An Example of Regression to the Mean

Friendly Atheist alerts us to this
well intentioned but pathetic editorial:

Some atheists are harsh in their portrayal of believers, calling God an imaginary friend. They call religion a virus, a hoax that brainwashes people. Well, the truth is, some brains need a good washing [...]

Many Christians respect the separation of church and state while others have fought to keep nativity scenes on government property and set up Christmas trees in public schools. The atheist groups want to see the pendulum move, so they gave it a big swing. One billboard shows Santa saying, “Yes Virginia … there is no God.”

That’s just mean.

Let’s see: there are billboards advertising churches all over the place. There are billboards like these:

And that is ok; we have freedom of speech here. Christians ARE entitled to recruit in a manner consistent with free speech principles (e. g., they are not entitled to a captive audience but they can do this).

But we have freedom of speech too, and it is entirely correct to reach out to those who might be like minded but feel closeted (not everyone works in a science department) or to those in the pews asking themselves “do I really believe this?” “Is believing this really virtuous in and of itself?”

Hey, there is a better way!

But as to the title of this post:

Maybe the ads are meant to mock Christians. If so, that’s unfortunate. It reinforces the stereotype that atheists are arrogant, smug people who think they are smarter than religious folks.

Well, we are, on the average, smarter than religious people. Here is why I think this:

Nyborg also co-authored a study with Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Ulster, which compared religious belief and average national IQs in 137 countries. [6] The study analysed the issue from several viewpoints. Firstly, using data from a U.S. study of 6,825 adolescents, the authors found that atheists scored 6 g-IQ points higher than those adhering to a religion.

Secondly, the authors investigated the link between religiosity and intelligence on a country level. Among the sample of 137 countries, only 23 (17%) had more than 20% of atheists, which constituted “virtually all… higher IQ countries.” The authors reported a correlation of 0.60 between atheism rates and level of intelligence, which is “highly statistically significant.” This portion of the study uses the same data set as Lynn’s work IQ and the Wealth of Nations.

Commenting on the study in The Daily Telegraph, Lynn said “Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population. Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in God.” [7]

There is this too:

But don’t just take my word for the incompatibility of science and faith — it’s amply demonstrated by the high rate of atheism among scientists. While only 6% of Americans are atheists or agnostics, the figure for American scientists is 64%, according to Rice professor Elaine Howard Ecklund’s book, Science vs. Religion. Further proof: Among countries of the world, there is a strong negative relationship between their religiosity and their acceptance of evolution. Countries like Denmark and Sweden, with low belief in God, have high acceptance of evolution, while religious countries are evolution-intolerant. Out of 34 countries surveyed in a study published in Science magazine, the U.S., among the most religious, is at the bottom in accepting Darwinism: We’re No. 33, with only Turkey below us. Finally, in a 2006 Time poll a staggering 64% of Americans declared that if science disproved one of their religious beliefs, they’d reject that science in favor of their faith.

BUT it is also true that non-believers (agnostics and atheists) form just a small subset of the population and hence CAN be more exclusive (in terms of intelligence or, say, crime rates).

Were the atheist ranks to swell and become a much larger subset of the population, guess what? The average IQ for atheists would drop, the average educational level would drop and the percentage of crimes committed by atheists would go up. That’s just the law of large numbers.

True, I think that our view of reality is superior, but we really aren’t better people. We are merely a wealthier, more educated than average group in the United States. We are a numerically more exclusive group.

Just for grins, here is one of those billboards:

I’ll make a couple of remarks:

1. Many church goers sleep later than I do when I am training for an ultra.
2. There appear to be some health benefits to belonging to a church:

Would social support from joining groups such as the Rotary Club or Hospital Auxiliary show the same health benefits in longer life as going to church? The researchers discovered that this was not so when analyzing other social support and meeting attendance. However, they noted that, although substituting other clubs for church failed to help people live longer, a “complementary” effect appeared. Persons who engaged in volunteer work along with attending religious services were even more likely to live longer.

The researchers analyzed an extensive range of factors that could affect health as other explanations for why those attending religious services might live longer. These included age, sex, race, ethnic group, income, education, and employment; chronic diseases like stroke, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other illnesses; physical functioning and driving status; health habits such as exercise, drinking, smoking, body fat, and seeking medical care; social participation, activities, marital status, health of spouse, and having confidants; and psychological status like depression and fearfulness.

“Even after controlling for six classes of potential confounding and intervening variables, we were unable to explain the protection against mortality offered by religious attendance,” the researchers concluded. Their finding supports other studies that showed attending religious services was linked with lower blood pressure, fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease, less depression, and a decrease in earlier death from all causes. “A broad implication is that religious and health organizations can develop closer collaborations on health prevention campaigns. The tenfold increase in the past three years in number of medical schools offering instruction in religious and spiritual issues indicates a growing medical interest.”

I can say that churches teach techniques that can give someone peace (e. g., prayer, meditation, and some eastern religions teach yoga) and I do NOT deny the effectiveness of such practices, nor do I deny the benefits to belonging to a tightly knit group. And yes, churches (at least some churches) are one of the few places where someone challenges you to live a better life and to help others.

