Saturday, September 21, 2019
In the Middle of the Fiord by Hans Dahl (Norwegian, 1849–1937)
In the Middle of the Fiord by Hans Dahl (Norwegian, 1849–1937)
Click to enlarge.
Best of the Bee
We Would Like To State For The Record That Hillary Clinton Is An Upstanding Citizen And A Fine Human Beinghttps://t.co/s3fygP17Dc
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) August 12, 2019
Fundamentalism is inherently a threat to freedom of thought
From Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought by Jonathan Rauch.
Fundamentalism, properly understood, is not about religion. It is about the inability to seriously entertain the possibility that one might be wrong. In individuals such fundamentalism is natural and, within reason, desirable. But when it becomes the foundation for an intellectual system, it is inherently a threat to freedom of thought.
Friday, September 20, 2019
A horse named Ball
From The Road to Guilford Courthouse by John Buchanan. Page 192.
The Tories lost three killed, one wounded, and thirteen captured, and several bodies were later found in the swamp; Marion had two dead and eight wounded, and two of the latter, Captain Mouzon and Lieutenant Scott, were so badly hurt they never again took the field. Marion had also learned a lesson. In the future when he had to make clandestine movements across bridges, he covered the planks with blankets. Loot was plentiful, including abandoned weapons, ammunition, and baggage, and several horses that their Tory owners had no time to retrieve in their mad dash for safety. One was John Coming Ball’s mount, and Frances Marion claimed it, revealed a sense of humor by renaming it Ball, and rode the animal for the rest of the war.
Best of the Bee
CDC: People With Dirt On Clintons Have 843% Greater Risk Of Suicidehttps://t.co/knwcO4tjId
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) August 10, 2019
Academia burying the lede
From Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard by Peter Arcidiacono, Josh Kinsler, and Tyler Ransom. From the Abstract:
That is a whole separate discussion.
What I am focused on here is the biases of academic researchers. They are researching the impact on admissions of the big four non-merit admissions categories - athletes, legacies, those on the dean’s interest list, and children of faculty and staff (ALDCs).
As always, the researchers make claims without indicating the effect size.
Table 11 provides the answer.
By race, the base model looks like
Table 11 lets us see the impacts of no legacy allowances.
How about when we get rid of athletic preferences?
The researchers do not run the analysis for the single criterion of racial preferences, but they do run the analysis of what the admitted class might look like if you got rid of all these non-merit, back-room preferences: no legacies, no dean's secret list, no race preferences, no athlete exploitation. If you went solely by merit, what might the class look like?
It looks somewhat like New York City's eight elite high schools such as Stuyvesant and Bronx High School of Science.
So why are the researchers claiming significant changes arising from getting rid of legacies and athletes when it only shifts the distribution of races by a couple of percentage points here and there. Looks to me like legacies and athletic admits don't change much of anything.
I am guessing there is some underlying bias against legacies and athletes. OK, I suspect most people have mixed-to-jaundiced views of those sorts of admits. But why hide the impact of race admits? It clearly swamps the effect of legacies and athletes.
This seems like straight-up researcher bias burying the lede.
As long as decisions are made in back rooms without the consent or understanding of the public, as long as researchers present their findings to feed their biases rather than uncover reality, we will continue to mire ourselves deeper into the morass of distrust and tribal identities which were disappearing before they were resurrected by postmodernism and social justice theory.
The lawsuit Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard University provided an unprecedented look at how an elite school makes admissions decisions. Using publicly released reports, we examine the preferences Harvard gives for recruited athletes, legacies, those on the dean’s interest list, and children of faculty and staff (ALDCs). Among white admits, over 43% are ALDC. Among admits who are African American, Asian American, and Hispanic, the share is less than 16% each. Our model of admissions shows that roughly three quarters of white ALDC admits would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs. Removing preferences for athletes and legacies would significantly alter the racial distribution of admitted students, with the share of white admits falling and all other groups rising or remaining unchanged.I am of mixed minds about the broader issue of preferences. On the one hand, private institutions should be able to choose who they wish to admit. On the other hand, we do not want institutional racism, picking candidates by race. On yet another hand, are these institutions private anyway given that if the Federal government were to stop all research funding and guarantying student tuition loans, they would collapse?
