His curiosity did not get the better of him

Its funny how focus can make such a difference. I read a lot of exploration and maritime literature and have long been aware of the facts outlined in He Could Have Discovered America, but He Wanted to See His Parents by Matt Soniak.

But in all other accounts, the focus was on Leif Ericson and Bjarni Herjólfsson was merely a cameo character. By making him the focus of the article, no new knowledge was created for me by the author but a new perspective was provided.

Unbeknownst to him or to anyone else at the time, those strange lands that Bjarni had refused to stop at were Canadian shores. Historians think that the first hilly, wooded land was Newfoundland, the second flat, wooded land was Labrador, and the third rocky place was Baffin Island.

Not only had Bjarni come within spitting distance of the New World and then turned around without checking it out, he practically handed over his place in the history books to someone else. After his father died, Bjarni resumed voyaging, and made reports of his Greenland trip when he returned to Iceland and Norway. Leif Ericson (son of Eric the Red) got wind of the story and went to Bjarni to learn more. Leif then purchased the ship Bjarni had made the voyage in and set out with 35 men to see the lands that Bjarni had described.

Leif became the first European to land in the mainland Americas and the first to establish a settlement there. Bjarni, meanwhile, got lost in history after selling his ship. Not much is known about him other than the fact that his curiosity did not get the better of him.

This breakdown of cultural consensus is going to haunt American jurisprudence and political discourse for the foreseeable future

Walter Russell Mead has a post, Christianity After Constantine which reinforces my question in Cultural Herd Immunity Thresholds. Mead notes,

Where we disagree with Berger, then, is that the conflict over public morality isn’t a cage match between a unified Christian body and a unified secular movement. Society is becoming so diverse that any civil law on marriage will coincide with fewer people’s beliefs about what the law should be. This breakdown of cultural consensus is going to haunt American jurisprudence and political discourse for the foreseeable future.

Colleges Are Going To Start Going Out Of Business by Mark Cuban

From Colleges Are Going To Start Going Out Of Business by Mark Cuban. I think there are some points that are debatable in his argument and I think there are some important issues left undeveloped. That said, rhetorically this is a pretty nice summary of several key issues.

The smart high school grad no longer just picks a school, borrows money and wings it. Your future depends on your ability to assemble an educational plan that gets you on your path of knowledge and discovery without putting you at risk of attending a school that is doomed to fail, and/or saddling you with a debt heavy balance sheet that prevents you from taking the chances, searching for the opportunities or just being a fuck up for a while. We each take our own path, but nothing shortcuts the dreams of a 22 year old more than owing a shitload of money.

There is much to lament regarding the present generation of academic leadership and their irresponsibility. That said though, if you are interested in creating equal opportunity and greater efficiency in the generation and transmission of knowledge, then we are likely looking at a new golden age, albeit with many teething problems along the way.

The general problem of action in uncertainty

Michael Crichton in The Andromeda Strain, Chapter 20, page 196.

But Leavitt's concerns extended beyond this, to the general problem of action in uncertainty. He recalled reading Talbert Gregson's "Planning the Unplanned" with close attention, poring over the complex mathematical models the author had devised to analyze the problem. It was Gregson's conviction that:

All decisions involving uncertainty fall within two distinct categories- those with contingencies, and those without. The latter are distinctly more difficult to deal with.

Most decisions, and nearly all human interaction, can be incorporated into a contingencies model. For example, a President may start a war, a man may sell his business, or divorce his wife. Such an action will produce a reaction; the number of reactions is infinite but the number of probable reactions is manageably small. Before making a decision, an individual can predict various reactions, and he can assess his original, or primary-mode, decision more effectively.

But there is also a category which cannot be analyzed by contingencies. This category involves events and situations which are absolutely unpredictable, not merely disasters of all sorts, but those also including rare moments of discovery and insight, such as those which produced the laser, or penicillin. Because these moments are unpredictable, they cannot be planned for in any logical manner. The mathematics are wholly unsatisfactory.

We may only take comfort in the fact that such situations, for ill or for good, are exceedingly rare.

The score is Wisdom of Popular Culture - 1, Expert - 0

It is always interesting to see how people get tangled up in their own arguments. I saw an example of this in The Imperfect Myth of the Female Poisoner by Deborah Blum.

As is often the case, the issue comes down to definitions and exactly what is the argument being made. Blum starts out by knocking down an easy strawman - lots of poisonings are committed by men. Sure. Men commit 90% of murders and even if they might rarely use poison, the simple fact that men commit most of murders means that most or at least a plurality of poisonings are likely to be committed by men.

But that isn't really Blum's argument. It appears that she wants to refute a different argument.

There’s a popular idea in our culture — certainly an idea promoted by popular culture — that poison belongs to the female killer. In the 1945 Sherlock Holmes movie, Pursuit to Algiers, Holmes (Basil Rathbone) considers it obvious: “Poison is a woman’s weapon.” And you hear that same thought echoing down the decades, surfacing, for instance, in George Martin’s Game of Thrones in which poison is described, as the preferred weapon of women, craven and eunuchs.