And if your local UU Church (which I used to belong to) were not so tolerant of woo, I’d probably still go when I could.
But nothing can bring me to say that I respect the “healing power of a crystal” or the belief that swinging a pendulum over a pill can determine whether you need the pill any more than I could say that I respect the belief that someone was born of a virgin, died, and was supernaturally brought back to life again.

But back to the recruiting: this might be a reason to recruit. Perhaps groups of atheists “who miss church but not the superstition” could meet regularly and derive some of the same benefits.

12 December 2010 Football

Football From the Bears-Patriots game:

33-0, Patriots, AT THE HALF. True, Chicago turnovers were converted into 13 points (two field goals, fumble run in), got a long punt return, and there was a 59 yard touchdown pass on the final play of the half.

We aren’t getting the Rams-Saints game here and that is just as well; the Rams are down 21-6 at the half.
I did see the Green Bay-Detroit game; this was a bruising defensive battle. The Packer quarterback was knocked out the game with a hard, legal hit. The first score of the game came 5 minutes into the second half (Packer field goal). Later, the Lions intercepted a pass in the end zone (thrown from the Lion 8) and eventually, the Lions scored on a drive with 7 minutes to go in the game. That’s how it ended: 7-3.
The Packers had it in the red zone with 4′th and 1 with 1 minute left, but tried for a long pass (they had no time outs) and missed. The Lions got the ball and ran out the clock.

(photos from yahoo)

12 December 2010 Blizzard Edition Part II

The Blizzard is weird…some small patches have little snow (driveway); others are buried. The win is hard and swirling; it as if we are living in an engineering wind tunnel.

Shoulder It hurt last night; doing overhead lifts just isn’t working. I’ll have to cut out the lat pull downs and all overhead stuff that isn’t very, very, very light. Curls, rows, and perhaps some incline presses are ok.

Workout notes I went to the gym; 3 miles AMT,
3.12 mile run on the treadmill (10:05, 19:45, 29:25, 30:20 total). I started off with a 10 minute mile and 0 elevation and increased the speed to 9:40 by the end of mile 1; I added .5 to the elevation every 400 meters until I got to 4 and kept it there for the final mile and lowered it for the last .12 miles.
Then I did 1.1 miles (10 minutes) on the elliptical.
Then 3 miles (24 laps) of the indoor track walking; 41 minutes total.

The gym was not crowded.

Football notes
I am watching the Lions-Packers. The first half ended 0-0 and the Green Bay quarterback was knocked out of the game in the first half. 5 minutes into the second half the Packers got a field goal. Then the Packers threw an interception inside the Detroit 8.
But with 7:55 left in the game, the Lions finished off a long drive to go up 7-3. Right now, the Lion defensive line is dominating play on both running and passing plays. This is a hard hitting defensive struggle.

Note: on 4′th and 1, the Packers went for it with a deep pass; it missed and now the Lions have the ball with 57 seconds to go.

Posts
Science/Technology; the Navy has successfully fired a electromagnetic gun; this has the potential to fire a shell 100 plus miles. This also means that, potentially, ships can do away with the need to store gunpowder; that makes things a whole lot safer.

Note: there is some potential to use such a device to launch a satellite or something else into outer space.

Atheism
Another classic from Pat Condell

He makes some solid points.

Politics
Nate Silver talks about the relationship that President Obama has with liberals. The last paragraph is very interesting. First:

A new poll from Marist University is suggestive of a potential worst-case scenario for President Obama. As he endures criticism from his left over his handling of the tax policy debate with Republicans, his approval rating has declined among liberals,

He notes that this is based on a small sample size and the the Gallup has yet to release its demographic break down from its latest poll. He then notes:

Moreover, as we’ve noted previously, liberal dissatisfaction with Mr. Obama may not translate into a willingness to vote against him in 2012. In the Marist poll, Mr. Obama won the support of between 78 and 85 percent of both liberals and Democrats against a group of three potential Republican presidential nominees: Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee. Essentially, about half the liberals and half the Democrats who disapproved of Mr. Obama’s job performance in the poll were nevertheless unwilling to vote against him for re-election (at least provided that one of those three Republicans was his opponent).

Finally, the tax compromise was presumably not intended as a short-term political fix. One benefit to Mr. Obama, instead, could come in the medium term, as most economists expect the proposal to boost the economy over the next two years, at the expense of increasing long-term deficits.

Ok, fair enough. But here is the most interesting part:

One theory of mine is that Mr. Obama — if one assumes that he is a liberal himself — sees less need to hedge his words when speaking to other liberals, in the same way that most of us tend to speak more bluntly to friends and family members than to relative strangers. But liberals — just like moderates and conservatives — formulate their impressions of the president based on a combination of intellectual and emotional factors, and their view of politics may not be so emotionally detached as Mr. Obama’s sometimes seems to be. And few voters of any kind would be pleased if it feels as though their support is being taken for granted.

