My Nisbet Gripe, Cont'd

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Michael Tobis - Only In It For The Gold

My Nisbet Gripe, Cont'd: "I have no objection to the idea of framing messages effectively. Until this week, I had no idea why some people were complaining so bitterly about Nisbet.

But Nisbet is in the strange headspace of politics, where science is just a piece of furniture on the landscape of politics. What's more, it's a black box which emits certain very simple results. And when he describes the box, he gets it hopelessly wrong, and uses the bizarre and broken frames of the worst elements of the press.

The problem isn't the concept of framing. The problem is that the guy who has done the best job of staking out 'framing' as his personal territory has about the most toxic set of frames out there for our issues. There is no getting rid of writing to your audience, but the word 'framing' itself isn't all that valuable. If it belongs to Nisbet I don't want it.

One thing I've learned recently is that while in many ways I behave like a journalist, I simply have almost no interest in 'news' any more than I am interested in 'sports'. Events in sports fall clearly into the space of 'don't matter'. In fifty years nobody will remember who won the superbowl this season. In politics, they will remember Obama's name, but little of what he said or did.

As long as we play on the battlefield of week-to-week politics and don't actually look into the science box, we lose the war of words. Yes, the right is disposed against us and the left toward us, pretty much for arbitrary cultural reasons. But the opposition is free to twist the facts and we aren't. So they pick off people as they start to pay attention and the mythology of massive corruption in climate science gets further elaborated.

If we don't play the long game, if we don't try to revive critical thinking and evidence-based reasoning, if we don't go beyond assertion and into explanation, we are playing on the opposition's turf.

Nisbet may have done a good job of describing the opposition's turf, but that is all he knows. He, specifically, is an example of a person lacking a scientific education remotely commensurate with his capacities and interests. His approach embodies the substitution of politics for knowledge.

The long game is our home turf, and we have to stop listening to people who miss that point completely. The absurdly short time scales and shallow symbolic allegiances and frantic half-crazed yuppie obsessions du jour of the beltway and the press are the problem, not the solution.

"

My comment to the post:

I am slack-jawed. You summed up Nisbet perfectly. You communicated better than I could have, exactly how Nisbet rubs me the wrong way. I am compelled to go into detail about how good a job you did.

> Yes, the right is disposed against us and the left toward us, pretty much for arbitrary cultural reasons.

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A good thing to remember. Once the costs of excess atmospheric carbon dioxide reaches the trillions (with human cultures displaced from drought and flooding, loss of food and wood production from climate change, and loss of ocean protein and nutrition from acidification), the left cannot be counted on to spend scarce resources effectively, because of the need to reward loyal voting blocks. (Not claiming the right will be any better.)

> Nisbet may have done a good job of describing the opposition's turf, but that is all he knows. He, specifically, is an example of a person lacking a scientific education remotely commensurate with his capacities and interests. His approach embodies the substitution of politics for knowledge.

So cruel, and so true.

How do I form my attitudes about scientific questions? - Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

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Andrew Gelman at Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science.

How do I form my attitudes about scientific questions? - Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science: "
It's not that the scientific consensus is stupid, it's that some statements are so stupid that they only come because the speaker has processed some aspect of the consensus in a particularly ugly undigested form.
...
...To me, it's another case where the existence of the consensus has switched off people's brains.
"

This point is valid, and well put, but if you read the whole post, I think Andrew Gelman is being far too pessimistic.

> "What do I recommend you all do? On subjects where Phil and I are the experts, I suggest you listen to what we have to say. Beyond that, I dunno."

This is very pessimistic and skeptical of considered consensus, and contradicted by Andrew Gelman's daily life. Before I step into a subway train, I don't form opinions about the quality of considered consensus of civil engineers, and Mr. Gelman does not either.

Commenter "jonathan" makes the point:

> I think you've raised two separate issues. One is the process by which consensus builds, entrenches, shifts, etc. The other is how rational people make rational decisions about information.

> It's interesting to me how in a few notable areas the two are lumped together: the idea that biologists are maintaining some (evil) consensus in favor of evolution and that climate scientists, etc. are doing the same with regard to climate change.

> ...

