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Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. -- Robert A. Heinlein

Today’s Fortune Cookie (FAIL)

May 17th, 2012 · Creationism, Critical Thinking, Economics, Politics, Stupidity

“Love mankind, trust the majority, and never owe anyone.”

Emphasis mine.

This is dangerously false bullshit advice to be giving. You should NEVER trust the majority. The majority once believed the earth was flat. The majority once believed the earth was created 6,000 years ago over a 6-day period. The majority once elected Jimmy Carter, and more recently elected Barack Obama. The majority once thought the “war on poverty” was a good idea, and still thinks the “war on drugs” is a good idea, in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary. Similarly, the majority seems to subscribe to Keynesian economics when it comes to matters such as stimulus spending, again despite a mountain of countering evidence.

I could go on and on. Majorities throughout history have believed and done incredibly stupid things, and have largely failed to learn from it. To believe something just because the majority does is to fall victim to the argument from popularity fallacy.

On a related note: While driving back from lunch, I heard radio talk show host Dennis Prager talking with a caller about a church sign that read:

“Distrust whomever you want, but never distrust yourself.”

Prager rightfully called this out as more dangerous bullshit advice. Just as you should never trust the majority, you should not trust yourself either. You should be intellectually humble enough to admit that you are not as smart as you think you are, not as right as you think you are, and not as knowledgeable and skilled as you think you are. Intellectual humility is the cornerstone of critical thinking. Its opposite, intellectual arrogance, could be summed up nicely as “never distrusting yourself.”

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Quote of the Day

May 16th, 2012 · Critical Thinking, Economics, Politics

From Dale Franks (on QandO), on the subject of looting the economy:

The problem with reality is that it doesn’t care what you believe. It just is. The longer you ignore it, the more forceful it is when it re-asserts itself. But if I could point to one thing as the worst modern problem we have today, it would be an absolute refusal to acknowledge reality, accompanied by a steadfast refusal to recognize any of the warning signals it obligingly gives before it’s [sic] assertion becomes horrific, rather than merely unpleasant.

(Psssst, Dale: should be “its”, not “it’s”. Otherwise brilliant.)

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The root cause of most errors in science is bias

May 14th, 2012 · Critical Thinking, Global Warming, Health Care, Science, Scientific studies

There’s been much ado lately about the growing incidence of retractions in scientific publications, stemming from both errors and dishonesty. See my latest post on the subject here.

In this Nature column, Daniel Sarewitz cuts through the crap to get to the root cause of the mounting errors in science: bias. Lengthy excerpt, emphasis mine:

Bias is an inescapable element of research, especially in fields such as biomedicine that strive to isolate cause–effect relations in complex systems in which relevant variables and phenomena can never be fully identified or characterized. Yet if biases were random, then multiple studies ought to converge on truth. Evidence is mounting that biases are not random.

[...]

Early signs of trouble were appearing by the mid-1990s, when researchers began to document systematic positive bias in clinical trials funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Initially these biases seemed easy to address, and in some ways they offered psychological comfort. The problem, after all, was not with science, but with the poison of the profit motive. It could be countered with strict requirements to disclose conflicts of interest and to report all clinical trials.

Yet closer examination showed that the trouble ran deeper. Science’s internal controls on bias were failing, and bias and error were trending in the same direction — towards the pervasive over-selection and over-reporting of false positive results.

[...]

How can we explain such pervasive bias? Like a magnetic field that pulls iron filings into alignment, a powerful cultural belief is aligning multiple sources of scientific bias in the same direction. The belief is that progress in science means the continual production of positive findings. All involved benefit from positive results, and from the appearance of progress. Scientists are rewarded both intellectually and professionally, science administrators are empowered and the public desire for a better world is answered. The lack of incentives to report negative results, replicate experiments or recognize inconsistencies, ambiguities and uncertainties is widely appreciated — but the necessary cultural change is incredibly difficult to achieve.

[...]

[I]t is not surprising that the cracks in the edifice are showing up first in the biomedical realm, because research results are constantly put to the practical test of improving human health. Nor is it surprising, even if it is painfully ironic, that some of the most troubling research to document these problems has come from industry, precisely because industry’s profits depend on the results of basic biomedical science to help guide drug-development choices.

Scientists rightly extol the capacity of research to self-correct. But the lesson coming from biomedicine is that this self-correction depends not just on competition between researchers, but also on the close ties between science and its application that allow society to push back against biased and useless results.