Emphasis mine. There might be a lesson here. Remember President George W. Bush? If you really look at it, he delivered very little to social conservatives. The rich got their wars (which their offspring doesn’t normally fight anyway) and their tax cuts. But on the whole, there was no ban on abortion, no retreat from gay rights (he and President Obama actually see eye to eye here); the only thing they got was SCOTUS nominations; and these guys are really corporate shills anyway (pro-big business). The got a defense of marriage act. That’s it.

But, President Bush spoke to them as if he liked them and valued them, even if their agenda wasn’t really his agenda.
On the other hand, President Obama HAS taken on much of what liberals want and delivered much more for us (though not nearly all that we wanted). But he fusses at us in public. Aw.

In short, we’ve gotten more of what we wanted from “our guy”, but are far less pleased. Go figure.

Oh yeah…the rich continue to win. But guess what? They always win and there isn’t much that we can do about it.

12 December Blizzard Edition

Watch the latest breaking news, politics, entertainment and offbeat videos everyone is talking about at CNN.com. Get informed now!

CNN.com Video, posted with vodpod

This is one of the liberal positions. Note: I am giving up on the Olbermann show for a while and am watching Parker-Spitzer instead. My take: I like the fact that they present many different views, but I wish they would present fewer topics and cover them more in depth.

More video:
Some of the facts in the US are different (we have stronger free speech protections) but much of this applies:

Sarah Palin’s Alaska Show
I caught most of an episode last night. Actually, it wasn’t all bad; I learned a few things and enjoyed the wildlife shots and learning about the challenges of doing everyday stuff that I don’t normally think about (e. g., the fish processing).

I wish that there had been less focus on her and more, say, discussions with wildlife and nature experts (“here is what you are seeing and why”) but hey, it was ok. I’ve seen far worse.

But as far as her political use of this:

Ms. Palin travels with husband Todd, daughter Piper and niece McKinley for some fishing on the Big Lake River. While floating on the river, the family encounters a group of brown bears. The bears fish, swim … then, one bear starts fighting to protect her territory and her two cubs.

The rival bears growl, snarl and lash out as the babies scamper into the woods.

Sarah and her family view the action from their boat. “Wow,” she says. “Wow … It was amazing to watch. This ‘mama grizzly’ … protecting her cubs!” This seems like an intentional metaphor from Ms. Palin, who has used the ‘mama grizzly’ reference before. The phrase invokes a “common sense” woman who guards her children and her country from harm.

While watching the natural drama, Palin points out how the animals teach their cubs about survival first-hand. “No one else can do it for you,” she concludes, focusing on the the bears’ self-reliance.

THAT is a debate I’d love to have. How well would those bears do if the government didn’t clamp down on industries polluting their environment, poisoning their food supplies, taking over their lands or allowing for uncontrolled hunting? How well would they do if there was uncontrolled climate change? Would we put up with people dying of diseases that basic scientific research could easily cure? Do we want to have the same mortality rate for ourselves that the bears have? In the wild, the sick weak and lame bears die. Do we want this Malthusian society ethic for ourselves?

But politics aside, the show isn’t that bad and she does a reasonably good job of hosting it.

Science, Evolution and Frogs
Evolution in action: Frogs evolve a defense against a killer fungus:

FROGS across Australia and the US may be recovering from a fungal disease that has devastated populations around the world.

“It’s happening across a number of species,” says Michael Mahony at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales, who completed a 20-year study of frogs along the Great Dividing Range in Australia for the Earthwatch Institute. Between 1990 and 1998 the populations of several frog species crashed due to chytridiomycosis infection (chytrid) caused by the pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, but Mahony’s surveys suggest that the frogs are re-establishing.

Barred river frogs (Mixophyes esiteratus) disappeared, he says, but now up to 30 of the animals have returned to streams across Australia’s Central Coast. The tusked-frog (Adelotus) and several tree frog species (Litoria) have also returned there. Ross Alford at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland, says tree frogs are also repopulating other areas of the state after their numbers nosedived. Some have even reached pre-infection levels.

In the US there are also signs of recovery. Roland Knapp at Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory at the University of California says mountain yellow-legged frogs (Rana muscosas) – once “driven virtually to extinction” – are returning. The big question is: are frogs now beating chytrid?

Using electronic tagging to track frogs, Knapp (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0912886107) and Mahony have separately found that recovering frogs are living with low-level infections of the fungus.

It is possible, they say, that the fungus has weakened in recovering areas. Knapp says there is evidence that the frogs are evolving. Initial findings from his team show that frogs from recovered populations can survive when challenged with a fungal strain, unlike frogs with no previous exposure to the fungus, which died after it colonised their skin.

My guess: frogs have been around for 200 million years. Perhaps one reason is that they have the ability to adapt; that is, they are good at evolving to meet new challenges? Note: I am not a biologist so this is a “peanut gallery” guess.

Economics
Professor Krugman presents evidence that what we have is a demand problem.

Politics
Here is one person’s take on why President Obama can’t blow up at Republicans in public: it is the “angry black man” thing. Frankly, I like it that we have a President who can keep his cool; his even headed deportment is one reason I backed him to begin with.

Social

Other countries have social programs. We have Republicans.

