nicer than usual.

The problem is when you are nice as a manipulative move to get something. That's not truly nice. Truly nice is when you are kind for the benevolent sake of helping your fellow man, with no expectation to receive in return. If that's not what is motivating you, then you aren't a nice guy, and stop describing yourself as one just because you keep offering your shoulder for hot girls to cry on.

[another commenter]

I think a good rule of thumb is to try to judge how nice you are being based on how you treat someone you are not attacted to. If you are only nice to girls you lust after, you are not a nice guy.

Shamefully, as a young man, I was guilty of exactly this. At least I have a mature viewpoint to offer my own daughter.

A juicy example of The Art of Controversy

2010-06-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

God bless the true skeptics - they exist, and they hold themselves and their allies to high standards.

This post was interesting to me for this wonderful technique of The Art of Controversy:

Only In It For The Gold; Guest Posting from "Willard" (from Neverending Audit): Willard's Meta-Audit

So here's a pea-and-thimble [shell game] strategy one might try out in a discussion:

- When confronted with general, collegial, and interpersonal criticisms, look and ask for specifics;

- When being responded to on specifics, return to the general mode, but on another subject, in a more collegial and interpersonal voice.

The reader can easily see that it creates an unwinnable position for the opponent.

From Willard - Very good catch of the specific technique of "The Art of Controversy" -- ducking and weaving between the general and specific. Thank you Willard.

A reminder to myself that my general point and my specific point should skip down the lane holding hands, so I don't fool _myself_ with the same technique (skipping down the lane being a metaphor for presenting an argument).

Also, a good technique for speaking about morality. Have the specific moral action followed immediately by the general moral concept. Have the grand abstract moral scheme followed immediately by suggested congruent specific real-world moral actions.

Hierarchies of Concern... and avoiding being the Boy who Cried Wolf

2010-06-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Michael Tobis has been blogging lately about possible hysteria about the BP Gulf oil spill. With the context being that (possibly) falsely predicting catastrophe with the BP Gulf oil spill may lead people to think that global climate disruption will also turn out to be less severe than the scientists are predicting.

Mega-Disaster in the Gulf? Or Not?
Horizon - Backing Off Optimism
Reality vs Model

> But I'm starting to see the problem that many people have with others' eagerness toward predictions of catastrophe.

I wish there was an easy way to talk about and visualize a hierarchy of concerns. Capable humans naturally understand a hierarchy of concerns, where lower concerns only come into play once higher concerns are reasonably satisfied (like my concern for hydration is below my concern for respiration, and both of these are above my concern for oil-free aquatic bird life). And sibling concerns may be substitutable or complementary and have a ranking or command a fraction of a whole.

(This is like Maslow's hierarchy of needs [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs], but more individually specific and more detailed. Also, it is inverted: the "base" concerts are at the top. Also, it is not entirely clear that "self-actualization" is at the extreme: I see global/group concerns as being predicated on successful self-actualization. A hierarchy of concerns could have no set limit on levels deep.)

The mainstream media handles concerns like a preschooler on a sugar rush - one big shiny new concern can push out all others, irrationally and ineffectively, rendering the news consumer incapable.

Maybe a little web widget that displays the hierarchy of concern, interactively. A hierarchy, running from the mundane but individualistic corporally viscerally urgent all the way down to the global political abstract. And is easily updatable with new information. And tools to meaningfully compare between hierarchies, of different people or the same at different times.

And tools to draw attention, to yourself (and embarrassingly to others), that inconsistencies exist (I am much more interested in finding out inconsistencies and conflicts between my concerns than I am in maintaining the illusion of perfect consistency from yesterday to today and the illusion of omniscience). Because mundane actions have global political abstract consequences, and the global political abstract imply certain mundane actions, and it is tempting to conveniently compartmentalize these two extremes, and conveniently ignore contradictions and inconsistencies.

Getting back to lacking models leading to overstating the potential for catastrophe -- it is hard to put appropriate demands on models without the context of this hierarchy of concern. Because the actionable decisions based on predictions of the models is a function of the demands put on the model during construction and manipulation and evaluation.

Israel attack Turkish flotilla - When the sane leave, the insane double down

2010-06-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

The "new, improved" Andrew Sullivan quotes Stratfor's George Friedman:

Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Dish - Israel Meets Its Own Fist

Stratfor's George Friedman, not a natural antagonist to the Jewish state, wonders if this could be a turning point against the Netanyahu-directed assisted suicide of Israel. After all, Israel opened fire on a ship from a NATO member, Turkey. Should NATO treat this as an attack on every member nation?

The tougher Israel is, the more the flotilla’s narrative takes hold. As the Zionists knew in 1947 and the Palestinians are learning, controlling public opinion requires subtlety, a selective narrative and cynicism. As they also knew, losing the battle can be catastrophic. It cost Britain the Mandate and allowed Israel to survive. Israel’s enemies are now turning the tables. This maneuver was far more effective than suicide bombings or the Intifada in challenging Israel’s public perception and therefore its geopolitical position (though if the Palestinians return to some of their more distasteful tactics like suicide bombing, the Turkish strategy of portraying Israel as the instigator of violence will be undermined).

Israel is now in uncharted waters. It does not know how to respond. It is not clear that the Palestinians know how to take full advantage of the situation, either. But even so, this places the battle on a new field, far more fluid and uncontrollable than what went before. The next steps will involve calls for sanctions against Israel. The Israeli threats against Iran will be seen in a different context, and Israeli portrayal of Iran will hold less sway over the world."

Note that the flag on that ship was Turkey, a NATO member. Will Turkey demand invocation of NATO's Article 5?

And this will cause a political crisis in Israel. If this government survives, then Israel is locked into a course that gives it freedom of action but international isolation. If the government falls, then Israel enters a period of domestic uncertainty. In either case, the flotilla achieved its strategic mission. It got Israel to take violent action against it. In doing so, Israel ran into its own fist.

My own comments...

Why is Israel becoming so ham-handed of late? The Dubai Hamas assassination was childishly carried out, so badly that todays Mossad was shown to be a shadow of its former self. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7258631/British-threat-to-Israel-over-Dubai-Hamas-assassination.html And now this. This was a gift from Israel to its worst enemies.

The more intelligent Israelis must have moved out of participation with armed response to Palestine/Hamas rocket attacks, leaving numb-nuts in charge, who are screwing things up. The more intelligent Israelis must have moved out of participation with armed response because they could see it only spiraling out of control, to Israel's doom. But the majority of Israeli voters are too fearful to elect anyone except the right wing - a right wing now full of idiots without check.

This is all at the worst possible time, when Israel's protector, the United States, no longer can work unilaterally, or even keep up the illusion.

Is using the term "Denialist" unfair?

2010-05-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Took one of my infrequent trips to RPJr, was annoyed by the limp nagging to "play nice" that is his staple of trade, and found this garbage:

"The Tyranny of Denial" by Edward Skidelsky - Words that think for us - ProspectMagazine.co.uk

It is very poor undergraduate level writing.

"Ours is a relentlessly positive culture." is given as a reason why "Denialism" is a naughty word. Irrationality by culture is no impetus to hamstring my own vocabulary.
"An accusation of “denial” is serious, suggesting either deliberate dishonesty or self-deception." Packing a moral judgement into a word is supposed to be an affront to gentility? He then says something mushy and vague about the Holocaust. Pathetic.
You don't need to be much of a Bayesian to see value in being informed by judgements of motivation. Forums where there are peculiar restrictions on when motivation can be considered simply exists to aid the Art of Controversy.
"It is a form of the argument ad hominem: the aim is not so much to refute your opponent as to discredit his motives." It is not "ad hominem" if the logical errors are laid out as well - judgmental language has no infective property to discredit all the text around it. Bizarre that Eddie gets in some jabs at people who use the term "denialist"; Eddie is under no burden to follow the spirit of his own censure.
"One of the great achievements of the Enlightenment—the liberation of historical and scientific enquiry from dogma—is quietly being reversed." - this is a silly overstatement of achievement - The Enlightenment rid us from all dogma? The gross overstatement is part of a naked plea to join in the author's own hysteria. And those laying down the charge of "Denialist" are anything but quiet - the moral judgement is foremost. There is no point here.

Blubbering from those tarred with the epithet 'denialist' notwithstanding, the issue is Skepticism vs. Denialism. If you value judgement, you value skepticism. Much foolishness tries to impersonate the appearance of skepticism, and that foolishness can be assuredly called Denialism.

From this blog: "The difference between Skeptics and Deniers"

Speaking of Uncertainty with a Mumble-Bumble-Mouth - Mike Hulme

2010-05-27T14:19:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Mike Hulme: We must stop saying ‘The science demands…’ by Tim Black - Spiked Debate

Mike Hulme prattles on about uncertainty. [Ignore the bio photo of MH staring triumphantly at his rightmost piece of horizon]

Oh bleh, this Mike Hulme is not even operating at the level of the blogger Phillip Price, who is simply blogging on this topic as a layperson. Hey Hulme, we have tools for discussing uncertainty, and we can demonstrate the deniers are actually asserting much more certainty about the future, evident by their unwillingness to "take out an insurance policy" by starting to tax carbon even at a small amount. And they are asserting a much lower sensitivity than any physical theory can justify:

Phillip Price actually takes time to draw the curve of his uncertainty, a rigor the denialists avoid, no matter how Phillip Price attempts to draw it out of them:

http://manuelmoeg.blogspot.com/2009/12/talking-about-climate-change-publishing.html

http://manuelmoeg.blogspot.com/2010/05/seth-roberts-wrong-about-doubting.html

I agree that science, morality, and policy are best kept separate. But just using the word "uncertainty" for anything besides Revelatory Holy Scripture is silly, acting as if we cannot meaningfully compare different qualities and quantities of uncertainty.

If I take out an insurance policy on my house today, and my neighbor does not, it can be argued that I am rationally dealing with uncertainty, while my neighbor is simply non-rationally wishing it away, ineffectively. I do not necessarily buy insurance today because I am _certain_ that I will have suffer arson or tornado.

If Hulme's writings lead to less harmful confusion of science, morality, and policy, I will provisionally temporally forgive him sloppiness with the term "uncertainty".

Greta Christina: Why I'm Drawing [a stick figure of] Mohammad

2010-05-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

Greta Christina: Why I'm Drawing Mohammad: "

This is my drawing of Mohammad [...]

[M "Moe" G: leaving the drawing out, not important for my point below]

I wish I were a better artist, and could draw something other than a stick figure. But I actually kind of like its purity. If a simple, entirely undistinguished, smiling stick figure with the word 'Mohammad' above it can be so offensive as to earn me a possible death sentence... that makes the whole silly idea seem even sillier. And I like the fact that it's a photo of my hand actually making the drawing. Gives it a certain punch, I think.

Today is Everybody Draw Mohammad Day: an event in which people around the world... well, draw Mohammad. We're deliberately violating the Muslim law against creating images of the prophet Mohammad -- a law that some radical Muslim extremists are attempting to enforce with violence and death threats. On everyone. Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

[...]

But if we don't draw Mohammad, the terrorists win.

"

Atheist writer Greta Christina says "[...I]f we don't draw Mohammad, the terrorists win."

But, technically, it is actually "If we don't draw Mohammad's face on a dog's body, the terrorists win."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Vilks_Muhammad_drawings_controversy

Greta Christina is still tacitly adhering to the double-standard that there is one limit for sacrilege of Muslim figures, and another limit for Christian figures. The difference being that no Christian groups called for the death of the artist who created "Piss Christ". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ

Greta's stick figure Mohammad is too cute by half, if the point is to call attention to Muslim death threats to cartoonists.

I am an atheist, but I also was born into an Evangelical Lutheran faith. I am an atheist, but I still acknowledges the need in the majority of humans for personal and collective transcendental experiences - experiences of a humbling sort - and I feel deeply that this part of the human condition can, should, be called beautiful.

I am an atheist, but I am also a coward.

The main thing that prevents me taking a noteworthy public stand to represent the prophet Mohammad's face on a dog's body is my fear of how my life would be complicated and inconvenienced, if not actually how my life would be jeopardized.

