Feeling confirmation

While both ends of the political spectrum suffer from selection bias, I've always felt that there is some intrinsic property to being a liberal that lends itself to intellectual honesty and curiosity. On the other hand, I see conservatism largely runs like religion: it's a set of beliefs about what should be true. Government is bad. Full stop. Ignore the reality of the FDIC and Social Security.

Krugman confirms this.

Psilocybin

I wrote about two years ago about the interesting research done on psilocybin. The NYT has a great in-depth article discussing the latest research efforts to measure the drug's effects on depression and anxiety. Fundamentally, it has the ability to melt away one's sense of self and this seems to have long-term effects elevating mood and perspective.

Scientists are especially intrigued by the similarities between hallucinogenic experiences and the life-changing revelations reported throughout history by religious mystics and those who meditate. These similarities have been identified in neural imaging studies conducted by Swiss researchers and in experiments led by Roland Griffiths, a professor of behavioral biology at Johns Hopkins.

In one of Dr. Griffiths’s first studies, involving 36 people with no serious physical or emotional problems, he and colleagues found that psilocybin could induce what the experimental subjects described as a profound spiritual experience with lasting positive effects for most of them. None had had any previous experience with hallucinogens, and none were even sure what drug was being administered.

To make the experiment double-blind, neither the subjects nor the two experts monitoring them knew whether the subjects were receiving a placebo, psilocybin or another drug like Ritalin, nicotine, caffeine or an amphetamine. Although veterans of the ’60s psychedelic culture may have a hard time believing it, Dr. Griffiths said that even the monitors sometimes could not tell from the reactions whether the person had taken psilocybin or Ritalin.

The monitors sometimes had to console people through periods of anxiety, Dr. Griffiths said, but these were generally short-lived, and none of the people reported any serious negative effects. In a survey conducted two months later, the people who received psilocybin reported significantly more improvements in their general feelings and behavior than did the members of the control group.

The findings were repeated in another follow-up survey, taken 14 months after the experiment. At that point most of the psilocybin subjects once again expressed more satisfaction with their lives and rated the experience as one of the five most meaningful events of their lives.

Since that study, which was published in 2008, Dr. Griffiths and his colleagues have gone on to give psilocybin to people dealing with cancer and depression, like Dr. Martin, the retired psychologist from Vancouver. Dr. Martin’s experience is fairly typical, Dr. Griffiths said: an improved outlook on life after an experience in which the boundaries between the self and others disappear.

In interviews, Dr. Martin and other subjects described their egos and bodies vanishing as they felt part of some larger state of consciousness in which their personal worries and insecurities vanished. They found themselves reviewing past relationships with lovers and relatives with a new sense of empathy.

“It was a whole personality shift for me,” Dr. Martin said. “I wasn’t any longer attached to my performance and trying to control things. I could see that the really good things in life will happen if you just show up and share your natural enthusiasms with people. You have a feeling of attunement with other people.”

The subjects’ reports mirrored so closely the accounts of religious mystical experiences, Dr. Griffiths said, that it seems likely the human brain is wired to undergo these “unitive” experiences, perhaps because of some evolutionary advantage.

“This feeling that we’re all in it together may have benefited communities by encouraging reciprocal generosity,” Dr. Griffiths said. “On the other hand, universal love isn’t always adaptive, either.”

Interesting, and definitely deserving of more follow-up work. What I don't like is this sentiment:

“There’s this coming together of science and spirituality,” said Rick Doblin, the executive director of MAPS. “We’re hoping that the mainstream and the psychedelic community can meet in the middle and avoid another culture war. Thanks to changes over the last 40 years in the social acceptance of the hospice movement and yoga and meditation, our culture is much more receptive now, and we’re showing that these drugs can provide benefits that current treatments can’t.”

The problem with that way of thinking is that it treats spirituality as this thing that is separate from the natural operation of our brains. No one doubts that science can study the natural operation of our brains, and so when Doblin describes a "coming together" he implies that there is some supernatural phenomenon that is outside of the purview of science. Bull. Spirituality is simply the mind being what the brain does, and what the brain does is chemistry. The more we learn about brain functions the more we can replicate and induce "spiritual experiences," proving them to be just another natural phenomenon that can be reduced to material causes.

