The Quest for Objectivity

Outfoxed

Common Cause, MoveOn.org, and a bunch of other organizations have launched a campaign to take on Fox for pretending partisan news is "fair and balanced." They've posted a really horrifying but funny video clip highlighting Bill O'Reilly's hypocrisy as well as a complaint to the FTC at:

http://www.moveon.org/fox/

Check it out.

The challenges to Fox's partisanship are mounting. It's crucial that we voice our disgust with Fox's deceptive advertising now.

Thanks.

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Ban Assault Weapons

I just received an email from Tom Mauser. Tom's son, Daniel, was one of the people killed in the Columbine massacre. Tom is asking people to petition the US Congress to renew the ban on assault weapons. He's created a petition signature page just for the readers of this blog. Please click on the preceding link and sign his petition (although if you can find the actual text of the petition somewhere on his site, you are a better web user than I am).



From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Another stupid argument against "Fahrenheit 9/11"

Aaron Swartz posted several stupid arguments against Michael Moore's film, "Fahrenheit 9/11". I've encountered another one, on two occasions: in a discussion about consciousness, politics and the meaning of life at "De Muze" in Antwerp last week (see Geekdom Incarnate); and in a post entitled Godwin's Law: Not Meant To Be Invoked by jargonCCNA at kuro5hin.org. I expected better from both of the people involved, given that the rest of what they had to say was so insightful.

The argument is something like: "Moore, in making ad hominem diatribes against the right, engages in what the right does, making his arguments just as bad as those used by the right". Here's the relevant passage from Kuro5hin:

Godwin noticed that most people--politicians especially--have a flawed
 argumentative style. Rather than attempt to prove their point, they try 
vilify their opponent, in order to seem like the lesser of two evils... This
is what's known as a negative campaign and it doesn't always appeal
to logic or rationality, but to emotion. Both Rush Limbaugh and Michael
Moore make extravagant use of this argumentative technique. They try
to get their listeners/viewers outraged by the actions or inactions of
[insert popular figure here] without, really, explaining why said action
or inaction is actually a bad thing. Think "shock and awe", though 
perhaps "shock and appall" would be better.

There are two things wrong with this analysis:

• It fails to distinguish between criticisms of a politician that are highly relevant to that person's performance as a politician (e.g., Bush was on vacation 43% of the time in his first year of office), and criticisms that are not so relevant (e.g., Dean gets bug-eyed when empassioned). Criticisms of the former, but not the latter, kind are a valid part of rational argument. Of course, people may disagree on the degree of relevance a particular fact has to the job in question (e.g., receiving oral sex in the Oval Office from an intern).
  
• It fails to distinguish between criticisms of a politician that are true versus those that are false.
  

The defense of Moore as opposed to Limbaugh, then, is that unlike Moore, the criticisms made by Limbaugh's "negative campaign" are either irrelevant, untrue, or both.

Relevance: Does Moore really have to explain why Bush's lying, or cronyism, or illegal actions, or excessive vacationing are "bad things"?

Truth: Like Swartz, I'm happy to change my mind about Moore if someone can show me he's lying.

I should add that I haven't actually seen Moore's film (it hasn't opened in the UK yet). So I reserve to right to change my mind if I find that Moore has lied, or gone ad hominem.

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Powell remark admits more than it denies

Colin Powell is a liability to the Bush administration in that his personal decency prevents him from being as good a liar as his colleagues. He lets things slip. For example, consider the italicised part of this transcript of what he said on June 13th to ABC News' This Week, concerning the State Department report that incorrectly showed a decline in terrorism last year:


"It's a numbers error. It's not a political judgment that said, `Let's see if we can cook the books.' We can't get away with that now. Nobody was out to cook the books. Errors crept in."

Oops. Oh well, at least he said "now", instead of "anymore".

(Oddly, the ABC News link above does not include this crucial passage, which formed the basis of lead stories by other news organisations! See, e.g., CNN.)

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Counting the cost of "precision warfare"

How can you know whether your strikes are surgical rather than butchery if you don't look or ask? In another crucial Washington Post article, "U.S. Has No Plans to Count Civilian Casualties", it is revealed that the Pentagon has a policy of not keeping track of how many wrongful deaths it causes.

“We don’t do body counts" -- General Tommy Franks, US Central Command

When asked to justify this outrageous policy, miltary spokespeople say things like it's too expensive, too difficult, too impractical, etc. But these are seen to be false rationalising when one looks at IraqBodyCount.Net. This site manages to document the horrific toll of the war just by collating deaths that have already been independently confirmed by reliable sources. If this site can do it, why can't the military?

Many, many more civilians have been killed by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq then were killed in the 9/11 attacks. If we look at children deaths, no doubt the gap is even wider. We should demand at least this of the next White House Administration/Secretary of "Defense": That they make the Pentagon change their policy of not counting. If we can't stop killing innocents, the least we can do is acknowledge how many we do kill...

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Why we will never know the truth about 9/11

If you haven't read this crucial Washington Post article, "FAA Managers Destroyed 9/11 Tape", then read it now. (If that link doesn't work, try this one.)

I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that destroying critical evidence concerning a major terrorist attack on the US should at least count as collusion with said terrorists, if not downright treason. Why are foreign nationals languishing in Guantanamo Bay or being tortured in Abu Graib, while the real people who are preventing justice from being served concerning the September 11th attacks are allowed to walk free here in the USA? Could it be because said managers were ordered to destroy the tape, and those who gave that order do not want this fact to come out in court?

Something just doesn't add up. Why is the 9/11 Commission not demanding heads on platters over this one?

Do you smell whitewash too, or is it just me?

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Quest goes RSS

I've just added a news feed for this site. If you use a news aggregator to read RSS feeds, you can add this site to your list of feeds so you will automatically be notified when there is a new post. Click on this: .

However, if your browser (like mine: Safari) isn't smart enough to pass the handling of an xml feed to your RSS aggregator/reader, then you'll have to explicitly subscribe to this URL in your RSS reader: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheQuestForObjectivity .

See Geekdom Incarnate for technical issues.

From the University of Sussex

Disturbing beauty

If you liked the artwork and feel of Laurie Anderson's "Puppet Motel" or Peter Gabriel's "Eve", or if you just want to have a disturbingly beautiful interactive aesthetic experience, then set aside an hour, turn out the lights and head over to 99 Rooms.

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Evidence that Iraqi detainees are not Al-Qaeda?

Breaking news from the BBC (courtesy of their RSS feed) says:



"An Islamist website has posted a video of a US citizen abducted on Saturday in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, with a threat to kill him... A website statement demands the release of certain named militants held in Saudi Arabia within 72 hours, otherwise the hostage will be killed." The message is signed by the "Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula".

Perhaps I've missed something, but I don't remember hearing about any such demands for the release of Al-Qaeda detainees in Iraq, despite numerous hostages being taken there. Could it be that the detainees in places like Abu Graib are not Al-Qaeda, as some critics of the "Coalition" have been insisting all along?

Admittedly, I haven't heard of hostage-related demands for the release of Guantanamo Bay detainees either, but it seems unlikely that none of them are Al-Qaeda...

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Me, HAL and Commander Data

According to Googlism (see second line), my provenance is not the same as yours...

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Which Brazil?