Also, beyond my cowardice, I would feel terrible if an earnest Muslim, just trying to live their life with peace and meaning, told me that my actions deeply personally hurt them.

But my tenderness does not overshadow my cowardice. Being honest with myself and giving a true evaluation of my mettle.

So I don't know how to put my feelings into a socially acceptable neat description (socially acceptable to the group I most identify with: the Atheists). All I can do is be honest.

(I am not trying to score "points" against Greta Christina, a writer I read regularly and admire. But I feel obliged to state the complications that argue against a pat, cute endorsement of calling a stick figure a brave political stand. The artists who are currently suffering under the real threat of violence are so because their cartoons had more provocative meaning, undeniably.)

Avoiding committing Cognitive Biases, not merely identifying them

2010-05-19T16:11:00.000-07:00

Via Boing Boing, via The Quantified Self, from the Royal Society of Account Planning:

[A] visual study guide to cognitive biases (defined as "psychological tendencies that cause the human brain to draw incorrect conclusions). It includes descriptions of 19 social biases, 8 memory biases, 42 decision-making biases, and 36 probability / belief biases.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/19/a-visual-study-guide.html
http://www.kk.org/quantifiedself/2010/05/a-visual-guide-to-cognitive-bi.php

Very nice to categorize all these cognitive failure modes, but just knowing about these biases does nothing to prevent one from indulging in them.

For example, Ian Plimer called out those who denied evolution, but now practices the most shabby form of global warming denialism, using exactly the same shabby techniques of the creationists he previously battled.

http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/ian-plimer-caught-out-again-co2-is-magic-argument-continues-to-lie-about-volcanoes/

There is the very nice (and surprisingly thin and readable) _The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making_ by Scott Plous. Very nice feature of the book is that after identifying each bias, Plous gives the research on effective techniques to avoid committing those biases in your own thinking.

http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Judgment-Decision-Making/dp/0070504776

[Edit 06/01/10]

More here:

Steve Easterbrook - Serendipity: Another cognitive bug: Attempting to correct a misperception often reinforces it

I’m fascinated by the cognitive biases that affect people’s perceptions of climate change. I’ve previously written about the Dunning-Kruger effect (the least competent people tend to vastly over-rate their competence), and Kahan and Braman’s studies on social epistemology (people tend to ignore empirical evidence if its conclusions contradict their existing worldview).

...

[F]actual corrections in newspaper articles don’t appear to work for those who are ideologically motivated to hold the misperception, and in two out of the four studies, it actually strengthened the misperception. So, fact-checking on its own is not enough to overcome ideologically-driven beliefs.

Maybe the press handling climate disruption as "he said/she said" is actually doing science a favor by not laying out the scientific case.

Keith Kloor: Compulsion for the formula of "He said/She said"

2010-05-18T16:40:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/05/18/why-climate-journalism-is-a-rotting-carcass/

My God, threaten to take away their "he said/she said" journalistic device, and they become completely unhinged. Very embarrassing post from Keith Kloor. Taken with the comments below, the post is completely self-refuting.

Quoting Michael Tobis in the comments:

Is it any wonder the opposition starts down the road of exaggeration as well? There’s really no advantage to telling the truth here, and it is the fault of the fact that there is no institution delivering any news that isn’t political, in other words, nothing seriously resembling scientific or environmental journalism.

It’s as if all I had to do to get an innocent person I dislike condemned for murder is to accuse him of two murders. If the judge and jury were journalistically minded, it would be a pretty simple matter to get them to split the difference.

My own comment:

Keith, you turn criticism of the "he said/she said" journalistic device by your betters into an _example_ of the "he said/she said" device as you shrug off responsibility to differentiate the two sides. [Following the link is not necessary, it is as bad as you would expect]

~~http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/another-rock/~~

My lack of compulsion to frame the world as "he said/she said" makes it difficult to see equivalence between the extremes of Joe Romm and Jeff Id. The above by Jeff Id is classic bed-wetting 9/12 conspiratorial agitprop (if I may use the word out of historical political context).

Getting back to the beginning of my comment: the issue is shrugging off responsibility.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is a very important article by Jay Rosen of NYU Journalism school on PRESSthink:

Jay Rosen - He Said, She Said Journalism: Lame Formula in the Land of the Active User

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2009/04/12/hesaid_shesaid.html

[Edit]

Kloor responds so:

[...] The irony is that if you really, really wanted to do something about greenhouse gases, you’d stop bitching about the things you can’t change (like msm journalism and skeptics) and start thinking of new ways to reframe the issue. (Hint: Climate catastrophe is not working. So how long you want to stay with that one? Another couple of decades?)

If you see preventing climate disruption as a moral issue (and I think that is the proper way to view it), you will gasp at the moral bankruptcy displayed.

Whatever the irony is or isn't... some players are incorrigible; best to recognize those players early; embrace the moral foundation of the issue because only there is moral motivation to be found.

Seth Roberts, wrong about doubting Climate Disruption Risk

2010-05-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Wanted to highlight Phillip Price's responses to Seth Roberts, on the existence of human caused risk of climate disruption.

Seth Roberts, wrong about doubting Climate Disruption Risk:

"
Phil Says: May 11th, 2010 at 12:26 pm

Seth, as you might imagine I disagree with almost everything you say here. But let me give just one example. You say:

“Here’s what I would consider reasonable evidence for serious human-generated global warming:

1. Temperature higher now than in the past.
2. Temperature increasing at a higher rate now than in the past.
3. Good (= verified) model shows serious human-generated warming.”

But in fact, neither of the first two would be reasonable evidence of serious human-generated global warming if they are true, and the absence of them does not indicate absence of serious human-generated global warming if they are in fact absent.

Here’s the key fact that you seem to be unaware of (but that scientists who study this know very well): MORE THAN ONE PARAMETER AFFECTS THE TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH. It’s not all about carbon dioxide concentrations.

If high temperatures in the Medieval Warm Period were due in part to higher solar activity, then those temperatures don’t tell us much about climate sensitivity to CO2. So your point 1 doesn’t really make sense. The issue with point 2 is pretty much the same, except with regard to the derivative of temperature rather than temperature.

And for the models…you assert that the models aren’t good enough to estimate temperature sensitivity, but you’re wrong.

Yes, I know that scientists, like everybody else, tend to be overcertain. But I don’t think that means that nobody knows nuthin’.

I asked you before, more than once, to give YOUR estimate of climate sensitivity (defined as the steady-state change in global average over preindustrial levels in response to a doubling of CO2 over preindustrial levels). You still haven’t answered that question. But it seems that for some reason you put very little of your probability in the range that almost all climate researchers think is most likely. So who is being overcertain?
"

Phil Says: May 12th, 2010 at 2:55 pm

Check the IPCC report, chapter 8: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter8.pdf there is an extensive discussion of climate modeling and why it is good enough to be sure that anthropogenic climate change is real and why the key parameters are likely to be not extremely far from the (admittedly wide) range of estimates.

But what I am taking issue is with much larger than your three assertions, though I think they are all incorrect.

You are criticizing people for being “overcertain” because their estimate of climate sensitivity has an uncertainty of “only” 6C, but your own estimate has less uncertainty than that, in addition to being centered much lower than the experts think is reasonable. I do not think you have any basis for having a narrower confidence interval than the experts do, and I do not think you have any basis for having a much lower central estimate than the experts do.

[ Edit 05/13/10; Michael Tobis weighs in ]

Michael Tobis Says: May 13th, 2010 at 12:10 pm

To your first two points, there is nothing that says that warming has to be simultaneous with greenhouse forcing. Under present circumstances we in fact expect the contrary: the thermal inertia of the oceans and the masking of industrial dust mask the committed warming. So your proposed tests simply aren’t valid.

Also, climate models make effective predictions of many things, not limited to global mean surface temperature. As a particular point, they show and have shown since the 1980s that greenhouse forced warming is a near-surface phenomenon, accompanied by stratospheric (upper atmosphere) cooling. They also show a pattern of warming that concentrates on land areas in continental interiors. These long standing predictions did in fact emerge. So your claim that climate models are without skill are without foundation.

All of this is silly; it treats “global warming” as a falsifiable theory, a claim of a causation that is either true or false. This is foolishness. The underlying phenomena, (thermal radiation, absorbtion and reradiation in gases) is two hundred year old physics that is as well established as anything in science.

What’s at issue is not “whether” but “how much”. As Phil correctly points out, those who call themselves “skeptics” are not making an argument from ignorance, they are making an argument from certainty. If we really had no idea what the sensitivity was, we should be more concerned than ever. The attitude suggested by people who claim to be “skeptics” is utterly inconsistent with a lack of confidence in the underlying science. It is a claim that the the sensitivity is certain to be much less than all prevailing evidence indicates.

(Phil’s a bit pessimistic; I’d say the consensus range is 2 C to 4.5 C per CO2 doubling. http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n11/abs/ngeo337.html )

And what if it were zero? Would we be out of the woods? No, even with a global sensitivity of zero we could have huge forced climate change, say, warming the poles and cooling the tropics. There is no doubt that the amounts of CO2 and other gases we are adding to the atmosphere change the way energy flows through the system, a system which at heart is fluid and easy to change. Even in the absence of knowledge and a low global sensitivity there are huge risks.

And then there is ocean acidification.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

Sorry. We have to deal with this.

[ Edit 05/13/10; my comment added ]

Seth Roberts says:

seth Says: May 12th, 2010 at 2:47 pm

[...] I’ll provide you my confidence interval in a few days.

It will not be forthcoming. This was all a predictable exercise in the Art of Controversy. But it is good to document how these each can be swatted down with minimal effort.

The difference between Skeptics and Deniers

2010-05-07T10:53:00.000-07:00

Image by adaptorplug via Flickr

[ This post started life as a comment on the wonderful blog "Watching the Deniers" by Mike in Melbourne. I am so happy Mike started his blog, because the Climate Disruption Deniers have a very shallow bag of trick, and they have them well worn from past fake controversies like tobacco carcinogens. So it is great to have a blog dedicated to this. ]

What is the difference between being skeptical and being a denier?

Skepticism can be a positive attribute. Being called a denier is always a slur. Is there a difference? This is how I make the distinction.

(1) If skeptical, you realize the goal is to eventually replace the mainstream narrative with a new, fundamentally different narrative, at a higher standard of argumentation from statements of certainty. If you are a denier, you are content to perpetually muddy the water to generate fraudulent controversy. The test between the two is that the skeptic will dish out their harshest approbation to people on their own side who have no capacity for being constructive and who have no capacity to make valid judgments about quality of argumentation; where the denier in comparison will hold embrace any momentarily useful troll.

(2) The mainstream must accept the discipline of the highest standard of argumentation and demonstration - that is only right to be seen as mainstream. If you are a denier, you take this to mean that the enemies of the mainstream are allowed to have no standard. If skeptical, you allow the opponents of the mainstream to have a lower standard, but a standard none-the-less (a lowered standard is to remain productive until a cohesive alternative narrative has been fully developed). The test is that the skeptic will throw people on their own side out of their camp if they cannot maintain consistently a minimal standard of quality of argumentation and demonstration. The denier will continually forgive transgressions for any momentarily useful troll.

(3) If skeptical, you take delight in sound results, no matter from your own side or the opposing side. If a denier, you have boos and hisses for all results, no matter how sound, from the opposing side - and cheers and huzzahs for all results, no matter how shabby, from your own side. The true skeptic has more latitude with their boos, hisses, cheers, huzzahs.

(4) if skeptical, you see the value of provisional agreement on results today, perhaps to informed by new facts tomorrow, perhaps not. If a denier, you shriek at any provisional agreement, no matter how relatively settled it is compared to matters of no discernible meaningful controversy, like planetary orbital physics. If a denier, you shriek at any attempt to blow the foulest vapors of shabby results out of the room. The denier does not need his viewpoint to prevail - the denier is satisfied with a permanent state of cacophony of controversy. The skeptic is motivated by having their viewpoint prevail by quality of argumentation and demonstration.

(5) if skeptical, you see that uncertainty can be a valid reason to act today - for example, I buy home-owners insurance today because of uncertainty. Nobody waits to buy insurance until they get a letter of intent from an arsonist that their home is scheduled to be set on fire. If you are a denier, you give a privileged status to the status quo - if a denier you effectively say we must not deviate from the existing state until all uncertainty has been eradicated, which is a socially acceptable way to say we must not deviate from the existing state ever.

