Map of the day

Haven’t done an Amazing Maps map in a while.  How can you not love a map of Meth Labs per county:

Handwriting and forensic “science”

So, I really enjoyed watching the Jinx, and I certainly think Robert Durst likely killed all those people, but I was not entirely persuaded by the handwriting analysis that proved to be so crucial to how events ultimately unfolded.  The handwriting expert was given a target item and an item known to come from Durst and looked for similarities and found them.  I get that this is how a lot of forensic “science” works, but the problem is that it’s not actually science.  Oh, I do think it is indicative and telling.  But that’s it; nothing more.  Certainly not “scientific” evidence that would prove something beyond a reasonable doubt (e.g., DNA).

Actual science (and good social science!) seeks to disconfirm hypotheses, not confirm them, as is the case in the handwriting analysis.  A genuinely scientific analysis would try and rule out everybody except Durst, leaving no conclusion but that he must be the writer.  That’s how DNA works, you are essentially ruling out billions of other people until the only reasonable conclusion is that you have the DNA of the actual subject.  And, that’s what science is about– ruling out other possible explanations until you are left with a sole reasonable one.  And, of course, why science is never truly done, because you can always find more explanations to rule out.

Anyway, I’ve written plenty about the lack of science in forensic science, but actually seeing that handwriting analysis seeking confirmation, rather than disproof, really struck me while watching the Jinx.  And this forum in the NYT about the matter and how we judge forensic science gave me a good excuse to write about it.  For me, this is the key contributor:

The National Commission on Forensic Science was formed in response to widespread concerns that forensic evidence that lacked any meaningful scientific basis was being regularly permitted in trials. The concerns were not just about the “expert” witnesses, but about the judges who, according to the National Academy of Sciences report that led to the commission’s creation, have been “utterly ineffective” in assessing the quality of research behind the evidence.

And, it wasn’t that long ago, but can never really link too often to Radley Balko’s terrific series on how much junk forensic science there is and how it gets way to much respect from judges.

Photo of the day

Recent National Geographic photo of the day (as if this photo isn’t awesome enough, the title is just perfect):

Fearless Symmetry

Photograph by Souvik Kundu, National Geographic Your Shot

It’s a rare and privileged experience to witness the interaction of tiger cubs in the wild, says Souvik Kundu, a member of our Your Shot photo community. After learning that a tigress had given birth to cubs in India’s Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, Kundu visited the sanctuary a number of times to photograph the family. On this day his group was treated to an “unforgettable display of tender bonding,” with “the cubs engaged in several bouts of play-fighting under the watchful eyes of the mother.”

The real value of higher education

Recently, there was a great Op-Ed by UNC system president Tom Ross.  He does such a good job laying out the real value of higher education that you can see why the Republican-dominated UNC Board of Governors decided a “new direction” was needed.  Obviously, the only real value of higher ed is to create worker-drones for specific jobs that will surely stay static over a lifetime.  Ross:

We increasingly view our colleges and universities as nothing more than factories that must demonstrate an immediate return on investment for consumers. Places that only train people for the workforce. We hear constant calls to drive out costs and produce more product at less cost. There is far less talk about academic quality and excellence and more about operational efficiency. We seem to measure the value of education to our students only in immediate post-graduation earnings. Again, I am all for accountability and efficiency, but if that is our sole focus, we may fail to provide the return on investment that is perhaps most valuable for our students – the ability to think, reason and communicate more effectively… [emphases mine]

In some significant measure, our nation has been great because our higher education system has been the best in the world. Our colleges and universities have been the foundation of our democratic society. We have produced talent that remained productive over a lifetime – not because of particular skills taught, not because of preparation for a specific job, but instead because our students acquired the ability to analyze, work with others, understand our world, communicate effectively and appreciate the value of learning throughout one’s life. It is this creative, innovative, adaptable talent that has been our competitive advantage against the world.

Today, however, America’s societal commitment to investing in higher education appears to have eroded. We now spend about 2 percent more on higher education in real dollars than we spent 25 years ago, even though enrollment in our universities and colleges has grown by over 60 percent during that period. We spend about 30 percent less per student today than we did 25 years ago. As a nation, we are disinvesting in higher education, and we are beginning to pay the price.