That is a whole separate discussion.
What I am focused on here is the biases of academic researchers. They are researching the impact on admissions of the big four non-merit admissions categories - athletes, legacies, those on the dean’s interest list, and children of faculty and staff (ALDCs).
As always, the researchers make claims without indicating the effect size.
Removing preferences for athletes and legacies would significantly alter the racial distribution of admitted students, with the share of white admits falling and all other groups rising or remaining unchanged.Well, how big a change.
Table 11 provides the answer.
By race, the base model looks like
White - 49%In this model of institutional racism, elite status protection (legacies and Dean's special interest and faculty children preferences), and athlete exploitation, blacks and hispanics are near their population representation, whites are materially underrepresented (by about ten percentage points or more) and Asian Americans are dramatically overrepresented. Whether you like the underlying principles or not, those are the results.
Black - 14%
Hispanic - 14%
Asian - 24%
Table 11 lets us see the impacts of no legacy allowances.
White - 46%That doesn't look like a significant alteration to me.
Black - 14%
Hispanic - 14%
Asian - 25%
How about when we get rid of athletic preferences?
White - 45%Again, not much significant alteration.
Black - 14%
Hispanic - 15%
Asian - 26%
The researchers do not run the analysis for the single criterion of racial preferences, but they do run the analysis of what the admitted class might look like if you got rid of all these non-merit, back-room preferences: no legacies, no dean's secret list, no race preferences, no athlete exploitation. If you went solely by merit, what might the class look like?
White - 51%Now that is a significant alteration.
Black - 4%
Hispanic - 8%
Asian - 37%
It looks somewhat like New York City's eight elite high schools such as Stuyvesant and Bronx High School of Science.
White - 32%Granted, there are differences in that Harvard is selecting nationally and internationally, while NYC is selecting based on the much different population mix of New York City. But it is striking that the Black and Hispanic scores are virtually identical.
Black - 4%
Hispanic - 7%
Asian - 57%
So why are the researchers claiming significant changes arising from getting rid of legacies and athletes when it only shifts the distribution of races by a couple of percentage points here and there. Looks to me like legacies and athletic admits don't change much of anything.
I am guessing there is some underlying bias against legacies and athletes. OK, I suspect most people have mixed-to-jaundiced views of those sorts of admits. But why hide the impact of race admits? It clearly swamps the effect of legacies and athletes.
This seems like straight-up researcher bias burying the lede.
As long as decisions are made in back rooms without the consent or understanding of the public, as long as researchers present their findings to feed their biases rather than uncover reality, we will continue to mire ourselves deeper into the morass of distrust and tribal identities which were disappearing before they were resurrected by postmodernism and social justice theory.
Rational argument, rhetorical argument, argument from fear and then millenarianism
Independent of the the underlying truth about anthropogenic global warming, a separate debate, it is yet another example of some human fundamental tendency towards millenarianism.
If you cannot convince people through evidence of some need to do something, if you cannot persuade them to voluntarily do something, if you cannot scare people into doing something, then perhaps millenarianism is the last resort. Rational argument, rhetorical argument, argument from fear and then millenarianism.
The bigger the change, the more the risks, the smaller the anticipated benefit from the change, the more likely millenarianism, a quasi religious belief, is likely to dominate the argument.
Brought to mind by Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions by Myron Ebell and Steven J. Milloy. The article is actually a compilation of the work of Tony Heller where he has collected and documented the ebbing and flowing of apocalyptic climate forecasts over the past fifty years, the anticipated ice ages, global desiccations, the acidification of oceans, the loss of atmosphere.
The Sagan Standard requires that
The list of predictions that have failed to come true (including the source documents) are at the link but they include:
If you cannot convince people through evidence of some need to do something, if you cannot persuade them to voluntarily do something, if you cannot scare people into doing something, then perhaps millenarianism is the last resort. Rational argument, rhetorical argument, argument from fear and then millenarianism.