(6) if skeptical, you value sound results over decorum - all things being equal, decorum is preferred; but no amount of decorum can substitute for sound results. If a denier, there is no amount of production of sound results that can forgive an opponent of a perceived violation of decorum.

These 6 are unnatural for people, because humans will regress to tribal behavior under stress. The are only evident in people who value truth over the status of their own tribe.

In my own case, I am most interested in the economic and political consequences for AGW (Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming) or climate disruption, and I am not in complete agreement with the mainstream of the AGW believers when it comes to the economics and politics. But the standard is so weak on the alleged skeptical side, I can only meaningfully develop and test my personal ideas with the AGW believers side. That has been my experience. Even Joe Romm, who is supposedly the worst of the worst of the AGW mainstream believer bullies, has demonstrated nuance when it comes to considering different economic tools.

I would like to see a demonstration that the AGW/climate-disruption mainstream side is worst at being skeptical of their opponents, than the skeptical/denier side. The standard is so low on the AGW alleged-skeptics/deniers side, they would never agree to the above 6 points.

All models are wrong, but some are useful

2010-05-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

Image by kevindooley via Flickr

"all models are wrong, but some are useful."

-- George E. P. Box

reddit.com/r/science/comments

Weird Al - Entertaining across generations

2010-05-03T17:52:00.000-07:00

Was eating at sushi bar with my little family, watching my daughter watch old-school Weird Al music videos on her iPod Touch (I paid for the DVD "Weird Al Yankovic - The Ultimate Video Collection"; I paid for CloneDVDMobile. The purchase of the second made the purchase of the first worthwhile to me - the beginning and the end of the economic analysis.)

I was the same age as my daughter is now when I got into Doctor Demento and Weird Al. I had '"Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D' (1984) in vinyl. This is a long an impressive career. Now, I am most likely to see him on Tim and Eric.

The next tack in Climate Disruption denialism - Scientists must be Nihilists

2010-04-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Pair of posts on Keith Kloor Collide-a-Scape, about the Q&A with Judith Curry.

http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/04/23/an-inconvenient-provocateur/

http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/04/27/curry-the-backstory/

Might as well prepare for the next tack in Climate Disruption denialism, pieced together from those salivating at the opportunity presented by Judith Curry's delight in the role of "anti-warmist" gadfly:

1) Rollicking dialogue favored over disciplined argumentation

1 Prime) Consider dialogs under discipline that allow them to terminate at conclusions where it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent. Call these dialogs "rationally terminating" dialogs. Beware any forum where "rollicking dialogue" is always preferred to "rationally terminating" dialogs. Those forums simply exist to aid the Art of Controversy.

[ quote web search: "perverse to withhold provisional assent" Gould ]

2) Scientists must be held to a higher standard than their critics... becomes... The critics of scientists can sink to impossible shameful depths of poor argumentation... becomes... It is off limits to point out in the critics their impossible shameful depths of poor argumentation.

2 Prime) If there exists a forum where there is no crime that brand someone a bad actor, that forum simply exists to aid the Art of Controversy. (No problem with scientists being held to a higher standard - the problem is when the critics are never under risk to their status as a member in good standing, no matter how impossibly shameful their tactics. Also, the standard should be stated up front, or else the floor can sink down into a infinite number of basements of shameful argumentation.)

3) With the critics of scientists, you must never consider the motivation of those critics (strangely, scrutinizing the motivation of the scientists themselves is encouraged).

3 Prime) You don't need to be much of a Bayesian to see value in being informed by judgements of motivation. Forums where there are peculiar restrictions on when motivation can be considered simply exists to aid the Art of Controversy.

4) Scientific facts can be contaminated by a scientist with an outcome preference or a policy preference, and the critics of scientists are under no burden to speculate on the mode of contamination. And demonstrating contamination can be a substitute for demonstrating falsehood.

4 Prime) Forums where such a concept of contaminated facts is allowed simply exist to rid the record of facts that a group of augmenters find fatal to their viewpoint.

5) Only certainty can motivate action, and uncertainty can never motivate action. That is why nobody ever buys homeowners insurance without getting a statement of intent from an arsonist that your home is scheduled for a fire.

5 Prime) A peculiar status for uncertainty gives the motivation for the Art of Controversy.

4 + 5) Scientists must behave as perfect nihilists. A policy or outcome preference from a scientist, even if the logical consequence of a common humane morality of care-taking for the benefit of future generations, is disallowed. (Strangely, this requirement to be perfect nihilists only applies to scientists.) If imperfect nihilism is demonstrated, the publications affected can be discarded.

Commentary on 4 + 5) Forums with such a concept of mandatory scientific nihilism simply exist to rid the record of facts that a group of augmenters find fatal to their viewpoint.

6) Scientists writing in casual forums always risk their reputation, for a certain group of scientists. Scientists writing in casual forums always have their casual statements enhanced by their reputation from scientific publication, for a certain *different* group of scientists.

6 Prime) Forums with such a concept of a blessed group of scientists simply exist to rid the record of facts that a group of augmenters find fatal to their viewpoint.

7) You are not to notice that delay serves privileged groups well. So the Art of Controversy must be only seen as a Quest for Truth.

7 Prime) Forums where the profits from delay are off limit topics simply exist to be in harmony with those profits, if not to be compensated by a fraction of those profits.

Conclusion) I will assume the burden of discipline to avoid these failure modes, in anticipation that I will be called out when I violate them. Then, properly shamed, I will document my failure and correct.

Finially, with a sour taste in my mouth, I end with a comment reply:

http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/04/27/curry-the-backstory/comment-page-1/#comment-3478
"Roger Pielke Jr. Says: April 27th, 2010 at 1:12 pm" speaking of "stealth advocacy"

> No one can control how their statements are used by others. One can however be clear on how their views map onto policy.

This implies that "stealth advocacy" can be a sin of omission.

And, let me guess, a fact put forward by a scientist guilty of "stealth advocacy" has permanent fractional worth, irregardless of the truth of the fact.

You don't need to be much of a Bayesian to see value in informing an initial judgement in a fact from a judgement of the motivation of actor positing the fact. But it is only fair to apply this to scientists, critics, pundits, others alike. And, eventually, the judgement of the fact in isolation of political outcomes has to swamp out the initial judgement informed by motivation. And, the judgement process must provisionally terminate, because the value is in the result, not in the sustained controversy (provisional on information fatal to the judgement). And, uncertainty can compel action, in the same way that uncertainty about the risks to my home can compel me to spend money on homeowners insurance, now.

It is my opinion that you would not agree with the above. I would like to be assured otherwise (of course, you are under no obligation).

Another of my comments:

> Stealth advocacy occurs when someone claims to be only discussing the fact, but in reality, is working to constrain the scope of policy options. Such work can be intentional or unintentional...

The thing to be maximized is not the "scope" of policy options. I could enlarge the scope of school-day bed-time options by actively soliciting the opinion of my middle-school daughter, but I am maximizing for long term education outcomes.

Publishing valid results of the significant possibility of climate disruption inconsistent with post-industrial human population numbers would "constrain the scope of policy options", if the published work was taken seriously. Surely this is not what you want to curtail?

If I was to be uncharitable, I would say discussing "stealth advocacy" is a technique to indefinitely prolong the process of committing to an action commensurate with the possibility of climate disruption, because uncomfortable scientific results could be judged guilty of "constraining the scope of policy options" by removing comfortable but [untenable] options from consideration.

[more 4/27/10]

quoting "Roger Pielke Jr. Says: April 27th, 2010 at 4:35 pm"

> Discussion of issues related to advocacy among scientists long pre-date arguments about climate policy.

How could I forget the controversy of tobacco carcinogenicity? ... Oops, there I go, "constraining the scope of policy options" again.

from "Judith Curry Says: April 27th, 2010 at 6:03 pm", quoting Mike Hulme: "Heated debate" http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/features/features/heated-debate

I agree with Hulme that "different legitimate positions people adopt about these ideological and ethical entanglements" can, with rhetorical tricks, be falsely turned into "arguments about belief (or otherwise) in scientific claims".

But, without a motivating morality about care-taking for future generations, the whole climate disruption argument is just so much dry stuff. And, with that motivating morality, uncertainty is a call to action, not an excuse for inertia.

Again, using the example of [purchasing] homeowners insurance, certainty does not have a monopoly on rational reasons for action.

And it would be a peculiar motivating morality about care-taking for future generations, if it did not prompt skepticism against those who would prolong discussion before meaningful action. If it did not, it could hardly be called morality at all.

Accepting this, you would expect some viewpoints to remain permanently separated.

Pannus is just another word for nothing left to lose

2010-04-23T20:02:00.000-07:00

This picture I drew does not represent the state of my body. I weigh 240 lbs currently, about 50 lbs too heavy for my 6'1" frame (maybe losing that much weight would leave me pretty scrawny, but around there). My huge belly, my jowly fat-face, and my dangerously fatty liver hold this extra weight.

Discussed with a small Loved One about the idea of a "front butt", so I sketched this out.

I wanted to bring attention to the great atheist and erotic blogger Greta Christina, and her "dieting/not-dieting/healthy-living" experience

THE FAT-POSITIVE FEMINIST SKEPTICAL DIET, parts 1 thru 3

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2010/03/fatpositive-feminist-skeptical-diet-3-1.html

I had lost 15 pounds, just to gain it back. Right now I am more interested in enhancing my intentionality with eating and enjoying being active everyday. There is evidence that your weight is a function of the availability of tasty fats and carbs, and tasty empty calories, and very little to do with individual will power. So enhancing my intentionality about what and how and how much I eat makes more sense to me.

Don't start group discussions by sharing initial preferences

2010-04-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

Flickr StreetFly JZ
http://www.flickr.com/photos/streetfly_jz/2764158005/

Don't start group discussions by sharing initial preferences

British Psychological Society's Research Digest blog

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/04/dont-start-group-discussions-by-sharing.html

When groups of people get together to make decisions, they often struggle to fulfil their potential. Part of the reason is that they tend to spend more time talking about information that everyone shares rather than learning fresh insights from each other. In a forthcoming paper, Andreas Mojzisch and Stefan Schulz-Hardt have uncovered a new reason groups so often make sub-optimal decisions. The researchers show that when a group of people begin a discussion by sharing their initial preferences, they subsequently devote less attention to the information brought to the table by each member, thus leading the group to fail to reach the optimal decision. The practical implications are clear - if you can, avoid beginning group decision-making sessions with the exchange of members' initial preferences.

I personally don't think groups should meet until they write up their own views in advance. I will strive to focus on the task of "devoting attention to the information brought to the table by each member", maybe the output of the first meeting should be nothing more or less than a summary of all the different viewpoints, and a rough ad-hoc synthesis of all the viewpoints into a whole (however inelegant). And "real" work begins at the SECOND meeting, in a manner where nothing can be swept under the rug, meaning no viewpoint can be discarded.

What does an Unsustainable Society look like?

2010-04-15T11:46:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

A long form comment inspired by:

Michael Tobis - "Only In It For The Gold": Still Bupkis

Quoting "watchingthedeniers":

> We should perhaps be looking at it in the context of other [successful] "PR" campaigns (in the sense the whole thing was manufactured).

Quoting "Steve Bloom"

> WtD, what gave the "scandal" media legs was the behavior of three journalists (Revkin, Pearce and Monbiot) at two outlets (the NYTimes and Guardian). In essence their coverage gave permission for the rest of the media to pile on. Revkin is most at fault IMHO.

> Actually it would be informative to re-examine Revkin's article in light of present information.

Hear, hear!

I wish I had a fraction of the gifts of John Mashey, to replicate the quality and thoroughness of his work on anti-science organizations and the few scientists they have been able to co-opt, but apply it to techniques and social structures.