Rep. Bachmann: President Obama doesn’t say the word “God” enough.

You really can’t make this up:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and her colleagues on the Congressional Prayer Caucus penned a letter to President Obama Monday, attacking him for his alleged failure to the use the word “God” and “Creator” more in his public speeches, especially abroad.

The complaint came in the context of an address given by Obama on November 10th at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, in which he remarked that the American “motto is E pluribus unum — out of many, one.”

The Congressional Prayer Caucus finds a factual inaccuracy with this statement, and believes that it could be a sign of a more telling problem.

“E pluribus unum is not our national motto. In 1956, Congress passed and President Eisenhower approved the law establishing ‘In God We Trust’ as the official national motto of the United States,” the letter reads. “[Y]ou mentioned being unified under one flag. The Pledge of Allegiance to our flag says that we are ‘one nation under God.’”

A large segment of one of our great political parties (e. g., those who were upset that the President doesn’t mention “god” enough) is intellectually retarded.

11 December 2010 pm

Yep; it has been a while since this was an important game for the whole college football nation; I’d say since the Roger Staubach days (early 1960′s). But this is the biggest game of the year for Army and Navy, by far (the Air Force game is also important to Navy…and I’d say that the Notre Dame game is the 3′rd most important).

So far the teams traded fumbles around midfield; Navy converted with a field goal and is up 3-0.
Update: Navy hit a play action pass for a touchdown (Army was packed tight to stop the run).

Workout notes
Though the the day isn’t that bad, I worked out indoors (soft treadmill is easier on my knee).
Total:
Rotator cuff routine: forward straight arm raises, sideward raises, 1/2 reversed hand raises, swimming motion raises (2.5 lb. plates).
then the row/raise/military with 5 lb. dumbbells, and right arm outward rotation with the pulleys (2.5); all 3 sets of 10. I also did 3 sets of 10 with the “push out” while laying on my back.
Weights: military press (2 sets of 30 x 20 lb. dumbbell, 1 set of 20 x 45 barbell), pull down (3 sets of 10 with 120; friendly grip),
incline press: 10 x 95, 10 x 95, 10 x 115, rows (3 sets of 10 with 180..or 90 each arm).
4 sets of 25 sit ups (different inclines)
2 miles on the AMT (23 minutes)
3.12 mile “run” in 29:12 (10:20, 19:36, 28:13) on the treadmill
10 minutes (1.12 miles) on the elliptical.

That was enough to make me feel like I’ve worked out, and my shoulders feel ok.
The knee felt it slightly (not in real bad way) afterward.

Economics/Political
Robert Reich stresses that our economic problems are structural in nature and that tax cuts aren’t going to fix them:

Clinton’s economy was vastly different from Obama’s. The recession Clinton inherited was relatively small, and caused by the Fed raising interest rates too high to ward off inflation. So it could be reversed by the Fed lowering interest rates — as the Fed did in 1994. By 1995, the so-called “jobless recovery” had morphed into a full-blown jobs recovery. By 1996, at pollster Dick Morris’s urging, Clinton could proclaim to the American people “you’ve never had it so good, and you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

The Great Recession has been far larger, caused not by the Fed raising interest rates but by the bursting of a giant housing bubble. In 2008, the biggest asset of most middle-class people, upon which they borrowed and that they assumed would be their nest eggs for retirmenet, collapsed. Housing prices continue to fall in most parts of the country. The Fed has lowered interest rates all it can, and unemployment remains sky high.

Bill Clinton presided over an economic boom engineered by Fed chair Alan Greenspan, who felt confident he could drop interest rates far lower than anyone expected without risking inflation. The result was 4 percent unemployment in many parts of America, as well as the best jobs recovery in history.

The price Greenspan exacted from Clinton — and a resurgent Republican congress demanded — was a balanced budget. As a result, Clinton had to give up much of his “investment agenda” in education, infrastructure, and other long-neglected means of building the productivity of average working Americans. The economy enjoyed a huge cyclical recovery.

But the economy’s underlying structure remained as it had been before, including stagnant wages for most Americans. Within a few years the middle and working class was treating their homes as ATMs, borrowing trillions of dollars in order to maintain their standard of living, and at the same time demand enough goods and services to keep almost everyone in jobs.

Those days are over. The Democratic Party can no longer ignore critical investments in the productivity of average workers. Nor can it ignore the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the very top, and the inability of America’s middle and working class to get the economy moving again.

Remember that professor Reich likes both President Clinton and President Obama. But he is calling it as he sees it.

11 December 2010 no-ultra training edition

Not training for an upcoming ultra has given me a lot more time in the mornings.
I am planning to go to the gym and do about 60-70 minutes of treadmill work and rotator cuff stuff followed by stretching.

Last night: no shoulder pain AT ALL BUT I took some Tylenol PM and two ibuprofen prior to bedtime. Then again, when my rotator cuff was fully inflamed, that wasn’t enough to kill the pain. So evidently I have not regressed all the way back; I just need to modify my weight workout.
I need to remember “wimpy, wimpy, wimpy” and swallow my pride.

