[friday quiz] are you a true scientist

With all the recent references in this blog to scientists, here's a chance to prove you are one. How many of these do you know?

1] How many noble gases are there?
2] Which planet has an orbital period of 687 days?
3] What is inflamed if you suffer from Nephritis?
4] Aquaculture is a term for what?
5] What kind of animal is a basilisk?
6] What is Borborygmus?
7] Evaporation is changing from a liquid to gas and gas to a liquid is called condensation. What is changing from a solid to a gas called?
8] If 8 bits make a byte, what do 4 bits constitute?
9] What did Einstein get the Nobel prize for?
10] Name anything that happened in Britain on September 3rd, 1752.

Answers are here.

[debate] only undertaken from entrenched positions

When did I last lift someone's entire post [almost] and repost it? I must do so here because it says what I wanted to myself. It's by Chris Dillow:

What puzzles me about so many people is not what they believe, but the sheer vehemence with which they do so. I suspect there are at least four biases that cause such fanaticism.

1. Over-rating intellect and learning. Most politically active people are more intelligent or better educated than average. And a common error amongst intelligent educated people is to exaggerate the importance of intelligence and learning. They forget (or never knew) Hayek's insight, that knowledge is inherently dispersed, and unattainable by any single mind.

2. Ego involvement. Political views define who we are, so a challenge to them is a challenge to our identity.

3. Groupthink. For most of us, there's a huge correlation between our political opinions and those of our friends. Hardly anyone echoes Robert Nozicks' view: "I do not welcome the fact that most people I know and respect disagree with me" (quoted in this great book). This means we become over-confident in our opinions, bolstered by the fact that so many good people agree with us.

4. Incentives. One problem with vulgar democracy is that incentives favour cheap talk. If we overstate our case, government is more likely to listen to us than if we state our case to the extent warranted by the evidence. Hence the importance of "community leaders."

These biases - there may be others - mean that people with centrist views can be irrational too. They also mean we shouldn't expect political debate to be fruitful or even enlightening. Still, we can try, can't we?

I wonder how many of Chris's readers would nod at the sentiment but of course, know deep down that it didn't apply to them? For myself, I plead guilty. Also, in my situation, the debate over climate change has shown the above to have substance and not just from my side.

[canadian mounties] taken for a ride

This one was as interesting to me for the editor's disclaimer at the beginning as for the story itself. Edward Greenspon, Editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail, wrote a long foreword:

The article that follows is incomplete. That is not normally something we do. Usually we make our work as complete as possible. In this case, we are hobbled by legal restrictions. The story is about a man who became an RCMP informant and was eventually enrolled in the Witness Protection program in spite of ample warning that he was an unreliable liar.

This individual went on to commit a heinous crime. We can neither describe the details of the murder nor the current identity of the killer. The Globe and Mail publishes this story today in conjunction with The Ottawa Citizen, a highly unusual act in itself, and one which speaks to the importance the editors of the two newspapers place on this matter.

Greg McArthur and Gary Dimmock researched and wrote this story at The Citizen. Greg is now a reporter with The Globe and Mail. For legal reasons it was modified jointly with The Citizen after he left. Both Greg McArthur and The Citizen have been waging a legal battle to publish it for the past six months. A court ruling yesterday allowed us to tell this part of the story.

But this is more than just the story of an individual gone bad. It is an issue of public policy. But the blanket legal requirement of the Witness Protection Act against ever disclosing the identity of a person accepted into the program — no matter how awful his subsequent actions — inhibits our efforts to not just tell this story, but to examine the RCMP's role in this affair.

Isn't this as neat an indictment of behind the scenes manoeuverings to suppress the truth as you're ever likely to see? As for the story itself, here it is.

By the way, while we're still in Canada, it looks likely Steven Harper will finally get his majority and that will make Halls of Macadamia happy.

[sorry] toothache kills blogging

Really sorry. Toothache. No blogging. Way behind visiting The ThunderDragon, Sicily Scene, Lord Nazh, Praguetory and so on but it's bed for me now, I'm afraid.

UPDATE NEXT MORNING: Better now thanks, Westminster Wisdom, The Cityunslicker and Lord Nazh. It's a wonder what a double dose of Pentalgin can achieve.

[the precautionary principle] blind technophilia is ominous

Just been reading a highly slanted article on technological innovation, using terminology such as "increasingly seized upon by green activists" [meaning 'believed in'], "other romantics" [meaning 'impractical people'], "an unanswerable credo" [the only correct assumption in the article].

Basically, what the anonymous author is so down on is that when considering technological innovation, one should exercise caution with regard to its potential consequences. And what? Should we not? Here are some of the other things in this article:

At every stage the opponents of technological progress argue that just because there is no evidence of harm, that does not mean that something is not harmful. We have to 'prove' that it is not harmful before we embrace it.