So the real issue with which Blum is taking exception is the assertion that when committing murder, women prefer to do so by using poison. We can modify Holme's statement somewhat to make it slightly clearer - Poison is a woman's choice of weapon.

So we need evidence or data regarding which weapons do women use to commit murder. Instead, we have this statement from Blum in the next paragraph. She offers this statement as if it is conclusive evidence rebutting the assertion that women prefer poison as their weapon of choice. But really, this is a red herring and a non sequitur. This paragraph does not address the argument and is irrelevant in determining whether women prefer poison.

We could decry the latter as just a description with a somewhat misogynistic tang. But let’s not. Let’s decry it as simply wrong. Because if you actually bother to scroll back through famous poisoners of history or to check the crime statistics you will realize first that 1) poison is a gender-neutral weapon and, perhaps more central to my point, 2) a greater proportion of poisoners are men. Let’s put this in the context of some relatively recent context. The U. S. Department of Justice’s report on Homicide Trends in the United States (1980 to 2008) offers up this statistical insight: of all poison killers in that time period 60.5 percent male and 39.5 percent female.

The fact that of the few murders committed by poison, the majority are committed by men is irrelevant to the question of whether women prefer to use poison to commit murder. Blum doesn't seem to see the logical disconnect.

But at least she has sources, as so often such argumentative essays do not. She references Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008; Annual Rates for 2009 and 2010 by Alexia Cooper and Erica L. Smith. It makes for quite fascinating reading and makes a mockery of most political and policy debates about crime. It is a serial refutation of multiple bromides, shibboleths, and misperceptions.

Digging through this report, there is no data that explicitly answers the question of which weapons do women prefer when committing murder. However there is one table that hints at the answer, Table 5, Homicide type, by sex, 1980-2008.

From this table we learn that while women commit only 10% of all murders (numbers rounded), they commit even fewer of the murders using a gun. They commit 10% of all murders but only 8% of those murders committed using a handgun. However, they do commit 20% of all murders by arson and 40% of all murders by poison. So what is the means preferred by women for committing murder? Seems like Sherlock Holmes was right and Ms. Blum is wrong - Women prefer to commit murder by poisoning.

So in trying to debunk a popular stereotype, the journalist appears to A) get it wrong, B) provide the data that proves she is wrong, and C) never realizes that she got it wrong. Oh, and by the way, where were the editorial fact-checkers? This appears to be case study #12,387 where someone who is likely a big fan of critical thinking, seems to either not have that capacity or is blinded by some other agenda in a fashion that precludes such thinking. Or rather, one more data point in John Ioannidis' finding that Most Published Research Findings Are False.

Now I may be reading the report wrong, and I cannot claim any expertise in the details and history of poisoning. An expertise we perplexingly are meant to believe that Blum has:

Deborah Blum is a Pulitzer-Prize winning science writer and the author of five books, most recently the best-seller, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. She writes for a range of publications including Time, Scientific American, Slate, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times (and even the literary journal, Tin House). She is currently working on a sixth book about poisonous food.

So what is going on here? Am I wrong? Or does Ms. Blum have some other agenda that is being served? Or is Ms. Blum simply wrong despite having written many books on poisoning. I don't know, but it doesn't inspire confidence in me regarding the factual quality of what is published in certain magazines and newspapers.

It appears to me that the score is Wisdom of Popular Culture - 1, Expert - 0.

They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle.

Via Ann Althouse

An interesting citation of James Madison in his letter To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia A Memorial and Remonstrance, 20 June 1785, Papers 8:298--304.

The sophistication and clarity of thought of these Founding Fathers is almost incomprehensible. The wisdom of these giants in comparison to the moral and intellectual political pygmies of today is a continuing rebuke to our political class.

Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it.

Madison was speaking in the context of religion but the threat of gradual, well intentioned encroachment is real and ever present.

Pragmatists usually attempt to warrant an encroachment based on how miniscule is the nature of the assessment. Madison calls us back to answer the question of principle instead of focusing on practicality. It doesn't matter if the tactical cost is small if the strategic cost (of loss of freedom) is huge.

Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?

All Scientists Are Blind

From The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, Chapter 12, page 125.

It was Leavitt who, some years before, had formulated the Rule of 48. The Rule of 48 was intended as a humorous reminder to scientists, and referred to the massive literature collected in the late 1940's and the 1950's concerning the human chromosome number.

For years it was stated that men had forty-eight chromosomes in their cells; there were pictures to prove it, and any number of careful studies. In 1953, a group of American researchers announced to the world that the human chromosome number was forty-six. Once more, there were pictures to prove it, and studies to confirm it. But these researchers also went back to reexamine the old pictures, and the old studies — and found only forty-six chromosomes, not forty-eight.

Leavitt's Rule of 48 said simply, "All Scientists Are Blind."

