We don't know what we are talking about for a long time before we are in a position to make good decisions

Real Clear Policy juxtaposes two essays, one in favor of the proposition that diversity leads to enhanced educational outcomes and one arguing against it. Diversity actually makes us smarter by Amy X. Wang is the essay that argues that there are measurable benefits. The Educational Benefits of Diversity Are Dubious by Jason Richwine is the essay that there is little evidence that there are measurable benefits.

I'll preface the following comments that I believe all systems - economic, political, social, educational, etc. - need some degree of variance (need diversity) in order to evolve under changing exogenous circumstances. I believe diversity to be strategically critical, in the right proportions, in the right circumstances. However, that doesn't mean that diversity is tactically beneficial. Indeed, in most instances, it is tactically inefficient while still being strategically necessary. Most arguments about social diversity never even broach the distinction between strategic value and tactical value and how they can sometimes work in opposite directions.

These two essays are no different than others. In reality, based on both essays' argument, there is no reliable evidence one way or another. We are all arguing from ideological belief and anecdote.

Wang leads with the assertion that

With those kinds of conflicts as backdrop, it’s worth noting that a large body of research—conducted across dozens of years, countries, and situational settings—maintains that racial and ethnic diversity is critically important to our communities, our social institutions, and even our own brains.

That's interesting. I'd like to see that large body of research. From my autodidactic perspective, there is only a small body of research, the results are often contradictory and the effect sizes tend to be very small. So where is the large body of research that I have been missing all these years.

Instead of marshalling that evidence, Wang leads with anecdotes and isolated small studies. She has lost the battle with her opening shots. She doesn't actually have the evidence she claims, thus discrediting her argument further, i.e. not just lacking in evidence but lacking in good-faith.

Wang's lead example doubles down on the self-evident weakness.

Take these examples. In 2003, researchers found banks with racially diverse employees yielded better financial performance than those that didn’t.

Usually in an argument, you lead with your best shot. If this is the best, there's no argument to be had because the finding does not address causal direction. Does a prosperous bank go out of its way to hire a more diverse workforce (lots of evidence for that) or does a diverse workforce make the bank more successful (virtually no evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, to support that causal direction). Prosperous institutions are notoriously faddish. They can afford to be. Diversity, recycling, green initiatives, employee engagement, community involvement, maternity leave policies, employee fitness programs, etc. - these are all brand signalling strategies that prosperous companies undertake to cultivate an image that they believe will be beneficial to them in the marketplace. But the prosperity came before the initiative. You have to show causation, not simply correlation and if Wang doesn't understand the difference between correlation and causation and the importance of causal direction, then it probably doesn't warrant further reading. She has no credible argument.

Further, Wang never defines diversity and many of her anecdotal examples are related to experiential or cognitive diversity and not racial diversity. Much of her anecdotal evidence is qualified by weasel words such as "suggests" and many of the experiments are lab based. She mentions neither the size of the experimental groups or, except in one instance, the effect sizes.

So the argument for the proposition that there are measurable benefits to racial diversity in social systems is sunk by the typical issues in social sciences research: too small sample sizes, not reported effect sizes, poor experimental protocols, failure to establish causal direction, failure to define critical variables, failure to control critical variables.

What about the case for the propositions that there are no measurable benefits to racial diversity in social systems.

Richwine is actually arguing, per the headline, that the The Educational Benefits of Diversity Are Dubious.

Here the error is on the part of the Real Clear Policy editors. These two articles are treating a similar issue but they are not addressing the same argument. Wang is arguing that we know that racial diversity in social systems is beneficial and Richwine is arguing that we don't know whether racial diversity in social systems is beneficial.

Richwyne actually has the better argument. He points out

The premise of the affirmative-action case currently before the Supreme Court is that ethnic diversity improves higher education. But how do we know the premise is true? It is surprisingly difficult to find solid evidence in the case documents. The original UT–Austin brief refers me to the Joint Appendix. The Joint Appendix in turn cites the “Affidavit of N. Bruce Walker,” admissions director for UT–Austin. In that affidavit, Mr. Walker says that diversity improves race relations “in the University’s judgment.” He also assures us that, “I have read studies that tout other benefits.” Those studies are not listed.

The amicus briefs in the case are more forthcoming, but the barrage of studies they cite often have tiny effect sizes and narrowly focused results, making them more suggestive than convincing.

Good point.