Someday, I'm going to find the time to fully delve into the impressive 3-DVD Criterion Collection version of the film Brazil that my friend (and Freshman roommate!) John Polito and his wife Dawn gave me last Christmas. (John has been getting some media attention lately - he testified as an audio expert on the mega-high-profile Kobe Bryant case, and was approached to provide expert testimony on another mega-high-profile case that I'm not sure I can mention. What next: the Michael Jackson case?). I am even more intrigued after hearing that the discs document the controvery surrounding the film's release. You can read about it where I read about it: Aaron Swartz.

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

No wonder goverments favour the wealthy...

To: Colin Burt
The Electoral Services Office
Town Hall 
Brighton 
BN1 1JA 
Tel : (01273) 291999
electors@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Dear Colin,

I have a general question about all elections that Electoral Services administers.
I know for a fact that some people, who own multiple properties in Brighton and
Hove, are sent multiple polling cards, and their names appear multiple times on
the electoral register.  What mechanisms are in place to make sure that these
people do not vote more than once?

Sincerely,

Ron Chrisley

Mr. Burt's rpely:

From: Colin Burt
Date:  15 June, 2004 15:58:25 BST
Cc: Chris Fossey

Dear Dr. Chrisley,

Although it is not an offence for people to be registered at different
addresses, particularly if they have a considerable degree of permanent
residence at those addresses (e.g. students can quite legitimately register
in their university towns and for their home addresses), it is generally an
offence under the Representation of the People Act 1983 or the European
Parliamentary Elections Regulations 2004 for a person to vote more than
once in the same area or in the same elections. We do what we can to avoid
multiple registrations of the kind you describe but, without unlimited
resources, it is virtually impossible to guarantee that it does not happen,
or, if it does, to ensure that the people concerned do not vote more than
once. To be perfectly frank, we have a far bigger problem in getting people
to register once than we do in preventing multiple registrations. However,
if you can substantiate your claim that some property owners are registered
many times over for different addresses and, by implication, may have
committed an offence by voting more than once at the recent elections, I
should be very grateful for full details. Alternatively, if you choose to
do so, you can make a complaint directly to the police.

I look forward to receiving further information from you.

Yours sincerely,

Colin Burt
Electoral Services Officer

To be continued...


From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Protest in music

Go here for an amazing collection of songs protesting the Iraq War. Included is the song "Business" by Stephan Smith which I just heard on Air America Radio.

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Bush on American imperialism

"If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I'm going to prevent that."

- George W. Bush, campiagn 2000, while criticising the Clinton-Gore Administration for being too interventionist.

What he said in that campaign had nothing to do with reality , so why should anybody believe what he says in this campaign?

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Let's avoid another election steal...


Here's some information about a petition I signed recently. If you are a US citizen, I hope you'll sign too:


Dear friend,

I hope you will join me in signing this petition from MoveOn. It's about the new electronic voting terminals that are being installed in many states.

http://www.moveon.org/protectourvotes/

Too many are "black box" voting machines -- computer terminals that don't produce paper ballots. Without paper ballots, there's no way to know if our votes are counted correctly. Also, computers are vulnerable to malfunction -- how often does yours freeze up?

Every voting method should produce a paper ballot, so we can verify that our votes will count. Join me in calling for paper ballots, at:

http://www.moveon.org/protectourvotes/

Thank you.



I added:

"Please ensure that absentee ballots for voters overseas are sent out early enough for them to arrive in the overseas country, be completed, and be posted back to the USA to arrive before election day (i.e., at least 4 weeks before election day)."


From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Reagan's legacy

Today is a good time to recall my favourite anagram: "Ronald Wilson Reagan" = "Insane Anglo Warlord". Less facetiously, I am disgusted with the sanitising of Reagan by the media. This man (along with Bush Sr, Oliver North, and convicted Admiral Poindexter) was quite probably a traitor, illegally conspiring with the enemies of the US against the Carter administration, and then, after assuming power, using the proceeds of his illegal arms deals with Iran to fund an illegal, Congress-skirting (and therefore democracy-skirting) war against the democratically-elected government of Nicaragua. And oh so much more.



But I can say this: I owe my career to Reagan. In high school, I decided I wanted to join the US Foreign Service. During the Summer after my Junior year, I took International Relations at Cornell. A few months later, I was admitted via early decision to the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. But at the last minute, I changed my mind, not least because I realised that as a Foreign Service Officer, I would be expected to represent, implement and defend US foreign policy, no matter what that might have been. The fact that Reagan was in office at the time made me realise that it was possible, even likely, that as an FSO I would routinely face crises of conscience. I decided I didn't want to put myself in such a morally questionable position. I applied to Berkely and Stanford, and eventually attended the latter, avoiding International Relations, Politics and the Foreign Service altogether. Which is just as well: Although Warren Christopher was a Stanford Trustee and shook my hand at my graduation, the ultra-conservative Hoover Institution and Condi Rice were dominating the political scene there at the time.

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Must-See TV: Gore attacks Bush on Iraq

After viewing this, it makes me weep to think of how much better off the world would be if the man who won the popular vote in 2000 had not had his victory stolen from him. Watch it with RealOne player by following the link below:


Fmr. Vice Pres. Al Gore Speech on Iraq Policy


In an event sponsiored by the PAC MoveOn.org, Fmr. Vice Pres. Al Gore delivers a foreign policy address critiquing Bush Administration policy in Iraq.


5/26/2004: NEW YORK, NY: 1 hr. 10 min.



From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Foot-in-mouth disease is genetic?

Looks like Jeb has the same unfortunate way with with words his brother does:

"A spokesman confirmed that officers were called to the rehabilitation centre on Monday after being told a white substance had been found on [Noelle Bush, the daughter of Florida's Governor, Jeb Bush].  He said the niece of the President "was in possession of two grams of a small, white, rock substance". Governor Bush said, as he arrived at his Tallahassee office: "This is a private issue, as it relates to my daughter and myself and my wife.  The road to recovery is a rocky one for a lot of people who have this kind of problem." Source

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Informed consumerism at the pump?

Something I just heard on Air America Radio makes me wonder: Wouldn't it be good if petrol stations made the source(s) of their petrol publicly known? That way we could, say, choose to buy leftist, socialist Venezuelan oil rather than oppresive, sexist Saudi oil.

Or perhaps we'd prefer, even pay, not to know how our purchases are violating our personal ethics?

Come to think of it, there was a time where I didn't use Total Garages because I was told that they used Burmese oil...

From Chichester Terrace, Brighton

Virtual church

While in Sweden, I can usually use the fact that I don't understand Swedish as an excuse for not going to church. Even in Stockholm, where I'll be this Sunday, I can, if desperate for an excuse, point to the fact that the English-speaking church there is Anglican, while I am a Methodist (never mind the fact that Methodism's founder, John Wesley, was an Anglican priest till the day he died). In general, while travelling I can come up with a dozen excuses for not going to church.

No longer. Last week the Methodist Church launched Church of Fools, an on-line, web-based virtual church. The lastest SojoMail describes it this way:

Is it a brave new church or another sign of the apocalyse? The online "magazine of Christian unrest," ShipofFools.com, is launching Church of Fools, described as "a three-month experiment in 3D online church." Launched yesterday, the church is intended to be an interactive church experience for people who normally might never enter an actual church building. The site features pixelated pews, collections sent by mobile phone, and animated guest clergy that will move around the church, welcome the congregation, lead the service from a lectern, introduce hymns, and preach from a pulpit to people sitting in rows of pews. The first guest preacher is slated to be the bishop of London, the Rt. Rev. Richard Chartres. According to the site's editor, Simon Jenkins, participants will be able to "choose a pew to sit in, introduce themselves to other worshippers through speech bubbles, sing a hymn, listen to the sermon, chat to each other afterwards, and perhaps pray together."

