Month: July 2007

Tales That Should Not Be Told

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In one of the comments to my post Telling Stories, Veryretired said something very wise:

There are myths so entrenched in our national psyche that facts are simply insufficient to change the story that “everyone knows”.

As H. Beam Piper said in “Cosmic Computer“: “Well, always take a second look at these
things everybody knows. Ten to one they’re not so. ”

Over time that damage to the collective mental model of how the world works can be repaired, but in the short and intermediate timeframes, myths are dangerous. One of the great boons bequeathed to mankind by the scientific method is the creation of a class of people who question received wisdom all the time. One of the recurrent complaints on my blog is that many scientists don’t lead the way in this regard. Oh, sure, we question each other deeply about matters in our own fields, but we don’t carry this over to other areas in our own lives, to say nothing of trying to spread the method to laymen.

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Yon’s “Collective Dreams”

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Michael Yon describes a mind-set; sure he’s chauvinistic, but its also the power of an Army of Davids in Baqubah:

When Americans move into Iraqi buildings, the buildings start improving from the first day. And then, the buildings near the buildings start to improve. It’s not about the money, but the mindset. The Greatest Generation called it “the can-do mentality.” It’s a wealth measured not only in dollars, but also in knowledge. The burning curiosity that launched the Hubble, flows from that mentality, and so does the revenue stream of taxpayer dollars that funded it. Iraq is very rich in resources, but philosophically it is impoverished. The truest separation between cultures is in the collective dreams of their people.

The blend of tribalism and individualism, of pride and of history that shapes a people’s imagination is summed up in that connotative description: “the collective dreams of their people.”

Vindication Is So Sweet

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Way back October of 2004 I posted a critique of a study published in the Lancet that purported to show that:

…about 100000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths.

I called foul immediately, and I ended up writing a series of posts detailing my arguments. Now I find out from Michelle Malkin (via Instapundit) that David Kane, Institute Fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University has authored a paper, soon to be presented, that demonstrates using detailed statistics just how deceptive (my adjective) the original study was.

Kane shows that if the Falluja cluster is included in the statistical calculations, the confidence interval dips below zero, which is a big no-no. Since the study’s raw data remain a closely guarded secret, Kane cannot be absolutely certain that the inclusion of the Falluja cluster renders the study mathematically invalid…

…but that’s the way to bet.

In science, replication is the iron test. I find it revealing that no other source or study has come close to replicating the original study. All my original points still stand.

Ah, vindication is sweet.