Problems in Farm Statistics

I'm not an economist, but this paper on common errors in presenting farm statistics seems good. I know the data the Environmental Working Group got from USDA and his discussion is valid. (Maybe when I get my ambition back and spring is over I'll do my own discussion of that data.)

Separation of Academia and Private Sector

The "Peace Bridge" in Kashmir started me thinking about networks and separation. Here is the border between India and Pakistan, at least an interim one, which hasn't seen any interaction in 50 years. Interaction, or the lack thereof, is important. Biologists say that the definition of a species is reproduction across group lines. Getting back to my recent obsession with the causes of the presumed liberal dominance of academia, what sort of interaction do academics and the private sector have?

Because I've no data, and haven't been on campus for 40 years, the following is speculation:

• Humanities: English professors probably have very little. I can't think of a reason for them to do business with the world of business. The visual arts may have more--contact with art galleries, appraisals, and such. History (if you count it as a humanity), very little. The occasional expert witness in a lawsuit (I maintain membership in two historical groups, and vaguely remember something), writing company histories, etc.
• Area studies: things like black history, gender studies, American studies, etc. would be similar to humanities, although the opportunity for "talking heads" on TV is greater.
  
• Social sciences: probably more than humanities, a minority of professors could be consultants, do work within private companies, organizations, consulting, etc. Economists might be most linked.
  
• Physical sciences, including life sciences: the most interaction.
• New fields: things like IT, management, etc. probably have the most--indeed, my impression is there's a regular revolving door in IT.
  

If there's any validity to the above, there might be a correlation between interaction and conservatism--the more interaction the more conservative the academic specialty. Given the lack of interaction, maybe it's no surprise academia and the private sector seem to separate worlds--they are. I suspect though they're still capable of reproducing across group lines.

Bridges and Barriers

From today's NYTimes

"On Thursday afternoon, Kashmiris took their first steps where a bridge was destroyed more than 50 years ago in a battle between their countries. As they did, they were garlanded with marigolds and offered plates of sweets. One man coming from the Pakistani side to the Indian side fell to his knees and kissed the ground.

This crossing had been closed since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, and the India-Pakistan war that accompanied it. Until Thursday, it had been extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Kashmiri families living on either side to get visas and to make the trip. Relatives have missed weddings and funerals and been unable to visit even though they are separated by a drive of only a couple hours."

This is heartwarming. But it raises a fascinating question: when is the cause of peace and justice aided by building bridges, as here, and when is it aided by building barriers, as on the West Bank or between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. The easy liberal answer is that bridges are always better, that we must always "take down this wall". Not necessarily. 40+ years ago this was an issue discussed by sociologists re: race relations. One study I remember said that tolerance could be built if you integrated a team and focused them on a common goal, but just bringing people together ran the risk of exacerbating tensions. Walls can mean safety--there was safety in the ghetto walls, until the pogroms came, or until the lynch mob formed. I seem to remember California lost a court case over their policy of segregating new inmates in prisons by race for the first 60 days until they figured out whether the person was a white racist, black racist, or whatever.

Takes one back to Robert Frost and "Mending Wall".

125 Years Ago on the Privacy Front

I pontificate: Current discussions often lack historical and/or comparative perspective.

The one thing I'm sure of is that most of the world is whippernappers and it gets worse everyday. Back when I was young, we had a cheap Ansco box camera. I've taken a few pictures in my time and spent an ill-fated 18 months in Rochester so I was interested in a recent biography of "George Eastman" (by Elizabeth Brayer), founder of Kodak. Just in terms of technical innovation the picture was familiar--sounds like biographies of Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gates, et. al. and fits the generalizations of Professor Clayton Christensen ("Innovators's Dilemma). (The biography itself is fact-laden and thorough, but not a quick read) Also some parallels on charity.

But what I'm interested in here were two incidental references--one on page 71 citing a beach that prohibited cameras and one on page 91 saying the Secretary of War had revoked the ban on taking cameras up in the Washington Monument. There was also a brief discussion of the idea that smallish cameras could be used/were used? by detectives. Maybe some historian has already done a piece in this area, but I didn't see a reference.

I take it all as a reminder that new innovations have always caused concern. End of pontification.