Now it will have to be: "Mom, I couldn't go to church -- I couldn't find a WiFi hotspot anywhere."

From the University of Skövde

Rationalising fundamentalism

More on how Americans think:

If you've ever been puzzled how a nation of Christians can espouse foreign and domestic policies so counter to the teachings of Christ, then you might want to read this fascinating exchange in SojoMail.

From the University of Skövde

Why America has no national healthcare system

Appropriately enough for "Covering the uninsured" week, Oli drew my attention to this story about Briana, a woman in the US, who went without half of her skull for months because she couldn't afford to pay for the operation!

Non-Americans might wonder why stories like these don't shame US voters into adopting a national health scheme. I think it's because they still believe the myth that if you are poor, it is your own fault. Briana must be a "loser", a bad person, a freeloader, a person who wasn't willing to get educated and get up every morning for work like I have to, goddammit! This creates intense cognitive dissonance, since more and more Americans are feeling the pinch under Bush's tax burdens, poor economy and higher gasoline prices, even though they are working just as hard as before. I suppose the "principled" ones start believing that they aren't worthy, have failed in some way, or haven't worked hard enough. But the majority just make an exception for themselves -- it's possible for them to be down on their luck, without it being their own fault -- but not others.

From the University of Skövde

Bremer should resign, too

In the understandable, overdue clamour for the heads of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, it is easy to forget Paul Bremer. It's bad enough that US policy in Iraq forced Abdel Bassat Turki, the US-appointed human rights minister in Iraq, to resign last month. But even worse, Turki claims that he informed Bremer last November and December of the widespread abuse in US prisons, but Bremer did nothing. Turki even asked for permission to visit Abu Ghraib, but Bremer denied his request.

This gives the lie to the claim that there can be Iraqi sovereignty while the US military is present, at least under the present administration's policies.

PS If you are a US citizen, with just a few clicks you can join in Sojourner's campaign to remove Rumsfeld from office.

From the University of Skövde

Torturer wanted

Want to be an interrogator in Baghdad? Then CACI has the job for you! Follow the link before they take it down.

I especially like the "under minimal supervision" bit.

From the University of Skövde

Am I really that predicatble?

A friend suggested I take the car test at tickle.com. I had never been to that site before, but the idea is that they ask you some questions about your personality, and then tell you what your ideal car is. Here's the result for me:

Convertible
Ooo wee! You've got the wind in your hair, the sun on your face, and anyone with two eyes wishing they could nestle into your passenger seat. You're all about top-down, Convertible fun. We're thinking '69 Mustang, '64 Corvette, or Mazda Miata, in cherry red, of course. The car for you embodies youth, freedom, and summertime excitement. You've got a wild outlook on life and are always game for a good time. Since you're comfortable being the center of attention, you zip around town looking sleek and fresh, stealing flirty glances from your rearview mirror. Being so sexy and open, you attract friends, love interests, and joy riders wherever you go. It's no surprise if some hot number pulls alongside to challenge you to a little drag down Lovers Lane. You're the classic party mobile so crank up the music and hit the open road.

The fact is, I do drive a Mazda Miata (or MX-5 as they are called in the UK). I'm even a member of the MX-5 Owner's Club (although only to get cheaper insurance). So they got that spot on.

But apparently 19% of people in the world are "Convertibles". So I'm only 1-in-5.

As for the other bits, I'm not saying whether they got me right or not...

From the University of Skövde

Plastered Philosophy

Recently a postgraduate has been sending me a flurry of (interesting) questions about philosophical issues of representation. I'll reply, then he'll send a counter-reply, and so on, several times a day. Today he sent this email:

Ron - I seem to remember coming home very inebriated last night and 
responding to an email of yours. This is the kind of thing I do far too often. 
Apologies. It seemed a good idea at the time.

I replied:

Would it console you, or trouble you, to hear that I didn't notice any difference?

From the University of Skövde

Rumsfeld's Rules are relevant

In the 70's, Donald Rumsfeld compiled a list of advice and aphorisms for those working in the upper echelon of the White House. See, for example, this page. It's fascinating reading. Given what has happened in Iraq, and today's New York Times calling for his resignation (but not if his replacement is going to be Wolfowitz!), I find the following entries to be particularly ironic:

• Don't begin to think you're the president. You're not. The Constitution provides for only one.
  
• It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.
  
• Don't divide the world into “them” and “us.”
  
• You and the White House staff must be and be seen to be above suspicion. Set the right example.
  
• Remember the public trust. Strive to preserve and enhance the integrity of the office of the presidency. Pledge to leave it stronger than when you came.
  
• Don't think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles de Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.
  
• Have a deputy and develop a successor.
  
• Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the president and do wonders for your performance.
  
• See that the president, the cabinet and the staff are informed. If cut out of the information flow, their decisions may be poor, not made, or not confidently or persuasively implemented.
  
• Don't allow people to be excluded from a meeting or denied an opportunity to express their views because their views differ from the president's views, the views of person who calls the meeting, or your views. The staff system must have integrity and discipline.
  
• When the president is faced with a decision, be sure he has the recommendations of all appropriate people, or that he realizes he does not have their views and is willing to accept the consequence. They will be out of sync, unhappy and less effective if they feel they are or are seen as having been “cut out.”
  
• If in doubt, don't. If still in doubt, do what's right.
  
• If you tie, you do not win.
  
• “The oil can is mightier than the sword.” -- former Sen. Everett Dirksen (R., Ill.)
  
• The secretary of defense is not a super general or admiral. His task is to exercise civilian control over the department for the commander in chief and the country.
  
• Beware of the argument that “this is a period for investment; improvements will come in the out years.” The tension between the short term and long term can be constructive, but there is no long term without a short term.
  
• “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” -- Old military axiom
  
• “First law of holes: If you get in one, stop digging.” -- Anonymous
  
• “When drinking the water, don't forget those who dug the well.” -- Chinese proverb
  
• “If it doesn't go easy, force it.” -- G.D. Rumsfeld's assessment of his son Don's operating principle at age 10
  
• “If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.” -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  
• “If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough.” -- Mario Andretti, racecar driver
  
• “It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” -- David Hume
  
• If you develop rules, never have more than 10.
  

From the University of Skövde

Support the troops

Here's a deduction inspired by something I just heard from Randi Rhodes on Air America Radio:

• Republicans should support US troops involved in foreign wars
  
• Therefore, Republicans should support veterans of the US Army who fought in foreign wars
  
• Therefore, Republicans should support veterans of the US Army who fought in foreign wars who seek public office
  
• John Kerry is a veteran of the US Army who fought in a foreign war and who is seeking public office
  
• Therefore, Republicans should support John Kerry
  

Notice how the deduction doesn't work for George Bush.

(Does it show that I'm teaching logic?!)

From the University of Skövde

Union inherently good?