Richwine doesn't make it explicit, but there is another problem in the pro argument. He mentions

A good example of narrow focus is yesterday’s New York Times op-ed by Sheen Levine and David Stark. The authors describe how the distrust and friction generated by ethnic diversity can be beneficial in avoiding the groupthink that creates stock-market bubbles. Interesting point. But then they go way beyond their empirical findings to conclude: “Ethnic diversity is like fresh air: It benefits everybody who experiences it.”

In fact, Levine and Stark’s research demonstrates how theoretically ambiguous the impact of diversity can be. Interpersonal friction may have some benefits, but it also carries obvious costs. It is especially difficult to reconcile the diversity benefits that Levine and Stark describe – which depend on people distrusting each other – with the supposed improvements in cross-racial understanding that come from diversity. The literature contains evidence of diversity producing undesirable conflict, and the uproar over Halloween costumes at Yale could probably be a new case study.

He's right as far as he goes, this is evidentiary overreach. But there is something more fundamental amiss here. The pro advocates, as almost all advocates do, present only the benefit side of the equation and not the cost side. We are interested in how big the net benefit might be after accounting for both costs and benefits.

Just as all systems strategically require some level of variance in order to evolve, all system changes come with costs and benefits.

Sometimes the costs are negligible and the benefits large and sometimes the reverse. Regardless of the relative size of the costs and of the benefits, you have to take into account both to get to a net assessment whether the proposed change is warranted.

In this argument, those arguing that there are inescapable benefits and no material costs have virtually no case to make. This is simply a political game over power to coerce at this point in time.

The question remains legitimate but we are a long way from answering it. We cannot make informed decisions at this point.

Cultural echoes

I have not ever noticed the similarity before, I wonder if there is a connection.

One of my favorite songs is Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd in which there is a striking line (emphasis added).

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.

I always thought that was original to Pink Floyd and always struck me as a jaded but apt description of many British. I would describe the British trait as stoicism, which I think is admirable, but I can see where that might be shaded into quiet desperation.

But was Thoreau perhaps an inspiration? In Walden Pond from 1854,

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

I don't know. Perhaps it is simply a cultural echo.

Planning by experts

A cheap shot but not wrong.

It's not lack of planning but planning that did it. A result of "master plans" by eminent expert committees. #Delhi pic.twitter.com/qP0XAaE5X8

— Screwed by State (@ScrewedbyState) December 8, 2015

Things I never knew about birds

From MA’OZ TZ-URL by Scott Alexander.

The Greater Male Variability Hypothesis says that men will have more variability on most traits than women, and therefore the highest and lowest performers in lots of areas will be disproportionately male. It goes along with a neat genetic explanation: males don’t have a backup for the X chromosome and so small mutations there have more effect – and a neat evolutionary explanation: men have more variability in their reproductive success and so should pursue higher-risk strategies. A 2013 study gives the theory an interesting test – what about birds, where females are (bird equivalent of) XY and males XX? Here the female birds have more variability, suggesting the genetic principle is sound but casting doubt on the evolutionary explanation. Unless I’m misunderstanding something.

Strawman argument that is self-serving

An interesting argument in Why I worry experimental social science is headed in the wrong direction by Chris Blattman.

The general issue is that in recent years, many of the softer social sciences such as sociology and psychology have been shown to have had very little adherence to the scientific method and consequently most of the "results" from research fail to replicate. In other words, the findings are not real. It is not just social sciences that fall into this bad habit but it is prevalent there. In other fields there are similar issues such as a false reliance on p-values as a threshold of validity.

The consequences is that much of what has been presented as true is actually cognitive pollution with often negative consequences when this pollution taints policy setting.

Blattman's catalyst is a paper from Alwyn Young.

I follow R.A. Fisher’s The Design of Experiments, using randomization statistical inference to test the null hypothesis of no treatment effect in a comprehensive sample of 2003 regressions in 53 experimental papers drawn from the journals of the American Economic Association.

Randomization tests reduce the number of regression specifications with statistically significant treatment effects by 30 to 40 percent. An omnibus randomization test of overall experimental significance that incorporates all of the regressions in each paper finds that only 25 to 50 percent of experimental papers, depending upon the significance level and test, are able to reject the null of no treatment effect whatsoever. Bootstrap methods support and confirm these results.

Young is finding that 50-75% of reported findings can be dismissed.

But Blattman is concerned about the trend towards ever higher bars for accepting evidence.

Take experiments. Every year the technical bar gets raised. Some days my field feels like an arms race to make each experiment more thorough and technically impressive, with more and more attention to formal theories, structural models, pre-analysis plans, and (most recently) multiple hypothesis testing. The list goes on. In part we push because want to do better work. Plus, how else to get published in the best places and earn the respect of your peers?

