purepedantry | June 23, 2008Two great articles on energy policy.
1) One of the major points of resistance to carbon taxes or caps is that developing countries won't have similar quotas giving them a comparative advantage in the production of goods. However, some economists don't think that comparative advantage will be very large. The percentage of the cost of production that goes to energy is small for most goods, and only certain industries will be affected. From the Economist:
The authors of "Leveling the Carbon Playing Field", published recently by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think-tank…
purepedantry | June 23, 2008George Carlin died yesterday.
I always loved his comedy, but more important to me Carlin affirmed my atheism at a time in my life when I didn't really know anyone else who felt that way. He poked fun at religion, and listening to his comedy made me feel like I wasn't weird to note the considerable irregularities.
Anyway, here is his best jab at religion:
When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit…
purepedantry | June 19, 2008Well that is not good:
In a survey last year of nearly 2,400 physicians conducted by a physician recruiting firm, locumtenens.com, 3 percent said they were not frustrated by nonclinical aspects of medicine. The level of frustration has increased with nearly every survey.
...
In surveys, increasing numbers of doctors attest to diminishing enthusiasm for medicine and say they would discourage a friend or family member from going into the profession.
The dissatisfaction would probably not have reached such a fever pitch if reimbursement had kept pace with doctors' expectations. But it has not.…
purepedantry | June 18, 2008There have been a lot of salmonella outbreaks in food in the news lately, but who is to blame? Last year, Paul Krugman set the responsibility squarely on the Bush administration and ideological libertarians like Milton Friedman who want to limit food safety regulations:
Without question, America's food safety system has degenerated over the past six years. We don't know how many times concerns raised by F.D.A. employees were ignored or soft-pedaled by their superiors. What we do know is that since 2001 the F.D.A. has introduced no significant new food safety regulations except those mandated…
purepedantry | June 18, 2008Sales of Vespas are up -- largely because of high oil prices. Vespas and other motorcycles have significantly greater fuel economy than your average car.
Part of me is happy about this because it illustrates that people are making more fuel-efficient choices. When prices go up, people use less gas. Go figure.
On the other hand, I don't think I will ever get over my aversion to riding a motorcycle -- inculcated by my ER doctor father who has had to deal with the grisly remains of motorcycle accidents. Fuel economy notwithstanding, I don't think I can get over the safety issue.
It is as…
purepedantry | June 18, 2008This is pretty funny:
Why God Never Received Tenure at the University
1. He had only one major publication.
2. And it was in Hebrew.
3. And it had no cited references.
4. And it wasn't published in a refereed journal or even submitted for peer review.
5. And some even doubt he wrote it himself.
6. It may be true that he created the world but what has he done since?
7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
8. The scientific community has had a very rough time trying to replicate his results.
9. He never applied to the Ethics Board for permission to use human subjects.
10. When one…
purepedantry | June 17, 2008Lots of people get mad behind the wheel, but who are the people likely to try and kill you at the intersection? A CSU psychologist found that road rage correlates with large numbers of bumper stickers:
Szlemko and his colleagues quizzed hundreds of volunteers about their cars and driving habits. Participants were asked to describe the value and condition of their cars, as well as whether they had personalized them in any way.
The researchers recorded whether people had added seat covers, bumper stickers, special paint jobs, stereos and even plastic dashboard toys. They also asked questions…
purepedantry | June 16, 2008One of the most interesting aspects of human behavior is our nearly infinite capacity to arrange and coordinate symbols. Think of the symbols that permeate our existence. Paper money has no value in and of itself. A wedding ring is just a band of metal. The progress of the science might even be seen as the creation of an incredibly elaborate super-abstraction from which we can derive novel and testable predictions. Humans beings, in short, are into symbols.
We know, however, that we are not the only animals capable of symbolic thinking. For example, I could argue that whenever I teach a…
purepedantry | June 12, 2008Grad student Joel Corbo has a guest post at Cosmic Variance where he laments the lack of emphasis on teaching in physics PhD programs:
My relatively rosy view of physics education was shaken up not long after starting grad school at UC Berkeley (By the way, I don't want to single out Berkeley as particularly flawed, as I'm sure its problems are shared by virtually every physics department in the US to one extent or another. However, I can only write about what I know and this is where I am). Back in the cocoon of the MIT undergrad experience, I came to believe that physics was awesome for two…
purepedantry | June 12, 2008I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
Strange things I have in head that will to hand,
Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.-- MacBeth Act III, Scene 4, Lines 162-166
I have a book to put on the reading list. Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo has a new book on the psychology of evil and how previously "good" people can do bad things. The book is called The Lucifer Effect.