On 6 May, 2004, at 12:03, Tom Beament wrote:

I find it really quite heartening that, just for a change, the people
of a region were out on the streets demonstrating because they
 wanted to *remain* part of a larger country rather than separate from 
them. (I'm referring to Adjuria and Georgia, of course)

My thought is - could this be the start a new trend?  What's the
opposite of a separatist movement? - a togetherist movement!  It 
sounds much friendlier doesn't it! In fact, I think what we need is a 
togetherist movement in relation to Britain in Europe.

You mean you miss the Unionist marches? Or are you nostalgic for Anschluss? (See, e.g., the last parapgraph of this page.)

From the University of Skövde

In the Matrix?


At the Tucson conference on Consciousness last month (party pictures here, don't look near the end), one of the plenary speakers cancelled at the last minute. So the man behind the conference, Dave Chalmers (and a friend since we met, years ago, on his last day at Oxford), gave a lecture on the "Metaphysics of the Matrix". That's right, a philosophical discussion of whether the situation that the human characters of the Matrix films find themselves in is really one of "delusion", of having a "radically false" set of beliefs. Chalmers, quite daringly, argued no, since the fundamental nature of any postulated "real" world might itself be a computer simulation. In fact, orthodox interpretations of quantum physics do indeed see computation and information processing as the fundamental basis of reality. I tried to argue against Dave: surely we can make a distinction between the real world and the world of the Matrix, since the latter only exists because of the former, but not vice versa. Dave granted this asymmetry, but denied that it made the world of the Matrix any less real than the world which implements it. I wasn't convinced. (Dave is a contributor to Philosophy and The Matrix, a book and website).

It was revealed that the talk was being filmed for inclusion in a 10 DVD box set of the Matrix films, to be released in time for Christmas 2004. I wondered if my question to Dave was also filmed, and might be included. Wouldn't that be cool. Perhaps, but not as cool as having an entire lecture filmed and included in the set. I felt a twinge of envy.

Then came an email today from the producers of the box set. Andy Clark had given them my name (good old Andy; this isn't the first time he's passed my name on like this), and would I like to be interviewed for possible inclusion in the box set? Of course!

On first reflection, I suppose I could talk about: 1) Why Penrose gives us no reason to believe machines won't take over the earth, as he claims he does; 2) Why robots might end up resembling people, just like in the films; 3) How AI can learn from theology, since God faced the same paradoxes AI creators do (Adam was the first artificial intelligence).

Possible problem: They finish interviewing in the UK on May 17th, and I am in Sweden until the evening of the 16th... Stay tuned.

From the University of Skövde

The cost of having children

To: Mary Kenny, www.mary-kenny.com

Thank you for your recent piece "Children, not trophies" in the Guardian, in which you note that the high cost of children (now over £150,000) may be putting off some people (22% of parents say they wouldn't have had children if they had known the cost), but that these people probably had the wrong reasons for having children in the first place.

Could you please give me the source of the 22% figure?

By the way, although I share your scepticism toward Dawkins' selfish gene theory, it is neverthess true that, despite what you say, the altruism parents feel toward their adopted children can be explained by that theory.

PS not sent to Mary: There is an entire site devoted to adults who choose not to have children: www.childfree.net

Mary Kenny's Reply, and my reply to her

Dear Mary,

Thanks for your quick reply

Thanks Dr Chrisley. The 22 per cent figure came in a survey in the Daily
Mail on Tuesday 4 May.

Thanks for that.

I am not entirely sceptical about the selfish gene, but I like to think that
people can rise above mere biology. (There was a very interesting case last
week in Bournemouth of a boy actually saving his cousin from drowning, which
made me think of Huxley's theorem.) Best wishes, Mary K

There are two ironies here.

First, the position you espouse is exactly Dawkins' position. He introduced the concept of a meme, or replicating idea, in order to state and explain the view you state. As Daniel Dennett, arch-exponent for the Dawkins position, put it in Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995): "What makes us special is that we, alone among species, can rise above the imperative of our genes -- thanks to the lifting crane of our memes."

The second irony is that one does not even need to appeal to memes to explain parents' altruism toward their adopted children. Parents might just be built to love the children in their care, much like the mother bird who feeds the usurping cuckoo as well as her offspring. Since most of the time this results in one's own genes being favoured, it would be a policy that would be selected for, even if in some cases it resulted in the "wrong" genes being nurtured. The fact that our altruism persists in the face of our knowledge that the child is not our own attests to the *strength* of this biological imperative to care for the children dependent on us, rather than requiring some ability to rise above the biological.

From Södra Trängallén, Skövde

Externalist theories of fun?

Air America Radio broadcasts lots of public service announcements. I just heard one a few minutes ago that had some celebrities (some rock band, I think) advocating moderation in drinking. One line in particular caught my attention:

"And if you over-do your drinking, you're probably not having as much fun as you think you are".

Wow. Is it really possible to be wrong about how much fun you are having? If anything is a good case for not having a seems/is distinction, having fun is. Is fun the best argument for Cartesian icorrigibility? Or is the thorough-going externalism assumed in the above quote the correct line to take?

From the University of Skövde

Greetings from Sweden

Since I carry my iSight with me wherever I go, I've decided it might be fun to take snapshots with it whenever I blog, to build up a kind of visual diary. Here's me outside my office, but within reach of the wireless network, at the University of Skövde in Sweden, where I am giving a lecture series on Advanced Logic and Computability. Nice weather, eh? In my ear you can see my audio feed from Air America Radio, and in my glasses you can see my powerbook and iSight.

From the University of Skövde

Labour's policy on university fees


Charles Clarke; image courtsey of The Scotsman

The Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, has "defended the introduction of differential top up fees as the fairest way to fund higher education on the grounds that those who benefit from education should pay for it" (see, e.g., this page).

I agree: Those who benefit from university education should pay for it -- that's why we should all pay for it, since we all benefit from it.

From the University of Sussex

From www.hatebush.com



From the University of Sussex

Air America Radio








My recent trip to the USA happened to coincide with the launch of Air America Radio, a network out to prove that liberal, left-wing talk radio can succeed. With hosts like Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo, and guests including Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Ralph Nader, Richard Clarke and Bob Woodward, it's a refreshing, intelligent, firmly anti-Bush antidote to the likes of FOX and just about all of the US mainstream media.

The anti-Bush line gets a little tiring, uncritical and predicatble at times, but that might just be because I listen to the network (over a streaming internet feed) far more than is healthy.

I don't see the point of the annoying, mostly content-free, self absorbed Randi Rhodes, no matter how right-on politically she may be. If I had only heard her show, I would have never tuned back in.

Apparently the network is having financial troubles. When some stations dropped the show after the first week, the rest of the media was so eager to pronounce the venture dead that some of my friends and relatives emailed me to say "sorry to hear that that network you liked is no longer on the air..." I assure you, they are still alive and kicking. Why don't you send them a donation or something?

From Riki Tik in Brighton

I like Britney Spears?

OK, it's not hard to believe in some respects. But I mean her music. At least of late. "Toxic" is fun, and sexy. It's like dancing with Goldfrapp's younger sister. Or something.

And don't even get me started about the video.



From Riki Tik in Brighton

New Reports on U.S. Planting WMDs in Iraq

Andrew Chitty sent this my way:

"BASRA, April 12 (MNA) -– Fifty days after the first reports that the U.S. forces were unloading weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in southern Iraq, new reports about the movement of these weapons have been disclosed."

See the full story.

Bush's complicity in multiple humanitarian disasters

Some reactions to Bush's third press conference.

Well, now we know why he has only had three.