Some good news, for once

This hits close to home:

With only seven reporters on the Bristol Herald Courier's staff, two bottles of cheap champagne were plenty to toast the newspaper's Pulitzer Prize for public service reporting on Monday.

The Media General newspaper with a circulation of 33,000 received journalism's highest award for the reporting of Daniel Gilbert on the mismanagement of natural gas royalties owed to landowners in Virginia.

"It's a hell of an honor," Gilbert, 28, said moments after learning of the newspaper's award. "It underscores the importance of public service reporting, especially in rural areas."

Editor J. Todd Foster bought the champagne across the street at Food City before the announcement and stuck the bottles in the trunk of his car. He figured he could celebrate a Pulitzer or console himself later if the newspaper didn't win for the celebrated series.

"I'm doing great now," said Foster, who also delivered a cake to the newsroom for the celebration.

The newspaper in an area known primarily for Bristol Motor Speedway reports on an a vast area in far southwest Virginia on the Tennessee border.

"This is validation that a newspaper with limited resources can do world-class journalism," Foster said as he ordered out for more champagne.

Foster said Gilbert's reporting required "a lot of shoe leather" and a tenacious journalist.

"It's why newspapers will continue to survive in some form," Foster said of Gilbert's reporting. "Nobody else is going to do this sort of reporting."

Gilbert investigated a Virginia law that showed how a state board allowed the energy industry to funnel into an unaudited escrow fund tens of millions of dollars in royalties owed to people in one of the poorest regions of the state.

The series led to the first audit of the decades-old escrow account intended for those payments and reform legislation.

"Those people who had mineral rights weren't getting paid," Gilbert said.

The reporting had already garnered national recognition, including top prize for newspapers under 100,000 circulation in an Investigative Reporters and Editors contest.

Gilbert, a University of Chicago graduate who had a freelance career before joining the Bristol newspaper in 2007, said he began his reporting in late 2008 and it "took months to figure out what the story was."

He read books on mineral rights, spoke to a lot of attorneys and attended IRE training for computer-assisted reporting.

"I used whatever time I could get to read up on the law," Gilbert said.

Foster, a veteran investigative journalist, said there were only a couple reporters in the newsroom when he learned the newspaper had won a Pulitzer.

"We have seven news reporters covering an area the size of Connecticut," Foster said. "Nobody was really here."

For his part, Gilbert said the Pulitzer won't send him looking for a new job.

"I have no plans to leave," he said. "Journalism is a pretty uncertain place these days. There's still a lot to do."

More here.

The Bristol Herald Courier, a small paper in the coalfields of Appalachia, beat out journalism's powerhouses to win the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for uncovering a scandal in which Virginia landowners were deprived of millions in natural gas royalties.

The seven-reporter daily was honored for what many regard as an endangered form of journalism in this age of wrenching newspaper cutbacks — aggressive reporting on local issues.

...

"You could see they're really doing serious journalism," he said. "I think over time they're going to get stronger."

The 33,000-circulation Bristol Herald Courier won for reporter Daniel Gilbert's computer analysis that showed how a state board allowed the energy industry to funnel into an unaudited escrow fund tens of millions of dollars in royalties owed to people in one of the poorest regions of Virginia.

Gilbert, 28, called the award "a hell of an honor" and said it underscores the importance of public service reporting in rural areas.

With its small staff, two bottles of cheap champagne were all the newsroom needed to mark the occasion.

Editor J. Todd Foster said the story required "a lot of shoe leather" and a tenacious reporter. "It's why newspapers will continue to survive in some form," Foster said of Gilbert's reporting. "Nobody else is going to do this sort of reporting."

spanking

Time cites a new Tulane study showing that kids who are spanked are more likely to be

"...defiant, demand immediate satisfaction of their wants and needs, become frustrated easily, have temper tantrums and lash out physically against other people or animals."

Well I guess that means you should never spank, right?

The scientist in me immediately reacted to the study by thinking: "What if the other kids are less defiant to begin with, requiring less spanking?" Is this study simply another informative look at the cum hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy?

In raising children myself, the thought is that spanking can be a tool that one uses, but should never be the first (or even second) one.

