You supply what is not there.

From It's not what you put in but what you leave out that matters by Paul Johnson. On Jane Austen

So I beg readers who have not yet acquired that thorough familiarity to do so with all deliberate speed. On that same occasion, Miss Lascelles quoted to me an observation of Virginia Woolf (which also occurs in her book on page 134). Mrs. Woolf called Jane Austen 'a mistress of much deeper emotion then appears upon the surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there.' Miss Lascelles added, 'It is a mark of a great writer that he or she takes the reader into the magic circle of composition, and gets you to join them in the art creation. You supply what is not there. And what you supply is to some extent of your own choosing, though to be sure within the parameters of the author's intentions. The supreme gift of authorship is to make the reader his co-creator. Shakespeare had this gift. So did Jane Austen. So does that remarkable Mr. Eliot who is astonishing us with his "Four Quartets".'

Neuroscience cognitive pollution

From Oh dear, even people with neuroscience training believe an awful lot of brain myths by Christian Jarrett. I frequently rail about cognitive pollution - our group inclination to retail ideas which have little or no empirical basis. Sometimes these ideas are simply unexamined assumptions with little consequence. At other times, the ideas are ideological or policy and there are very real world consequences.

Probably after war and natural disaster, our greatest societal evils are a consequence of cognitively unexamined assumptions translated into well intentioned policies. War on drugs, war on poverty, war on obesity, postmodernism, blank-slateism, de-institutionalization, etc. All well intentioned and all had substantial unanticipated negative consequences. And that is the barest tip of the iceberg.

Jarrett reports on research on commonly held myths about the brain.

Kelly Macdonald at the University of Houston and her colleagues, including Lauren McGrath at the University of Denver, recruited a total of 3,877 people to take a survey of brain myths hosted on the Testmybrain.org website. This included 3,045 members of the general public, 598 teachers, and 234 people with “high neuroscience exposure” (defined as having completed many college/university courses related to the brain or neuroscience). The researchers had sent messages to neuroscience email lists and social networks to attract people with neuroscience training to take the survey.

The survey featured 32 statements about the brain, 14 of which were true (e.g. we use our brains 24 hours a day) and 18 of which were false (e.g. we only use 10 per cent of our brain). Many of the items were the same or similar to those used in earlier surveys of belief in neuromyths among teachers in the UK and The Netherlands. The participants’ task was simply to indicate which statements were true and which were false.

The good news is that teachers endorsed fewer brain myths than the general public, and those participants with neuroscience training endorsed fewer brain myths than teachers. And yet, all three groups still displayed high levels of brain myth endorsement, especially for what Macdonald and her colleagues identify as the classic brain myths, including:

Learning styles myth (endorsed by 93 per cent of the public, 76 per cent of teachers, and 78 per cent of those with neuroscience education)

A common sign of dyslexia is seeing letters backwards (endorsed by 76 per cent of the public, 59 per cent of teachers, and 50 per cent of those with neuroscience education)

Listening to classical music increases children’s reasoning ability (endorsed by 59 per cent of the public, 55 per cent of teachers, and 43 per cent of the neuroscience group) [more on music-related neuromyths]

Children are less attentive after consuming sugar (endorsed by 59 per cent of the public, 50 per cent of teachers and 39 per cent of the neuroscience group)

The left-brain right-brain myth (endorsed by 64 per cent of the public, 49 per cent of teachers and 32 per cent of the neuroscience group)

The 10 per cent myth (endorsed by 36 per cent of the public, 33 per cent of teachers, and 14 per cent of those with neuroscience education – my unfriendly correspondent is not alone).

No wonder it is so hard to progress when cognitive pollution is so prevalent even among experts within a field.

Why the disconnect between media interests and citizen concerns?

From What Americans Care About vs. What the Media Cares About by Jon Gabriel. Rigorous this is not but interesting none-the-less.

