Monday, August 22, 2011

The next biggest thing

Will it be curing all viruses? Curing cancer? Finding a way to hook the brain up to a computer?

I think it will be this one thing: answering abiogenesis once and for all. Which is not to say that the recent news actually moves us closer to it.

I mean one of those first two things will probably happen after the third thing (if not before). And I can't agree more that those first two things are more morally important. I just think that the question of our origins -- how did life arise on Earth? -- will haunt us more from our past than our future can ever escape.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Too much choice in higher ed?

After the recent exposure of the weakness of our undergraduate education that I lamented publicly, I find this a compelling point:
Recent work in psychology, marketing, and behavioral economics, however, presents compelling evidence that more choice is not always better. Why? Because while “homo economicus can think like Albert Einstein, store as much memory as IBM’s Big Blue, and exercise the willpower of Mahatma Gandhi... the folks that we know are not like that… They are not homo economicus; they are homo sapiens” (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008, pp. 6–7). Homo sapiens can make mistakes, and the way choices are structured can affect how frequent and severe these mistakes may be.

Mistakes can happen, for example, because of pure cognitive overload. When it comes to complex decisions with long-term implications, individuals often struggle to determine which factors are most important, to gather all of the relevant information, and to appropriately weigh the costs and benefits in a final calculation. For students trying to choose the right courses, just acquiring all of the necessary information, let alone absorbing it, can be prohibitively time-consuming. Details about course content are often located in one place, course schedules in another, and program rules and requirements in yet another—often in a several-hundred-page academic catalog. Some pieces of critically important information, such as instructor quality, may not be revealed until after a decision is made.
So it isn't just that students are studying less (which they are). They are also paralyzed in some way by the choices before them and as such never fully commit. College is a time of freedom from choice rather than commitment to a career path.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Georgia on my mind

Jay Bookman updates us on the fate of a de facto state income "flat tax" proposed by Republicans. As all thinking people already know, the "flat tax" is horribly regressive. It always, always means a raise in taxes for the vast majority of us, while lowering them significantly for the wealthy. Here's a chart put together by the Fiscal Research Center at GSU:


Now before you go and feel sorry for the wealthy, thinking they deserve a 20% break on their taxes, here's a chart showing the federal marginal tax rates for the top earners:

So basically rich people are already paying a significantly lower federal income tax rate than any time since the Great Depression. There is a strong inverse relationship between their tax rates and income inequality. The only person who should want a "flat tax" -- aka the Orwellian "fair tax" -- are those people making a hell of a lot more than 95% of us, who want even more by taking it from us.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Rise of the American Taliban

This is what happens when a confused, misinformed electorate votes for confused, Tea Party idiots to become their government officials:

One blog post on the Eagle Forum Alaska site praised efforts at criminalizing adultery in Michigan, and Paskvan asked Haase if he thought it should be a felony in Alaska.

"I don't see that that would rise to the level of a felony," Haase said.

Paskvan: "Do you believe it should be a crime?"

Haase: "Yeah, I think it's very harmful to have extramarital affairs. It's harmful to children, it's harmful to the spouse who entered a legally binding agreement to marry the person that's cheating on them."

Paskvan: "What about premarital affairs -- should that be a crime?"

Haase: "I think that would be up to the voters certainly. If it came before (the state) as a vote, I probably would vote for it ... I can see where it would be a matter for the state to be involved with because of the spread of disease and the likelihood that it would cause violence. I can see legitimate reasons to push that as a crime."
Congratulations America, you reap what you sow!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Barack Obama is Hammond's disgusting picture

Living in South Carolina, this is particularly poignant for me:
"Are we prepared to see them mingling in our Legislatures? Is any portion of this country prepared to see them enter these halls and take their seats by our sides, in perfect equality with the white representatives of an Anglo Saxon race ... to see them placed at the heads of your Departments; or to see, perhaps, some 'Othello' or 'Toussaint' or 'Boyer' gifted with genius and inspired by ambition grasp the presidential wreath, and wield the destinies of this great Republic? From such a picture I turn with irrepressible disgust."

Well, it took 172 years, but an African-American with a name a lot more exotic than Othello or Toussaint did indeed become president of these United States. And it was particularly tin-eared, historically speaking, for a member of that self-same South Carolina delegation to hector Barack Obama at last year's State of the Union address. In truth, James Henry Hammond's racist diatribe was milder than those by other Southern "statesmen" who stirred hate and fear among their countrymen in the days leading up to the Civil War.

Jefferson Davis, in a speech to the Confederate Congress in April 1861, extolled slavery as a benevolent invention that allowed a "superior race" to transform "brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized agricultural laborers." Alexander H. Stephens, Jefferson Davis' vice president, proclaimed that Jefferson and the Founders' high-minded declarations of universal liberty were "in violation of the laws of nature." This was profoundly wrong, Stephens said.

