Whom Do Girls Like?

Those scientists are at it again, disturbing conventional wisdom.

New Scientist News - Risk-taking boys do not get the girls: "One idea is that risk-takers are advertising their fitness to potential mates by showing off their strength and bravery. This fits with the fact that men in their prime reproductive years take more risks. To test this idea, William Farthing of the University of Maine in Orono surveyed 48 young men and 52 young women on their attitudes to risky scenarios. Men thought women would be impressed by pointless gambles, but women in fact preferred cautious men (Evolution and Human Behaviour, vol 26, p 171)."

The piece suggests that risktaking impresses other males. That would establish a pecking order ,and we all know that women go for successful men.

(Note that at least the summary is chauvinistic--women are so stupid that they're impressed by stupidity coupled with risktaking. At the risk of being chauvinistic myself, perhaps women don't like the idea of cleaning up male messes.)

Your Helpful Bureaucrat??

What is the appropriate division of responsibilities between a bureaucrat and her customer/client? I raise this question because of a news report that IRS was willing to do tax returns for taxpayers, which aroused the ire of Grover Norquist (and presumably H&RBlock). The issue came up in agriculture, as well. At one extreme you could argue that the bureaucrat is a public servant, and should do whatever is needed to serve the public and get the job done, whether it's collecting taxes or making farm payments. At the other, you say that the citizen is a mature responsible adult, who should be capable of doing whatever calculations and completing whatever forms the agency designs.

In the case of ASCS/FSA, the employees in the county offices were the neighbors and friends of the farmers being served. Naturally they tended to hold the hands of the farmers, particularly in the old days when many farmers were not experienced with paperwork. (It was also sexist, farmers being too male to bother with clerical work. It probably also was an occasion for racism and favoritism in general. A bureaucrat would go the extra mile for the person she liked or had empathy with, and be more rigid with those for whom she had no positive feelings.) The problem is if the farmer takes action based on erroneous advice from the bureaucrat. We had a section of law and a whole process to handle such cases.

One of these days I'll look at what the IRS does in such cases.

Privacy and Transparency

The New York Times had an article yesterday. Seems when the police arrested demonstrators at the 2004 Republican convention there were lots of video cameras rolling. In some cases, the police testified to one thing (demonstrator resisting arrest) and the tape shows another.

Reminds me of David Brin's book, The Transparent Society. One of the paradoxes is that by depriving bureaucrats, like the police, of privacy during their work hours, we can protect values, like not convicting people of crimes they didn't do. The same principle can apply in many places. I'd argue that it could be beneficial to collect personal data, so long as the database and its use were totally transparent. More in future days.

Comments on White House Farm policy proposal

: "Comments: Morgan should have done some more homework on the White House farm policy proposals because one of them -- putting a strict and harsh limit on nonrecourse loans and thus marketing loan (loan deficiency payment) eligibility would have significant implications for commercial operators who produce around 85 percent of U.S. agricultural production. Why? If the maverick Bush-USDA proposals were in effect for the 2004 crop season, around 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop would not have qualified for nonrecourse loans and would thus not have been able to qualify for marketing loans gains. Now that is a major change in farm policy and a major assault on a farm policy program (nonrecourse loans) that has been around since the 1930s."

Great Bureaucrats in History: John Kenneth Galbraith

I need to do an honor roll of great bureaucrats in history. That thought was prompted by Brookings sponsoring a discussion of The Legacy of John Kenneth Galbraith: "new biography by Harvard professor Richard Parker entitled, John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics. Parker shows how Galbraith, from his early championing of Keynesian economics to his acerbic analysis of America's 'private wealth and public squalor,' regularly challenged prevailing theories and policies."

Galbraith walked the very halls of USDA where I worked, and even worked in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, predecessor of Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service. He was originally trained as an ag economist. One piece of invaluable advice I took from one of his books, an early memoir I think. It was: always volunteer to do the first draft. That way you can get your own ideas in. I tried to follow that faithfully over the years. Unfortunately, the proliferation of word processing and networking software may be diminishing the effectiveness of the strategy. But still: write, write first, is the watchword for bureaucrats.

Eugene Volokh on a Roll

Eugene Volokh is on a roll today, with three items with which I agree, of which I'll cite two

in one he cites a Burt Neuborne article in the Nation, saying that legal victories without political movements to explain and justify the victory are houses built of straw, to be blow away by the next political wind. He agrees with Neuborne from the conservative/libertarian side.

the second is a discussion of Jonathan Rauch's accusation that conservatives in the Schiavo case abandoned their allegiance to predetermined rules that they had in 2000 (Gore v Bush)

in the third he criticizes some generalizations by Jonathan Klein, Pres. of CNN, on Charlie Rose. Klein thinks Fox News appeals to irrational right-wingers who like to have their opinions reinforced, as opposed to open minded liberals. Iread the attack not as denying Klein's claims, but criticizing the "holier than thou" aspect. I'd agree we have the unreasoning partisans on the left and with this quote:
"There's a natural human tendency to see the best in people who agree with you, and the worst in people who disagree."

Liberals may believe themselves to be open minded, but it's only true if your opponents agree. Maybe when conservatives call us "wishy-washy", that's what they're getting at?

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.