Determining what the public cares about is notoriously challenging not least because there are several ways to go about it, each of which is legitimate, but each of which provides materially different answers. For example, these six questions seem to all be getting at the same general issue (what are the big problems) but the different phrasing and different technique of ordering them will provide different outcomes: 1) What are the most important problems facing America today?, 2) What are the most important problems you face today?, 3) From this list of problems, which do you think are important to the US right now?, 4) How would you rank this list of 10 problems?, 5) How would you allocate 100 points across this list of 10 problems?, 6) What are the problems you think your neighbors are most concerned about? etc.

Gabriel notes that Bloomberg recently did a survey asking the public what they viewed as the most important issues facing the country. He also notes that Media Research Center recently did a survey in which they calculated the amount of network news coverage of major issues. He then combines the two sets of results into a single graph.

Click to enlarge.

This nicely illustrates Gabriel's point about how vast is the gap between what citizenry are interested or concerned about versus what the chattering classes are interested or concerned about.

Russia? Pfft. Its a nothing burger. According to citizens.

Jobs and the economy? Pfft. Its a nothing burger. According to the press.

All the pundits in the chattering class complaining about citizens voting against their own self-interest betray the fact that the chattering class don't know what the citizens are interested in.

This a clever observation on the part of Gabriel. Again, there are challenges with the data, the measurement, and the framing. But this is broadly consistent with other analyses I have seen.

I added a couple of other sources. I looked at the proportions for Google Trends, Gallup, and I also added an average for citizen interest across the three sources: Google Trends, Gallup, and Bloomberg. The results are basically the same.

The mainstream media is fascinated by Russia (in terms of the election) and in Climate Change. Citizens are interesting in Russia and climate change but at a peripheral level. In contrast, citizens are highly focused on jobs, healthcare and taxes whereas these are vestigial issues to the mainstream media.

Click to enlarge.

This prompts a couple of interesting questions. 1) Why are the media not focusing on what their consumer are most interested in? 2) Why, given the attention lavished by the media, are citizens not interested in Russia and climate change? I think I know the reason but it is interesting to see how big the disconnects are between the interests and concerns of citizens and the topics of interest to the chattering classes of the urban media.

There is no a priori way to distinguish between "creative destruction" and long-term decline

A nice turn of phrase from The Shift by Richard Fernandez.

Unfortunately there is no a priori way to distinguish between "creative destruction" and long-term decline. They look too much alike at the start. For all too many "disruptive innovation" will be indistinguishable, in the short run at least, from unemployment.

Governmental devolvement of power back to the states, the advent of artificial intelligence, the possibility of global warming. Only in hindsight will we know which were heralds of creative destruction and which were harbingers of decline.

Among those with high maths scores, those who are also verbally gifted are less likely to pursue STEM careers

From Not Lack of Ability but More Choice: Individual and Gender Differences in Choice of Careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics by Ming-Te Wang, , Jacquelynne S. Eccles, and Sarah Kenny. Abstract:

The pattern of gender differences in math and verbal ability may result in females having a wider choice of careers, in both science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM fields, compared with males. The current study tested whether individuals with high math and high verbal ability in 12th grade were more or less likely to choose STEM occupations than those with high math and moderate verbal ability. The 1,490 subjects participated in two waves of a national longitudinal study; one wave was when the subjects were in 12th grade, and the other was when they were 33 years old. Results revealed that mathematically capable individuals who also had high verbal skills were less likely to pursue STEM careers than were individuals who had high math skills but moderate verbal skills. One notable finding was that the group with high math and high verbal ability included more females than males.

I saw this theory proposed a number of years ago. It made sense to me then. Nice to see some objective measurements supporting the hypothesis.

There is an interesting parallelism that is noted but unremarked. Among those with high scores in mathematics, males outnumber females roughly 2:1. Among the much smaller group who have both high maths AND high verbal scores, females outnumber males roughly 2:1.

