The problem at base is that economics is not a branch of mathematics or statistics, no matter how much economists wish it was. Never forget that the economics equations you see, the pretty graphs and charts, are just educated guesses that are wrong more often than not — economists love the gloss of the hard sciences, but the truth is that the field is firmly placed among the philosophical and sociological disciplines. Economics is a study of human behavior more than anything else, with all the uncertainties and confusion that entails.
“Monty”, “DOOM: I like that Doom Doom Pow”, Ace of Spades H.Q., 2011-10-31
October 31, 2011
QotD: Economics is not a “hard science”
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Brendan O’Neill: Beware of “the poor”
Not the people who are poor, the imaginary construct of the underclass:
I think we should always be very sceptical whenever we hear the phrase ‘the poor’. And we should be super-sceptical whenever we hear the phrase ‘the underclass’.
Because I can guarantee you that every time you hear those phrases, you will discover far more about the person doing the talking than you will about the people being talked about. You will discover far more about the speaker’s own fears and prejudices than you will about the lived experiences or morality of those cash-strapped sections of society.
In no other area of public life does anecdotage trump evidence as fantastically as it does in discussions about ‘the poor’. In no other area of political debate is it so acceptable to marshal rumour and hearsay to your cause as it is in debates about the underclass or the residuum or whatever we’re calling it these days.
[. . .]
Of course, there is such a thing as ‘poor people’ — people who have less money than you. But there isn’t really such a thing as ‘the poor’, meaning a whole swathe of society who allegedly share the same degraded morality and who are all promiscuous and fond of booze and so on. I think the service that ‘the poor’ provide for the political and chattering classes today is as a kind of fodder for moralism, a kind of endless pit of anecdotes and horror stories that are used to motor moralistic campaigns and moralistic commentary.
[. . .]
Time and again, across the political spectrum, from the conservative right to the radical left, people cite ‘the poor’ and their depraved antics as a way of promoting their own prejudices. ‘The poor’ have become a kind of vast political library for politicians and opinion-formers, who go in, borrow an anecdote or a horrible image, and then use it to push their narrow political agendas.
The unreliability of this library, the fact that it is little more than a gallery of imaginary horrors that the chattering classes pilfer from, was brilliantly summed up in a recent Conservative Party report which claimed the following: ‘In the most deprived areas of England, 54 per cent are likely to fall pregnant before the age of 18.’ Actually, it’s not 54 per cent but 5.4 per cent. But decimal points don’t matter when your aim is simply to paint a picture of doom designed to make you look morally upstanding in contrast to the immoral poor.
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China’s increased output of scientific papers masks deeper problems
Colby Cosh linked to an interesting press release from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which shows a surge in published papers from China, but a significant drop in the rate at which those papers are cited:
Chinese researchers published more than 1.2 million papers from 2006 to 2010 — second only to the United States but well ahead of Britain, Germany and Japan, according to data recently published by Elsevier, a leading international scientific publisher and data provider. This figure represents a 14 percent increase over the period from 2005 to 2009.
The number of published academic papers in science and technology is often seen as a gauge of national scientific prowess.
But these impressive numbers mask an uncomfortable fact: most of these papers are of low quality or have little impact. Citation per article (CPA) measures the quality and impact of papers. China’s CPA is 1.47, the lowest figure among the top 20 publishing countries, according to Elsevier’s Scopus citation database.
China’s CPA dropped from 1.72 for the period from 2005 to 2009, and is now below emerging countries such as India and Brazil. Among papers lead-authored by Chinese researchers, most citations were by domestic peers and, in many cases, were self-citations.
Being published is very important for sharing discoveries and advancing the careers of the scientists, but it’s more important that those publications be read and referenced by other scientists. Self-citations are akin to self-published works: it doesn’t guarantee that the work is useless, but it increases the chances that it is.
Perhaps worse than merely useless publication is the culture of corruption that has grown up around the scientific community:
In China, the avid pursuit of publishing sometimes gives rise to scientific fraud. In the most high-profile case in recent years, two lecturers from central China’s Jinggangshan University were sacked in 2010 after a journal that published their work admitted 70 papers they wrote over two years had been falsified.
[. . .]