The bigger the change, the more the risks, the smaller the anticipated benefit from the change, the more likely millenarianism, a quasi religious belief, is likely to dominate the argument.
Brought to mind by Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions by Myron Ebell and Steven J. Milloy. The article is actually a compilation of the work of Tony Heller where he has collected and documented the ebbing and flowing of apocalyptic climate forecasts over the past fifty years, the anticipated ice ages, global desiccations, the acidification of oceans, the loss of atmosphere.
The Sagan Standard requires that
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.It is not a particularly compelling standard. Proof is proof whether deemed extraordinary or not. But it does capture a folk wisdom that acknowledges proof is rarely self-evident and the greater the deviation from orthodox knowledge, the more compelling needs to be the evidence. That in an epistemic world where knowledge is accumulated over time, it should be anticipated that the unsetting of precedent knowledge will only occur with increasing rarity. It can occur, and does occur but the Sagan Standard cautions against wild oscillations and faddishness.
The list of predictions that have failed to come true (including the source documents) are at the link but they include:
1967: ‘Dire famine by 1975.’Again, the point is not that there is debate about AGW. The point is that we are accustomed to millenarian arguments which do not pan out. If you are going to rely on millenarian arguments, that is the hurdle you have to overcome.
Source: Salt Lake Tribune, November 17, 1967
1969: ‘Everyone will disappear in a cloud of blue steam by 1989.’
Source: New York Times, August 10 1969
1970: Ice age by 2000
Source: Boston Globe, April 16, 1970
1970: ‘America subject to water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by 1980.’
Source: Redlands Daily Facts, October 6, 1970
1971: ‘New Ice Age Coming’
Source: Washington Post, July 9, 1971
1972: New ice age by 2070
Source: NOAA, October 2015
1974: ‘New Ice Age Coming Fast’
Source: The Guardian, January 29, 1974
1974: ‘Another Ice Age?’
Source: TIME, June 24, 1974
1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life
Sources: Headline, NASA Data | Graph
1976: ‘The Cooling’
Source: New York Times Book Review, July 18, 1976
1980: ‘Acid Rain Kills Life in Lakes’
Source: Noblesville Ledger (Noblesville, IN) April 9, 1980
1978: ‘No End in Sight’ to 30-Year Cooling Trend
Source: New York Times, January 5, 1978
1988: James Hansen forecasts increase regional drought in 1990s
Source: RealClimateScience.com
1988: Washington DC days over 90F to from 35 to 85
Source: RealClimateScience.com
1988: Maldives completely under water in 30 years
Source: Agence France Press, September 26, 1988
1989: Rising seas to ‘obliterate’ nations by 2000
Source: Associated Press, June 30, 1989
1989: New York City’s West Side Highway underwater by 2019
Source: Salon.com, October 23, 2001
1995 to Present: Climate Model Failure
Source: CEI.org
2000: ‘Children won’t know what snow is.’
Source: The Independent, March 20, 2000
2002: Famine in 10 years
Source: The Guardian, December 23, 2002
2004: Britain to have Siberian climate by 2020
Source: The Guardian, February 21, 2004
2008: Arctic will be ice-free by 2018
Source: Associated Press, June 24, 2008
2008: Al Gore warns of ice-free Arctic by 2013
But… it’s still there:
Source: WattsUpWithThat.com, December 16, 2018
2009: Prince Charles says only 8 years to save the planet
Source: The Independent, July 9, 2009
2009: UK prime minister says 50 days to ‘save the planet from catastrophe’
Source: The Independent: October 20, 2009
2009: Arctic ice-free by 2014
Source: USA Today, December 14, 2009
2013: Arctic ice-free by 2015
Source: The Guardian, July 24, 2013
2013: Arctic ice-free by 2016
Source: The Guardian, December 9, 2013
2014: Only 500 days before ‘climate chaos’
Sources: Washington Examiner
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