Posts
Point: President Obama makes the case for his compromise:

Counter Point
Paul Krugman explains his position:

I’ve spent the past couple of days trying to make my peace with the Obama-McConnell tax-cut deal. President Obama did, after all, extract more concessions than most of us expected.

Yet I remain deeply uneasy — not because I’m one of those “purists” Mr. Obama denounced on Tuesday but because this isn’t the end of the story. Specifically: Mr. Obama has bought the release of some hostages only by providing the G.O.P. with new hostages.

Note: Krugman is right about his not being a purist; after all, he openly urged the House to pass the Senate HCR bill whereas many liberals openly opposed it.

But we continue on;

In return for this bad stuff, Mr. Obama got a significant amount of short-term stimulus. Unemployment benefits were extended; there was a temporary cut in the payroll tax; and there were tax breaks for investment. Incidentally: how, exactly, did we get to the point where Democrats must plead with Republicans to accept lower corporate taxes?

Unemployment benefits aside, all of this is very much second-best policy: consumers would probably spend only part of the payroll tax break, and it’s unclear whether the business break would do much to spur investment given the excess capacity in the economy. Still, it would be a noticeable net positive for the economy next year.

But here’s the thing: while the bad stuff in the deal lasts for two years, the not-so-bad stuff expires at the end of 2011. This means that we’re talking about a boost to growth next year — but growth in 2012 that would actually be slower than in the absence of the deal.

This has big political implications. Political scientists tell us that voting is much more strongly affected by the economy’s direction in the year or less preceding an election than by how well the nation is doing in some absolute sense.

When Ronald Reagan ran for re-election in 1984, the unemployment rate was almost exactly the same as it had been just before the 1980 election — but because the economic trend in 1980 was down while the trend in 1984 was up, an unemployment rate that spelled defeat for Jimmy Carter translated into landslide victory for Reagan.

In other words, it isn’t the non-optimal policy that bothers Krugman the most; it is the political implications. This bill could well weaken Obama and the Democrats going into 2012.

Robert Reich takes it further:

Apart from its extraordinary cost and regressive tilt, the tax deal negotiated between the President and the Republicans has another fatal flaw.

It confirms the Republican worldview.

Americans want to know what happened to the economy and how to fix it. At least Republicans have a story – the same one they’ve been flogging for thirty years. The bad economy is big government’s fault and the solution is to shrink government.

Here’s the real story. For three decades, an increasing share of the benefits of economic growth have gone to the top 1 percent. Thirty years ago, the top got 9 percent of total income. Not they take in almost a quarter. Meanwhile, the earnings of the typical worker have barely budged.

The vast middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going. (The rich spend a much lower portion of their incomes.) The crisis was averted before now only because middle-class families found ways to keep spending more than they took in – by women going into paid work, by working longer hours, and finally by using their homes as collateral to borrow. But when the housing bubble burst, the game was up.

Reich goes on to suggest that we have a graduated tax structure for the wealthy, along with other ideas. But I see his point; this whole debate was carried out under Republican framing.

But still on the other hand, the public isn’t as hostile to this compromise as liberals. They like seeing Democrats and Republicans working together (or appearing to anyway) and THAT could actually help the President politically.

But of course, the President said that he is really trying to keep the “political point score” out of it.

I don’t know how this all is going to play out; frankly I wouldn’t have minded the President playing “chicken” with the Republicans over this as I wouldn’t be hurt if MY taxes went up if there was a stalemate. But what about the poor?

And, liberals would do well to remember this: (a comment from someone on Daily Kos):

Here is the unspoken truth about all of this: (29+ / 0-)

Folks who blog about left-wing politics are a fairly specific group of people. They are convinced that everything boils down to the oligarchy and they want it torn down. They are engaged in a war as pointless as Bush’s war on terror – a war on greed. So it is no coincidence that they saw no value in a health care reform bill that insures millions simply because it did not stop the insurance companies from making a profit. Nor can they be happy that unemployment insurance will be extended and the middle class will not be forced into paying higher taxes – again because the rich are not penalized.

I do not deny the truth that there is indeed an oligarchy in this country and that it is damaging. But my first instinct is to help the poor and those of us struggling in the middle. I cannot imagine the mindspace one must be in to put anger at the rich above that. But look around you. That is the value system that dominates this sorry cesspool.

So while I see this as “oh no, those fucking amoral greedy bastards won AGAIN”:

the fact is “let’s stick it to the people that we don’t like” is rarely a wise, sound policy.

Sure I rant on and on…part of me WANTS Sarah Palin to win the Presidency in 2012 as I feel that she is way closer to the average American than Barack Obama is (and that is not meant to flatter Palin or the average American) and I’d love it if the Deep South left the union and took all of our wingnuts with them.

But such rants are, well, rants and have little to do with reality or good policy.

And we have a President who understands that.

So, exactly where do I stand? I am glad that this isn’t my decision to make.
I don’t like the compromise and were I given a vote, I’d say “fight and take the risk”. But I don’t have a vote; I haven’t thought about this with an expert mind and expert knowledge, and I trust President Obama’s judgment far more than I’d trust mine on this issue (I could NOT say the same about the previous President).