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If you step back and compare "Skepticism of Human Activity Causing Global-Warming/Climate-Change" to established cases of motivated obscurantism, like denying evolution and natural selection, and tobacco carcinogenicity, and the Jewish Holocaust of WWII, and the efficacy of the polio vaccine, and perhaps less established cases of motivated obscurantism like controlled demolition taking down the Twin Towers and HIV/AIDS, you see familiar patterns and similar techniques and motivations both sinister and innocent-by-way-of-ignorance/gullibility. It will seem like bad form to the self-described "Skeptics", but they could bring doubters into their fold by work - the work of authoritatively publishing their opposing immutable thesis, and welcoming that to be subjected to the highest standard of scrutiny. And what are we to make of the "Skeptics" doing everything _except_ that work?

The considered consensus of the scientific experts, here, is slowly growing and publishing an opposing authoritative immutable thesis - far too slowly and too messily and with too much initial unwarranted speculation for an impatient world - but at least they are building something up for possible future champion to knock down. And if it resists being knocked down - we have a consensus where it would be "perverse to withhold provisional consent", using Sagan's phrase.

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As for motivation within this possible case of motivated obscurantism, how can I discount the astroturf and sympathetic goodwill David Koch has purchased and does purchase?

If you draw the boundary of consideration small enough "I dunno" seems like honest skepticism of considered consensus. But what is the compelling reason to draw the boundary of consideration so small as to ignore case for motivated obscurantism?

Sharks with people teeth.

Sharks with people teeth.: "

Sharks with people teeth.
"

Image by Nancy Wombat via Flickr

God, how I love this. Durr to the Hurr.  Durr to the Hurr, indeed, young man.  Durr to that Hurr.  Derp.

Liberals Are Useless

Cover of Rules for Radicals

I am not sure what to think about Saul Alinsky. Forgive me for temporarily getting hysterical, I will pick up my argument after this point: our murderers most resemble their murderers, no how different we are from them. OK, tone done the hysteria, pick up the argument - those who would put politics over truth and those who would use propaganda most resemble the dissemblers on the other side.

It is better to be a radical than a liberal, because it is true what Jonathan Schwarz says "Conservatives like people with their hearts, liberals like people with their heads, radicals like people with both their heads and their hearts". But being that radical will be a much more quiet and background affair than a straightforward aping of Che Guevara's example (I am using Che Guevara's name just as a placeholder for any infamous radical you could choose. Knock yourself out, and pick your favorite infamous radical.)

Because the internal struggle will be the limiting factor on the care you will provide.

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Conservatives are more likely to use approaches that aid the exceptional individual. Liberals are more likely to use approaches that aid the marginalized group. True care to humans will synthesize both, even thought the two are often quite contradictory. When you need to synthesize the contradictory, you have no short cut, you have to explicitly synthesize the contradictory. Like far from shore, rowing a boat and bailing out a boat at the same time - if you stop either, you are lost - and no efficiency claimed on one of the pair can make up for the absence of the other.

The Eastern Philosophies often explicitly synthesize the contradictory. How mature and wise.

Liberals Are Useless - Tiny Revolution by Jonathan Schwarz: "
Chris Hedges said it, not me:

I learned to dislike liberals when I lived in Roxbury, the inner-city in Boston, as a seminary student at Harvard Divinity School. I commuted into Cambridge to hear professors and students talk about empowering people they never met. It was the time of the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Spending two weeks picking coffee in that country and then coming back and talking about it for the rest of the semester was the best way to “credentialize” yourself as a revolutionary. But few of these “revolutionaries” found the time to spend 20 minutes on the Green Line to see where human beings in their own city were being warehoused little better than animals. They liked the poor, but they did not like the smell of the poor. It was a lesson I never forgot.

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I've thought something along these lines many times myself. In Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky says: 'liberals like people with their heads, radicals like people with both their heads and their hearts.' This is an absolutely critical insight about human nature, one which would change the life courses of many young liberals if they heard it. This may explain why it seems to appear almost nowhere online.
The one thing I'd add is that conservatives actually do like people with their hearts. So I think the saying should go: 'Conservatives like people with their hearts, liberals like people with their heads, radicals like people with both their heads and their hearts.'
—Jonathan Schwarz
"

Derek Sivers - Ideas are just a multiplier of execution

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Derek Sivers - Ideas are just a multiplier of execution: "http://sivers.org/multiply
It's so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas. (People who want me to sign an NDA to tell me the simplest idea.)