It seems to me that all of this is pushing social scientists to produce better quality experiments and more accurate answers. But it’s also raising the size and cost and time of any one experiment.

This should lead to fewer, better experiments. Good, right? I’m not sure. Fewer studies is a problem if you think that the generalizabilty of any one experiment is very small. What you want is many experiments in many places and people, which help triangulate an answer.

Blattman lists a dozen reasons why he is concerned about higher standards of evidence.

My view of this is that Blattman is taking too binary an approach. He is arguing a strawman - Lots of little poorly designed studies which might be suggestive versus a few big well designed studies which can be relied upon.

I don't think anyone is actually arguing that. The innovation process certainly depends on seeing things in new ways and trying things that haven't been tried before. Because they have little prospect of being true or useful, you find ways to experiment cheaply. But once you have done 100 or 1,000 experimentations, you are going to find something that works. At that point, you have to test it at scale and in real world circumstances. If it still works, then you convince the regulators that it is safe and bankers that it is worthwhile. In other words there is a continuum of testing from conjectural to robust.

The problem in the social sciences is that almost all of it is conjectural and very little is robust. Sure, it is cheap and easy to test a new idea using forty undergraduate psych majors on a week long experiment. But that really doesn't tell you all that much. If the result is an affirmation of the idea, then you have to move on to the next step and test it on a diverse set of students. And then a set of non-students, etc.

Blattman is correct that if there is a fixed budget of "research resources", then including more robust experiments will reduce the amount of time and resources spent on the conjectural materials. But if social sciences invest in robust research, it may end up being sufficiently valuable, that it warrants further investments in the whole chain of innovation, including more conjectural research.

Right now, Blattman's argument feels like special pleading to keep the life of a social sciences researcher easy and unaccountable. But in a world of limited resources, accountability is no bad thing. It allows us to focus on what makes a positive difference.

Speaking facts rather than spinning

An unintentionally interesting opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, No, Scalia's comment about 'less-advanced' schools wasn't racist by Michael McGough reprimanding Mother Jones and other news outlets for misrepresentative "gotcha" journalism.

The background is the current Supreme Court case as to whether the University of Texas, as a government institution, is allowed to discriminate among its students based on race. Scalia made a statement alluding to the well known argument referred to academic mismatch. McGough writes"

This is the “mismatch” theory, which holds that some minority students admitted to highly competitive universities fare worse there academically than they would have at less selective institutions. The argument is propounded in a book titled “Mismatch” by Richard H. Sander, a UCLA law professor, and the journalist Stuart Taylor Jr. (Their view is summarized here.) Sander also submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in the Texas case.

To put it mildly, the mismatch theory is controversial. In his excellent book “For Discrimination” (a defense of affirmative action), Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy approvingly cites academics who say that the theory underestimates the advantages minority applicants receive from attending highly competitive schools even if they earn lower grades than their classmates. (Michael Kinsley made the same point in a characteristically pithy op-ed column.)

Note that Randall does not dispute the empirical data gathered by Sander and Taylor. Instead he argues that the data is counterbalanced by unspecified and unmeasured advantages. This simply shifting the argument from the empirical to the normative. It is an assertion that what I wish to believe is more important than what can be objectively demonstrated. That is not an argument at all, it is an assertion of authority.

Sander and Taylor show empirically, based on the University of California system, that by lowering the SAT/ACT score requirements (and grades) for African Americans, the UC system is able to achieve a much more diverse entering class. What they also show is that the graduating class is not nearly as diverse. African Americans (or anyone who is the "beneficiary" of such lowered admission standards) drop out at much higher rates, take longer to graduate, and are far more likely to change majors from rigorous programs such as STEM to much easier programs of study. These facts are not inconsequential, particularly in the context of wasted time and money. If you drop out, you have incurred the costs (and loans) associated with study but do not have nearly the benefits that accrue to a completed major. What they also find is that in schools where there is less use of affirmative action, African American students have higher graduation rates, are more likely to remain in rigorous programs, and are more likely to graduate within four years.

The Sander/Taylor research was conducted a few years ago. They attempted to gather data to see if the same phenomenon was true outside of the University of California system but once the mismatch theory was out in the open, universities clammed up and refused to share their data. This suggests to me that the phenomenon is real given that most universities want to continue using affirmative action and mismatch theory is a powerful argument against it.

McGough's argument is that Mother Jones and others are being either deliberately dense (professing not to know and understand the mismatch theory) or are deliberately misrepresenting Scalia. McGough is right and other left leaning media are beginning to call out Mother Jones on their advocacy journalism.