10 December 2010: On sensitive topics

I’ve thought about some sensitive topics lately. I’ll share three of them:

1. Race: why did some groups of people develop certain skills and technology well ahead of other people? The usual discussion goes something like this: “you should face facts: people from groups X, Y, and Z have lower IQs (on the average) than people from groups A, B, and C”; to pretend otherwise is to give into political correctness.

Of course, there ARE race differences in IQs, but modern IQ tests don’t measure how well a group of people might, say, develop bronze tools after merely using stone ones, though they are an indicator of how one might get along in modern society. Of course, how well one does on an IQ test does have a genetic factor, but there many other factors (environment, pre-natal care, etc.). The genes merely provide an upper bound for ideal conditions.

But back to the original question as to the difference in development in societies: this is where the books by Jared Diamond come in; I recently finished The Third Chimpanzee and am reading Guns, Germs and Steel. Though the thrust of the two books are different (the first deals with the question: what are human beings, how did we get to be the way that we are and where are we headed? The second is more about how human societies developed), they both tackle the question of why some human civilizations developed quicker than others.

Hint: how a civilization changes depends on many factors: what minerals are there to exploit? What vegetation is there to be domesticated? Are there any large animals that are genetic candidates to be domesticated? How much interaction is there with other human groups? What is the major axis of your land mass (east-west v. north-south; yes this matters!) It is all very complicated. Also, there is an example of how to groups of people with the same genetic background developed very differently over the course of 500 years; one became orderly, developed a top-down political hierarchy and became aggressive and warlike whereas the other group stayed in a loose “hunter-gatherer”, “egalitarian” society with less technology and greater tendency to negotiate rather than fight.

Bottom line: this is a sensitive question, but it is better answered when the uncomfortable questions are asked and answered without having a self-interest in the answer.

2. Incest. This article was posted on a facebook friend’s board which lead to some lively discussion:

A Columbia political science professor has been charged with having a sexual relationship with his 24-year-old daughter, the Columbia Daily Spectator reports.

David Epstein, 46, was charged Thursday with one count of third-degree incest. Police told the Spectator that the relationship appeared consensual.

Epstein is currently on administrative leave.

According to the New York Daily News, Epstein and the woman had a three-year sexual relationship and often exchanged “twisted text messages.”

The Spectator reports that Epstein is married to another Columbia political science professor, Sharyn O’Halloran, though a recent update to his Facebook page says he is single. The couple was featured in a 2008 Spectator article about professors who “bring love to work.”

That lead to the natural question: why should this incest (24 year old with a 46 year old) be illegal?
Let me make it clear: I am NOT talking about any sort of adult with a minor relationship: that is unethical because the minor isn’t capable of consent. And of course, had this gone on prior to the woman becoming of age, then it is illegal (and should be).

Yes, I know about the genetic arguments, but then, should a sexual relationship between two people with genetic defects be illegal?

My point was that while this story makes my skin crawl, that isn’t enough for me to say that society waste its time pursuing legal action (remember: there were TWO adults here, just as there would be between sister/brother, etc.) Also, though this sort of behavior would endanger society if it became widespread (due to a higher risk of genetic related diseases and defects), there is little danger of it becoming widespread.

People who argued with me said things like: “gee this is abnormal and is therefore bad”:

Your statement of “were this law to cease being enforced, there would hardly be a long line of people wanting to have sex with their siblings, parents or adult offspring ” says enough right there. It is not part of what we would call a “normal” state of mind that a person would want to have sex with his daughter or her dad. If it’s not normal should it be allowed? Not necessarily. I base that thought on the fact that past relations between a father and daughter left the daughter in a dramatic state of mind and emotion.

If you look at it from evolutions standpoint it bares no evolutionary benefit. If you look at it from a societies moral standpoint it is considered a debased act of perversion in most places that thrive from education.

Societies through history have based a lot of their moral code on protecting the society. Not just today’s society but many past societies as well. Incest bears no benefit to the society as a whole and is one reason why it has been frowned upon in many societies.

Or: “what about the victims”:

As a victim of incest, there is not consent given. There is a lack of trust of the structures devised to protect people. You are asked why you allowed it to happen. Issac, As an adult she is following the spin she has to give it. The law is for the victim, not to make anyone else feel better.[...]

He has twisted his thinking to suit himself. Reality does not hit when you are spinning. Incest starts when the victim is manipulated, forced and then with guilt actually feels good because sex feels good.

Again, the woman is 24; that is well past the age of consent. What would one say if, say, a 30 year old daughter seduced her 60 year old father? Is she still a “victim”?

Again, “it makes my skin crawl” is not a reason to make something illegal. To paraphrase a famous saying: “if it neither breaks the leg nor picks the pocket of someone else, it is not anyone else’s business.”

3. Rape.
I got to thinking about this after a facebook friend wrote this post on her blog. When this topic comes up, several separate issues become conflated.