It would therefore be naive to believe that systematic error is a problem for biomedicine alone. It is likely to be prevalent in any field that seeks to predict the behaviour of complex systems — economics, ecology, environmental science, epidemiology and so on. The cracks will be there, they are just harder to spot because it is harder to test research results through direct technological applications (such as drugs) and straightforward indicators of desired outcomes (such as reduced morbidity and mortality).

This is why I and many others have questioned the objectivity of the findings of the climate science community.

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Prog Rock Friday: sleepmakeswaves, “I Will Write Peace On Your Wings And You Will Fly Over The Ocean”

May 11th, 2012 · Music, Prog Rock

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Bad government is our fault.

May 10th, 2012 · Critical Thinking, Economics, Politics

Jason Brennan points out why bad government is our fault. Lengthy excerpt:

Our government is defective, and that’s in large part our fault. Not yours and not mine, as individuals, but ours, as We the People.

When it comes to politics, We the People make bad choices, and we get what we ask for. We want good outcomes, but we vote for (and thus reward) candidates who produce bad outcomes. We ask for bad policies, and so that’s what winning politicians give us. Our politicians posture and politick because We the People reward them for posturing and politicking. We get bad government because We the People are bad at governing ourselves.

[...]

Here’s a brief lesson in political science. Many political scientists claim that the “median voter” decides elections. (In fact, the story is more complicated that this, but it is a good first pass at how elections work.) The basic idea: Suppose you’re a candidate. To win in the general election, your best bet is to move toward the center of public opinion among the voters in your district.

[...] And so, according to the Median Voter Theorem, the candidates who agree with the median voter tend to win. In that sense, the median voter has unusual power—her opinion matters most.

The economist Bryan Caplan asks, what happens if the median voter is has bad ideas about politics? The economy is a major concern in most elections. Caplan asks, what happens if the median voter would fail ECON 101? What if most voters are not only uninformed but misinformed about how the economy works? In any given election, foreign policy is a major issue. What happens if the median voter has mistaken views about international relations? In any given election, candidates will spout statistics to defend their views. What happens if the median voter would fail Introduction to Statistics? In any given election, candidates will complain about social issues. What happens if the median voter has silly views about sociology?

Well, two things happen:

1.    We the People make a bad choice among the candidates on the ballot.

2.    All the candidates on the ballot are bad choices anyways.

[...]

Many people complain that we’re always stuck choosing the lesser of two evils. The Comedy Central show South Park compared the 2004 presidential election to a school mascot election between a Turd Sandwich and a Douche. Why are we often stuck choosing between a Republican Turd Sandwich and Democratic Douche? It’s not because the system is broken or corrupt. It’s because the system works. It gives We the People what We the People want. We have to choose between “two evils” because these two evils best appeal to the median voter.

If we want to fix our democracy, then we need to fix ourselves. We need to become smarter, less biased, and more intellectually honest when it comes to politics. We need the median voter to be a virtuous voter.

In other words: we need a nation of voters who are critical thinkers.

HT to Will Wilkinson.

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Now Drinking (May 9, 2012)…

May 9th, 2012 · Beer

… a Westvleteren #12 quadrupel.

This is the holy grail of beers. It is brewed by monks at a Trappist monastery in Belgium, who stopped overseas distribution several years back when Ratebeer.com listed it as the best beer in the world, and demand shot through the roof. I guess the monks were worried about becoming too “commercial.” This one was given to me by a friend at work (thanks, Sean!!!) who received it from another friend living in Germany. It has been aging for 4 years.

It pours a dark cloudy brown, with a good amount of extremely dense tan foam which leaves behind some fine lacing. The aroma is very lush: figs, cherries, sweetness, and yeast. The taste is simultaneously smoky, sweet and malty, oaky and earthy, and fruity – raisins and figs most prominently. An extremely complex beer; the specific flavors seem to change subtly with each sip. And the alcohol – 10.2% (although I think my 4 year-aged bottle may be more) – is well hidden.

I rated this a 4.5 on Ratebeer.com, where its average weighted score is a 4.47, making it a 100th percentile beer in its style (abt/quadrupel) and a 100th percentile beer overall.

The only beer I’ve rated higher is Founders’ Kentucky Breakfast Stout, which I still think is the best beer I’ve ever had. My rating for Westvleteren #12 tied my rating for Rochefort #10, another Trappist quadrupel, but I think the Westvleteren is better and if I had to rate the Rochefort today I’d give it a slightly lower rating. (Several of the Rocheforts I’ve had have been just a tad sour.)