To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.

Explanation:

AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20

NO EXECUTION = $1
WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
SO-SO EXECUTION = $10,000
GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000
GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000
BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000

To make a business, you need to multiply the two.

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The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.

That's why I don't want to hear people's ideas.

I'm not interested until I see their execution."

Everything about causal inference in 40 pages

I will go over this with a fine tooth comb. I am looking forward to Judea Pearl's 2nd editon of _Causality_. I will have to transfer a whole bunch of margin notes!

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My take. Causality is a hack. The structure of the universe doesn't guarantee anything that would causality a fool-proof technique. But it is very effective, and it is a built-in hack in the brains of humans. Humans handle causal relationships quite naturally and usually correctly in simple (and not so simple) situations. But, very effective or not, it is still a hack.

Hack or not, you have to use causality to understand the world, and make decisions about the world, and make rational actions inside of the world.

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I would make the cycle-free directed graph the _definition_ of causality. Then there is the "do" operator on the graph, where a node is constrained to a particular value, chosen by analysis or chosen by a randomizer (from a range suggested by analysis).

In this causal graph, you can have "nodes" that, inside, contain

** relations from statical properties of historical data

** relations from statical properties of simulations, however the simulation is constructed

** relations from scientific laws

** relations from non-scientific laws - like "rules of thumb" and other relations that no one would defend as being laws of nature

** relations suggested by symmetry

** relations suggested by "smoothness" - filling in gaps or smoothing errors with "simple" equations

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** relations suggested by naive Bayesian - using the Bayesian equation to add missing information, possibly quite naively

The analysis begins with 3 or more of these causality graphs - each chosen from a different discipline of analysis, and each chosen as the "simplest" thing that could possibly work, to start.

The graphs suggest experiments to carry out, and the graphs can be scrutinized.

The graphs change, more are added, some are deleted, just keeping 3 or more, with examples from different effective domains of analysis (one graph may be suggested by the laws of physics, another by the laws of economics, another strictly statistical from historical data, another from political science storytelling, etc.)

Some quite optimistic (borrowing the analysis of the most active participants) and some quite pessimistic (even so pessimistic so that a majority of current activity would not be advised by the model).

Each is must simpler than reality, and, thus, suitable to run against many many different future eventualities. Keep them simple so they are nimble and responsive tools.

None would really be defended as the complete, because so simple. The cost of any complexity is considered to be great. Simple models, easily manipulated, quickly manipulated.

We would have a personal standard of rationality, and a lower standard for semi-rational actions in a group (economic/social groups are demonstratively loath to hold themselves to the highest disciplines of rationality). For the personal standard of rationality - think Socrates. For the lower standard of group semi-rationality - think Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Neither is better or worse than another, each is to be used in their own domain. The real-world economic/social group would immediately feel paralyzing anxiety when presented arguments from people who hold themselves to the highest disciplines of rationality - so it is irrational to present that to them.

Everything about causal inference in 40 pages: "
Judea Pearl describes his new article Causal inference in statistics: An Overview as 'a recent submission to Statistics Survey which condenses everything I know about causality in only 40 pages.' That seemed like a bold claim, but after reading it I'm sold. I don't come from Pearl's 'camp' per se, but I found this a really impressive overview of his approach to causation. His overtures to folks like me who use the potential outcomes framework were much appreciated, although it is clear throughout that there is still intense debate on some of the issues. The bottom line: if you've ever wondered what the structural equation modeling approach to causal inference is all about, this is your one-stop, must-read introduction (and an insightful, engaging, and thorough one at that).
"

Preschool, pretty cool!

Honestly, was before my anxieties built up. Starting with first grade, I lived inside my head, and that was not a pleasant place to be.