1. Attire: yes, one’s choice of attire does send a signal as to how one wants to be perceived. Example: if you are applying for a professor’s job, wearing a tight spandex mini-skirt to the interview is not a good choice (unless you are a superstar in which case you’ll be interviewing the employer and not the other way around ). Also, one can dress/act in a way to solicit sexual attention. It happens all of the time.
But seeking sexual attention is NOT the same as asking for sex; far from it. Heck, wearing pasties and a thong bikini to a date doesn’t imply consent for sex, though one might not blame a guy for at least inquiring in a socially acceptable way, so long as he accepts “no” as an answer. And wearing such attire will NOT draw a male’s attention to your intellectual accomplishments.

2. “Crime of power vs. Sex”: you hear this a lot: “rape is a crime about power” rather than “sexual instinct gone wild”. But though I’ve heard this countless times, I didn’t hear this conclusion justified by actual evidence until recently; I really wondered if this were some “dogma of feminist theology” that was not to be questioned.

Most of the arguments I’ve heard to back up this assertion (“hey, even old women get raped or harassed” or “I was wearing professional attire and I was still harassed”) have been flawed; after all one might say that provocative attire is a risk factor for rape in the way that, say, leaving your bike on the porch increases the risk of it getting stolen (which is still illegal).

But there is data to back up the claim that “rape is about power and not sex”; it comes from investigation of rape crimes and interviews with rapists themselves;

What does the data say?

A Federal Commission on Crime of Violence Study found that only
4.4% of all reported rapes involved provocative behavior on the part
of the victim.

In fact over 90 percent of convicted rapists couldn’t remember what the victim wore when they raped them (from Scully’s book Understanding Sexual Violence)

Hence there IS solid evidence to back up this assertion.

Still, research into this topic can draw derision from the peanut gallery. That leads us to:

3. Research on Forced Copulation in Nature Yep, animals indeed “rape” (force copulation) other animals:

Crime: the crime of rape is horrible. Yet, at least some rapes might have biological origins:

Sexual aggression by males toward females is widespread among social mammals. In the first article in the book, Muller, Sonya M. Kahlenberg and Wrangham define terms in order to establish “a basic taxonomy of coercion.” Direct coercion, which “involves the use of force to overcome female resistance to mating” and is taxonomically widespread, may take the form of forced copulation, harassment or intimidation. Indirect coercion, which is more common, is meant to make it less likely that a female will mate with other males; it may take the form of herding (using aggression toward females to separate them from other males), punishment (physical retribution toward females who associate with other males), or sequestration (forceful separation of females from the group). When a male chimpanzee attempts to monopolize a female while she is ovulating, that is sexual coercion. When a male baboon (usually one that is new to the group or newly dominant) harasses or kills the infant of a female in the group (to shorten the period during which she will be sexually unavailable because she is lactating), that is another form of sexual coercion; the mother is harmed reproductively rather than physically. Sexually coercive males are not just attempting to have sex with particular females, they’re trying to control female sexuality in general.

The science that allows us to understand sexual coercion by males is drawn directly from Darwin’s own work on sexual selection. There is, however, another layer here, because of course one cannot talk about the evolution of sexual aggression in male primates without pondering the social consequences of the same behavior in our own species. Are domestic violence and sexual assault simply human homologues of the same conduct seen in chimpanzees and baboons? Many social scientists bristle at this suggestion, with its invocation of biological determinism. This volume’s authors, many of them female researchers, do an excellent job of sensitively exploring the boundary between phenotype and environment that is the stuff of which human behavior is made.

The book is divided into four sections. The first [...]

The most compelling contribution in this section is a paper by Melissa Emery Thompson, who argues persuasively that most rapes are not committed by lonely, socially maladjusted men, as Thornhill and Palmer imagined. Instead, rape is a crime most often carried out by men who are sexually experienced and connected to the victim in some way. This changing view of rape is no doubt a reflection of better reporting of crime statistics. That in turn is a result of society having begun to take a more expansive view of such criminal acts, which women of earlier generations might not have been willing to report due to fear of social stigmatization. It should not surprise us that acquaintance rapists far outnumber stranger rapists, nor that the modus operandi of sexual assaults differs in the two different contexts. Acquaintance rapists are not necessarily pathological in other social contexts; they rarely resort to the levels of physical force or violence that stranger rapists employ. All this, Thompson argues, should contribute to a view that acquaintance rape accords with evolutionary perspectives about the rationales for male dominance over and control of female sexuality. And as Thompson puts it, even if an evolutionary perspective does not help us understand how to prevent sexually coercive behavior, “it may give us a clearer picture of the enormity of the problem we are dealing with.”

(hat tip: 3 quarks daily)

Of course, having a naturalistic view of the origins of morality and behavior does NOT mean that we should settle for a morality that is a direct consequence of evolution:

And, so that people don’t think that he’s a victim of the naturalistic fallacy, Hauser hastens to add this:

Lest there be any confusion about the claims I am making, I am not saying that our evolved capacity to intuitively judge what is right or wrong is sufficient to live a moral life. It is most definitely not and for two good reasons.