What's most frustrating is that despite all of the failures to find any connection between Saddam and the World Trade Center attacks, between Saddam and Bin Laden, between Saddam and weapons of mass destruction, between Saddam and terrorism in general, Bush still equates anything bad happening in Iraq with 9/11. He said: "The terrorists have lost an ally in Baghdad" and that Saddam "coddled terrorists and funded suiciders". But no connection has been found between Saddam and Bin Laden!

Wait, I take that back: there is a connection betweeen the Saddam and Osama -- they were both funded and supplied by Donald Rumsfeld and his cronies!

Bush went on to say:

"The terrorists who take hostages or plants [sic] a roadside bomb near Baghdad is [sic] serving the same ideology of murder that kills innocent people on trains in Madrid, and murders children on buses in Jerusalem, and blows up a nightclub in Bali and cuts the throat of a young reporter for being a Jew."

On what grounds does Bush call people who are fighting against primarily military targets in their own country "terrorists"? Because they sometimes attack or kill civilians? Attacks by non-coalition forces in Iraq have, as far as I can tell, only killed a few hundred civilians. Coalition attacks, on the other hand, have killed 7,000 to 10,000 civilians. Who is the terrorist here? Add in the civilian deaths caused by coalition forces in Afghanistan, and you have a number that dwarfs the atrocity of 9/11. Furthermore, the civilian deaths caused by non-coalition forces in Iraq are only occurring because of the US invasion there. If the US hadn't invaded, there would be no such deaths.

I was also outraged that Bush is still giving the "it was unimaginable" defense for his inability to protect the USA from terrorism on 9/11:

"The truth of the matter is most in the country never felt that we'd be vulnerable to an attack such as the one that Osama bin Laden unleashed on us. We knew he had designs on us. We knew he hated us. But there was nobody in our government, at least, and I don't think the prior government that could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale... I've asked myself a lot, is there anything we could have done to stop the attacks? Of course I've asked that question, as have many people in my government. Nobody wants this to happen to America. And the answer is that had I had any inkling whatsoever that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to save the country, just like we're working hard to prevent a further attack."

All this despite the fact that in March of 2001 an episode of the TV show The Lone Gunmen was seen by millions of Americans which presented exactly this scenario! If no-one in Bush's government could do their job, and imagine what TV script-writers could, even after the show was broadcast, then we have either criminal negligence or criminal incompetence.

The fact is, we are finding out that it is not just that Bush's government didn't beef up anti-terrorism security in the months before 9/11, but in fact stepped it down. Ashcroft actually asked his advisers to stop telling him about Al Quaeda, and on 9/10 put forward a plan to reduce counter-terrorism funding. Before the election Condoleezza Rice identified the lack of communication between CIA and FBI as the biggest flaw in the USA counter-terrorism strategy, but then did nothing to redress this once she became NS adviser. Her predecessor had daily meetings on counter-terrorism; she discontinued these meetings. And so on.

This president's ignorance, inexperience and inability to appoint appropriate, competent people left us vulnerable to a horrific attack. If he isn't indicted, he should at least be voted out of office.

Other frustrating aspects of the press conference included:

When asked about the similarity to Vietnam, he said "The analogy [with Vietnam] is false" but gave no explanation for why it is false.

When asked why he will not be appearing before the 9/11 commission alone, as requested, he refused to give an answer.

Then there was, of course, the eon-long silence as he tried to answer a question about what he thought his biggest mistake has been. Very telling.


The sooner these people are out of office the better.

# posted by Ron @ 19:43

Pioneer in Quantum Neural Computation

Well I knew that I was one of the first people to do research and publish in the field of quantum neural networks (my first lecture on the topic even appeared on the Czech national news in 1993), but it's nice to see an acknowledgement in print. Thanks Alexandr!

"We express our gratitude to Gary Doolen, Dmitry Kamenev, Alan Lapedes and David Sharp at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and also to our colleagues, Dan Ventura, Ron Chrisley, and Mitya Perus, who started the research in this field and received many important results, partly reflected in this book."

-- Introduction to Quantum Neural Technologies, Alexandr A. Ezhov & Gennady P. Berman (Los Alamos).Rinton, 2003.

Academic blogging

Phil Jones invited me to participate in this discussion on Academic blogging. His point was that it doesn't make much sense for academics to blog since they don't get credit for it. Here's my response:

Phil, I don't think things are as bad as you say.

If your reasoning were correct, acedemics wouldn't send email to each other, or have dinner/drinks conversations about their work at conferences. OK, so in those situations one has more control over one's audience, but I think the analogy holds.

Another comparison would be newsgroups. A lot of my blogging contains content that I would previously have posted to a newsgroup. A major feature of blogging, that I'm not sure many have recognised, is that it saves me the effort of having to find the precise appropriate location in Usenet space for my comment. Instead, I post it in my blog, and let Google/webcrawling do the placement work for me.

Finally, sometimes an academic wants to comment on or discuss things which are out of his or her field of expertise. Blogs provide an excellent way to do this.

My contribution to the memeosphere

An offhand jest I recently made in an interview for Nature about robots is starting to take on a life of its own. The remark has been translated into French (also here, here, here and here) and Vietnamese, is quoted in the Communications of the ACM, and Dan McGown likes it enough to call it his favourite quote.

The remark was: "We've had robot scientists for a long time now, but in the past we've always called them grad students." Buh-dum.

Don't worry, I'm not quitting my day job.

Zan Faulkes isn't pleased with the comment at all:

Replace "robot scientists" with something like "robot janitors"
 and "grad students" with any ethnic group (Hispanics, say) and see
if you think that's funny. Long hours, no fringe benefits, little job 
stability; yeah, that's hysterical. Work conditions for junior researchers 
are such that more than one writer has compared some senior 
scientists to plantation owners -- business thrives thrives only 
because of a cheap, voluminous workforce that doesn't get too 
uppity. Sadly, I've heard that senior scientists do have that attitude. 
I've been fortunate not to have any in my career, probably because 
I'm in one of the scientific backwaters where things are a little less 
competitive and not as fast-paced.

Although I don't think unfair/undesirable employment conditions that are based on level of training, qualification, etc., are entirely analogous to unfair conditions based on race, Zen has a point.

A poem on consciousness

Here's a poem that I composed about seven years ago. I should have read it at the Poetry Slam at the recent "Toward a Science of Consciousness 2004" conference in Tucson, but I was busy playing the bongos.

Pre-Objective Consciousness (after Duchamp)

I: No Particular

Now it is raining
Snow is falling
There is coal here
There is gold here
There is water here

II: Typist

Dear Dan
Yes, I came out of the corn
Back to the city
Both to draw and to do copy 
On the new cars.

To date I am able
To put cash in the bank
And bear a bill or two.
The new deed has done it.

The city has been busy
But cold for two days.
Dear baby has been to see her best aunt.
A band came by the door.

Baby let the bird cage drop down with a blow.
The bird died.
Boys put its dead body
Deep in a dark card case.
Baby also has a ball and blue book to drop.
I put the boat away.
Its deck did burn,
But I care not
As it does not cost a cent.

Come, call on me at the club.

Yours sincerely,

Raw speed is 36
Adjusted speed is 19
With 9 errors

III: Wearing

Awake,
(not totally)
Lie-down time.

Actually awake
(not fully).
Patience continues.

Really awake
(not perfectly).

Factorially awake
(not completely).