Great stuff!  If you care about higher ed, you really should read the whole thing.  Meanwhile, Duke Professor Jedidiah Purdy has a nice piece in the New Yorker outlining the “Ayn Rand” approach to higher ed that the Republicans leading our state would like to take:

For several years, there have been indications that the state’s new leaders want to change the mission of public higher education in North Carolina. In 2013, the Republican governor, Pat McCrory, told William Bennett, a conservative talk-show host and former Secretary of Education, that the state shouldn’t “subsidize” courses in gender studies or Swahili (that is, offer them at public universities). The following year, he laid out his agenda in a speech at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Using the language of business schools, he urged his audience to “reform and adapt the U.N.C. brand to the ever-changing competitive environment of the twenty-first century” and to “[hone] in on skills and subjects employers need.” McCrory also had a warning for faculty members whose subjects could be understood as political: “Our universities should not be used to indoctrinate our students to become liberals or conservatives, but should teach a diversity of opinions which will allow our future leaders to decide for themselves.”…

Some version of a cost-benefit calculus for learning is inevitable in a precarious economy with expensive, debt-funded education. But to reconceive of public universities as the meeting place of two markets—students investing in their own “human capital” and private investors looking to influence curricula—is another thing altogether. The point of humanities education is to foster independent, critical thought and broad historical perspective, both in students and in university culture. A successful humanities education makes the obvious questionable and shows that the present is neither eternal nor inevitable. These are not goals designed to pass market tests or bend to the ideologies of wealthy donors.

And, as long as I’m at it, Fareed Zakaria with a nice piece on how we have come to “dangerously” over-value STEM education (I admit to being a little bit guilty of this myself):

This dismissal of broad-based learning, however, comes from a fundamental misreading of the facts — and puts America on a dangerously narrow path for the future. The United States has led the world in economic dynamism, innovation and entrepreneurship thanks to exactly the kind of teaching we are now told to defenestrate. A broad general education helps foster critical thinking and creativity. Exposure to a variety of fields produces synergy and cross fertilization. Yes, science and technology are crucial components of this education, but so are English and philosophy…

Innovation is not simply a technical matter but rather one of understanding how people and societies work, what they need and want. America will not dominate the 21st century by making cheaper computer chips but instead by constantly reimagining how computers and other new technologies interact with human beings.

Strong case.  Of course, I’d argue for more social science and less humanities :-).  Regardless, I’m not about about to under-value STEM education.  It’s great and super-worthwhile.  And so is having some university degrees that lead clearly and directly to in-demand jobs.  But it seems pretty clear to me that devaluing an actual liberal arts education is not the way to go.

Photo of the day

I really want to go to a drag race sometime.  Seriously.  Though I would not want to see anything as dramatic as this (from the Telegraph’s week in pictures):

NHRA top fuel dragster driver Larry Dixon crashes after his car broke in half during qualifying for the Gatornationals at Auto Plus Raceway at Gainesville…Picture: USA Today Sports

Spend less time with your kids

No, seriously.  At least, that is, if you are doing it out of some misplaced guilt that they need lots of “quality” time with you.  Here’s what I wrote about my latest theory of parenting a couple years ago:

Exactly.  They are making the choice to over-do it.  The person quoted here “never saw” his parents but grew into a successful professional.  Not that Caplan or I are advocating you never see your kids, but life as a parent doesn’t have to be an overgrown octopus (and you’re looking at somebody who hardly worked yesterday because I spent the morning at the pediatrician and the afternoon watching the kids while Kim attended an IEP meeting)…

So, from whence the title of this post, you may be wondering?  Can’t say I’ve fully implemented it (nor will I) but influenced by the idea of High Intensity Interval Training for fitness (much less time, much higher intensity), I suspect that there’s really something to be gained from this approach in parenting.  Insofar as you want to create strong, positive memories and a strong positive bond (that, you can do, its the type of person they become where your influence is limited), it would seem there’s something to be said for short bursts of high-intensity parenting.  I’ve tried this in limited doses.  Evan and Sarah love rough-housing on the bed (and I’m a fan myself).  Sometimes I’ll just really go at it with them (also, piggyback rides) for about 10 minutes or so and spend the next twenty doing what I want (writing blog posts) guilt free, instead of just playing something lower intensity (obviously, not only in the physical sense, but in my commitment to it– I go all out when we rough house)  for 30 minutes.  I don’t expect anybody to do any research on this, but my naive hypothesis is that this approach is probably just as effective, if not more so, for strong parent-child bonds.   I feel confident that Evan and Sarah are going to have really fond memories of these fun, but very short, times.