For one, some of our moral instincts evolved during a period of human history that looked nothing like the situation today. In our distant past, we lived in small groups consisting of highly familiar and often familial individuals, with no formal laws. Today we live in a large and diffuse society, where our decisions have little-to-no impact on most people in our community but with laws to enforce those who deviate from expected norms. Further, we are confronted with moral decisions that are unfamiliar, including stem cells, abortion, organ transplants and life support. When we confront these novel situations, our evolved system is ill-equipped.

Surf to Jerry Coyne’s blog (cited above) to read more.

So with the above there is the fear: “oh, you are making the “boys will be boys” argument. Hell no. After all, some male animals will kill each other to get to mate and others will kill a female’s cubs to bring her into heat. No one that I know of says that is a reason to condone or to not prosecute murder.

Since I want to leave this post on a positive note, I’ll repost this video. The bad guys (harassment in this case) don’t always get away with it:

Note the passengers backing her up. I’m sorry that she went though this but I am glad that he didn’t get away with it.

Shoulder….10 December 2010

Yikes! Pain last night while sleeping…yesterday’s workout was too much.

So I got back to “no overhead” lifting and then build back very slowly.

Update: I walked 3.8 miles with Lynn and my “to and from” walk boosted the distance to 6.3. It was in the 20′s and most of the route had ice free stretches; I was grateful for that. I finished with rotator cuff exercises with the stretch bands.

9 December 2010 pm

Workout notes
Morning: yoga. Afternoon (after giving final exams): weights:
Squats: 10 x 45, 10 x 135, 10 x 135, 10 x 155, 5 x 175 (free; no Smith). Good depth except on the last set.
Leg presses: 270 x 20, 360 x 10, 360 x 10
Upper body: curls (arm), 15 lb. x 20 (3 sets) (dumbbell)
presses: 30 x 30 lb. (one set) (dumbbell)
incline presses (barbell) 15 x 95 (2 sets)
pull downs 120 x 15, 120 x 10, 100 x 10 (handles)
rows: 8 x 90 (each arm; 180 total), 8 x 90, 10 x 90
sit ups: 4 x 25 (one each level)
Leg extensions (3 sets of 10)
leg curl (3 sets of 10)
toe (3 sets of 30)
leg lifts (3 sets of 20)
back (150: 3 sets of 20)
rotator cuff exercises (2.5 lb.), 5 lb.
———————-
Posts
One more comment from a friend on the Tax Compromise:

My general thoughts are

1. These tax cuts were a bad idea in the first place
2. I agree with extending only for incomes <250k
3. This agreement shows that neither Republicans nor Democrats are serious about the deficit. Nearly a trillion dollars added to the deficit with no offsetting spending cuts. Sigh.
4. I think the estate tax compromise is about right, although I'd exempt less and have a gradual increase in rates

That said, I do think we could use some sort of 2nd stimulus and I think tax cuts are more efficient than government spending.

The Dems are really having trouble articulating their position. Remember that the tax cuts apply to all income <250k even for those who make more. E.g. someone who makes $350K, gets all the cuts up to 250K, then pays 5% more on the extra 100K. Not too bad

For the record I make well under $250.

Posts
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
The Senate filibustered the defense authorization bill which has a repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in it. But Senator Joe Lieberman (who I often disagree with) is planning on bring this up as a stand alone bill.

Wikileaks and the New York Times: Randazza was interviewed on this issue; he doesn’t think that the New York Times will be legally liable because they came by the material honesty.

Science
Mice have been created from two males (genetically; they talk about an “x o” chromosome) though, of course, they were born from a female.

Space: Mars photos from the rover; here is an article on it.

Here is your chance Now-a-days there are lenses that auto correct for things like atmospheric interference. So, it is possible to see something like a gravitational wave? If we pick something up, how do we know it is not an error or just random noise?

bservational science is hard. And it seems to be getting harder. Nowadays, when you want to analyze the latest and greatest data set, it could consist of finding a minute-long evolving oscillatory gravitational-wave signal buried in months and mountains of noise. Or it could consist of picking out that one Higgs event among 600 million events. Per second. Or it could consist of looking for tiny correlations in the images of tens of millions of galaxies.

The interesting effects are subtle, and it’s easy to fool oneself in the data analysis. How can we be sure we’re doing things right? One popular method is to fake ourselves out. A group gets together and creates a fake data set (keeping the underlying parameters secret), and then independent groups can analyze the data to their heart’s content. Once the analysis groups publicly announce their results, the “true” parameters underlying the data can be revealed, and the analysis techniques can be directly evaluated. There is a correct result. You either get it or you don’t. You’re either right or wrong.

Well, some new data tests sets are ready to be analyzed and :

They have released a bunch of images to the public. They know exactly what has gone into making the images. Your task is to figure out the PSF and the gravitational lensing in the image. Everyone is welcome to give it a shot! The images, and lots of explanatory documentation, are available here. The group that does the best job of finding the dark matter gets a free trip to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. And, most importantly, an iPad. What more incentive could you want? Start working on your gravitational-lensing algorithms!

This is truly science by the masses, for the masses.

So, what are you waiting for?

Fun
(via Randaza’s blog)