Awake.
Patience continues.

Blindness
Deafness
Etc. squared
Ever.

Now I am awake
(not actually).

Now I am awake
(not really).
Begins.


NOW I AM AWAKE
(not SUPERLATIVELY).
Patience begins.

FIRST TIME AWAKE FOR YEARS.

Now I am awake
(not overwhelmingly).
1st time for.

A gentle lie-down.

ACTUALLY I AM NOW
FIRST TIME
(not AWAKE)
For years.
Patience obviously needed.

Actually
I am now awake
(not totally)
For the first time.
Patience begins
So I may see everything.
First thought:  I adore Deborah for ever.

I am now awake
(not totally, not perfectly)
1st time for yrs.
Patience begins
Fully observed.

Now I am awake
(not completely)
For the 1st time.

Now I am really awake
(not perfectly)
For.

Patience begins observed
(not perfectly).

I wait to see darling Deborah.

Now I am awake
(not perfectly)
For the 1st time for yrs.

Patience begins observed
(not totally).

Now I am awake
(not overwhelmingly)
For the 1st time for yrs.

Patience begins
Observed
(not really)
For the 1st time.

I am awake
(not totally, not perfectly).

I patiently await lunch.

I am awake
(not completely)
For the 1st TIME.

I wait for lunch, patiently.
Eyes are open
(not really).

I AM AWAKE -- 1ST TIME

Lunch is over.
I await coffee,
Patiently.

Adding comments capability
I've just come across commentthis.com's free comment hosting system, and am trying it out. If it works, you, dear blog reader, will be able to contribute to this blog and tell me how wrong/boring/misled/uniformed/etc I am.

The Bible on same-sex marriage

This article by Vaughn Roste gives some excellent reasons, reminiscent of that recent list that went the around concerning Leviticus, for seriously questioning the relevance of the Bible to contemporary debate concerning same-sex marriages.

Opposition to the occupation of Iraq - from an unlikely source

My friend Don Baker recently sent me this:

What "opponents" of Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003) were quoted as saying the
following in 1998?  Scroll down for the answer...

Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of
Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in
midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable
human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had
been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would
have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition
would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other
allies pulling out as well. Under the circumstances, there was no viable
"exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles.
Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for
handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq,
thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have
destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we
hoped to establish. Had we gone the i
nvasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying
power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically
different — and perhaps barren — outcome.

This passage is from "A World Transformed" (1998) by George H.W. Bush and
Brent Scowcroft

If only W had taken the time to read his dad's books.  Any of them...

Is the threat Iraq, or Texas?

In a story that is not being covered by the mainstream media, the Christian Science Monitor reveals where the true threat to US security lies -- at home:

"Last month, an east Texas man pleaded guilty to possession of a weapon of mass destruction. Inside the home and storage facilities of William Krar, investigators found a sodium-cyanide bomb capable of killing thousands, more than a hundred explosives, half a million rounds of ammunition, dozens of illegal weapons, and a mound of white-supremacist and antigovernment literature."

The Return of the King: Reactions to the film

Warning: The following takes a particular series of three books and three films Far Too Seriously, and is not for the faint of heart. :-) Spoilers ahead.

My friend Don asked: Who is the hero of The Lord of the Rings? This isn't the kind of question I ask myself very often when reading a book or viewing a film, but I did have this discussion with a scholarly friend of mine (India), and she gave a very persuasive case for Sam being the hero. He has, after all, the last word ("Well, I'm back"), and presumably goes on to leave a full, real life while Frodo fades away into memory without marrying, having children, or even dying. As Don pointed out, Tolkien's brilliantly ambiguous climax has it that Frodo actually fails at the crucial moment, and it is only by the intervention of Gollum and his unintentional fall that the ring is cast into the Crack of Doom. All Frodo can be credited with, then, is getting the ring to Sammath Naur, not throwing it in. But Sam had at least an equal share in achieving that task. Furthermore, he didn't actually try to stop the ring's destruction, as Frodo did. If Frodo had handed the ring to Sam at Sammath Naur, I have no doubts that Sam would have quite easily cast it into the Crack of Doom. So the destruction of the ring is at least as much Sam's doing as it is Frodo's.

Furthermore, and again as Don pointed out, Sam is the only person to have possessed the ring, and yet given it up willingly , aside from Bilbo (who did so only very unwillingly). Bilbo was, of course, the hero of The Hobbit; perhaps, then, Sam is the hero of LotR.

(There are nitpicks here: Frodo offered to give the ring up several times; who knows, perhaps he would have actually done so. But Sam gave the ring back in Mordor, a feat which I doubt Frodo could have achieved. Another nitpick: Tom Bombadil actually held (and put on!) the ring, and gave it back. But he is, a think we can all agree, a special case -- it didn't even make him invisible!)

All that said, what about the film itself?

Of the three, it departs the most from its namesake book. I was able to accommodate most of the departures in the first two films by treating them as "what if" scenarios: "What if Faramir had taken Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath?" Taken that way, the films were largely consistent with Tolkien's themes, if not his actual text. I'm not so sure about this latest film, however. Some of the substantial departures:

1) In the film, Aragorn's ability to command the dead warriors is because of Anduril and/or his ability to wield it, and involves him having to persuade them to follow him. As I recall, Tolkien's idea was that Aragorn acquired the ability to command the host directly, "magically", because he was Isildur's heir, not because of the sword, persuasion, deals, etc. That said, I think I may prefer the film's treatment of this issue!

2) The whole palantir sub-plot is botched. In the film, Pippin has a nasty encounter with Sauron, as in the book, but the only relevance to the main plot is that this informs Gandalf that Minas Tirith is under imminent threat. In the books, it was Aragorn's revelation of himself as Isildur's heir to Sauron via the palantir that forced Sauron's hand and distracted him from searching for the ringbearer, because it made him believe that Aragorn or Gandalf intended to wield the ring against him in combat. In this way, Aragorn also discovered the threat of the Corsairs of Umbar, which no doubt was a prime motivation for him to seek the Paths of the Dead. No mention is made in the film of how Denethor knows what he knows, or even why he is so despondent to the point of killing himself and his remaining son. In the books, it is his frequent use of the palantir which explains these things, which reinforces the theme that all uses of power have their price -- corruption, and unintentionally working for the end of evil, no matter how good one's intentions.

3) Subtle but important changes are made to the climax at Sammath Naur. Up until Gollum bites off Frodo's ring finger, everything pretty much follows the book. If the book were followed, Gollum would dance about in triumph, and in folly: he falls over the cliff. In the film, we see Gollum dancing (with a wonderful zooming away from his face, through the ring itself, into the air above him), but then Frodo, apparently angered by his injury, and still lusting for the ring, grapples with Gollum, casting them both over the edge! Gollum falls into the Fire with the ring (his holding it above the flames is a nice touch - he is more concerned with the ring's safety than his own), while Frodo is left hanging on for dear life from a protruding rock just below the cliff edge. Here is a substantial departure from the book. The brilliance of Tolkien's original story was that it was Gollum's folly, greed, triumphalism, etc. which eventually destroys the ring. In the film, it is Frodo's vengefulness and greed which finally send the ring to its Doom. Furthermore, in the film, the ring is not instantly destroyed. Rather, it sits on an island of ash in the pool of lava, its power seemingly strengthened by the fires of its origin. This growing power is paralleled by Frodo's growing despair (at his failure in the quest, at the loss of the ring, and at his imminent fall) and contemplation of letting go into oblivion . It is only when Sam convinces Frodo to not let go, and take his hand, that the ring finally sinks. Thus, the film makes the destruction of the ring as much a matter of keeping hope and rejecting despair, as the self-destruction of greed, lust, gloating and violence.

