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Weiye Loh

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: Wanted: Less Spin, More Informed Debate - 0 views

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...spin-more-informed-debate.html

Carbon Trade Climate Change Pragmatism Public Relations

shared by Weiye Loh on 04 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • , the rejection of proposals that suggest starting with a low carbon price is thus a pretty good guarantee against any carbon pricing at all.  It is rather remarkable to see advocates for climate action arguing against a policy that recommends implementing a carbon price, simply because it does not start high enough for their tastes.  For some, idealism trumps pragmatism, even if it means no action at all.
  • Ward writes: . . . climate change is the result of a number of market failures, the largest of which arises from the fact that the prices of products and services involving emissions of greenhouse gases do not reflect the true costs of the damage caused through impacts on the climate. . . All serious economic analyses of how to tackle climate change identify the need to correct this market failure through a carbon price, which can be implemented, for instance, through cap and trade schemes or carbon taxes. . . A carbon price can be usefully supplemented by improvements in innovation policies, but it needs to be at the core of action on climate change, as this paper by Carolyn Fischer and Richard Newell points out.
  • First, the criticism is off target. A low and rising carbon price is in fact a central element to the policy recommendations advanced by the Hartwell Group in Climate Pragmatism, the Hartwell Paper, and as well, in my book The Climate Fix.  In Climate Pragmatism, we approvingly cite Japan's low-but-rising fossil fuels tax and discuss a range of possible fees or taxes on fossil fuels, implemented, not to penalize energy use or price fossil fuels out of the market, but rather to ensure that as we benefit from today’s energy resources we are setting aside the funds necessary to accelerate energy innovation and secure the nation’s energy future.
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  • Here is another debating lesson -- before engaging in public not only should one read the materials that they are critiquing, they should also read the materials that they cite in support of their own arguments. This is not the first time that Bob Ward has put out misleading information related to my work.  Ever since we debated in public at the Royal Institution, Bob has adopted guerrilla tactics, lobbing nonsense into the public arena and then hiding when challenged to support or defend his views.  As readers here know, I am all for open and respectful debate over these important topics.  Why is that instead, all we get is poorly informed misdirection and spin? Despite the attempts at spin, I'd welcome Bob's informed engagement on this topic. Perhaps he might start by explaining which of the 10 statements that I put up on the mathematics and logic underlying climate pragmatism is incorrect.
  • In comments to another blog, I've identified Bob as a PR flack. I see no reason to change that assessment. In fact, his actions only confirm it. Where does he fit into a scientific debate?
  • Thanks for the comment, but I'll take the other side ;-)First, this is a policy debate that involves various scientific, economic, political analyses coupled with various values commitments including monied interests -- and as such, PR guys are as welcome as anyone else.That said, the problem here is not that Ward is a PR guy, but that he is trying to make his case via spin and misrepresentation. That gets noticed pretty quickly by anyone paying attention and is easily shot down.
Weiye Loh

'BBC's biased climate science reporting isn't biased enough' claims report - Telegraph ... - 0 views

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/...nt-biased-enough-claims-report

Climate Change Journalism Objectivity

shared by Weiye Loh on 01 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • What many of these sceptics – or deniers, if you must – do question is a) whether – and if so by how much – this warming is anthropogenic (ie human-caused) b) whether the warming constitutes a threat – or whether its benefits might in fact far outweigh its drawbacks c) whether this warming likely to continue or whether – as happened without human influence at the end of the Roman warm period and the Medieval warm period – it will be followed by a period of natural cooling d) whether the drastic policy measures (tax, regulation, “decarbonisation”, the drive for renewables) being enacted to ‘combat climate change’ will not end up doing far more harm than good.
  • Though Dr Jones’s report argues that the BBC should from henceforward give less space to sceptics, it’s difficult to imagine quite how it could possibly do so. About the only occasion on which they have been given any air space has been on hatchet-jobs like the BBC’s feature-length assault on Lord Monckton, “Meet The Climate Sceptics”.
Weiye Loh

Measuring the Unmeasurable (Internet) and Why It Matters « Gurstein's Communi... - 0 views