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Logical Fallacy of the Day: The Iron Man Fallacy

May 9th, 2012 · Critical Thinking

The iron man fallacy is the opposite of the straw man fallacy.

The straw man fallacy involves intentionally and unfairly mischaracterizing an opponent’s argument to make it weaker and easier to refute.

The iron man fallacy involves painting an opponent’s argument to be stronger than he knows it to be — whether intentionally and deceptively (e.g., to score credibility for graciously conceding one particular point that the arguer knows he is going to lose anyway) or unintentionally (e.g., for not recognizing a particularly vulnerable assumption).

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Austerity measures? Where?

May 9th, 2012 · Critical Thinking, Economics, Politics

The Keynesian crowd has made much ado lately about how European “austerity measures” have tanked their economies. For example, here’s what Paul Krugman had to say:

What’s wrong with the prescription of spending cuts as the remedy for Europe’s ills? One answer is that the confidence fairy doesn’t exist — that is, claims that slashing government spending would somehow encourage consumers and businesses to spend more have been overwhelmingly refuted by the experience of the past two years. So spending cuts in a depressed economy just make the depression deeper.

These posts are liberally (no pun intended) sprinkled with words like “austerity” and “slashed” to describe how the budgets of European governments have been reigned in just when, according to the Keynesians, stimulus spending was most needed.

The only problem is, it isn’t true.

Read the rest at Critical Thinking Applied.

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Really, Heartland Institute?

May 9th, 2012 · Asshat, Civility, Critical Thinking, Global Warming

This is the billboard add run recently by the Heartland Institute. You’ve no doubt already seen the uproar about this. It’s such an over-the-top ad hominem that it immediately drew strong ire — not just from the global warming alarmists, but from level headed people on both sides of the debate. Including Heartland’s own supporters and sponsors.

Now the billboard has been pulled down. And Jim Lakely of Hearland says the billboard was “intended to be an experiment”:

“This billboard was deliberately provocative, an attempt to turn the tables on the climate alarmists by using their own tactics but with the opposite message. We found it interesting that the ad seemed to evoke reactions more passionate than when leading alarmists compare climate realists to Nazis or declare they are imposing on our children a mass death sentence. We leave it to others to determine why that is so.”

He also left it to others to determine whether he is sincere in his assertion that this was just an experiment all along, or whether it’s really just an ex post facto story concocted as part of the Heartland Institute’s damage control efforts. To me, it looks like major backpedaling and revisionism.

Even assuming it was indeed an “experiment”, it was an act of asshattery. It does nothing to further the cause of civility to adopt the uncivil and intolerant tactics of one’s opponents, even for illustrative purposes. One does not bite a child back to show her what it’s like. And I’m pretty sure it’s a vanishingly small percentage of warmists who have equated global warming skeptics to Nazis, so even if a “show them what it’s like” approach was appropriate, it should have been targeted only at those specific individuals.

And again, even assuming this was an experiment, many who saw this billboard (in person or online) won’t have gotten the word about that, and will now think the global warming deniers (I do think that word applies in this context) at Heartland are a bunch of asshats.

I took the Heartland Institute’s detractors to task for incivility in this post and this post, so it’s only fair that I hold the Heartland Institute to the same standards of civility and intellectual fairness. And they have fallen far short.

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Critical thinking is important and lacking

May 8th, 2012 · Business, Critical Thinking, Education

Dr. Minto points out that critical thinking is both important and lacking.

In “The Real Education Gap,” Chief Learning Officer (January 2012), author Sandi Edwards remarks on the 2010 American Management Association (AMA) Critical Skills Survey, in which it is reported that critical thinking is one of four related “soft” skills are that not being adequately taught in school. In terms of critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity (“The Four Cs”), “new American workers come up short, regardless of the quality of their educations.” In that AMA survey, it was shown that the overwhelming majority of executives had begun to emphasize this “new set of skills, that was neither intuitive for most people nor taught in school.”

Because the educational system is not doing its job, he believes — and I agree — that “[l]eading firms will have to make up the “soft” skills deficit — in many cases outsourcing training for critical thinking and related skills.” But I question the degree to which businesses realize this and will pursue it. Most businesses give lip service to critical thinking — listing it as a desired trait in job postings, for example — but are just as ignorant of what that really means as most others are.

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