Science

A Little Positive Reinforcement

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Glenn links to a lengthy essay in The National Journal which calls into question the veracity of two studies. The studies in question were published in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, and they supposedly showed that civilian casualties had soared since the US led invasion. In fact, the studies claimed that civilian deaths were ten times greater than anyone had thought!

Our own Shannon Love picked the first of these studies apart when it was first published, and he received a lot of abuse in the comments for it. I’m glad to see that my fellow Chicago Boy is getting some small measure of vindication for all of his hard work, even if The National Journal is incredibly slow out of the starting gate.

[From Jonathan: A list of links to Shannon’s Lancet posts is here.]

Taking Stock: Our Ideas

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The Edge poses its annual question; this year’s is

What did you change your mind about in 2007? The world’s intellectual elite spread some New Year humility.

We remember Emerson’s “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines” and are not surprised these rather large ones have changed their minds. Of course, they also make distinctions:

This is the season when, for a day or two, millions of people delude themselves into thinking that fixed goals, firm purposes and rock-like convictions will bring happiness. Set up some distant destination — whether of weight loss or career progression — and trudge doggedly towards it, advise the secular priests of self-improvement. But every lifestyle guru makes one basic mistake. They confuse integrity, which matters, with inflexibility, which doesn’t. So why not abandon the narrow path to disappointment and opt instead for some new year’s irresolution?

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More Zen Meditation

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Following on the last post, here’s another one from the Zen Master:

If multiculturalists are correct that that the non-Western cultures are of greater moral stature than the oppressive West, then why did none of the non-Western cultures ever practice multiculturalism ?

Quite honestly, I don’t care if a culture practices inclusion, as long as it advances science. As it so happens, cultures that do practice inclusion do so because their mindset is eclectic and evolutionary (in terms of ideas), which also happens to be the best societal fit for the scientific mindset, but the multi-cultural part is an unanticipated side effect that ultimately I do not give a rat’s about.

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Problems With Self-Selected Survey Data

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Jim Miller, discussing customer-satisfaction surveys, highlights a common error of inference:

Consumer Reports does not seem to understand that all its surveys, not just those on cars, have a systematic problem; the respondents are self selected, which often biases the results, as any good survey researcher can tell you.

So (following Jim’s example) if the Consumer Reports survey shows the Camry as more reliable than the Corvette, is this because the Camry is really more reliable or is it because people who buy Corvettes tend to drive them hard? The reliability data provided by Consumer Reports do not provide enough information to answer this question.

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