Man, I am so glad my daughter finds new places and new people fun. If a kid learns nothing else except:

1) that other people are far too interested in themselves to notice you

2) what other people think of you is none of your business

3) not much counts besides ** having a long term vision that you can change as evidence suggests, ** having the ability to stick with a long term plan, ** having the patience to work through the difficulties, ** having the guts to not be afraid of being knocked down, ** having the nerve to stick with it until you achieve success. Every other think is of far far far less importance. No grade in no subject will count as much.

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But, man, these lessons are hard to learn, and US culture does not make it any easier.

OpenOffice Calc - turning strings to real Date and Time

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In Open Office Calc, how do you turn the string

'12/3/2009 11:06:35 PM

into the time value:

12/03/09 11:06:35 PM

internally represented by the float:

40150.962905092600

Here is the OpenOffice Calc formula:

=DATEVALUE(SUBSTITUTE(A2; "'"; ""))+TIMEVALUE(SUBSTITUTE(A2; "'"; ""))

coming from Excel, I get thrown for a loop by the semicolons.

Then use the Time/Date format of:

MM/DD/YY HH:MM:SS AM/PM

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This comes up enough so I would appreciate a place to cut-and-paste from. Now I have one! OpenOffice rocks!

[Edit]

Here is another example - starting with the original string containing the date

2008-03-24-00.00.00.000000

This is the formula to turn it into a proper OpenOffice Calc date:

=DATEVALUE(MID(a2;1;4)&"-"&MID(a2;6;2)&"-"&MID(a2;9;2))

Here is the format string:

MM/DD/YYYY

To get the final result:

03/24/2008

Probably the next one I post will have funky time data too... stay tuned...

Breakdown at 25 - Har!

Felt lousy. Still feels lousy.

The wounds that never heal are the very best ones - the "raw spot" is the embryo of authentic compassion. When somebody who hasn't been to that dark place tries to cheer you up, it feels like a kick in the teeth. When somebody who still feels part of the pain tries to cheer you up, whether or not you _feel_ better, you have the chance to _become_ better. And _feeling_ better will follow.

Read and listen more about "The Raw Spot" - spoken lecture by Zoketsu Norman Fischer.

The title, "The Raw Spot," refers to the teaching by Chogyam Trungpa on embryonic compassion, which grows from the sore or raw or wounded spot in our bodies and hearts.
http://www.everydayzen.org/index.php?option=com_teaching&task=viewTeachingId&Itemid=26&id=785

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There are times in your life when it feels like the kick of a mule square in the middle of your chest. You are dizzy and you are on your ass in the dirt and you are afraid to rise lest you receive another kick. But that mule kick is a gift. I wish it would have happened to me at 15 instead of 25, so I would have a 10 year head start. But, whatever. There wasn't enough there for it to happen before 25.

At 25 I started changing. At 35 I changed enough to really feel I was able to stand upright against the wind. Crap, this garbage was supposed to be finished by now, but even this last year I learned things at 38 that made the first 37 years look like a joke. And so on, I guess.

On a less serious note:

My happiest life change was when I realized I could cut my own hair, and wouldn't have to go to the barber anymore. I hate the barber.

Patience and Impatience: both are curses and both are blessings

Start with a quote:

Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength.
Charles Colton

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I have been thinking about how in Eastern philosophies, there is a tolerance for explicitly integrating the contradictory, like how lightness and darkness are explicitly integrated in the Yin-Yang symbol.
Two seemingly contradictory character traits are patience and impatience.

Impatience can be a virtue when it propels you to make a positive change, because you cannot tolerate settling for less anymore.  Patience over a bad situation, when your freedom allows you to change, is a curse.  (Don't confuse outer constraints of liberty with inner freedom to choose your own response and choose your own meaning.  We are speaking of Viktor Frankl's "The Last Freedom".)

Patience can be a virtue when you forgive yourself for taking a step back, because, after a re-charge of energy and re-focusing of attention, you can take two steps forward.  Impatience, in that situation, can be a curse because it may make you catastrophize and become helpless because you are hopeless.

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A shift between the ideal and realistic, back and forth, can be a mature way to grow in inner capability over years.
Both fostering the ideal as a goal to work towards, and fostering the realistic to maximize effectiveness in that work, are skills that can be improved.