High mathematic capability is the prerequisite to a career in STEM. STEM fields are also the fields which have the greatest prestige and the highest remuneration. Logic, and economic theory, dictates that if you have high maths scores, you would enter STEM fields. The study reminds us that there are innumerable variables beyond logic and theory which determine outcomes.

Of those with high maths and moderate verbal scores, just under half, 49%, elected a STEM career, despite the clear benefits of doing so. Among those with both high maths and high verbal scores, only 34% pursue STEM careers.

The Foreign Secretary is capable of candour.

From What made Jack Straw tell the truth about the botched coup in Equatorial Guinea? by Peter Oborne.

Osborne was writing in the British Spectator where there has always been a strong attraction for muscular and intelligent writing. This is Osborne on the then British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw.

Jack Straw, though by no means a distinguished foreign secretary, nevertheless possesses animal cunning. He is an acknowledged master of dissimulation, contrivance, machination, manoeuvre, evasion, guile, trickery, craft, diversion, disguise, distortion, persiflage, falsehood, deception, sophistry, stealth, artifice, sharp practice, underhand dealing, sleight of hand, subterfuge, prevarication and every other stratagem of concealment and deceit. Occasionally, however, the Foreign Secretary is capable of candour.

Devon, o Devon, in wind and rain

Waggon Hill is a poem by Henry Newbolt. There is an odd contradiction between the maritime theme of the poem and the fact that the name of the poem is for a hill outside Ladysmith in South Africa.

The bridge between the two is that Ladysmith was besieged by Boers in 1900 in the Second Boer War. The siege lasted 118 days with many engagements over its duration, including one at Wagon Hill which the Boers attacked and the British defended.

The connection to the poem is that Wagon Hill was defended by the Devonshire Regiment. Newbolt wrote the poem as a tribute to the Devonshire Regiment, likening their courage and tenacity to that most famous son of Devon, Captain Sir Francis Drake.

Drake flourished in the expansive era of Elizabeth I as a privateer, explorer, and navigator. He led the second circumnavigation of the world 1577-1580 and was second-in-command of the British navy in its storied defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. It is Drake's battle with the Armada to which Newbolt is drawing a parallel with the Cornish Regiment's defense of Wagon Hill.

Waggon Hill
Ladysmith, January 6th, 1900
by Henry Newbolt

Drake in the North Sea grimly prowling,
Treading his dear Revenge's deck,
Watched, with the sea-dogs round him growling,
Galleons drifting wreck by wreck.
"Fetter and Faith for England's neck,
Faggot and Father, Saint and chain, -
Yonder the Devil and all go howling,
Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain!"

Drake at the last off Nombre lying,
Knowing the night that toward him crept,
Gave to the sea-dogs round him crying
This for a sign before he slept: -
"Pride of the West! What Devon hath kept
Devon shall keep on tide or main;
Call to the storm and drive them flying,
Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain!"

Valour of England gaunt and whitening,
Far in a South land brought to bay,
Locked in a death-grip all day tightening,
Waited the end in twilight gray.
Battle and storm and the sea-dog's way
Drake from his long rest turned again,
Victory lit thy steel with lightning,
Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain!

The poem was set to music by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.

See if you can hit Florida

From The New Yorker

Click to enlarge.

Wind from the Sea

Wind from the Sea by Andrew Wyeth (1947)

Click to enlarge.

I know why the sun never sets on the British Empire

From English History Made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable by Lacey Baldwin Smith. Page 1.

No people have engendered quite so much critical acclaim or earned such unrestrained and bitter censure as the British. The tight little island has been extolled as the Athens of modern times, the cradle of ideas and institutions that has shaped entire societies and encompassed the globe. Conversely the British, secure in their island isolation off the western shores of the European Continent, have driven Europe and indeed the rest of the world to fury by their insolent self-satisfaction and perfidious hypocrisy. For many, the words attributed to Duncan Spaeth still ring true – "I know why the sun never sets on the British Empire: God wouldn't trust an Englishman in the dark."