4) One of the most poetic moments in the book is lost in the film. In the book, just as Grond breaches the main gate of Minas Tirith, and Gandalf faces the Witch-King in the breach, the cock crows with the dawn, the horn of the Rohirrim is heard, and the Witch-King's confidence falters (perhaps he foresees his doom at the hand of Dernhelm?). In the film, the waters are muddied with the introduction of and focus on an Orc-Chieftain throughout the battle.

5) Just as I missed Aragorn's conversation with the Orcs at Helm's Deep in the last film, in the latest film I missed Gandalf's conversation with the the Mouth of Sauron, the dismay of the Captains when they are shown Frodo's possessions, and Gandalf's rejection of Sauron's terms. Instead, Aragorn hears Sauron calling his name (including "Elessar", associated with his victory), and Aragorn takes a few steps toward the Eye, as if he is being tempted to join with Mordor. But he stops, looks back at his friends, and the spell is broken. His advance now has a different role: to lead a charge, crying "For Frodo!". Merry and Pippin are first to join him (even though in the book, Merry is not even present).

6) At one point in the defense of Minas Tirith, Pippin tells Gandalf that he didn't expect it to "end this way". Gandalf tells him that death is not the end, but a path we all must take, and that we see a white shore, leading to a land of green, etc. etc. This does not appear in the book, and is completely at odds with Tolkien's mythos. Tolkien took great pains not to take a stand as to the fate of Men after death, if any (even the Valar did not know!), let alone what lay in store for Hobbits. This little speech reduces the originality and power of Tolkien's work. Just as the thought of life after death makes things easier for Pippin to deal with, it also cheapens the sacrifice that the Men of the West are making.

There are many other departures, omissions and deviations (e.g., Elrond's appearance at Dunharrow, no scouring of the Shire), but I think the above are the most substantial. Despite appearances to the contrary, I did not take notes while watching the film, and may indeed remember more of my reactions upon further reflection, an eventuality which I am sure everyone would greet with unbounded enthusiasm.

All that said, I like the film a lot, and look forward to the Extended Edition on DVD. The Extended Edition of the Two Towers made sense of much of that film; I hope the same happens for Return of the King (e.g., I bet we see Eowyn and Faramir get together in the Houses of Healing, which will motivate their otherwise inexplicable closeness at the coronation of Elessar).

Have a "Merry" Christmas.

Arnie and Catch-22

It is only since I have been back in California that it has really sunk in that the Governor -- my Governor, is Arnold Scharzenegger. You'd think that since he ran on an anti-fiscal irresponsibility platform to recall Gray Davis, he would be the bitter enemy of the man who has overseen the economic fiasco that was the major contributor to California's woes in the first place -- the man who took the US from Clinton's surplus into the biggest deficit we have ever seen -- George W Bush. But no, logic and consistency be damned -- financial disasters, it would seem, only warrant Arnie's wrath is they are overseen by a Democrat.

But the illogic continues, with frightening results. Yesterday the "Governator" announced a financial state of emergency in California. This gives him emergency powers to do things which normally would require approval from the State legislature, such as cutting funding to social welfare programmes. But it was Arnie's own decision to give an unconscionable, populist tax break which precipitated the current crisis in the first place. Joseph Heller would be proud, but surely this should be illegal? It's like a president ordering an unprovoked attack on a country, and when that country retaliates with extreme force, declaring marshal law to deal with the "threat". Say, I hope Bush isn't paying attention (probably a safe bet).

Are we at war or not?

Just as Bush prevaricates about whether or not the US is at war to suit his goals (e.g., he declares that the Guantanamo Bay prisoners are not prisoners of war so that he need not abide by the Geneva Convention, but neither are they conventional prisoners so that he needs to abide by US criminal law), Blair's government does the same. Yesterday, Gordon Brown claimed "Britain has enjoyed the longest period of peacetime growth since records began in 1870". In the same speech he announced Britain would be spending an extra £800 million "for the war against terrorism and military action in Iraq", bringing the UK's expenditure on the war against terror to £6.3 billion.

That's a lot of money for a peacetime war, whatever that means.

Mothballs (14th May, 1985)

In the dry
bottom of his
mother’s chest, a
young boy
finds…

The father.
Soldier. Minister. Uniformed
once back in Viet—

“Hush!”

Uniformed
twice back in Ohio--
Bulletins to be
folded for
his services. His pulpit, my
pew, smelling of words
unspoken, vacations
not taken, divided by the
altar rail.

Slient shirts reading
Westerns in the single-lamp
parlor light, while we
huddled with Mom in the
oppressive silence after a
fight, watching the
TV
dinners.

I
never resented them, but then
I
couldn't remember the
O-Club, couldn't
recall the privileges of an officer's
life.

His life.

But invisible inheritance: a
fawning boy imitating his father's
smoking -- my latent attraction for
uniforms, for self-imposed

solitude

-- I do resent that

he never really made it
home, never removed his
flak jacket before
donning his vestments,

...His Flying Crosses

In memoriam: The Reverend Ronald Lee Chrisley, 10th August 1935 - 26th November 2003

And now rugby? Egad

In yesterday's Guardian, Peter Preston asked (in the Comment & Analysis section, mind you): "Which match reports on our sports pages do Guardian readers turn to first?". In my case, the answer is: none. No, I do not ever read the sport section, of the Guardian or any newspaper. While I love to play sport (especially football, snowboarding and racquet sports; it has been so long now that I have windsurfed that I can't fairly mention it as something that I do), I have no interest in watching it. I have never watched the Superbowl, the World Cup, Wimbledon, or even the Olympics.

I don't mind it if other people watch these things, and are interested, for some reason, in whether X beat Y. But why should we pretend that this is news?

Don't get me wrong; I find the Sunday supplements just as annoying. The affront of their smug assumption that we are all white, middle-class, university educated, married, with children, multiple homes, multiple cars, etc. is only tempered by the fact that we are subjected to it but once a week. The equally superficial sports section, however, is in the paper every day.

I would regularly buy and read any national daily newspaper that broke ranks, admitted sport isn't really of the same import as the rest of the paper, and got rid of it entirely. Except, of course, on the rare occasion when some issue from the world of sport was indeed newsworthy. A rugby squad's plane crashing upon their return from Australia, for instance. That kind of thing.

The same problem plagues the 24-hour news channels. I must confess to being something of a news junkie as of late. I used to have music playing whenever I was at home; now it's one of the three options provided me by Freeview: BBC News 24, ITV News, or Sky News. But it's so frustrating: here's a chance for me to get some in-depth knowledge of current events while I'm folding the laundry, eating my dinner, or doing the dishes, but all I get are the same superficial headlines repeated four times per hour, alternated with the weather, a superficial business report or two, and - you guessed it - two sport bulletins per hour (ITV News is the worst; they sometimes give up the pretence of being a 24 hours news channel and broadcast entire matches). Millions of people follow sport, I know. So what? Millions of people are music fans too, but no 24 hour news channel feels obliged to tell you what happened in the world of professional music twice and hour; they don't think it's necessary to report every half hour the state of the charts. And they are right - it's a bad idea.