A Fine Day in April for Clarke

Dana Milbank in the Washington Post describes a lively hearing before the House Armed Services Committee with Richard Perle and Gen. Clarke as witnesses, a repeat of a 2002 hearing,
Same Committee, Same Combatants, Different Tune (washingtonpost.com).

See his website for his statement.

Yesterday was a glorious day in April for Washington, the weather turned warm (no sign of global warming this spring), the cherry blossoms are out, even the Nationals won their first game ever. And, reading between the lines of Milbank's piece, it must have been perfect for Clarke. What's sweeter than saying "I told you so" on such a perfect day?

[Full disclosure: I had reservations on the war but generally followed Bill Keller.]

Liberals and Academia--What's the Right Question

Awoke during the night and thought--I'm not asking the right question (am I dedicated to blogging or what). Thought of fraternities. And of the gender gap.

Iraq and WMD showed it's important to ask the right questions. With respect to liberals and academia there may be several right questions, but one is not: "why is academia liberal?" Compare the issue to the "gender gap". The question there was something like: "why are men voting more Republican than women, or vice versa?" In other words, the issue was the comparattive relationship of two groups, not the absolute character of one group.

So a right question could be: "why are people in the private for-profit sector voting more Republican than academics?"

Thinking of fraternities, say the Dekes, did they choose the party animals or did they create them? How about Americans, did the most entrepreneurial people choose to emigrate or America create them? I think the answer in both cases is: both. But separating the processes of recruitment versus culture may help the discussion.

So another right question could be: "is academia more attractive to young liberals or Democrats than the private sector or does it create liberals or Democrats from those it attracts?"

Of course neither of the right questions address Krugman's original issue of the liberalism of natural scientists. Deciding the right question there I'll save for my next sleepless night. And the job of reworking what I've gathered from blogs and my earlier attempts here and here will have to wait.

On "Stuff", Summers, Krugman, and Proper Interpretation

In commenting on Paul Krugman's column I used the term "stuff". There's lots of it around. I think the recent controversies over Summers by the left and Krugman by the right point to some lessons about proper interpretation of writings.

I think it's true that people discussing Summers speech and Krugman's column both make the same mistakes. Daniel Drezner says "Krugman mistakenly attributes the attitudes of some Republicans about evolution to all Republicans". Now the truth is that we don't know what Krugman believes, but we do know he never wrote all. Drezner inserts the word when he reads, and makes it explicit in his comment. Similarly, feminists who reacted to Summers inserted mental "alls" into his statements.

Unfortunately English, spoken and written, lacks simple means for qualifying statement, so we need to rely on our common sense.

I would offer Harshaw's rule of interpretation: any noun used in a serious discussion should be considered as qualified by the terms "majority of", "modal", "median" as appropriate (at least when the noun has a normal distribution curve. In other words, "conservatives don't believe in evolution" would convert to the phrase "[most] conservatives don't believe in evolution". This is the principle, but appropriate modifications would have to be made in other discussions; sometimes it's the verb that should be modified.

46 years ago in Psychology 101 I learned about the "fight or flight" reaction to the new. I take it as meaning today we all immediately [mis]interpret what we read to make it either more threatening or safer--we're uncomfortable with the middle ground of difference. (Although my misinterpretation could be a sign of age.) If we don't apply Harshaw's rule, we indulge in polemics without sense and without possibility of resolution.

More on Liberals in Academia

I'm trying to shift the flood of posts on the issue of liberal predominance in academia to see what causes they offer:

Daniel Starr
says liberals are open to new ideas and want to believe they're contributing to the public good, conservatives aren't open and value money earned through enterprise.

Redstateblog
agrees with the money angle, and emphasizes self-selection--a hostile climate of opinion in academia. (Krugman raised self-selection in the sense liberals see business as hostile, but focused on anti-scientism. )

Drezner contrasts David Brooks and Krugman, offers an example of bias against a conservative blogger professorial candidate, but is defensive on the rest (his commenters pick him up). But plaudits and kudos to commenter Mark Buehner, who first guaranteed that a large majority of Republicans believed in evolution, then had the grace and guts (qualities scarce in bloggerland) to come back with this:

"I should really do my research before making guarantees. If these polls are right, I may start to despair entirely:

http://www.pollingreport.com/science.htm

51% of dems and independents and 66% of republicans believe humans were created by god in their present form? Can this be right?"