What follows is a laughably bare outline, of dubious worth:

A society that is unsustainable in the long term, but stable in the short term, has this structure:

[The terms "vital few", "trivial many" are from Pareto]

"The vital few" - elites dedicated to maintaining their relative status in the short term, even to the detriment of their objective well-being in the long term. Slavishly dedicated to seeking out short-term local maximums of their relative status. They react badly and shut down discussion if anyone suggests their status be contingent on successful long term responsible leadership. Stable because of all the energy these few disburse in maintaining the political structure and rules of decorum of the upper point of the pyramid.

"The trivial many" - common folk dedicated to shedding adult responsibility and shrinking the scope of their responsibility, even to the detriment of their objective well-being in the long term. Slavishly dedicated to seeking out short-term local maximums of distractions and coping behaviors, with both distractions and coping behaviors preferred over enlarging the scope of their responsibility. They react badly and shut down discussion if anyone suggests they enhance their responsibility and enlarge their scope of responsibility. Stable because they have been promised plentiful distractions and pats on the head as a reward for laying prone in rough heaps - to be stepped upon by the vital few.

"The Insignificant" - everyone else who doesn't fall into the above two categories. Too few to count. The Internet allows these people an unprecedented ability to organize themselves. But ultimately it is like two tiny bits of bacon in a massive bowl of split pea soup - the scarcity is so embarrassing it would almost be better to replace it with the complete absence. And probably I am being too optimistic. Stable because too few to count.

[Not all the members of "the insignificant" are responsible actors. But all responsible actors, by exclusion, must be part of "the insignificant"]

The expected role of journalism: journalists are barely a part of the vital few, they have their noses pressed up the glass to better watch the waltzes and curtsies of the elites. Journalist are under economic pressure, because neither the vital few or the trivial many are willing to pay for the type of corrective active journalism the US Founding Fathers imagined. So really-existing contemporary journalists are attracted to an easy "he said/she said" narrative, and attracted to sources that can supply ample dumbed down copy. Both play into the hands of well-funded PR sources, and since there is no financial mechanism to borrow dollars from a sustainable future, the money comes from the exploitation of historical unsustainable resources.

The techniques are all the old tools of the Art of Controversy. Nothing is so easy to do as to shush down an idea nobody is comfortable with. You would think with each error pointed out, the journalists would adopt disciplines to prevent that error from even happening again. But everything is playing out as past anti-scientific obscurantism did, because no discipline is ever permanently retained. [This explains why the punishment for plagiarism is so much greater and swifter than the punishment for lying and sloth and craven stenography for the purposes of the elites, in journalism.]

And, this form of journalism is socially stable because the vital few fear: (1) the responsibility of sustainability and (2) a society of plentiful human fulfilment, because they both pose a risk to their short-term relative status. And, this form of journalism is socially stable because the trivial many fear the suggestion of enhancing their responsibility and enlarging their scope of responsibility, denying them their precious distractions and pats on the head.

The advantage of viewing all through the lens of this model is that time and energy can be saved by avoiding dialog with those who have no capability to remake themselves into responsible actors. [Why argue with those who hold their opponents to a much higher standard of discourse than they do themselves and their friends? Those who want a higher standard of discourse will lead by example. This immediately paints all the alleged "reasonable skeptics/deniers" as bright red prats, you will notice.]

My preferred future: take actions to develop the pervasiveness of the morality of the sustainable long view, and the morality of plentiful human fulfilment. Develop the pervasiveness of such morality *first*, and the programs of social and economic change *second*. Any desire to short-cut the process will play into the hand of demagogues that simply want to change one set of worthless "vital few" with another set of worthless "vital few", to the cheers of the "trivial many".

Much like social activism of abolitionists in the late 1600's eventually led to the significant (but incomplete) eradication of slavery on December 10, 1948 (United Nations General Assembly, Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Unfortunately, the social change of human society is literally glacial, when it comes to acquiring higher standards of morality. Even *with* immense levels of personal dedication on the level of John Brown, Bleeding Kansas, 1855.

I appreciate your criticism of the above, so I can replace the garbage of my poorly constructed thoughts with something better.

Poppycock from Keith Kloor, whining for the loss of Climategate "He said/She said" journalistic narrative

2010-04-14T18:15:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Poppycock from Keith Kloor.

Collida-a-Scape: Choosing Sides

Nothing here except pouting from Kloor because somebody took his journalistic "he said/she said" narrative away from him, and now he is cranky.

"He said/she said" is for shit, when the Titanic is 15 minutes away from the last possible moment the boat can be steered away from the iceberg. If re-arranging the deck-chairs while the boat sinks is folly, how much more greater the folly if the re-arranging of the deck-chairs takes place when the wheel must be turned - folding/unfolding deck-chairs in the stead of saving the ship.

The only part worth reading is Michael Tobis's comment:

You mistake anger for gloating. I am angry. The harping on the sheer nothingness behind the accusations is not celebration. It is a necessary correction. There is nothing to the accusations against Jones. I am not dancing in the street. I am feeling somewhat vindicated for getting matters right in the first place, but my dominant emotion is outrage.

Does that mean science is constructed ideally? No, far from it. I myself advocate both for far greater openness and for formalisms that go to conduct rather than just to final publication. I think pure science should look more like applied science, and in particular climate science needs to wake up to being an applied science. I see the point about circling the wagons. I see the point about opacity. I see the point about arrogance. If seeing these things more clearly is a side effect of this charade, so much the better.

But positive side effects aside, it’s still a charade. There is no cause for vilifying Jones or CRU any more than there has been in the past about Mann or Santer or whoever the bete noir of the year is in denialist circles.

The only substantive question at hand is, when someone publishes someone else’s correspondence, which party committed the crime. I would have thought it was the party doing the stealing, not the party doing the having been stolen from.

If the press continues to get that wrong, it isn’t time to be talking about two-bit tribalism or wagon-circling in the scientific community. A criminal act was committed which resulted in the persecution of the victim. That is the story. It is a pretty interesting story. Why don’t you just run with that one for a while and then get back to us, mmmkay?

Tobis continues on "Only In It For The Gold": Still Bupkis:

Until the innocence of CRU becomes clear to the casual observer, the press is complicit in a vile and inexcusable act of calumny. We won't have much to gloat about until the press examines its role in this absurd disaster.

These "science reporters"... with "friends" like these...

The take-away is:

Scientists will have to blog their way the front line of the narrative, to reach the public with the ability to tell shit from Shinola.
Pure science should look more like applied science.

Expected Outcome, and working backwards from the Unthinkable

2010-04-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

I was going through my notebook, and I just cannot find the source for one of my notes.

I am pretty sure it is from The Economist, Feb 13, 2010, special report on financial risk, but I just cannot pin it down.

The idea was that to use probabilistic tools not just to work out expected outcomes and their distributions, but also to take the Unthinkable Horrific eventualities, and work backwards to puzzle out the most likely ways that they could come into being. And then use that to mitigate.

So, if you were considering building a nuclear power plant, you would not simply work forward to calculate expected outcomes and their distributions, but you would assemble a list of Unthinkable Horrific eventualities that relate to nuclear power plant. You would work backwards, to assemble a list of the ways those horrific eventualities could take place, along with a likelihood (or distribution over variables). Then you would have the basis for decisions about mitigation under economic constraints.

This cannot be done without complete transparency. Everyone needs access to your published assumptions, because you need to be called out when your view is too narrow. Ego and procedural niceties be damned.

Random notes: trees of scenarios, working backward under assumption of failure mode, black swans, alternatives to VAR (value-at-risk): conditional VAR, mean excess loss, mean shortfall, tail VAR.

Michael Specter’s new book ‘Denialism’ misses its targets

2010-04-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

Book review on Grist.org, by Tom Philpott

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-31-michael-specter-denialism-organic-GMO

Scientific Denialism is an important topic, but we have to be wary of those who would simply pick winners and losers among those who sponsor denialism; in Michael Specter's book, for example, carbon fuel burners good, organic food producers bad. But both make scientific denialism part of their public relations schemes.

But there's another, even more glaring oversight at work here. In a book devoted to "denialism," and "how irrational thinking hinders scientific progress, harms the planet, and threatens our lives," there is almost no discussion of the most powerful and successful of all the denier cliques: those who insist human-induced climate change is a hoax.

...

But political and economic power are precisely what elude Specter's gaze. This great defender of science appears to be cursed with something that a love of science should have cured: naiveté. To be sure, the kind of know-nothing, reflexive anti-scienticism that Specter deplores certainly exists; and its adherents need a kick in the pants. Specter's boot misses the target. Moreover, he sees deniers everywhere, except where they are actually powerful and effective: denying climate change.

Unfortunately, to bring seriousness to the issue of climate disruption, it will take just as much work among the "friends" of science as among the "enemies" of science.

Procrastination and Falling in Love with Your Capacity to Really Fail

2010-04-05T17:12:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

I had an unusual brainstorm on Easter weekend. Before I continue, let me type out thoughts that help me get from an unproductive state to a productive state, and then I will get into new thoughts about procrastination.

I based all this on collecting failure modes. As you run into difficulty, add the corrective thought to the list, that corrects the failure mode you just experienced in your life. When the list gets too long and too unwieldy, just scrap the whole thing, and start with a fresh mind, because you are probably in a different place due to new habits of thoughts and actions and new life situations.

So, in my life, recently, I added these thoughts to a list that I force myself to contemplate when I am in a unproductive or incapable state.

The First Four:

Embrace Philosophical Security - this is the peace and security of the Stoic philosophers, such as found in Epictetus. More than a lack of anxiety, it is a positive goal.

Embrace Epicurean Delight - In my mind it is taking enthralling happiness from the commonest of physical experiences, like a breath of morning air, or a sip of cold pure water, or grass felt by bare feet while morning rays hit your shoulders.

Embrace Graciousness - Tolerance - Accommodation - for other people and outside things, offer them all graciousness, tolerance, accommodation. Easy to imagine the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, acting naturally in this manner. Just copy that way of being

Embrace Being Informed by Honest Work - how wonderful to enter a situation being informed by honest work. You can speak with understanding, assurance, and earned confidence.

Two More:

Is my current action or inaction in opposition to any conceivable personal hierarchy of values and goals? You have some intuitive knowledge of all possible effective hierarchies of goals and values, so kick-start yourself into a compatible action, if you find your current coping or distracting action/inaction is utterly incompatible.

Link happiness to growth & improvement, and vice-versa. You have the right to define happiness however you wish, and to call whatever you wish happiness, so why not make happiness synonymous with growth and improvement.

The Latest Two:

Allowing yourself to drift through life without active intention is poisonous, just as if you bit into the bulb of a large mercury thermometer. Do everything in your power to avoid the thieves of intention.

Procrastination is not success postponed - be serious - the habit of procrastination is already failure. Bouts of procrastination are hammer blows on the coffin lid. When you procrastinate, you demonstrate that you ARE a failure. These are all demonstratively true from first principals; procrastination is just a name for a form of anxiety that helps you preserve your ego, because you are clinging to the idea of success being postponed. So, if you have the habit of procrastination, you will eventually have a crash, and a humiliating blow to your station in life. Your only task left is to make this crash as soft a landing as possible, and to hopefully raise the bottom to limit the extent of the drop in status.

OK, done. The heaviest thoughts are about procrastination.

There are two viewpoints when it comes to desire, intention, values, and goals. There is the personal + intimate + internal + subjective + 100% inclusive view where your stated future desires are taken at full face value. There is also the economic view which is external + impersonal + objective + cohort statistical based, where your stated future desires are given zero weight.

Procrastinators will be seen as wildly different in the two views. Objectively, the procrastinator has distraction, consumption, amusement, and numbing as their highest goals, mixed in with some self torture (anxiety about how success is being postponed) only to preserve ego and a positive self-image. This is an extremely negative way to view a person under the spell of procrastination, but it can be defended as demonstratively objectively true.

Procrastination is the funeral ceremony of your aborted higher self, the higher self that had the ability to accomplish those higher goals. It is the funeral ceremony because you have demonstrated no ability to fulfill those higher goals, because the creatures that can fulfill those higher goals have no time for procrastination. If the desire truly was there, you would procrastinate on your procrastination, and just dive right into your work, like a fish flailing on land, when it finally splashes back into the water, is too busy swimming to take time to beach itself again. Procrastination is the signal that your higher self, whatever embryonic form it managed to manifest, is now dead.