"Our new government is founded on exactly the opposite idea," thundered the vice president of the Confederacy. "Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition."
The South will never rise again (thank Jesus). And it has instead continued to decline.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Mere Coincidence?

Google's "Quote of the Day" applet today (3/21/11) provides:
You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.
- Scott Adams
Newsweek's poll today agrees:
NEWSWEEK gave 1,000 Americans the U.S. Citizenship Test--38 percent failed. The country's future is imperiled by our ignorance.
It's a conspiracy!

Why am I someone, rather than someone else?

"I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then...The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me...Art thou less a slave by being loved and favoured by thy master? Thou art indeed well off, slave. Thy master favours thee; he will soon beat thee. The last act is tragic, however happy all the rest of the play is; at the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end for ever. We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone. We should therefore act as if we were alone, and in that case should we build fine houses, etc. We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth."

-Blaise Pascal

Pensées Sec. II 205-211, translated by W. F. Trotter, link

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Economics and Politics

My initial political leanings, if you can call it that, came from a childhood steeped in conservatism. I remember clearly hearing talk about "welfare queens" bankrupting the country and how union workers were lazy and were a real drag on corporate growth and profits. My parents were big fans of Reagan and thought that taxes were basically always wasted on someone who didn't deserve them. I read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" when I was about 22 and went through a libertarian phase which I now see as hopelessly naive. For the libertarian and hard-core right-wingers, personal property is sacrosanct: taxes are an immoral theft of the government, a "transfer of wealth" from the rightful owner to some undeserving social parasite.

Tablet decision

About six months ago (Oct) I mentioned that I liked the Galaxy over the iPad.

As far as hardware specs go, the new iPad2 and Xoom have significantly improved the playing field since that time. Leaps and bounds, really...

But the decision to buy is still a tough one for me.

For one thing, I don't intend to buy a 3G device simply because I don't feel it's worth the extra monthly charge on the data plans, since it is more than offset by the subsidy offered by the carriers.

You can buy a Xoom or iPad2 wi-fi only model for about $500-600. That's a lot of $ for a toy, if you already have a decent laptop, as we do. We're trying to sell our desktop, but it probably won't go for much (if anything).

In comparing the two devices, the iPad2 wins on its apps at the moment, but I have a strong feeling that Android's software and app store will both win out in the long run. It's just too hard to beat open source, and Honeycomb is much newer than the iPad2's predecessors, which set the stage for app development a long time ago. The iPod Touch, iPhone and original iPad mean that Apple simply had a huge head start in the app game. But all it takes is literally browsing the Apple App store, finding neat ideas, and copying them into the Android SDK. That's why the "app advantage" is simply a matter of time, and shouldn't be a serious part of your consideration of which one to buy.

A lower-cost and somewhat attractive alternative is buying a Nook Color for about half the price ($250), and rooting it with either Froyo or Honeycomb. Although the NC doesn't have cameras or the newer software advantages, it is a 7", not a 10" tablet, which I think is a more perfect size for a tablet. The drawback here are the hardware limitations and the eventual problem updating the OS as the hardware was never built for Honeycomb.

So...decisions, decisions...but I'm in no rush.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Interview with a vampire

Well, actually, just a local pastor interviewing a local atheist.

And a weak one at that ;)

End-of-life care and religious faith

I don't think that religion can "simply" be boiled down to fear of death. There are lots of other, more positive and humanistic, aspects to religion that complicate such a reduction, which I've pointed out before. At the same time, I find it not-at-all-surprising to find two very recent medical studies examining how people of faith handle their imminent demise when diagnosed with advanced cancer.

In both studies, it is observed that people who report strong faith do more to prolong their lives in the form of "end-of-life care" (EOL) via ventilators and other artificial preservation techniques. The same thing holds true in the dearth of living will directives amongst religious patients. They rarely fill out a form asking the doctors not to resuscitate them. A strong correlation is found even after adjusting for all the obvious factors.

Is it fair to say that these people are more afraid of death, or should I just take this as evidence that they believe God will save them, somehow? Honest question here...

References:

Religious Coping and Use of Intensive Life-Prolonging Care Near Death in Patients With Advanced Cancer
JAMA. 2009;301(11):1140-1147.doi:10.1001/jama.2009.341

Supportive Care and Quality of Life: Religiousness and Spiritual Support Among Advanced Cancer Patients and Associations With End-of-Life Treatment Preferences and Quality of Life
JCO Feb 10, 2007:555-560

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Avoid placing blame and focus on fixing the underlying issue

The news media thinks I give a rat's posterior about what a former half-term governor from one of the nation's least populous states has to say about the shooting and who is to "blame" for it. I am not. If there is any question that your own words or actions could incite others to violence -- even though, in this particular case, I don't think they did -- perhaps you should take that as an indication that you should think before you speak. Or, barring that, given the relative difficulties involved, at least speak least often.