If you remember, Zimbardo was the author of the famous Stanford Prison experiment. The Stanford Prison experiment cast students as prison guards and…
purepedantry | June 12, 2008Crooked Timber has a great post on using what you think ancestral man ate to argue for various types of fad diets:
There seems to be about as much theorising relative to evidence in the discussion of what cavemen ate and did, as the ev psych crowd try to get away with about their family and political arrangements. Obviously, the suggestion that cavemen "didn't eat carbohydrates" can't be meant literally -- we would never have survived if this had been true. They ate fruit, seeds, roots and all sorts. I suspect that what's meant here is that cavemen didn't eat much starch because they hadn't…
purepedantry | June 12, 2008Here is an interesting article showing the cross-over between neuropharmacology and decision making. Crockett et al. show that if you use acute tryptophan depletion to lower the levels of serotonin in subjects, they are more likely to reject unfair offers in the ultimatum game.
Background
The ultimatum game is an experimental economics paradigm. It works something like this. The proposer in the game gets to divide a certain pre-specified quantity of money between themselves and another player. The other player sees that division, and then gets to decide whether to accept it or reject it…
purepedantry | June 9, 2008Encephalon 47 is up at Channel N. Thanks Sandra!
The best of it is a video describing equipment for measuring the flight of tethered fruit flies. You can train them do to all manner of things but changing the visual stimulus in the area around them.
The video is provided by Bjoern Brembs. Neat stuff.
purepedantry | June 9, 2008NIH has agreed to some suggestions from advisory panels about how to change the grant peer review process:
One year ago, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni asked external and internal advisory panels for advice on how to cope with a record number of applications, a flat NIH budget, and a shortage of quality reviewers. The two panels issued recommendations this winter (Science, 29 February, p. 1169). NIH's response was presented today to the Advisory Committee to the Director by National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research Director Lawrence Tabak.
NIH agreed with the panels on the need to…
purepedantry | June 4, 2008Related to the question of why there is a gap between the genders in math and the sciences is whether there are possible means of remedy. With respect to possible remedies it is often a good idea to look internationally at which countries don't have this problem -- to see what they are doing right.
Guiso et al. used data from the 2003 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which surveyed 15-year-old students from 40 countries who took identical tests in mathematics and reading. They compared this data with measures of the gender equity in these countries.
One such measure is…
purepedantry | June 3, 2008Found this in the Washington Post:
Using data gathered from such sources as the U.S. Census and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the ACSM developed a fitness index that covered 27 aspects of local environment and health, from death rates from diabetes and cardiovascular disease to the number of baseball diamonds and playgrounds.
San Francisco ranked No. 1, with an index score of 403, partly on the basis of lifestyle and health factors such as the relatively high number of people who report exercising at a moderate intensity (55.6 percent, compared with an average of 48.4…
purepedantry | June 3, 20081) Send you payment check in with the dollar value listed only as a complex limit.
Hat-tip: Zeitgeist
purepedantry | June 3, 2008Thank you Vaughan at Mind Hacks for saving me another long-winded rant about this subject. Vaughan takes an article in the NYTimes to task for suggesting that sarcasm "resides" in particular areas of the brain:
Finally, to say that sarcasm "resides" in one particular place in the brain from a study like this is just daft. It's like concluding fun "resides" in a particular area of the city because you've noticed that the population enjoyed themselves less after the cinema burnt down.
Read the whole thing.
Mental processes don't live anywhere. They are derived from the systematic interaction…
purepedantry | June 3, 2008Haha! The Law of Demand works. Price goes up. Driving goes down.
Figure: NYTimes
I repeat: if you want to lower demand for and hence consumption of gasoline, this is the best thing that has ever happened for you. Prices are the most effective climate change abatement policy, and a gas tax holiday is a horrible idea.
Hat-tip: Greg Mankiw