What was interesting to me was this statement. The argument is about what happens if universities are not allowed to discriminate based on race.

In an op-ed column in the Wall Street Journal timed to coincide with Wednesday’s argument, Gregory Fenves, the president of the University of Texas at Austin, made the point explicitly: “Experience shows what will happen if the Supreme Court rules against us. Student diversity will plummet, especially among African Americans.”

The L.A. Times made the same point in our editorial urging the court to rule for the university: “For the foreseeable future, especially at highly competitive universities, meaningful racial diversity will require some consideration of race in the admissions process.”

Interesting because that is not what experience shows.
When University of California was forced through the ballot box to drop the most obvious forms of racial discrimination, diversity did not plunge at the most competitive universities (UCLA and Berkeley). It changed. Asian American enrollment climbed.

This is the problem with the critical race theory crowd. They want to paint the US as institutionally discriminatory against people of color. It should go without saying that across 4,000 universities, there are going to be discriminatory actions on the part of individuals and systems of one sort or another - color, ethnicity, religion, region of origin, etc. But systematic discrimination (other than affirmative action) is illegal and there are occasional lawsuits that help keep this to a minimum. There is virtually no evidence of systematic discrimination. That is likely why so many race/religion/gender incidents end up being revealed as hoaxes perpetrated by advocates.

In the case of California, it is obvious, based on the performance of Asian Americans, that the issue is not color, it is academic performance. Diversity did not plunge, it changed. African American representation at UCLA and Berkeley plunged but diversity increased. It is not race, it is performance.

What goes unstated is the positive outcomes by forcing the University system to quit discriminating based on race. Yes, black representation at UCLA and Berkeley fell, but surged everywhere else in the UC system (as predicted by the mismatch theory). More than that, graduation rates went up 50%. That is a huge beneficial win for individual black students and for society at large.

Owing to the stalling efforts of state university systems, it is not clear how pervasive academic mismatch might be, and indeed how real. The reluctance to share the data speaks for itself. And if academic mismatch is real, then we are faced with a choice. Continue violating the 14th amendment to allow discrimination on race in order to increase matriculation diversity with higher dropout rates or abandon state race discrimination and enjoy greater graduation diversity.

Affirmative action appears, subject to broader testing of the mismatch theory, to be one more example where people can, through their support, signal their virtue without caring about the negative consequences. We should expect better.

Belief in the face of data

This past Sunday, the New York Times runs, for the first time, a page one editorial, End the Gun Epidemic in America.

At the same time, we are entering into the second week of global climate change negotiations in Paris.

What do these two things have in common?

Among other things, there is the fact that their underpinning assumptions are inconsistent with the data. The New York Times assumes that more guns equals more carnage. The United Nations IPCC assumes that more CO2 equals more climate warming. In both cases, the facts say otherwise.

In the US, repeated efforts to enact stringent gun control has only led to gun owners buying ever more guns. It is estimated that there are now 300 million guns in the hands of citizens. Quite an arsenal and something like a 15% increase over the beginning of the Obama administration. In 1950 there were something like 50 guns per 100 Americans (per the Washington Post). There are now 116 guns per 100 Americans. There has been a large increase in the number of guns in circulation and by the logic of the New York Times editorial board, the level of crime should have increased correspondingly. However, the reverse has happened. While there are more guns in circulation, the rate of violent crime has plummeted nearly fifty percent since its high point.

To be fair, we are dealing with complex, dynamic, multicausal systems here. It is not wrong to assume that more guns might lead to more violent crime. The only fault is to insist dogmatically that the relationship holds when the data indicates otherwise.

There is no epidemic of guns. Yes they are in greater and greater demand from the public. But crime keeps falling. The problem is that we are at a knowledge frontier - we don't know what drives the underlying rate of violent crime. There is a lot of speculation and research but there is no consensus, and indeed no robust explanation. We simply don't know.

Might guns play some role? Perhaps in some unanticipated way at the margin, but at the aggregate, there is no evidence to link the degree of gun ownership and the level of violent crime. Despite what the New York Times editorial board wishes to believe. They have a belief that they wish to affirm in the face of contradictory evidence and they wish to impose that belief on everyone else despite the absence of evidence.

Likewise in Paris. The core assumption is that more CO2 must lead to more climate warming. But for the past 18 years, with India and China pumping evermore CO2 into the air as they industrialize, and swamping the marginal declines in CO2 from developed nations (such as the US), the planet temperature has flatlined based on the most reliable readings - satellite measurement. Again, the core belief is confounded by the data.