Action is based on habit, and personal desires are the genesis of new habits, or the genesis of self-flagellation to preserve ego. If all your personal desires just prompt bouts of self-hatred because of procrastination, and never prompt simply throwing yourself into your work, what are those personal desires there for?

OK, we talked about two views: the intimate & personal or the economic. Your expected outcome is most likely to be predicted by the economic. The End.

Am I taking things too far? I remember that I lost my religiosity because I focused too much on an intense commitment to perform all the duties of religious faith. I overdid it, because it is not the job of the common believer to maintain that intense commitment; I took it too far, I used a partial commitment as an excuse to dispense with all commitment. I have mixed feelings about this, because, on the one hand, I am being honest about having a false viewpoint about religion, and, on the other hand, I cannot "rewind" my mind back to that earlier state, and I cannot say that I would prefer to be a believer again.

OK, back to the issue at hand; am I taking things too far, by calling procrastination the nails on the coffin of a higher life goal or value?

I will have to try out this viewpoint for a few days. I will do this... Really bring into mind the feeling of realizing that my higher life goals, that I have had as constant companions for all my life, must be set aside for moving forward with more down-to-earth issues, and concentrating on preparing myself for the day when I must submit to a humiliating loss of status, and disown a big part of my past ego. It brings things into sharp focus, and it brings home how serious is the issue of losing intention to the distractions, vices of consumption, vices of cheap amusement, vices of self-numbing.

I like this, because I cannot think of anything more fundamental than acting under intention under a moral commitment. Forget procrastination and anything I may be procrastinating, this concentrating on action under intention is the primary important issue.

A very well thought out Git branching model

2010-03-27T10:59:00.000-07:00

Vincent Driessen nvie.com: A successful Git branching model

A successful Git branching model

In this post I present the development model that I’ve introduced for all of my projects (both at work and private) about a year ago, and which has turned out to be very successful. I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while now, but I’ve never really found the time to do so thoroughly, until now. I won’t talk about any of the projects’ details, merely about the branching strategy and release management.

Very nice, and well thought out, with developers working and collaborating naturally and productively, but still keeping the high quality main releases flowing out steadily.

Rest In Peace, Hockey Stick

2010-03-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

We will start with the quote from Ian Jolliffe, and work backwards to unpack.

"http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/472646295/i-am-by-no-means-a-climate-change-denier-my"

“I am by no means a climate change denier. My strong [impression] is that the evidence rests on much much more than the hockey stick. It therefore seems crazy that the MBH hockey stick has been given such prominence and that a group of influential climate scientists have doggedly defended a piece of dubious statistics.”

- Ian Jolliffe"

My comment:

I am surprised to hear, today, that considered authoritative option thinks that the "hockey stick" is bad statistics, and that people who believe in global warming should admit this error, strive to be more rigorous, and move on with the other overwhelming facts of global warming.

I will modify my view.

Lets now work backward.

Ian Jolliffe's comment to Tamino: "http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/open-thread-5-2/#comment-21873"

Tamino blogs at "http://tamino.wordpress.com/"

Jolliffe requests an apology from Tamino, because he feels words were placed into his mouth, to give full liberty to any use of the statistical technique of "decentred PCA" when a different origin is considered to be meaningful, even though he did no such thing. "Decentred PCA" is the technique that Mann used to bring the hockey stick into clearly resolved existence.

A reasonable starting place, from a moderately skeptical point of view, for information on Michael E. Mann's "Hockey stick": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy"

Tamino apologized (also at "http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/open-thread-5-2/#comment-21873"), re-iterated that "It also seems to me (and I'm by no means the only one) that the origin in the analysis of MBH98 is meaningful" and ended by emphasizing a part Jolliffe's reply - "... the evidence rests on much much more than the hockey stick. It therefore seems crazy that the MBH hockey stick has been given such prominence ..." - which can be interpreted as back-tracking.

This has allowed some merchants of obscurantism to make hay: "http://climateaudit.org/2008/09/08/ian-jolliffe-comments-at-tamino/".

[Edit 04/16/10]

The above applies only to the original Mann hockey stick, for an overview of the evidence from all available sources of evidence of possible climate disruption see:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm

How to help a daughter with Pre-Algebra, with a $5000 Mathematica seat

2010-03-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

(Actually, you will pay less for Mathematica than I do. I believe you will pay $200)

Here is a session in Mathematica's Notebook REPL (Read-eval-print-loop). If you are simply performing an operation on the last bit of output, simply type "%". Remember, "Solve" works on equations, and inequalities require the use of "Reduce". In "Reduce", don't be thrown by Mathematica taking care to note the domain of the variables. "Expand" can force Mathematica to carry out all the productions in the expression. "MapAt" is great to change just one part of an expression. "Remove["Global`*"];" is how you can just re-evaluate a whole Notebook from scratch, and not have to worry about conflicts with earlier assignments as you were exploring different implementations and techniques. "RegionPlot" is just the thing for viewing inequalities.

In:= Remove["Global`*"];

In:= slope[{x0_,y0_},{x1_,y1_}]:=(y1-y0)/(x1-x0)

In:= slope[{-6,3},{2,-5}]
Out= -1

In:= slope[{1,3},{-2,-1}]
Out= 4/3

In:= Solve[{-3x-y==2,-4x+2y==8},{x,y}]
Out= {{x->-(6/5),y->8/5}}
In:= N[%]
Out= {{x->-1.2,y->1.6}}

In:= Solve[-3x-y==2,{y}]
Out= {{y->-2-3 x}}

In:= Solve[-4x+2y==8,{y}]
Out= {{y->2 (2+x)}}
In:= MapAt[Expand[#]&,%,{1,1}]
Out= {{y->4+2 x}}

In:= Solve[{y-x==3,2x+y==-2},{x,y}]
Out= {{x->-(5/3),y->4/3}}
In:= N[%]
Out= {{x->-1.66667,y->1.33333}}
In:= Reduce[y-x<=3,{y}]
Out= x\[Element]Reals&&y<=3+x
In:= Reduce[2x+y<-2,{y}]
Out= x\[Element]Reals&&y<-2-2 x

In:= RegionPlot[{y-x<=3,2x+y<-2},{x,-5,5},{y,-5,5}]
Out=

For some stupid reason, I alway forget "Rise Over Run" for the slope. So now I can just cut and paste.

Andrew Gelman said something significant, above my head

2010-03-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

A new post by Andrew Gelman, with a quite wordy title

The single most useful piece of advice I can give you, along with a theory as to why it isn't better known, all embedded in some comments on a recent article that appeared in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2010/03/the_single_most.html

I would summarize, but I am embarrassed to say I understand very little of it. In a comment, I made an attempt:

Hello Prof. Gelman,

Are you saying "model building" will naturally lead to applying fruitful transformations that will lead to statistics that do more than only prove "a formally statistically significant difference for a trivial effect"?

(By "model building" you mean the scientist taking responsibility for an abstraction that goes beyond statistics, i.e. causality and value judgments about what is more than a trivial effect.)

I am having trouble translating your description into something I can understand, so I would appreciate your help if I made a hash of things with my little summary.

I will add edits to this as I learn more.

I feel Pearl's causality graphs (directed acyclic graphs, to be specific) are the appropriate format to present any model. If you want to allow the possibility of "no true zeros", then use multiple models, and "collapse" all the points where you wish to use statistics to show the possibility of "no true zeros", maybe even "collapsing" everything into a single point! The multiple models you then have will now compete in different uses - based on predictive power, accuracy, ability to calculate meaningful error ranges, cost of collecting data, cost of computation, cost of comparison, ability to predict outcomes from interventions, cost of understanding, etc.

"No true zeros" - see Andrew Gelman's Review Essay "Causality and Statistical Learning" Section Heading: "There are (almost) no true zeroes: difficulties with the research program of learning causal structure" http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2010/03/causality_and_s.html

I also have a hard time understanding all this in isolation from a model of a rational being working under a motivating sense of responsibility to make a decision about an action (or remaining inactive). Especially statistical analysis divorced from utility in making a decision. Comprehension is nice, but comprehension that cannot play a part in any morally motivated decision is valueless.

Fatty Liver means my Babylove wants me to stop drinking beer

2010-03-23T12:01:00.001-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

I am not a big drinker, which is good news for me, because my father was a heavy cigarette smoker and is still an alcoholic. I don't care for wine at all, and don't care for hard liquor. But I do enjoy a fine beer, especially English beers. Yummy! Dark beer, ales, spicy little microbrews, all good stuff. My limit is two beers at one sitting, because I am all about the taste, not getting buzzed.

My problem is that I am overweight, and I store my fat in my liver - so, FATTY LIVER OVERDRIVE, BABY! So my Babylove wants me to stop drinking beer, even though I average only about 3 beers a week. Even the fattiest of livers can metabolize 3 beers a week without breaking a sweat, but the Babylove has spoken.

Not really a problem. I enjoy a good ice water. My Babylove also has this strange idea about drinking body temperature water, how this is supposed to be HEALTHY HEALTH OVERDRIVE, BABY! No way I am drinking piss-warm water. Take away my beer, but leave me my ice cubes.

It is time for some humility - Oh Lordy...

2010-03-19T17:31:00.000-07:00

Image by Perfesser via Flickr

"it is time for some humility, concludes [a deservedly humble man]"

http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2010/03/statistically-improbable-phrases.html

The sheer nerve of a request for "humility" against those who put their reputations on the line by publishing, under the burden of responsible science. A request for humility by a humbug.

My comment:

That piece is clearly not a book review (too short and too shallow), and it is not a piece of higher criticism because advances no thesis (concern trolling is the opposite of advancing a thesis).

It is a piece of opinion placed in a corner of Nature where the editors don't have to take any responsibility for the opinion. And quite a shabby bit of opinion making.

And why this fringe voice chosen? (Bjorn was caught out misrepresenting sources, the Superfreakonomics chapter was a hash, so RPJr steps up to the plate... And RPJr's tack will run out quickly as well - it seems to be entirely based on the idea that facts can be "contaminated" by scientists who have a preferred policy outcome. Because politics is a human activity, and scientists must not be human.)

An disreputable opinion published predominately without risk to reputation. Shameful. If the self-described "reasonable voices" see the issue not as a matter of scientific fact but as a political or economic one, then commission a paper from a publishing political scientist or an economist. Instead of publishing potshots and bobbing and weaving and concern trolling.

Was this garbage technique used before against other science that pained industries? Is there a history of this technique used for tobacco or pharmacological marketing? Or is energy policy widely understood by "the people who matter" to be all encompassing?

Obviously, industry funds a lot of research. Is this garbage based on many industry voices among the circle of acquaintance of Nature's editors saying that the economic replacements for carbon fuels are just not ready yet, so the scientific question of human culpability in global warming has to simmer on the back burner for a while? (Sadly, the industry concerns are probably more cynical than this - an indirect demand from those who get paid today that they deserve to get paid tomorrow, oil rigs or not, refineries or not.)

John Mashey did a bang up job tracking the pitifully few scientists who promote obscurantism against climate science, but I don't recall the editorial boards of top journals being included in his analysis. And he didn't write about the techniques used in those journals to promote the Art of Controversy against uncomfortable scientific findings.

Complicity and Sympathy for Comforting but False & Dangerous Ideas

2010-03-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

Image by Fergal OP via Flickr

Comment on:

http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/455387977/i-think-we-can-get-past-the-lie-and-it-was-a-lie

When dealing with someone so bugfuck crazy like RPJr or Bjorn, you practically have no choice but to abstract away these bad actors into fake-controversy-creating-automatons, and focus on those who allow these trolls to be heard. And, practically everywhere from practically everyone, you find complicity and sympathy for these comforting but false & dangerous ideas.

There is no evidence that humanity likes science or the burden of responsibilities that pay out decades in the future. Humanity does not mind playing with some the end products of both, like consumer electronics or the body of modern medical knowledge, but humanity really doesn't like either science or the responsibility of the very long view.