Yes, you do have to prove it when public safety is involved, e.g. in aircraft, boats and trains. Are technophiles really suggesting that accountability and rigid testing should not be the norm?

This form of pre-scientific thinking presents a serious obstacle to rational discussion.

Actually, the diametric opposite - it's precisely what is needed, rational discussion but technophiles are so enamoured of a new idea, e.g. the new TGV, that any questioning voice is ruthlessly suppressed.

I cannot prove that there are no fairies at the bottom of my garden. All I can say are two things: firstly, sustained observation over the past 20 years has revealed no evidence of their presence, and secondly the existence of fairies, in my garden or elsewhere, is very unlikely on a priori grounds. This is how science works – precisely in accord with the principles of Karl Popper that hypotheses cannot be proved, only refuted.

This is the great technophile drift from the truth. Quite apart from the spurious analogy which has no relevance to the development of hi-tech transport, quite apart from 'science' being quoted as an uncountable noun and therefore an unassailable oracle [which was the basis of my last post], quite apart from the gratuitous use of Karl Popper's notion of the non-provability of hypotheses as a precondition of their truth - this has nothing whatever to do with the development of hi-tech transport where every hypothesis must be rigidly and empirically tested and if unprovable, must be discarded.

This is what makes the principle so dangerous. It generates a quasi-religious bigotry which history has taught us to fear. Its inherent irrationality renders it unsustainable.

Yet again - how is it irrational to demand that all possible known permutations and ramifications be tested, including operational testing which would reveal things which did not arise at the drawing board stage? The perfect example is the BC Ferry disaster where there is sound evidence that the crew switched off the new navigation system because of the glare. Operational testing at night would have revealed this. Plus, the author is invoking the experience of history which is in itself empiricist.

Everything in life involves a risk of some kind. [The article then invokes the Pilgrim Fathers in their fragile ships and advances in medicine.]

So, it's fine to kill off a few dozen people in the interest of medical advancement [the Mengele principle again].

In reality, the precautionary principle presents a serious hazard to our health which extends way beyond the generation of unnecessary neuroses.

Non sequitur.

The narrow philosophy which surrounds the precautionary principle is fundamentally conservative in both political and literal senses.

Yes it is. It assumes human error and is very, very conservative when the lives of masses of people are involved. An example is the Aeroflot Airbus A310-304 in Siberia. The pilot had his sons and daughter on board and allowed the 15 year old to sit in the pilot's seat whilst he was otherwise engaged.

The boy gripped the half-wheel and 'playing pilot', turned it past 30 degrees, which automatically disengaged the auto-pilot on the ailerons. It was only when the plane began to bank to the right that the pilot sprang into action and demanded of his son what he had done.

The boy was terrified and said, "Nothing, Papa" [on the voice recorder]. So they then ran a rapid check of the auto-pilot to root out the malfunction [of course it was actually switched off]. All 75 passengers and crew were killed.

This article is not arguing against technological advances. It is arguing that human error and human stupidity must be assumed, organizational and bureaucratic glitches must be assumed. The technology might work perfectly, even in operation but that's not enough. The technicians feel their work is done when the machine is in operation and hasn't crashed after a few runs.

This is not good enough in a life or death situation and the attitude revealed in the emotive language in the Precautionary Principle article is the chief concern. Blind devotion to the shiny new toy and thorough factory testing is no substitute for a worst-case-scenario analysis.

In the end, the truth is that such analyses cost money whereas lives cost nothing [in technophiles' metallic cold and bureaucrats' Glory Boys logic]. Except that they do cost money in the end - billions in compensation.

[generation next] breaking the social contract

A vicious gang of hell's grannies showing an ASBO

a special type of hugging

Generally speaking, the past few generations can be grouped this way:

The War Generation - born 1920 to 1931, now 76 to 87 years old
The Silent Generation - born 1931 to 1946, now 61 to 76 years old
The Baby Boomers - born 1946 to 1961, now 46 to 61 years old
Generation X - born 1961 to 1976, now 31 to 46 years old
Generation Y - born 1976 to 1991, now 16 to 31 years old
Generation Z - born 1991 to 2003, now 4 to 16 years old

Of course these years can be extended either side and there is considerable overlap but the pattern which emerges here is of two parallel sets of generations running side by side down through society:




This would explain the increasing Gen X hostility to the Boomers. It's not the ire of a child against the parent but that of a generation following 12 years or so later who have nothing to do with the former - they're not the children of, not personal friends, they're not anything to one another. Hence the total indifference and name calling.

I wrote this article about the coming generation wars and of course it's debatable. Now there's an interesting article on the cost of the aging generation, from the Gen X viewpoint.