Okay, Sarah just climbed onto my lap because she’s so attached to me.  This is certainly low-impact time, but she’s happy with it (personally, I could do with typing much more efficiently at the moment– though it is nice to be loved so much).  Anyway, now there’s new research to really drive home the point that it’s not the quantity of time you spend with your kids, but the quality:

Though American parents are with their children more than any parents in the world, many feel guilty because they don’t believe it’s enough. That’s because there’s a widespread cultural assumption that the time parents, particularly mothers, spend with children is key to ensuring a bright future.

Now groundbreaking new research upends that conventional wisdom and finds that that isn’t the case. At all.

In fact, it appears the sheer amount of time parents spend with their kids between the ages of 3 and 11 has virtually no relationship to how children turn out, and a minimal effect on adolescents, according to the first large-scale longitudinal study of parent time to be published in April in the Journal of Marriage and Family. The finding includes children’s academic achievement, behavior and emotional well-being. [emphasis mine]

First, I have to say this “conventional wisdom” has always been somewhat belied by just paying attention to reality.  I’m 43 and in my generation our parents did not obsess about spending time with us like so many modern parents do, and we’re not a generation of psychopaths.  And it was certainly even less time in the previous generation.   More:

“I could literally show you 20 charts, and 19 of them would show no relationship between the amount of parents’ time and children’s outcomes. . . . Nada. Zippo,” said Melissa Milkie, a sociologist at the University of Toronto and one of the report’s authors…

In fact, the study found one key instance when parent time can be particularly harmful to children. That’s when parents, mothers in particular, are stressed, sleep-deprived, guilty and anxious.

But, here it all is, nicely distilled:

That’s not to say that parent time isn’t important. Plenty of studies have shown links between quality parent time — such as reading to a child, sharing meals, talking with them or otherwise engaging with them one-on-one — and positive outcomes for kids. The same is true for parents’ warmth and sensitivity toward their children. It’s just that the quantity of time doesn’t appear to matter.

So, go ahead, spend time with your kids and enjoy it.  But as for misguided efforts at sheer quantity of time that are going to stress you out, just don’t.  Just make sure the time you spend with your kids is worthwhile and you’re all good.

This blog post has not been genetically modified

Nice editorial in the Post on why requiring genetically-modified food labeling is a bad idea:

E IGHTY-EIGHT percent of scientists polled by the Pew Research Center in January said genetically modified food is generally safe to eat. Only 37 percent of the public shared that view. The movement to require genetically modified food products to be labeled both reflects and exploits this divergence between informed opinion and popular anxiety. [all emphases mine]

Mandated labeling would deter the purchase of genetically modified (GM) food when the evidence calls for no such caution…

The GM-food debate is a classic example of activists overstating risk based on fear of what might be unknown and on a distrust of corporations. People have been inducing genetic mutations in crops all sorts of other ways for a long time — by, for example, bathing plants in chemicals or exposing them to radiation. There is also all sorts of genetic turbulence in traditional selective plant breeding and constant natural genetic variation.

Yet products that result from selective gene splicing — which get scrutinized before coming to market — are being singled out as high threats. If they were threatening, one would expect experts to have identified unique harms to human health in the past two decades of GM-crop consumption. They haven’t. Unsurprisingly, institutions such as the National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Organization have concluded that GM food is no riskier than other food.

Promoters of compulsory GM food labeling claim that consumers nevertheless deserve transparency about what they’re eating. But given the facts, mandatory labeling would be extremely misleading to consumers — who, the Pew polling shows, exaggerate the worries about “Frankenfood” — implying a strong government safety concern where one does not exist…

This isn’t just a matter of saving consumers from a little unnecessary expense or anxiety. If GM food becomes an economic nonstarter for growers and food companies, the world’s poorest will pay the highest price. GM crops that flourish in challenging environments without the aid of expensive pesticides or equipment can play an important role in alleviating hunger and food stress in the developing world — if researchers in developed countries are allowed to continue advancing the field.