Our only tools are to consciously move the Overton Window as quickly as possible to something compatible with humanity continuing to exist, and, in the mean time, remember "[Our] basic function [is] to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable." (a quote from Milton Friedman, speaking about something other than climate change, but the idea applies). Obviously, that means our last, best hopes will be way past their shelf life, and we will only be left crude largely ineffectual measures for cooling the globe and dumping antacid into the ocean. It also means making the best arguments for the alleged "Conservatives" and "Libertarians" for them, because their mental failure modes mean they themselves cannot; because those bodies of thought, reasonably applied, have something to offer to guide towards sensible policy.

[Edit 3/18/10]

Consider RPJr's strange book review in Nature - he is reviewing 4 books, none less than 300 pages, and his review could fit comfortably on 2 sheets of college ruled paper, even though the books are competing for space with RPJr's opinions.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7287/full/464352a.html

It is a perfect example of concern trolling. Quoting:

> Incremental approaches to climate mitigation that can be modified by experience offer a chance that realistic and democratically grounded actions might rise to a challenge that will be with us for decades to come.

In other words, don't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, especially if the theater is actually on fire. Eventually, enough of the patrons will catch on fire to allow a rough consensus to take hold. Poppycock.

The piece is self-refuting, but the issue is that it was allowed to be published. We should hold the editors of Nature up to ridicule. If those editors wish that the issue is taken away from the facts of science and into the realm of political science and economics (as they must plainly feel), then print ~~articles~~ papers from publishing political scientists and economists. Instead of concern trolls without any stake in substantive argumentation.

[Edit 03-26-10: see comment by Marion Delgado]

No conspiracies - everything you should worry about is in plain view

2010-03-17T10:14:00.001-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Conspiracies are very uninteresting. I am supposed to worry about Bush and Cheney bringing down the Twin Towers, but everything that happened during the GWB White House years was exquisitely planned and published before the fact by the conservative thinkers and the Neo-Cons. Why do we have to act surprised that they did exactly what they told everyone they would do?

That the Republicans and Democrats are two different faces of the Corporatist Party is something they don't even bother to hide. It is like accusing a five year old of a conspiracy to steal from the cookie jar when the little dude doesn't even bother to wipe the chocolate mess and crumbs from his little face. Using the word "conspiracy" is absurd.

Conspiratorial thinking is just a roundabout way to absolve yourself from any responsibility for taking action. It is a way to claim that any constructive action is pointless because the Big Bad Scary Forces pull the strings from the shadows. Garbage. Little thoughts for pathetic little people.

The conspiracy you should worry about is the conspiracy inside you, that makes you settle for 2nd best, 3rd best, 4th best, etc, when you possess the power to do more. The light of *personal* *responsibility* makes all the conspiratorial shadows disappear.

Because you should be thinking less about the state of the White House, and more about how much time you spend helping your daughter with her homework, or how you can tell your wife that you love her in a way that is meaningful to her, or all the personal battles that actually mean something in a life. Frick conspiracies in the tushie. Yeah, I said it: Frick conspiracies in the tushie!

Catching up to my hand written journal

2010-03-05T20:13:00.000-08:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Catching up on my notebook, notes on: indulgences, financial assets, sovereign default, hierarchy, responsibility, free will, reason or excuse, interruption, implementation intentions, Keith E. Stanovich, Peter Gollwitzer, outrage porn, proselytizing, BRAC, Fazle Hasan Abed, enjoyment, rationality

In theory, each one of these points could be a blog post, but I have to clear out my notebook, so consider these placeholders.

Note 1: Adam Carolla and loving Red Wine

Adam Carolla talking about red wine. He loves it so much, that he takes great pains not to abuse it, so he will never risk having it taken away from him forever. This should be how I treat a lot of the things I eat and drink, like beef jerky, sweets, coffee, Monster Energy drinks. ~~Taken to an extreme, this could include internet porn and masturbation.~~ Some days later, the Upright Citizen's Brigade hosted the Adam Carolla podcast, and Ian Roberts talked about binge eating and binge drinking. Using Carolla's advice, the pleasure you derive from eating and drinking should make you careful not to binge, because that is a path where others could rob you of those pleasures through rehab!

Note 2: Really existing financial assets, and what low interest rates and sovereign default really mean.

The Economist, October 10th 2009, p 76, Buttonwood - The Nature of Wealth.

http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_TQVRSNGN (subscription only)

[paraphrasing] Financial assets are not "wealth", but a claim on future real wealth.

My idea, to develop more later, is that "really existing" financial assets:

1) Pay interest as a reward for an obligation, under pain of punishing penalty, to not withdraw before a maturity date.

2) When a withdrawal is made, it is in chits that can only be used in a regularly scheduled auction of a fraction of outstanding assets that cannot risk drastically devaluing the whole.

3) Unused chits have a severe negative interest rate.

3) Transparency in preparation for future potential obligations is the only basis of relative soundness.

Under this scheme, paper money and a central bank goal of low interest rates is an appeal to the animal spirits of the monied masses, to make as much wealth as possible available for manipulation by bankers. During "normal" times, this works very well to make capital available to those who will use it best, but, this is unsustainable, and so there is a predictable cycle of crashes by way of sovereign default, on the order of every 200 years or so.

Gold backed money is not a solution, because all you have done is added a superfluous level of indirection (you cannot eat gold), and you have denied the central bankers the ability to come arbitrarily close to a crash from time to time, while avoiding devastation of the full crash. The gold standard is like an airplane designed to explode if it comes within 200 feet of the ground without an airport runway underneath. The knowledge of the explosive charges will force the pilots to fly with more care, but no human could condone killing people when there is even a small chance of a maneuver for restorative assent. So the cycle is 200 years between sovereign default with paper money, instead of every 225 years on the gold standard, with the gold standard assuring that 120 years out of the 225 are lived in sheer terror and deprivation.

Note 3: No right to the desired outcome, only a right to the prerequisite work

I forgot I already wrote this up: http://manuelmoeg.blogspot.com/2010/02/no-right-to-outcome-only-right-to-work.html

Note 4: Is my current action or inaction in opposition to any conceivable personal hierarchy of values and goals?

I am lying in bed. I want to stay in bed. I know, rationally, that my current inaction is in opposition to any conceivable personal hierarchy of values and goals. So get out of bed now, dummy.

Note 5: It is not free will, it is a motivating sense of responsibility, that is the thing.

Because free will does not exist. It is being hunted down the same way scientific inquiry hunted down vitalism [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism ], or the supernatural origin of man, or the supernatural origin of the world, or miracles, or the Jesus of the Scriptures, or primitive gods demanding sacrifice, etc.

But we need to explain differences in outcomes, so we care about a motivating sense of responsibility, and the rigor that demands to perform due the responsibility.

Note 6: Is what I am currently doing or not doing have a reason or merely an excuse?

Always because of reasons, never time to entertain excuses.

Note 7: To do right by a hierarchy of values and goals, you need the ability to interrupt merely coping or distracting activities.

Maybe to mentally visualize the interruption process, as practice. Also, Peter Gollwitzer's implementation intentions - "mark the cue-action sequence with the conscious, verbal declaration: "when X occurs, I will do Y"." [ from Keith E. Stanovich's What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought, page 200, referring to Gollwitzer P M 1999 Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54, 493-503. Gollwitzer P M, Schaal B 1998 Metacognition in action: The importance of implementation intentions. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 124-136 ]

Note 8: Avoid Outrage Porn

So many left-wing websites are simply outrage porn. I am attracted to them because I agree with the viewpoint, but it is nothing but a coping mechanism for anxiety and a distraction. No time for outrage porn.

Note 9: Free Will as a very scarce resource

To describe the process of enforcing motivating sense of responsibility, we use the language of "free will", without making any claim about free will existing (good thing, too, because it doesn't).

The moments when we take responsibility to rise above the constraints of situation, we call this a moment when we can exercise free will. These moments are few and far in between. They can be imagined as a single spark of energy & life. What a terrific sin to squander them!

Note 10: Proselytizing for Rationality is very suspect.

If you have an agenda for rationality, your first subject should be yourself. Your energies to make yourself more rational will never find a satiation. So proselytizing to other for the cause of rationality is suspect, and probably a way to excuse yourself from the rigors of rationality.

Note 11: BRAC - Fazle Hasan Abed

The Economist p60 Feb 20th, 2010 "BRAC in business" - Fazle Hasan Abed has built one of the world’s most commercially-minded and successful NGOs

quote:

In a book on BRAC entitled “Freedom from Want”, Ian Smillie calls it “undoubtedly the largest and most variegated social experiment in the developing world. The spread of its work dwarfs any other private, government or non-profit enterprise in its impact on development.”

BRAC pays far more attention to research and “continuous learning” than do most NGOs. David Korten, author of “When Corporations Rule the World”, called it “as near to a pure example of a learning organisation as one is likely to find.”

Note 12: Failure of hierarchy of values and goals with perverse outcomes in the particular case

I have no idea what I meant here. Just typing what I wrote longhand. I think I already spoke to this above - I think it is more of not tolerating any coping or distraction that cannot possibly be congruent with any possible personal hierarchy of values and goals.

[ Edit 3/8/10 ]
I remember now. Must have just woken up when wrote that in notebook. It means that indulging in something that is in violation with any possible reasonable hierarchy of values and goals, will lead you to a place where you are denied the opportunity to every indulge in that thing ever again.

Note 13: Reason & Rationality follows Responsibility

I already spoke to this above. Typing what I wrote longhand: More important than free will is self imposed burden of responsibility and confidence in being able to make meaning choices followed by meaningful commitment followed by meaningful action.

Just realized: I have a "duty" to enjoy myself, under my so-called "self imposed burden of responsibility", or else I just will not do it. Hey, man, have fun, keep fun close, Mister Responsibility Man.

OK, Reason & Rationality follows Responsibility, got it - what then IS reason and rationality?

1) Avoid failure modes & make progress toward achievement of goals consistent with values.

2) Remove the contradictory from the set of goals & values

3) Improve the consistency of the goals and values, using every new situation as an opportunity to do such.

That is it! Up to date dumping out notebook!

Statistics versus Causality - A predictable impasse

2010-03-05T18:30:00.000-08:00

Image by Cedric Favero via Flickr

My undignified reply to Andrew Gelmans's take on Causality and Statistical Learning

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2010/03/causality_and_s.html

follow-up here:

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2010/03/no_comment.html

The causality people and the statistics people are talking past each other, your [Andrew Gelman's] 12 page magnum opus included.

Point 0) Sense of responsibility → decision → commitment to action/inaction → action/inaction ⇒ implies you possess a general description of reality, unless you are limiting yourself to a very narrow sphere of responsibility.

Point 1) Statistics cannot be the basis for a general description of reality because of Simpson's Paradox. When it arises, the paradox can only be eliminated by an appeal to plausible causality, directly or indirectly. Also, no statistical test exist, for a static situation, to make a prediction of what relationships would prevail if conditions change -- again, only an appeal to causality can do such. (See Judea Pearl's book Causality, chapter 6)

Point 2) Causality cannot be the basis for a general description of reality because reality violates the assertion of independent variables needed for effective causal analysis ("no true zeroes" as you put it). Reality doesn't even adhere to the laws of conditional probability [ http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009/09/the_laws_of_con.html ] much less the structure of independence needed for causal analysis.

Image via Wikipedia

Point 3) There are no other contenders for general descriptions of reality besides statistics or causality.

Conclusion) SOL

So people, under the burden of responsibility, must maintain several models of reality, over smaller and larger domains of applicability, some statistical, some causal, some based on symmetry & curve fitting, some based on the laws of probability, some based on scientific laws, some based on economic laws, some based on rules of thumb, some based on multiple simulation runs, some hybrids. These models compete against each other, at the cost of maintenance, data collection, computation, and comparison, with the benefit of correct probabilistic predictions of consequences of action/inaction, or the benefit of demonstrations of broad range of uncertainty that swamps discernment of effects between decisions.

And the sense of responsibility is made of shifting sands, and human values and goals are not static. So you could pay all the costs for a model, just to dispense with it.

Image via Wikipedia

But all this *still* can be done for individuals or small groups. Once you get past 30 members, what is rewarded are techniques for rubber stamping decisions already taken by the politically powerful, under the name of "objective analysis" for political cover.