Interest rates to rise

Depressing:

Interest Rates Have Nowhere to Go but Up
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
Published: April 10, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/business/economy/11rates.html

Even as prospects for the American economy brighten, consumers are about to face a new financial burden: a sustained period of rising interest rates.

That, economists say, is the inevitable outcome of the nation’s ballooning debt and the renewed prospect of inflation as the economy recovers from the depths of the recent recession.

The shift is sure to come as a shock to consumers whose spending habits were shaped by a historic 30-year decline in the cost of borrowing.

“Americans have assumed the roller coaster goes one way,” said Bill Gross, whose investment firm, Pimco, has taken part in a broad sell-off of government debt, which has pushed up interest rates. “It’s been a great thrill as rates descended, but now we face an extended climb.”

The impact of higher rates is likely to be felt first in the housing market, which has only recently begun to rebound from a deep slump. The rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage has risen half a point since December, hitting 5.31 last week, the highest level since last summer.

Along with the sell-off in bonds, the Federal Reserve has halted its emergency $1.25 trillion program to buy mortgage debt, placing even more upward pressure on rates.

“Mortgage rates are unlikely to go lower than they are now, and if they go higher, we’re likely to see a reversal of the gains in the housing market,” said Christopher J. Mayer, a professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School. “It’s a really big risk.”

Each increase of 1 percentage point in rates adds as much as 19 percent to the total cost of a home, according to Mr. Mayer.

The Mortgage Bankers Association expects the rise to continue, with the 30-year mortgage rate going to 5.5 percent by late summer and as high as 6 percent by the end of the year.

Another area in which higher rates are likely to affect consumers is credit card use. And last week, the Federal Reserve reported that the average interest rate on credit cards reached 14.26 percent in February, the highest since 2001. That is up from 12.03 percent when rates bottomed in the fourth quarter of 2008 — a jump that amounts to about $200 a year in additional interest payments for the typical American household.

With losses from credit card defaults rising and with capital to back credit cards harder to come by, issuers are likely to increase rates to 16 or 17 percent by the fall, according to Dennis Moroney, a research director at the TowerGroup, a financial research company.

“The banks don’t have a lot of pricing options,” Mr. Moroney said. “They’re targeting people who carry a balance from month to month.”

Similarly, many car loans have already become significantly more expensive, with rates at auto finance companies rising to 4.72 percent in February from 3.26 percent in December, according to the Federal Reserve.

Washington, too, is expecting to have to pay more to borrow the money it needs for programs. The Office of Management and Budget expects the rate on the benchmark 10-year United States Treasury note to remain close to 3.9 percent for the rest of the year, but then rise to 4.5 percent in 2011 and 5 percent in 2012.

The run-up in rates is quickening as investors steer more of their money away from bonds and as Washington unplugs the economic life support programs that kept rates low through the financial crisis. Mortgage rates and car loans are linked to the yield on long-term bonds.

Besides the inflation fears set off by the strengthening economy, Mr. Gross said he was also wary of Treasury bonds because he feared the burgeoning supply of new debt issued to finance the government’s huge budget deficits would overwhelm demand, driving interest rates higher.

Nine months ago, United States government debt accounted for half of the assets in Mr. Gross’s flagship fund, Pimco Total Return. That has shrunk to 30 percent now — the lowest ever in the fund’s 23-year history — as Mr. Gross has sold American bonds in favor of debt from Europe, particularly Germany, as well as from developing countries like Brazil.

Last week, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note briefly crossed the psychologically important threshold of 4 percent, as the Treasury auctioned off $82 billion in new debt. That is nearly twice as much as the government paid in the fall of 2008, when investors sought out ultrasafe assets like Treasury securities after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the beginning of the credit crisis.

Though still very low by historical standards, the rise of bond yields since then is reversing a decline that began in 1981, when 10-year note yields reached nearly 16 percent.

From that peak, steadily dropping interest rates have fed a three-decade lending boom, during which American consumers borrowed more and more but managed to hold down the portion of their income devoted to paying off loans.

Indeed, total household debt is now nine times what it was in 1981 — rising twice as fast as disposable income over the same period — yet the portion of disposable income that goes toward covering that debt has budged only slightly, increasing to 12.6 percent from 10.7 percent.