A study done by researchers at Wuhan University in 2010 says more than 100 million U.S. dollars changes hands in China every year for ghost-written academic papers. The market in buying and selling scientific papers has grown five-fold in the past three years.
The study says Chinese academics and students often buy and sell scientific papers to swell publication lists and many of the purported authors never write the papers they sign. Some master’s or doctoral students are making a living by churning out papers for others. Others mass-produce scientific papers in order to get monetary rewards from their institutions.
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British constitutional quirk: Prince Charles has a limited veto over some legislation
There are times when I think the British system of government compares poorly to that of Terry Pratchett’s Ankh-Morpork. This charming little hangover from medieval times, for instance:
Ministers have been forced to seek permission from Prince Charles to pass at least a dozen government bills, according to a Guardian investigation into a secretive constitutional loophole that gives him the right to veto legislation that might affect his private interests.
Since 2005, ministers from six departments have sought the Prince of Wales’ consent to draft bills on everything from road safety to gambling and the London Olympics, in an arrangement described by constitutional lawyers as a royal “nuclear deterrent” over public policy. Unlike royal assent to bills, which is exercised by the Queen as a matter of constitutional law, the prince’s power applies when a new bill might affect his own interests, in particular the Duchy of Cornwall, a private £700m property empire that last year provided him with an £18m income.
Neither the government nor Clarence House will reveal what, if any, alterations to legislation Charles has requested, or exactly why he was asked to grant consent to such a wide range of laws.
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Vikings hang on to defeat Panthers at home, 24-21
For what was billed as a team that couldn’t stop the run, Carolina certainly kept Adrian Peterson bottled up for much of the day — at least on the ground. Peterson didn’t break 100 yards of rushing, but he made up for that in receiving yards with 162 yards in total. Cam Newton did awful things to the Vikings’ secondary including a big completion on fourth-and-fourteen that kept the Panthers’ final drive alive. Christian Ponder put in a good performance at quarterback for the Vikings, making no serious mistakes and keeping the chains moving on third down, especially in the second half.
Carolina looked snake-bit early in the game, with several ugly plays that the Vikings failed to fully capitalize on. Their first possession lasted exactly one play as a strip-sack handed the ball over to the Vikings deep in Panther territory. Middle linebacker E.J. Henderson hit Newton forcing the ball out, and Jared Allen came up with the loose ball. Allen also had a sack later in the half, which also forced Newton to fumble. Allen set a new team record with a sack in ten consecutive games.
Percy Harvin, on the other hand, had a much more up-and-down game. He scored a rushing touchdown, but was also stripped of the ball deep in Panthers’ territory, and also drew a 15-yard penalty for what looked like a fistfight with Carolina’s Captain Munnerlyn well off the playing field (actually at the Panthers’ bench).
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Shipwrecks: salvage or preserve?
An article at the BBC website looks at some of the issues involving shipwrecks in international waters:
When a ship sinks and lives are lost, it is a tragedy for the families involved.
For the relatives of the dead, the ship becomes an underwater grave but as the years pass the wreck can become a site of archaeological interest.
In recent years technological innovations have allowed commercial archaeologists, decried by some as “treasure hunters”, to reach wrecks far below the surface.
[. . .]
In November 2001, the Unesco Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage was finally adopted.
But 10 years on, it still has not been ratified by the UK, France, Russia, China or the US, and commercial archaeologists continue to locate wrecks, remove their cargoes and sell them off.
“The convention has not been ratified yet because of the issues it throws up about the cost of implementing and policing it,” a spokesman for the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport, says. “Discussions continue within government, but ratification is not currently seen as a priority.”
It’s telling that the convention has not been ratified by five of the nations most likely to have both the technology and the interest to take on major underwater archaeological or salvage projects.
Robert Yorke, chairman of the Joint Nautical Archaeology Policy Committee, argues the real reason the government, and the Ministry of Defence in particular, are not ratifying the convention was becayse of a misplaced fear about the implications for British warships around the world.
The internationally recognised concept of “sovereign immunity” means nations should not interfere with foreign warships.
Under the Military Remains Act 1986, a number of British warships around the world are protected, including several ships sunk during the Falklands conflict. Also covered are several German U-boats in UK waters.
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