So "small" decisions can be made quite well, with effort. And "large" decisions are made quite poorly, because evidence of a cold calculated analysis would be blood on the hands of the politically powerful (besides, the ability to perform such analysis is in opposition to dumb loyalty, which is the most prized character trait of the privileged in-group). But these "large" lousy decisions possess notoriety, and thus human appeal. So a thousand pages each over describing a thousand theories chase after a relative small number of very poor decision making processes.

The consequences of all this may dim my sparkling optimism, so I must leave that as an exercise for others.

Rats! Mother Nature's dearest children

2010-02-23T16:37:00.001-08:00

I asked my daughter to help with the bait for the rat traps. She smeared peanut butter on Italian cheese. It actually looked like a fairly tasty treat, but I was simply going to smear it on the trigger of a rat trap, hoping not to snap my fingers.

ssttt! little baby-mouse, sleeping on my hand

We have rats in our attic. It is gross, a 6'1" 260 lb dude scrabbling all up in the rafters of the attic, praying he (me) will not fall through the ceiling, me scrabbling amongst the rat dropping, setting rat traps with my shaky arthritic hands.

But I admire rats. Nobody takes care of them, they have to take care of themselves. But after humans kill themselves with climate change or nuclear war or both, rats will still be scurrying. And squeaking.

That is a FINE DESIGN. Rats never put on airs, they just be stuffing their face with cheese and pooping in my attic.

No right to the outcome, only a right to the work

2010-02-18T19:39:00.000-08:00

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

Copying from my urinal journal...

I want to write about not having the right to the desired outcome - only having the right to the requisite work to reasonably expect that outcome.

So if you want to date a supermodel, and you plainly see that earning many millions of dollars per year will allow you to date a supermodel, then you have no right to the *outcome* of dating a supermodel, you only have the right to the *work* required so that you can reasonably expect to earn many millions of dollars per year. And that is quite a bit of work of very high quality, to earn that much.

The desired outcome is only there to inform your choice and fuel your very early commitment, but after that you must rely on a moral drive that makes the full scope of work its own reward.

Or else you can expect only bitterness at the end, and tears. Because the world cannot guarantee the outcome - you do not have to travel far to find someone who ran down a path that turned into a dead end pitfall at the very last moment.

The moral emotion that can do this can be developed by acting consistent with its presence. "Fake it before you make it." Activating the muscles actually grows the sympathetic thoughts, and then, after training, the thoughts then cause the activity itself. So, act as if you already believe that the full scope of work is its own reward (and that amount of work may be staggering). Act in accordance with the idea that the work is its own reward, and the moral emotion will be developed and that moral emotion will then drive the authentic action.

Positive Things to Embrace, for Perspective for Choice

2010-02-17T17:40:00.000-08:00

I noticed that in my post yesterday:

Before attempt Rational Living - First Cast Aside Anxiety, Irritation, Negative Judgement

Image by sdminor81 via Flickr

was completely stated negatively! I only mentioned what I wanted to avoid, which is exactly the worst way to go about changing your focus.

So, stated *positively* I have:

Before attempt Rational Living - First Embrace --

Philosophical Security
Epicurean Delight
Graciousness - Tolerance - Accommodation
Being Informed by Honest Work.

Embrace these before, as a prerequisite for attempting Rational Effective Living -- attempting --

analysis
decision
commitment
action
rinse & repeat.

In detail:

Embrace Philosophical Security - this is the peace and security of the Stoic philosophers, such as found in Epictetus

Show me someone who is sick, and yet happy; in danger, and yet happy; dying, and yet happy; exiled, and yet happy; disgraced, and yet happy. Show him to me, for, by the gods, I long to see a Stoic.

http://www.knowledgereform.com/2010/02/17/stoic-advice-from-epictetus-on-the-art-of-living-part-2/

Embrace Epicurean Delight - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aponia

As with the other Hellenistic schools of philosophy, the Epicureans believed that the goal of human life is happiness. This was to be found in the tranquillity of spirit which resulted from aponia, suppression of physical pain, and ataraxia, elimination of mental disturbances.

In my mind it is taking enthralling happiness from the commonest of physical experiences, like a breath of morning air, or a sip of cold pure water.

Image by TheGiantVermin via Flickr

Embrace Graciousness - Tolerance - Accommodation - for other people and outside things, offer them all graciousness, tolerance, accommodation.

Embrace Being Informed by Honest Work - how wonderful to enter a situation being informed by honest work. You can speak with understanding, assurance, and earned confidence.

I have a lot of practicing to do, to learn this skill!

Before attempt Rational Living - First Cast Aside Anxiety, Irritation, Negative Judgement

2010-02-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

I was thinking, as I got into the car, that, as a prerequisite for attempting Rational Effective Living -- attempting analysis, decision, commitment, action, rinse & repeat -- I must rid myself in appearence and rid myself in substance of:

Anxiety
Irritation
Negative Judgment of Others or Outside Things

... stated this way because casting away these debilitating things in substance follows casting away these debilitating things in appearance. The appearance of calm and centeredness leads to fundamental integrity to the core with calm and centeredness.

I don't know if this is fundamental to everyone, but, for myself, Anxiety, Irritation, and Negative Judgment puts me in an incapable state. These are the only things standing in my way, usually, in holding fast to calm and centeredness.

Negative Judgment of myself should not be chronic, because that, also, would lead to an incapable state. I can use negative judgment of myself as a trigger -- as a part of the Analysis step of Rational Effective Living, because it will inform decisions about how to take action to improve myself, with moral emotional energy to maintain commitment.

Image by cliff1066™ via Flickr

So, I will practice the skill of interrupting incapable states, using psychological techniques and techniques about physicality, to rid myself of Anxiety, Irritation, and Negative Judgment of Other or Outside Things. And, then, I have the Space to perform Analysis, Decision, Commitment, Action.

Sensory substitution, plasticity, and extended consciousness

2010-02-16T15:50:00.000-08:00

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Paper by Julian Kiverstein & Mirko Farina - University of Edinburgh

Sensory substitution, plasticity, and extended consciousness

http://mirkofarina.blogspot.com/2010/02/sensory-substitution-plasticity-and.html

Mirko Faria - AI & Philosophy of Mind

Consider for instance a blind perceiver that has undergone training with a TVSS device so that he can use the device to perceive objects in his surrounding environment. The TVSS device produces activation in somatosensory cortex. After training however the perceiver doesn’t consciously feel the tactile stimulation the device is producing. Instead he undergoes experiences that in some way resemble vision.
...
We will argue that the perceiver does undergo some change in experience as a consequence of using the sensory substitution device (SSD), but we agree that is may be problematic to call it visual. Instead we will argue that SSDs make possible a new variety of experience only available to a perceiver trained up to use a sensory substitution device. ...

My excited (and probably naive) comment:

Astonishing. Could this be a way to study how new perception systems can come into being? An intermediary evolutionary step, for instance? First there was smell, then touch, then hearing, then vision, etc. Is this a framework to study how these each came online as a full featured system of perception?

I'm assumed to be the leader, I just want to nap

2010-02-16T12:33:00.001-08:00

"Explain why you'd rather pave the path or walk in it?" I just want to nap. But I am assumed to be the leader, usually. Why?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

1) I am Tall and meaty. I am built like a fullback. People are lazy and assign leadership to the tallest guy around, because the top of his head is easy to track, even with bobbing and weaving. Follow that tall dude!

2) I am Very surly. I always have a poopie-face on, so people assign leadership to me, just so that they don't have to deal with my surly poopie-face when I shout down their attempt to give me an order. If I am shouting out orders, at least they get some relief when I eventually leave the room.

3) I am a Bullshit artist. I begin almost all my spoken sentences without any knowledge of my eventual point. I am a fount of infinite plausible bullshit.

4) I am the Child of an Alcoholic, so I can tolerate extremely provoking, shocking, uncomfortable, and violent situations. I just storm into every situation, and raise the anxiety levels with abuse until I am the only one who can still bear to string a sentence together. That is my Super Power.

Image by Rebecca L. Daily via Flickr

5) I actually care about Fairness and Fulfilling Human Potential and Validating Authentic Feelings. The other things make me a Good Leader, but this thing is why I am a Bad Leader. I actually care about Fairness and Fulfilling Human Potential and Validating Authentic Feelings, like a Girly-Man. Leaders should be complete psychopaths and sociopaths. People prefer psychopaths and sociopaths as leaders, and in that regard I always disappoint. When I open my fool mouth about Fairness and Fulfilling Human Potential and Validating Authentic Feelings, people know they can relax, because I will not be the leader for long. People hate hearing about Fairness and Fulfilling Human Potential and Validating Authentic Feelings because it is even more BORING than filling out a tax form. People actually prefer people who bulldoze over everyone, because then everyone is relieved of the burden of thoughtful consideration and honest heartfelt expression. Shut that BORING GIRLY-MAN up!

Taken all together, this is why I am constantly interrupted when I am just looking for a soft place to lie down, even though I don't want to lead, and nobody really wants me to lead. Put on the ol' poopie-face >:-{

Aside: what do I think is Human Potential?

About human potential - I am the rare breed of idiot that thinks people are entitled to the positive outcome based on their human potential - the potential from following a rational, moral, & emotionally honest strategy - probably while being dragged into it kicking and screaming and resisting it every step of the way -- a strategy that is likely to lead to dignity, fulfillment, mutually strengthening human relations, and inner peace.

In the past, this kind of idiot was tarred, feathered, drawn & quartered, because hanging was too good for them.

Andrew Gelman and Climate Change Concern Trolling

2010-02-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

Image by Dunechaser via Flickr

Andrew Gelman's blog [ http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/mlm/ ] has some of the best writing on climate change when Phillip Price submits a post [ see http://manuelmoeg.blogspot.com/2009/12/talking-about-climate-change-publishing.html ] and has some of the worst writing when Andrew Gelman himself posts.

Andrew Gelman seems to be sympathetic to conspiratorial thinking about the scientific culture around climate change. My feeling is that in his own field of statistics, Bayesian techniques have been actively suppressed and misrepresented, so Gelman is open to the idea that investigators who don't see human global warming could be actively suppressed and misrepresented too.

Which is fine, if the arguments were not so lame.

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2010/02/stabilizing_fee.html
(Anonymous concern troll says any paper contradicting Arrhenius' 1896 climate model is likely to be self suppressed. And if this is not the point of the anonymous question, what is?)
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009/12/how_do_i_form_m.html
(Before Andrew Gelman steps onto a subway train, he ponders that the civil engineers that designed the train might be laboring under thoughts so stupid that they can only come from some aspect of the civil engineering consensus in a particularly ugly undigested form. And he is paralyzed by fits of panic. And if this is not the point of Gelman's "Beyond my limited sphere of scientific compresension, I dunno", what is?)

It could be more convincingly argued that:

(1) human activity is making an ice age less likely

(2) global warming skepticism and preference for inaction plays a semi-rational role in the debate, not because of the poor quality of their arguments, but as a brake against premature solutions:

Image by Auntie P via Flickr

Al Gore holding up a mercury light bulb in "An Inconvenient Truth",
Ed Begley, Jr. installing semiconductor solar panels to all exposed surfaces of his home,
the US government giving loans to Tesla electric cars

... all of which are very likely contributing to burning *more* fossil fuels, not less, because the total costs over those product's entire lifetime (including manufacturing plants that themselves burn fossil fuels, including safe disposal of wastes) are unrepresented by the relatively small price charged to consumers. Better to tax fossil fuels in rich countries and spend that money on research placed in the public domain so even the poorest countries can benefit. At a gradual rate of increase, so as to have minimum harm to productivity.

But, instead, we get lame concern trolling about scientific conspiracies. I get the tiresome feeling that the global warming skeptics need to be saved from themselves, to have the people convinced by the scientific consensus to make their best arguments for them, because they cannon help but simply echo the last thing they heard from someone with a direct financial link to oil companies. Tiresome.

My reply to the anonymous concern troll:

> If the prediction of a climate model is very much outside the consensus predictions, it is not likely to be published.

More arguing that climate science is a nonesuch science. Taken to the logical extreme, we can argue that Einstein's papers on Special and General Relativity are not likely to be published (and that is why we still use epicycles today). Taken to the logical extreme, we can posit that Alex Rodriguez is not likely to swing for the fences. The blockbuster behavior of the players in the 99.999% percentile is poorly predicted by the tentative behavior of the average player.