Instead of caring about whose words do or do not incite violence, I care much more about the weapons of violence that are used to cause mass carnage. Do you realize how many shootings since 2004 have caused multiple fatalities and involved an assault weapon? I have two loaded shotguns within reach of my bed for home defense. Consider that before labeling me the new epithet: hoplophobe.

The shooting in Tuscon makes me have to reiterate a question I've posed before -- isn't there some reasonable middle ground between allowing assault weapons to be sold to criminals and banning all guns outright? This nutball was able to walk in and buy a weapon that holds 31 bullets. What person with an IQ above room temperature thinks that is reasonable? The VT killer, Seung-Hui Cho, was able to buy them despite being labelled mentally ill and a danger to himself and others. Before 2004, handguns could not hold more than 10 bullets. This is far more than any reasonable person would ever need to use in hunting or self-defense.

"Wait," you say, "surely you're exaggerating. Criminals can't legally obtain assault weapons in the US!" Bullshit. Walk into a gun show in 33 states and you don't even need an ID. Just cash money. The ATF followed thousands of weapons used by criminals and they found gun shows to be the second-leading way that weapons are obtained by those who couldn't get them otherwise.

One of the favorite right-wing myths out there is that if everyone is always packing a firearm, there will be no deadly rampages by crazed gunmen. They seem to believe that if there is common knowledge that everyone is armed, two things will conspire: one will be more averse to use their weapon given the knowledge of quick retaliation, and citizens can effectively end a shooting rampage before the body counts go up. As with many right-wing fantasies (e.g., "trickle down" wealth, Laffer curve...) the logic here is not only lacking in empirical support, but it is contradicted by research studies that examine the evidence surrounding "right to carry" (RTC) laws in states and their effect on crime:
Overall, the most consistent, albeit not uniform, finding to emerge from the array of models is that aggravated assault rises when RTC laws are adopted. For every other crime category, there is little or no indication of any consistent RTC impact on crime.
This is something that gun nuts can't get around or over -- the statistics involving gun violence are staggering. They can scream about the Second Amendment all day but they can't even whisper when it comes to dealing with the numbers. I have often pointed out to gun nuts that while there were 134 "justifiable homicides" with a handgun in 1999, there were 866 (6.5 times that many) accidental fatal shootings, 314 deaths where intent was unclear, 12,102 murders and 17,424 suicides in 1998. There were 336 deaths of children by accidental shootings in 1998. This basically shows you that the idea that you'll likely need to defend yourself with lethal force is a poor excuse for carrying a gun. It is 3 times likelier a child will be killed by your gun, 6.5 times likelier that someone will be accidentally killed with your gun, 120 times likelier someone will be murdered with it and 170 times likelier someone will use it to commit suicide.

The hopeful idea that citizens who are armed can end a shooting rampage early and thus reduce the harm done is mortally wounded by the reality of recent events:
Zamudio had released his safety and was poised to fire when he saw what he thought was the killer still holding his weapon. Zamudio had a split second to decide whether to shoot. He was sufficiently convinced of the killer's identity to shove the man into a wall. But Zamudio didn't use his gun. That's how close he came to killing an innocent man. He was, as he acknowledges, "very lucky."
That's what happens when you run with a firearm to a scene of bloody havoc. In the chaos and pressure of the moment, you can shoot the wrong person. Or, by drawing your weapon, you can become the wrong person -- a hero mistaken for a second gunman by another would-be hero with a gun. Bang, you're dead. Or worse, bang bang bang bang bang: a firefight among several armed, confused, and innocent people in a crowd. It happens even among trained soldiers. Among civilians, the risk is that much greater.
So there was in fact a man carrying a pistol nearby when the shooting started in Tuscon last week. And that man very nearly killed someone other than the shooter. A recent 20/20 investigated this same concept in looking at whether colleges should allow students to carry weapons on campus.

Police and the military are given months and years of formal training on how to prevent wrongful death shootings. Even with all this training, the employment of lethal force by police is sometimes unjustified and "friendly fire" still kills many in our military. Simply put, when gunshots ring out, the last thing we need is even more chaos and confusion when everyone has guns and no one is sure who to shoot. In addition, even the best-trained civilian who has complete composure under fire may be mistaken or miss the intended target, hitting an innocent bystander.

Many who go on shooting rampages are either mentally ill and/or intend to die in the carnage, and so the knowledge that others are armed would have no discernible effect on them.

So what's my "final solution"? Reasonable gun laws. Ban extended capacity magazines. No one but gun nuts and madmen want more than 10 bullets in a handgun. Close the gun show and private sale loopholes that allow criminals and the insane to buy any kinds of guns (including assault weapons) perfectly legally. Anyone who wants to argue with me on this topic feel free to present valid rational points...