Steve at SecureLiberty. org
offers no explanation for liberal hard scientists, but attacks marxism, feminism, and PC while denying religion influences his beliefs.

Todd Zywicki
at Volokh.com in my opinion misreads Krugman as saying "that the reason that there aren't more conservative scientists is because they are skeptical of evolution". He makes a reference to the Summers dispute, and asserts " most of those who are consistent evolutionary analysts tend to be libertarians and conservatives (often Hayek-influenced)." Reference is to his paper discussing group selection in evolution and tying it to Hayek's thought.

It's true that evolutionists have often been conservative. Think William Graham Sumner and other social Darwinists. The late, great Stephen Jay Gould and his opponents in NYReview of Books were on the other end. Whatever the beliefs of individual scientists, the issue seems to be the climate of opinion.

Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek
attacks Krugman's argument (including the implication that the 1960's/70's saw a lot of Republicans/conservatives in academia, which relates to my earlier post). He cites Hayek's explanation for the predominance of liberals--intelligent people overvalue intelligence and rational design, therefore reforms, therefore socialism. Interesting point, but I have to ask whether intelligent conservatives, such as libertarians, don't also overvalue intelligence? Sorry--that was snide.

BK (Before Krugman) Stephen Benjamin wrote a piece on Network effects, saying that in law the mentor/disciple relationship (mentors push their disciples for places) is a key. Later, here
he offered criticism of Jonathan Chait's LATimes piece, which triggered comments which he discusses.

I want to go back over my earlier post and incorporate some of the points from above. Unfortunately spring in Reston has arrived, so garden duty calls.

Why Are Political Donations Like Payment Limitations?

Because both require definitions of "person" and both are evaded. Each "person" can give X dollars per candidate. As this NY Times article describes, Homemakers Are the Fat Cats. Who Knew? Their Husbands "it turns out that many of them - some of whom live outside the city and may not be terribly invested in the outcome of races here - made their $4,950 contributions, the legal maximum, at the behest of deep-pocketed spouses with business interests in the city."

I've seen prior articles describing donations by minor children, even babies. It shows the problems of lawmaking and implementation; lawmakers have a picture in their mind but reality is more complex.

Why Liberals Predominate in the Hard Sciences

Paul Krugman in the Times writes An Academic Question on this subject, Juan Non-Volokh and Orin Kerr at Volokh.com interpret it, and Mark Kleiman attacks their interpretations. My take is biased, because I just posted yesterday on a related question: why liberals predominate in academia.

While Krugman throws in a lot of stuff*, I think his argument comes down to the following assertions excerpted from the piece:

• "But studies that find registered Republicans in the minority at elite universities show that Republicans are almost as rare in hard sciences like physics and in engineering departments as in softer fields. Why?

• "Thirty years ago, attacks on science came mostly from the left; these days, they come overwhelmingly from the right, and have the backing of leading Republicans."

• "today's Republican Party - increasingly dominated by people who believe truth should be determined by revelation, not research - doesn't respect science, or scholarship in general. It shouldn't be surprising that scholars have returned the favor by losing respect for the Republican Party."

* The "stuff" is conflating liberals and Democrats, conservatives and Republicans, theological conservatives and all conservatives (the professors on Volokh.com seems to tend libertarian conservative) plus a good helping of "the sky is falling" invective designed to get one's (liberal, pink) blood flowing in the morning. (This relates to another theme of mine, emotion is needed to stir action. Without the "stuff", no one would be blogging on this, not even me.)

Without getting into the question of who most correctly interprets Krugman, what do I think of the argument, as stated above. Andrew Dickson White wrote a famous book on the war between science and religion in the late 1800's. Although the thesis may be questionable, I think it's what people believe, and what people believe is important. A Christian [hard] scientist has to explain why her science is not antagonistic to her faith; an atheist does not. To the extent religious fundamentalists dominate the discussion, it probably pushes scientists and would-be scientists to the left.

Can't leave this subject without mention of Alan Sokal--the physicist who hoaxed the po-mo set. There is an anti-science mindset among some on the left, but they've neither the numbers nor the lungs of the religious right.