And don't tell me to listen to Radio 4. While I have no (serious) objections to their programming, it isn't what I am after: A 24 hour access to current events, with historical, sociological and economic background. Commentary. Information. Yes, Radio 4 sometimes has these. But then again it also has the Archers, Desert Island Discs. Plays. Etc. As I said, these are fine, and in the days when there were only 4 radio or TV stations, it made sense to try to pack all these things together. But the situation has changed. Three Freeview channels are a great opportunity to cover different aspects of the news, in different ways. One could be a "headlines" channel, much as all three are now. But if you have one of these, why do you need two more just like it? Why not have one go into more depth: No stories repeated during the hour, which would allow one to get the TV equivalent of reading a section of the newspaper?

"Ah", you say, "the truth finally comes out: Why don't you just read the newspaper?"

The fact is I do, when I can. But there are many times when I am busy cooking, cleaning, laundering, emailing, driving, etc. In these situations, the only TV or radio will do. But the point is a good one. If I could have the auditory and/or visual equivalent of someone reading me a proper newspaper, rather than the front page of the Metro 24 times a day, I would be content. Perhaps internet radio is the answer?

Who owes what to whom, exactly?
It has become the standard riposte of the hawk to the dove. Bush, Blair, and now Condoleeza Rice (The Gaurdian, November 15th), when confronted with the fact that millions of the people these politicians are meant to represent are demonstrating against their pro-war policies, reply with something like: "If it weren't for the people willing to fight wars for freedom, the protestors wouldn't be able to protest". To which I say: If it weren't for the people who oppose war, Bush, Blair and Rice wouldn't be *alive*; unrestrained by anti-war sentiment, hawks would have eliminated life on this planet long ago.

Just another brick in the wall
What a rich (albeit unintended) irony: In a speech in Washington earlier this month, Bush "compared today's opportunity in the Middle East to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989" (Condoleezza: Bush and Blair's branch of freedom is key to more secure world, The Gaurdian, November 15th). And yet Bush's Middle East policy is to continue to support a nation which is putting up a barrier which dwarfs the one that was in Berlin.

Stupidity yields bad science, not poverty
Yesterday, the Science Media Centre in London phoned me up, asking me for my reaction to a piece on IQ that had appeared in The Times that day. Here's what I came up with. I sent it as a letter to The Times, but as far as I know it wasn't published. What better place for rejected letters to the editor than a blog?

From: Ron Chrisley
Date: Mon Nov 10, 2003 16:54:22 Europe/London
To: letters@thetimes.co.uk
Subject: The wealth of nations is mapped by their IQ, Glen Owen, Nov. 10th

I am not in a position to evaluate the soundness of the methods used in the studies of which Lynn and Vanhanen base their conclusions ("The wealth of nations is mapped by their IQ", Glen Owen, Nov. 10th). So I will assume they are sound. I am, however, in a position to question their interpretation of the data.

What the data show is that IQ test results "predict" or "determine" national wealth to a certain extent. But "prediction" is not the same as causation. Your carrying an umbrella allows me to predict with some accuracy that the forecast for today was rain. But that doesn't mean that your carrying an umbrella caused the forecast to be for rain (let alone that it actually caused the rain itself!). Similarly, if IQ predicts national wealth, it need not be because higher IQ causes higher wealth; rather it could be that they both have a common cause, or indeed that higher wealth causes higher IQ.

If Lynn and Vanhanen wished to leave it that IQ is merely a "predictor" of national wealth, then I would have no cause for complaint. But Lynn at least goes beyond the data and gives a causal interpretation to the relationship between IQ and wealth. In his paper "Intelligence and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations", he says that the hypothesis that national differences in intelligence is a causal factor contributing to national differences in wealth is promising for two reasons:

"First, it is well established that intelligence is a determinant of earnings among individuals; and second, several studies have shown that the intelligence of groups is related to their average earnings."

But this is poor reasoning. It employs a poor analogy between average earnings within a particular country (in the cited studies, usually the USA) and the wealth of an entire nation. The wealth of a nation (e.g. GDP, GNP) is not simply the sum of the incomes of its inhabitants, nor is it analogous to it:

1) Perhaps in a relatively democratic, economically free country like the USA, one's IQ will play a causal role in determining one's income. But the world community is not democratic, nor economically free. Given that poor countries often lack the natural resources and infrastructure to exploit creative innovation, and given that poor countries are typically in a negative debt spiral with respect to richer nations, it seems unlikely that an increase of IQ in an economically disadvantaged country could do much to raise that country's economic status. In the jargon: without counterfactual covariation, a correlation is just a correlation, not causation.

2) Even in cases where an increase in mean mental ability could have some causal impact on the wealth of a country, the psychometric tests on which Lynn and Vanhanen base their conclusions do not measure most of the mental abilities that would be relevant to such an increase: "[The tradition based on psychometric tests] has produced a substantial body of knowledge, though many questions remain unanswered. We know much less about the forms of intelligence that tests do not easily assess: wisdom, creativity, practical knowledge, social skill, and the like." (Neisser, et al, p. 150)* Not to mention knowledge.

From Lynn's previous publications, it would seem that his argument for IQ being a causal factor in national wealth is derived from two other premises:

a) a correlation between nations and race (probably uncontroversial, but it would be nice to see the data on this) and
b) a causal relation between race and IQ

(Concerning b), see, e.g., Lynn's "Race Differences in Intelligence: A Global Perspective" (1991) Mankind Quarterly; reproduced on davidduke.com!). These premises, if they were true, together with the data Lynn and Vanhanen report, would strengthen the claim that IQ plays a causal role in determining national wealth. But despite Lynn's 1991 paper, b) is not accepted by the psychological community as a whole; e.g., Neisser et al's authoritative 1996 report on intelligence says:

"It is sometimes suggested that the Black/White differential in psychometric intelligence is partly due to genetic differences (Jensen 1972). There is not much direct evidence on this point, but what little there is fails to support the genetic hypothesis." (Neisser, et al, p. 149)*

So it seems a causal interpretation for the correlation between IQ and national wealth is unsubstantiated. This matters, because identifying the proper causes of national poverty is crucial to eliminating it. Lynn and Vanhanen themselves admit that "together, economic freedom and democracy can explain as much of the variation in per capita incomes as national IQ."** If this is so, our agenda should be quite different from that which the "low IQ causes poverty" slogan would have us do. Although improving the nutrition of pregnant women and infants is of course an admirable ambition, Lynn has not yet given us a scientific basis for believing that this will significantly improve the wealth of poor countries. We should continue to be open to the (surely reasonable) idea that the elimination of world poverty might be more difficult, and require more of a sacrifice from rich nations, than merely providing nutrition supplements.

Ron Chrisley
Director, Centre for Cognitive Science
University of Sussex
Falmer BN1 9QH
UK

*When Herrnstein and Murray's controversial book "The Bell Curve" was published in 1994, the American Psychological Association commissioned an authoritative report on the state of scientific measures of intelligence: Neisser, et al, "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns", American Psychologist 1996 (reprinted in Chrisley, R. (2000) Artificial Intelligence: Critical Concepts).

** Miller, Edward, review of IQ and the Wealth of Nations by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen, Occidental Quarterly, Vol 2 No 4.

# posted by Ron @ 03:48