Household debt has been dropping for the last two years as recession-battered consumers cut back on borrowing, but at $13.5 trillion, it still exceeds disposable income by $2.5 trillion.

The long decline in rates also helped prop up the stock market; lower rates for investments like bonds make stocks more attractive.

That tailwind, which prevented even worse economic pain during the recession, has ceased, according to interviews with economists, analysts and money managers.

“We’ve had almost a 30-year rally,” said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor’s. “That’s come to an end.”

Just as significant as the bottom-line impact will be the psychological fallout from not being able to buy more while paying less — an unusual state of affairs that made consumer spending the most important measure of economic health.

“We’ve gotten spoiled by the idea that interest rates will stay in the low single-digits forever,” said Jim Caron, an interest rate strategist with Morgan Stanley. “We’ve also had a generation of consumers and investors get used to low rates.”

For young home buyers today considering 30-year mortgages with a rate of just over 5 percent, it might be hard to conceive of a time like October 1981, when mortgage rates peaked at 18.2 percent. That meant monthly payments of $1,523 then compared with $556 now for a $100,000 loan.

No one expects rates to return to anything resembling 1981 levels. Still, for much of Wall Street, the question is not whether rates will go up, but rather by how much.

The economy will probably slow down its growth next year, in part due to these factors.

See this related post.

Punishment and condemnation

I've heard people ask the same question that Robert Wright, author of Moral Animal, poses in this column:

In this view, if I had Tiger Woods’s genes, and was born into his environment, I’d become exactly what he’s become. And so too with all others who violate norms or laws, including the most heinous criminals: If any of us had been born with their genes, into their environment, presumably we’d have become them. So how can we possibly condemn or punish them? Yet, as a practical matter, we have to punish heinous criminals, right?

First, I'd like to respond to his major premise: that athletes like Tiger serve as de facto role models in our society, and so their personal behavior off the athletic field is very important. He may be right that children do hold up athletes as role models, but perhaps this is a failure in our parenting. Perhaps the focus ought to be on getting children to recognize altruistic and philanthropic behaviors as superior indicators of character, and thus emulation, to athletic prowess. Perhaps we should spend more time explaining that athletes are just really good at their sport, not superheroes worthy of all-around emulation.

Back to his moral dilemma: it's not so troubling to worry about justification if all we're doing is condemning bad behavior with rhetoric. But the more substantive thorny issue involves crime and punishment: "Well, if people just behave how their genes and environment cause them to, then how can we blame/condemn them for it?" The feeling is that we aren't justified in blaming someone if they "can't help themselves" on some level.

It's important to note that the issue of justice and punishment don't have to involve some sort of moral high ground. When we lock up a murderer or rapist, we are protecting society from a dangerous person. On purely utilitarian grounds, this person has forfeited their right to go freely in society by behaving in such a way as to pose a grave threat to the freedoms of others to do the same. And so we don't have to say we're "better" than that person. We just have to say that we don't pose the same threat as they do, and so punishment does not have to equal condemnation.

Stupid arguments

MediaMatters flagged a blog by one of the nutball religious right organizations, the American Family Association ("We love all families...so long as they're straight and Christian."). In it, the author argues, with apparent seriousness, that we ought to adopt a policy to stop Muslims from immigrating to America and ship off the ones who are already here.

After I read it, shaking my head, I read the next blog post by the same author, and I just literally can't believe how stupid it is. First, I don't know of any liberal "elitist" who thinks all cultures are "equal" in the way that he pretends. Rather, most postmoderns think that certain customs or traditions within culture are difficult to objectively evaluate. I don't think anyone would say that there aren't valuable things within all cultures, as well as some things that we should perhaps all be critical of (e.g., Western culture promotes materialism and Social Darwinism).

The last part of his post just has to be a spoof. I hope. Read this part:

My point all along has been that the more devout a Muslim becomes, the more of a threat he becomes to our national security. And we just can't know when a "moderate" Muslim, like Maj. Hasan, will suddenly decide to get serious about his faith and wind up going jihadi on Americans.