Yeah, all that.  I just finished my Kashi Go Lean for breakfast.  It actually annoys me every time I see the big “GMO Free” label on the box.  It’s healthy because it’s high in fiber, protein, and whole grains; not because those grains were not genetically modified.  If Kashi wants to keep doing this, fine; companies put all sorts of information on the sides of their boxes that are not actually related to nutrition.  What we don’t need is the government implicitly telling consumers that GMO is somehow related to the health of our food.  It’s simply not.

Infographic of the day

Via a really interesting Vox post on the death penalty.  All the ways Americans have performed legal executions through history:

The science of hangry

Loved this New Yorker post about the evolutionary benefits and costs of how hunger affects your brain:

Hunger makes Belgians less charitable, Israeli judges more draconian, and Ohioans likelier to stick pins into voodoo dolls that represent their spouses…

Hunger seems like a simple phenomenon: the stomach rumbles until it’s fed, then it’s quiet until it rumbles again. Why, then, does it shape so much behavior that, at least on the surface, has so little to do with food? …

These side effects of hunger—intensified awareness, greater persistence, bolder risk assessments—also exist in humans. Like walleye pollock, people seem to behave with a profitable recklessness when hungry. In a 2014 paper titled “Always Gamble on an Empty Stomach,” researchers at Utrecht University, in the Netherlands, found that hungry subjects fared significantly better on a psychological challenge called the Iowa Gambling Task than did subjects who had eaten Greek yogurt beforehand…

Of course, all the exquisite sensitivity and restless energy that hunger induces have a downside: crankiness. In 1946, a study known as the Minnesota Starvation Experiment documented the powerful connection between hunger and anger—an early description of the mental state now popularly known as “hangry.” …

Most of the time, we can be glad that allaying our hunger no longer means prowling for wildebeests or foraging for berries. But the system that served our ancestors so well—that gave them the drive to hunt and the good sense to gather—turns out to be something of a liability in the modern world. An adaptation that’s useful on the savannah doesn’t necessarily help in the office cubicle or the dorm room. In places where food abounds, the hungry now prowl the department store and forage for binder clips, ready to snap until they get their cake.

Interesting stuff.  From what I can tell, I really don’t get too hangry (I wonder if that also means I have less of an alertness benefit), but I learned early in my marriage, do not let my wife get too hungry.

Quick hits (part II)

1) This nice post from the Economist on how females are out-classing males in education throughout the developed world has been sitting open in my browser deserving it’s own post for too long.  So, here it is.

2) Jamelle Bouie makes a good case that Patty Murray should be the next Democratic leader in the Senate.

3) Republicans of late have been suggesting they actually care about inequality. John Cassidy just says follow the money in their latest proposed budget:

As long as a Democrat occupies the White House, there’s practically no chance that G.O.P. spending cuts will be enacted, marking the Price budget as more of a political wish list than an actual funding bill. But wish lists matter, too, especially for a Party that is supposedly trying to change its public image. And in 2015, it seems, the most that the Republicans can hope for is to shower more gifts on the wealthiest households in America, while depriving poor families of health care, food stamps, and college tuition.

4) So apparently “the left” has a problem with Mark Kleiman’s great idea for prison reform.  I’m very much with Kleiman.  It’s good to have people suggesting we need to radically re-think our incarceration nation, but I’m not a big fan of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.  And Kleiman’s proposals would be a very good improvement.

5) Back to John Cassidy as I enjoyed his take on Ted Cruz.   Also, I have to say that Cruz’s “imagine a world without the IRS” is just preposterous pandering to the most ignorant.  So, is that a world without any federal income tax (how does that work?) or a world where people get to cheat on their taxes with impunity (ask Greece how well that works out)?

6) I was just commenting in class the other day how the NFL is a model of socialism.

7) Philip Gourevetich sure knows how to write about tragedy (he wrote the definitive book on the Rwandan genocide), so he certainly has a thoughtful commentary on the recent horrible air crash tragedy.

8) As if our completely over-reliance on prison isn’t enough, we make life way too hard for former prisoners to get jobs.  Most importantly, we’re pretty stupid about what the statistics actually show:

Consider that over-reliance on background checks inevitably screens out qualified, trustworthy job applicants. More than one in four adults in America has a criminal record, and the vast majority of them currently pose no threat to public safety and will not go on to commit crimes in the future: Most recidivism occurs within three years of an arrest, and beyond that point, recidivism rates begin to decrease so dramatically that a criminal record no longer indicates that a person is more likely to be arrested than someone without a record. At the same time, some individuals who commit violent crimes—such as the San Francisco Uber driver charged with attacking a passenger with a hammer—have no prior criminal record that would show up on a background check.