Reminds me of Aristotle.

Bertrand Russell in The Impact of Science on Society, page 17

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

Most of us don’t much care for our insurance broker.

Daily, I pose questions that I can't definitively answer. Usually it happens when I am driving about, between meetings, some quiet moment when I am not connected. I usually have a working hypothesis for the question but I can't answer the question without research. But other activities intervene and the research doesn't get done and the question remains unanswered. Then, sometimes, I get lucky and someone turns up with the answer.

So the other day I was pondering the apparent conundrum of the government budget ballooning while the number of government employees declines. Yes, improbable as it seems, it has; some 600,000 (A Record Decline in Government Jobs: Implications for the Economy and America's Workforce). My conclusion was that in order for this to be true, income transfers/entitlement programs must be rising as a percentage of all government expenditures. And then, as if to answer that speculation - What Is Driving Growth in Government Spending? by Nate Silver. And the answer is:

It’s one of the most fundamental political questions of our time: What’s driving the growth in government spending? And it has a relatively straightforward answer: first and foremost, spending on health care through Medicare and Medicaid, and other major social insurance and entitlement programs.

[snip]

In the long run, the overall economic health of the country is the most important constraint on fiscal policy. A growing economy gives us a lot of good choices: maintaining or expanding government programs, cutting taxes or holding them at a moderate level, reducing or managing the national debt. A stagnant economy means that everything gets squeezed

[snip]

That means most of the growth in federal government spending relative to inflation — and essentially all the growth as a share of the gross domestic product — has been because of the increased expense of entitlement programs.

He illustrates with this striking graph.

Silver concludes:

Slowing the growth of entitlement spending will not be easy. Particularly in the case of health care, it has become substantially more expensive for individuals with both public and private insurance to purchase the same level of care.

And on a political level, cuts to entitlement programs are liable to be more noticeable to individual voters than cuts to things like infrastructure spending. A 10 percent cut to Social Security or Medicare benefits will surely draw the ire of voters. A 10 percent reduction in the amount allocated to bridge repair, or in the amount of government-sponsored energy research, will affect individual citizens less directly (even if they are perhaps ultimately more economically damaging: most of the academic literature is supportive of high long-run returns to infrastructure and research and development spending on private-sector productivity and economic growth).

Nevertheless, the declining level of trust in government since the 1970s is a fairly close mirror for the growth in spending on social insurance as a share of the gross domestic product and of overall government expenditures. We may have gone from conceiving of government as an entity that builds roads, dams and airports, provides shared services like schooling, policing and national parks, and wages wars, into the world’s largest insurance broker.

Most of us don’t much care for our insurance broker.

A characteristic of all crises is their predictability, in retrospect

From The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, page 13. Faux history as part of the novel but real insight none-the-less. Emphasis added.

According to Lewis Bornheim, a crisis is a situation in which a previously tolerable set of circumstances is suddenly, by the addition of another factor, rendered wholly intolerable. Whether the additional factor is political, economic, or scientific hardly matters: the death of a national hero, the instability of prices, or a technological discovery can all set events in motion.

The noted scholar Alfred Pockrun, in his study of crises (Culture, Crisis and Change), has made several interesting points. First, he observes that every crisis has its beginnings long before the actual onset. Thus Einstein published his theories of relativity in 1905-15, forty years before his work culminated in the end of a war, the start of an age, and the beginnings of a crisis.

Similarly, in the early twentieth century, American, German, and Russian scientists were all interested in space travel, but only the Germans recognized the military potential of rockets. And after the war, when the German rocket installation at Peenernfinde was cannibalized by the Soviets and Americans, it was only the Russians who made immediate, vigorous moves toward developing space capabilities. The Americans were content to tinker playfully with rockets and ten years later, this resulted in an American scientific crisis involving Sputnik, American education, the ICBM, and the missile gap.

Pockran also observes that a crisis is compounded of individuals and personalities, which are unique:

“It is as difficult to imagine Alexander at the Rubicon, and Eisenhower at Waterloo, as it is difficult to imagine Darwin writing to Roosevelt about the potential for an atomic bomb. A crisis is made by men, who enter into the crisis with their own prejudices,propensities, and predispositions. A crisis is the sum of intuition and blind spots, a blend of facts noted and facts ignored.

Yet underlying the uniqueness of each crisis is a disturbing sameness. A characteristic of all crises is their predictability, in retrospect. They seem to have a certain inevitability,they seem predestined. This is not true of all crises, but it is true of sufficiently many to make the most hardened historian cynical and misanthropic.”

A depressing fixity of outlook but great mobility of exposition

Wonderful sentences.

From G.K. Chesterton's The Father Brown Omnibus, the story The Duel of Dr. Hirsch. In my edition, page 264.

This calls to mind a very specific character; one that I encounter far too often. The person who is deeply and well versed in a particular belief, though one that is not actually provable.

They were both young. They were both atheists, with a depressing fixity of outlook but great mobility of exposition.