Secondly, science publishing is not the only market for climate modeling. Commodities traders and the reinsurance market for hedging risk on multi-year massive construction projects have a need for accurate climate modeling, because on those time scales a long range weather report would be worthless. Those players are willing to leave millions on the table just so their hired gun scientists can parrot safe results that are unlikely to rattle tea cups at the next faculty function? Unlikely.

I beg your forgiveness for the following snarkiness. Can your anonymous concern troll name a single branch of science that has remained on a strictly linear trajectory since 1896? Besides phrenology.

[ Edit 2/15/10 ]

The goalposts have been moved in the comments is Andrew Gelman's post on February 12. It moved to always having the models subjected to a growing set of data, never casting out past data (good, good). It moved to meta-analysis of all available models, over time (good, good). It moved to the variance of published models compared to the subjective guessed distributions of the individual practicing scientists (fine, fine). But where happened to the original claim "If the prediction of a climate model is very much outside the consensus predictions, it is not likely to be published."?

My comment submitted:

Marc Levy

> They find that if you ask climate experts to characterize their subjective best guess as to the distribution of key climate change parameters, you observe far more variance ... than you observe when you look at the distribution of all the climate model outputs.

This is to be expected, because no one would represent *any* model as perfectly describing reality - if it was perfect, it would no longer be a model, anymore. Only pure mathematics has the benefit of being able to switch the analysis to a proved isomorphism that is easier to compute. Every model is an adequate simplification, over a domain, and it is hoped the failure modes are understood so the model is not misused. But the option of "proving" the model a perfect representation of reality is not available.

Useful scientific models typically give sharp results - sharper results than field readings, even counting for input precision or rounding in iteration, etc. The models are useful *because* they give sharp results - or else you would have the perverse consequence of improving the usefulness of a model by adding slop into it to increase the variance. A bound on the error is useful to track, but no one would actually mix in slop in a model to force the variance wider, even if the model's variance doesn't match field readings.

Any expert would know very well all the possible failure modes and other limitations of a particular model, that so their subjective guessed distribution would have greater variance than the considered model because of that knowledge. The scientist possess what humans value as knowledge, the documented model cannot (and so scientists cannot be replaced with the models of their creation). Why else might the variance be greater? -- perhaps the scientist is in possession of they consider to be a better model, not yet published. Or perhaps, the scientist is simply aware of the possibility of a better model.

The relatively uncontroversial model of satellite orbits is informative. They are tighter because they, of course, consider fewer particles than Mother Nature is able to consider. So they can consider events in the future, because they run faster than reality, and so they can run on economically available hardware. No one would consider their tighter variance than the variance of observatory readings to be surprising, much less consider it a failure of the model. Only if there was misrepresentation of best knowledge of the model's error bound, or failure modes, or applicable domain, and then, it would not be a failure of the model, it would be a misapplication by a human agent.

Can I note that the goalposts have been moved? The original issue was "stabilizing feedback" and the original question contained the assertion "If the prediction of a climate model is very much outside the consensus predictions, it is not likely to be published." There are other interesting issues to consider, but only after the parties admit that the goalposts have been moved and the focus of the argument shifted.

Anxiety and Coping Vs. Intention, Decision, Action

2010-02-11T18:27:00.000-08:00

I have been in a peculiar state recently. One of the things you notice after treatment of depression is that moods that would have completely left me incapacitated turn into moods that "merely" leave me in a unproductive state. It is frustrating, because I have responsibilities that are being throttled down, and I am getting to practically nothing done. But people, from the outside, cannot see much evidence anything is wrong.

When I don't fully acknowledge that I am in an incapable state, I often put the cart before the horse. Recently, that means I have been contemplating "Intention, Decision, Action" when I should have been more honestly grappling with "Anxiety and Coping Vs. Intention, Decision, Action".

It has not been taking very much to put me into the teeth of anxiety, and I waste my day with coping mechanisms, like web surfing and being an indulgent nurse-maid to my own sinus headaches.

Serendipitously, the Adam Carolla Podcast with Marc Maron ended with a very interesting segment.

http://www.adamcarolla.com/ACPBlog/2010/02/10/adam-and-marc-maron/

There was a caller who asked the basic question of "How do you get off your ass and do what you are supposed to do?"

Adam approached the problem as "this is a skill I don't yet possess, and I will develop it by continually challenging myself".

So, using that mentality, I should apply that to "Anxiety and Coping Vs. Intention, Decision, Action".

Breaking it down a bit:

* Acceptance of the anxiety I feel - even to the point of taking time to experience the full depth of it, so that I waste no energy on a persistent draining state of fruitless avoidance.

Acceptance and commitment therapy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_therapy

ACT:

Accept your reactions and be present

Choose a valued direction

Take action

ACT commonly employs six core principles to help clients develop psychological flexibility:

Cognitive de-fusion: Learning to perceive thoughts, images, emotions, and memories as what they are, not what they appear to be.

Acceptance: Allowing them to come and go without struggling with them.

Contact with the present moment: Awareness of the here and now, experienced with openness, interest, and receptiveness.

Observing the self: Accessing a transcendent sense of self, a continuity of consciousness which is changing.

Values: Discovering what is most important to one's true self.

Committed action: Setting goals according to values and carrying them out responsibly.

* practicing the skill of dialing down the anxiety level

* practicing the skill of interrupting the coping habitual wasteful activities

* practicing the skill of substituting in "Intention, Decision, Action"

Messy Haired Boy and the Un-Kicked Ass

2010-02-10T18:15:00.001-08:00

Image by Brymo via Flickr

There was a boy, with messy hair. Too many fears, not many friends. Stuck in his head, crazy thoughts.

He needed an ass-kicking.

He got an education, of a sort. He avoided women and work and women.

He needed an ass-kicking.

The Universe saw he needed an ass-kicking. And stuck a shoe in.

The boy rubbed his ass, sobbing.

The boy has changed a bit, ass hurts a bunch, but yet some messy hair,
but yet some too many fears,
but yet some not many friends,
but yet some stuck in head,
but yet some crazy thoughts,
but yet some avoid women,
but yet some avoid work,
but yet some avoid women.

Image by bunchofpants via Flickr

Boy is better, but not much better.

NEEDS MORE ASS-KICKING!

How to screw in anything without jamming the threads

2010-02-09T16:47:00.001-08:00

I learned this from the Adam Carolla Car Podcast

http://www.adamcarolla.com/CarCastBlog/2010/02/06/nate-shelton-and-chris-phillips/

some poor guy jammed and stripped the threads of his oil drain plug. Here is how to screw in anything (works great for lightbulbs) without jamming the threads.

"Righty Tighty - Lefty Loosey"
First think "Righty Tighty - Lefty Loosey" so you remember how screws and bolts work.

Turn backworks in hole first "Lefty Loosey"
Don't use a tool at first, just with your hand make your first turn *backwards*. You are spinning the screw or nut backwards first, to make sure the threads are mating straight. You will feel the screw or nut rise up then "pop" back down - that is the exact place where the threads will mate perfectly. Now you are ready to screw.

Now screw forwards - hand tight first
Now that you found the place for the screws to mate by spinning backwards, now turn forwards "Righty Tighty" just hand tight. Don't use any tools. Turn it hand tight

Now use tool for final tightening
Finally, use a tool for the final tightening, and lock the screw or nut in place with the final 1/4 turn.

Forget the baby, happiness of Mommy & Daddy comes first

2010-02-08T18:11:00.001-08:00

Err, take this with a grain of salt. I am not 100% what kind of frame of mind I am in, looking back at what I wrote.

Lovers embracing on the beach at sundown / sunset on Morro Strand State Beach 10 Jan 2010

A piece of paper that reads "Permission Granted to be happy - Happiness of parents trumps 'needs' of kids."

If you think you will be able to put your kid's needs before the happiness of you and your hubby-type, you are sadly mistaken, you are fooling yourself, you are setting your kid up to pay the price for your foolishness.

When you attempt to put somebody's else before your own happiness, it just builds resentment inside yourself that will spill out somewhere else. Putting someone else first - humans are just not wired that way. And when you act out of resentment from attempting to squash your own identity, your selfishness will burst out into something horrific and passive-aggressive and spiteful. Blech. Think about it - some of the most hideously self-centered people will not shut up about how "giving" they are - but it is always twisted and ultimately all done to feed their self-absorption.

Better to do some soul searching to find out what *really* gives you happiness and fulfillment. It will probably have nothing to do with the bullshit you see on Tee-Vee and the movies. Then you have a basis to build a parenting relationship upon.

Hey, forget the private school tuition if it will just lead to bottled-up resentment that will explode negatively. Have a more realistic view of your own human nature - being a parent does not make the laws of human nature disappear.

I may have to come back to this - I have a bad feeling I did not communicate well here. The relationship that my wife and I share with our daughter is based on pretty cool stuff - we can fall back on warmth and human care and interest. I hope no negative vibes are being bottled up.

Metacognition - thinking about thinking

2010-02-03T12:04:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

How to avoid temptation - impossible without practice in Metacognition - thinking about thinking; being aware of how your own mind works.

Sex Ed : Jonah Lehrer - The Frontal Cortex: "
The point is that we've been arming our kids with the wrong mental tools. Instead of giving them statistics, we need to provide them with the cognitive tools to deal with temptation. Instead of urging them to abstain, we need to show them how to abstain. There is no secret recipe for overcoming our 'hottest' urges, like sexual desire. But you could do worse than giving kids a short lesson in metacognition. I think Walter Mischel's work with four-year olds and marshmallows is relevant here:

At the time, psychologists assumed that children's ability to wait [to delay gratification for a second marshmallow] depended on how badly they wanted the marshmallow. But it soon became obvious that every child craved the extra treat. What, then, determined self-control? Mischel's conclusion, based on hundreds of hours of observation, was that the crucial skill was the 'strategic allocation of attention.' Instead of getting obsessed with the marshmallow--the 'hot stimulus'--the patient children distracted themselves by covering their eyes, pretending to play hide-and-seek underneath the desk, or singing songs from 'Sesame Street.' Their desire wasn't defeated--it was merely forgotten. 'If you're thinking about the marshmallow and how delicious it is, then you're going to eat it,' Mischel says. 'The key is to avoid thinking about it in the first place.'

Image via Wikipedia

In adults, this skill is often referred to as metacognition, or thinking about thinking, and it's what allows people to outsmart their shortcomings. (When Odysseus had himself tied to the ship's mast, he was using some of the skills of metacognition: knowing he wouldn't be able to resist the Sirens' song, he made it impossible to give in.) Mischel's large data set from various studies allowed him to see that children with a more accurate understanding of the workings of self-control were better able to delay gratification. 'What's interesting about four-year-olds is that they're just figuring out the rules of thinking,' Mischel says. 'The kids who couldn't delay would often have the rules backwards. They would think that the best way to resist the marshmallow is to stare right at it, to keep a close eye on the goal. But that's a terrible idea. If you do that, you're going to ring the bell before I leave the room.'

Manuel "Moe" G.

Nice sarcastic invite for blog comments

The importance of stupidity in scientific research

The importance of stupidity in scientific research

Links on Rational Discussion

How trusted is the "Big Five" Personality Traits in mainstream psychology?

Fetishizing p-Values - The Cult of Statistical Significance

Significance Tests, frequentist vs. bayesian

Valuing stewardship of the environment for future generations, or not

Selling Fantasies: Breakthrough Institute

How can we define "Useful", when it comes to our models of reality?

Thoughts on Roger Pielke Jr. | Stand-Up Economist - Yoram Bauman

Protect American Jobs! No Soot Tax!

Can it be Irrational to prize Rationality? What is Rationality?

The link between Judith Curry and John Christy

Calling "Climategate" for what it really is - Kerry Emanuel

Uncertainty is not an argument for the status quo

The Post-Email-Hacking phase of climate denialism - What can we expect?

Krugman takes on the Pain Caucus - but aren't they simply Paper Tigers?

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How to screw in anything without jamming the threads

Forget the baby, happiness of Mommy & Daddy comes first

Metacognition - thinking about thinking