9) America’s police kill way too many people. It doesn’t have to be this way.  And a great Vox interview with an enlightened police chief on how we need to change police training and culture so less people needlessly die.

10) With all the focus on the corrupting potential of money in campaigns, it’s easy to overlook the hugely distorting effects of all the money in lobbying.

Photo of the day

In honor of Sarah and I attending a Foxes class at our local nature center today (from Telegraph’s animal photos of the week):

A fox was spotted strolling down in Downing Street in LondonPicture: Joe Pepler/REX

Whom to give to?

A few years ago I heard Peter Singer’s argument about charitable giving and it definitely made an impact on me.  That, along with several other writers advocating against giving to already wealthy institutions (e.g., my undergraduate alma mater), as well as some really interesting reporting on organizations like Givewell has really influenced my own charitable contributions.  In fact, thanks to Givewell, I spent my New Year’s eve giving to Give Directly, the Fistula Foundation, and Living Goods.  Anyway, in light of that, I was intrigued by Eric Posner’s Slate article suggesting that perhaps I should have given to Duke or some local disadvantaged kids.

First, his summary of the compelling Singer augment:

But the idea that one should contribute one’s excess wealth to the poor is only one prong of effective altruism. Singer elaborates on the other prong in a new book calledThe Most Good You Can Do.

After you resolve to donate your excess wealth to the poor, Singer says, you have an additional ethical obligation to ensure that the money is used in the most effective way possible. This might seem like an obvious idea, but it isn’t. Suppose you donate $5,000 to the local Little League so that it can buy baseball equipment for poor children. You might feel good about yourself, but an effective altruist will realize that this amount of money could be used to buy malaria nets or medicine that would save as many as five lives in a poor country. Then you should ask yourself: Which is better, some kids playing baseball or some kids getting a chance at life? Or put differently, should you really let children in Niger die so that some First World kids get to play baseball?

Posner, though, finds some reasons to doubt Singer’s admonitions:

GiveWell does not say that the other charities are worthless but typically declines to recommend them because they do not supply enough information for GiveWell to evaluate their programs. GiveWell declined to recommend Oxfam, for example, because Oxfam does not publish “high-quality monitoring and evaluation reports on its website” and implements many programs that GiveWell does not think are particularly effective. So how do we know that Oxfam does any good? Yet this is a charity that Singer has extolled many times.

Academic research on foreign aid has painted a similarly bleak picture. There is little evidence that the trillions of dollars donated to developing countries has helpedthem develop…

Aid is often lost to corruption, or misused because donors do not understand foreign cultures. Aid can even stoke conflict and damage institutions, as groups compete for access to foreign funds. Well-intentioned aid efforts frequently illustrate the law of unintended consequences. A good illustration is the poster child for aid, the malaria net, which is a cheap and effective way of saving lives. As the New York Timesreported, many net recipients use them as fishing nets, which kill fish, destroy fisheries, and poison water sources, because malaria nets are treated with insecticide. Of course, not everyone misuses malaria nets, but the story illustrates an old finding in the foreign aid literature, which is aid interventions that seem obviously good frequently go awry…

So what’s an effective altruist to do? The utilitarian imperative to search out and help the people with the lowest marginal utility of money around the world is in conflict with our limited knowledge about foreign cultures, which makes it difficult for us to figure out what the worst-off people really need. For this reason, donations to Little League and other local institutions you are familiar with may not be a bad idea. The most good you can do may turn out to be—not much.

That’s a little too easy.  Sure, much of foreign donations may go awry.  But even if 90% of your donation for a charity for starving Haitian orphans goes awry, I would argue that there’s still more benefit to that then getting a poor kid in America a baseball bat.  Not to be holier than thou, as I still give plenty to charities that surely don’t make Givewell or Singer’s cut, but I’m under no illusions as to the relative merit.  For that matter, imagine how much good I could do with poor, staring 3rd world orphans just by giving up HBO and sending them the money (which I actually try not to think about).