The question then, which regrettably I failed to ask Imran, is this: how can we tell the difference between the Muslims we don't have to worry about (such as Imran) and the ones we do (such as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan)? I've yet to receive a satisfactory answer to that question. Once Muslims help us to find a foolproof way to identify the troublesome Muslims, it might make sense to loosen immigration restrictions. Until that day comes, unrestricted Islamic immigration remains a threat to our national security.

Ok. So let me change a few words around there and give that back to this idiot:

My point all along has been that the more devout a Christian becomes, the more of a threat he becomes to our national security. And we just can't know when a "moderate" Christian may evolve into "Christian" militias or Tim McVeigh, and suddenly decide to get serious about his (or her) beliefs and wind up killing Americans.

The question then, which regrettably I failed to ask Bryan Fischer, is this: how can we tell the difference between the Christians we don't have to worry about (such as Bryan Fischer) and the ones we do (such as "Christian" militias or Tim McVeigh)? I've yet to receive a satisfactory answer to that question. Once Christians help us to find a foolproof way to identify the troublesome Christians, it might make sense to loosen immigration restrictions. Until that day comes, unrestricted Christian immigration remains a threat to our national security. We should send devout Christians back to their home countries.

I wonder how he would feel if someone said this to him? I mean, hey, our country is not (to Bryan Fischer's chagrin) a "Christian nation", but an explicitly secular state. We can't afford to have all these devout Christians running around trying to make everyone do what they want them to do.

A personal note

This is something I wrote when a friend of mine passed away in August of 2005:

As I sit here, a week after hearing of my dear friend's death, my heart still breaks. My eyes tear up, and it hurts. She was so sweet, so vital, so alive, so damn beautiful...and now she's gone. I knew her since she was 14, and saw her grow into the gorgeous and vibrant young woman she became. I was in love with her once, and she with me. Then we became the best of friends, for a very long time...then we slowly grew apart. I didn't realize how deeply I still cared for her until I heard. How feeble words must be to attempt to make sense of this tragic loss. How pitiful arguments are that pretend there is anything good about it. The consolation I find is solely that she is now beyond pain and being hurt. Kayla isn't crying now, we all are. This person I cherished isn't hurting anymore. That helps me not to hurt. My memories of my dear friend will never die, though they may dim. The years will certainly temper the heartache, but true solace will likely never come for me. It will never give me peace of mind or heart to think of what happened. I will always miss her, and think of her, as one lost to tragic circumstance or cruel fate. I will always wish for one more word, one more hug, a chance to tell her goodbye. And as the years go by, my mind will return to the times we had together, the laughs, the tears we shed...and the pain will resurface, rising out of this deep place in me like leviathan coming up from the ocean. It is wrong to say she WILL be dearly missed...for I miss her, oh so dearly, right now. And a part of my life is forever tainted with the pain of her passing. Surely, she no longer feels pain, for we all do. My tribute is to you, Kayla, for letting me share your life, and your death...I will miss you so much. Although part of you is forever gone, and part of me too, part of you will never die, for I will carry it in me...so long as I shall live.

Her death had a real impact on my life that I am still trying to measure.

Comparing G and Y

In a note on the Problem of Evil I wrote in July of 2007, I tried to examine the Leibnitzian theodicy and the idea of the "best of all possible worlds." In so doing, I proposed thinking of free will as P, the sum total goodness of our world as G and the sum total evil of our world as Y. I asked whether or not G - Y + P > G. That is, does free will somehow "cancel out" the evil in the world, or even make this world better than it otherwise would be?

A new paper in a religious philosophy journal criticizes Plantinga's version of the free will theodicy that claims the answer to my question is yes. The author does a really good job of dismantling this free will defense. Read it.

Gay sex in animals

Interesting (long) article in the NYT Magazine about homosexual behaviors in animals. I was glad that the article points out that we can't engage in the naturalistic fallacy ("If it's 'natural' -- animals do it, then it's morally okay.") It seems to me that there may not be a single simple explanation of why homosexual behavior would exist in animals, but it's possible that their gay relationships are much less "exclusive" and they're more likely to be bisexual. In that event, the gay sex could be evidence merely of a hyperactive sex drive, which would obviously be beneficial from a Darwinian standpoint.

I've written on this topic before, btw.