Again, to be fair, climate modelling is still in its near infancy and we are dealing with a complex, dynamic, multicausal system. Every five years or so we discover whole new variables that have far greater influence on outcomes than we anticipated. The models are simply not up to the task of reliably forecasting. CO2 probably does play a role in climate determination along with a whole range of other variables but right now we do not understand the mechanisms that determine climate outcomes and therefore do not understand how CO2 affects climate nor the effect size.

I believe that both issues, violent crime and climate, are worth paying attention to, researching, and continue trying to understand what is happening and why.

The problem I see is that our political and policy elite subscribe to a faith-based religious belief that always dictates more money and power to the political elite against the interests of the public, regardless of what the issue is and what the data says. You cannot hope to efficiently solve a problem if you don't understand it and the incessant pleading and lobbying by the elite for more control is unseemly and disrespectful. The problems of violence and climate change won't be solved with anything that is being proposed right now because we don't understand how fluctuations in violence and temperature are caused. All the current proposals do is transfer more power and resources to those who are clearly dishonest.

My better self disowns

A part of the magic of poetry is that even if you don't take to the whole poem, not infrequently there are yet nuggets of gold within the lines. I like Yeats in general though there are large swaths of his work that leave me unmoved or flummoxed or too lazy to untangle what he is getting at. Perhaps poems for my dotage.

In his poem, A Woman Young and Old, I love these lines:

I long for truth, and yet
I cannot stay from that
My better self disowns

The serpent always beguiles us.

Responsibility relocated to the ether

As more becomes known about the San Bernardino attack, it seems to reveal more about the mindset of the media. From F.B.I. Says San Bernardino Assailants Were ‘Radicalized’ by Adam Nagourney. My interest is not in the article per se but in the word choices.

On the one hand you shouldn't invest too much time in such minor nuances, on the other hand, when there seems to be a pattern of such nuances, it takes on an interesting aspect in aggregate.

In this case, what caught my eye was this (emphasis added):

“We believe that both subjects were radicalized and for quite some time,” said David Bowdich, the F.B.I. assistant director in charge at a news conference here, speaking of the husband and wife team, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who were gunned down by the authorities after they attacked a conference center last Wednesday.

Yes, technically accurate. But is it quite right? "Gunned down by the authorities" makes it sound like the authorities executed them. But we now know that they initiated a gun battle with the police and were killed in that battle. An alternative phrasing that would be even more accurate might be:

“We believe that both subjects were radicalized and for quite some time,” said David Bowdich, the F.B.I. assistant director in charge at a news conference here, speaking of the husband and wife team, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who died attacking the police after they attacked a conference center last Wednesday.

I have no reason to believe that Nagourney has even an ounce of sympathy for jihadist terrorists and yet his words, perhaps simply ill-chosen, seem to convey a degree of victimhood to the perpetrators that is not well aligned with the facts. They chose to kill 14 innocent Americans and then chose to attack the police once they were discovered. This has nothing to do with the police (based on accounts so far) and it seems odd to use wording that might lead a reader to think there was something amiss about the police.

On its own this wording issue is virtually nothing. In aggregate with lots of passive wording (they were radicalized, etc.) it takes responsibility for their actions away from the perpetrators and locates it in the ether. That's misleading.

Ontologically confused

From On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit by Gordon Pennycook et al.

Our results also suggest that a bias toward accepting statements as true may be an important component of pseudo-profound bullshit receptivity.

That's from the abstract. More substantively:

The present study represents an initial investigation of the individual differences in receptivity to pseudo-profound bullshit. We gave people syntactically coherent sentences that consisted of random vague buzzwords and, across four studies, these statements were judged to be at least somewhat profound. This tendency was also evident when we presented participants with similar real-world examples of pseudo-profound bullshit. Most importantly, we have provided evidence that individuals vary in conceptually interpretable ways in their propensity to ascribe profundity to bullshit statements; a tendency we refer to as “bullshit receptivity”. Those more receptive to bullshit are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.

What does this mean in practical terms?

If you are selling snake-oil, find people who are less bright, ontologically confused, are less reflective, and believe in the paranormal. Nothing particularly earth-shaking in the finding, though it is worth having some empirical evidence supporting common sense.

What would be especially interesting is the reverse formulation - If you are particularly susceptible to snake-oil (anthropogenic global warming, rape culture, gender wage gap myth, UVA type hoaxes, etc.) then is it a value conclusion that you are also "less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine." I think their research is confirming that but it would be interesting to see it more explicitly articulated.