gurstein.wordpress.com/...le-internet-and-why-it-matters

Internet Economics Accounting Statistics Measurement

shared by Weiye Loh on 26 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • it appears that there is a quite significant hole in the National Accounting (and thus the GDP statistics) around Internet related activities since most of this accounting is concerned with measuring the production and distribution of tangible products and the associated services. For the most part the available numbers don’t include many Internet (or “social capital” e.g. in health and education) related activities as they are linked to intangible outputs. The significance of not including social capital components in the GDP has been widely discussed elsewhere. The significance (and potential remediation) of the absence of much of the Internet related activities was the subject of the workshop.
  • there had been a series of critiques of GDP statistics from Civil Society (CS) over the last few years—each associated with a CS “movements—the Woman’s Movement and the absence of measurement of “women’s (and particularly domestic) work”; the Environmental Movement and the absence of the longer term and environmental costs of the production of the goods that the GDP so blithely counts as a measure of national economic well-being; and most recently with the Sustainability Movement, and the absence of measures reflective of the longer term negative effects/costs of resource depletion and environmental degradation. What I didn’t see anywhere apart from the background discussions to the OECD workshop itself were critiques reflecting issues related to the Internet or ICTs.
  • the implications of the limitations in the Internet accounting went beyond a simple technical glitch and had potentially quite profound implications from a national policy and particularly a CS and community based development perspective. The possible distortions in economic measurement arising from the absence of Internet associated numbers in the SNA (there may be some $750 BILLION a year in “value’ being generated by Internet based search alone!) lead to the very real possibility that macro-economic analysis and related policy making may be operating on the basis of inadequate and even fallacious assumptions.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • perhaps of greatest significance from the perspective of Civil Society and of communities is the overall absence of measurement and thus inclusion in the economic accounting of the value of the contributions provided to, through and on the Internet of various voluntary and not-for-profit initiatives and activities. Thus for example, the millions of hours of labour contributed to Wikipedia, or to the development of Free or Open Source software, or to providing support for public Internet access and training is not included as a net contribution or benefit to the economy (as measured through the GDP). Rather, this is measured as a negative effect since, as some would argue, those who are making this contribution could be using their time and talents in more “productive” (and “economically measurable”) activities. Thus for example, a region or country that chooses to go with free or open source software as the basis for its in-school computing is not only “not contributing to ‘economic well being’” it is “statistically” a “cost” to the economy since it is not allowing for expenditures on, for example, suites of Microsoft products.
  • there appears to have been no systematic attention paid to the relationship of the activities and growth of voluntary contributions to the Internet and the volume, range and depth of Internet activity, digital literacy and economic value being derived from the use of the Internet.
Building Inspectors Adelaide

Reliable Adelaide Building Inspector - 2 views

I always wanted to have a house of my own. I have been eyeing a property for sale nearby which is really nice. I am planning to buy the property, but, I also wanted to make sure that the price matc...

Building Inspectors Adelaide

started by Building Inspectors Adelaide on 04 Oct 11 no follow-up yet
mingli chng

crowdsourcing=internet sweat shop labour - 2 views

http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2006/10/12/crowdsourcing-the-neue-sweatshop-labor/ The author's view is that crowdsourcing is actually just another form of exploitation from private companies, just tha...

started by mingli chng on 12 Oct 09 no follow-up yet
Weiye Loh

Miss Malaysia Toy Boy - 7 views

Yes, commodification has led to liberation. After all, capitalism is all about creating new markets for more production and consumption. Beauty has all along been commodified since the oldest trade...

started by juliet huang on 08 Oct 09 1 follow-up, last by Weiye Loh on 09 Oct 09
yongernn teo

Ethics and Values Case Study- Mercy Killing, Euthanasia - 8 views

www.brainmass.com/...86151

Euthanasia

shared by yongernn teo on 21 Oct 09 - Cached
  • yongernn teo on 21 Oct 09
     
    THE ETHICAL PROBLEM: Allowing someone to die, mercy death, and mercy killing, Euthanasia: A 24-year-old man named Robert who has a wife and child is paralyzed from the neck down in a motorcycle accident. He has always been very active and hates the idea of being paralyzed. He also is in a great deal of pain, an he has asked his doctors and other members of his family to "put him out of his misery." After several days of such pleading, his brother comes into Robert's hospital ward and asks him if he is sure he still wants to be put out of his misery. Robert says yes and pleads with his brother to kill him. The brother kisses and blesses Robert, then takes out a gun and shoots him, killing him instantly. The brother later is tried for murder and acquitted by reason of temporary insanity. Was what Robert's brother did moral? Do you think he should have been brought to trial at all? Do you think he should have been acquitted? Would you do the same for a loved one if you were asked? THE DISCUSSION: In my opinion, the most dubious part about the case would be the part on Robert pleading with his brother, asking his brother to kill him. This could be his brother's own account of the incident and could/could not have been a plea by Robert. 1) With assumption that Robert indeed pleaded with his brother to kill him, an ethical analysis as such could be derived: That Robert's brother was only respecting Robert's choice and killed him because he wanted to relieve him from his misery. This could be argued to be ethical using a teleoloigical framework where the focus is on the end-result and the consequences that entails the action. Here, although the act of killing per se may be wrong and illegal, Robert was able to relieved of his pain and suffering. 2) With an assumption that Robert did not plea with his brother to kill him and that it was his brother's own decision to relieve Robert of all-suffering: In this case, the b
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  • Elaine Ong on 22 Oct 09
     
    I find euthanasia to be a very interesting ethical dilemma. Even I myself am caught in the middle. Euthanasia has been termed as 'mercy killing' and even 'happy death'. Others may simply just term it as being 'evil'. Is it right to end someone's life even when he or she pleads you to do so? In the first place, is it even right to commit suicide? Once someone pulls off the main support that's keeping the person alive, such as the feeding tube, there is no turning back. Hmm..Come to think of it, technology is kind of unethical by being made available, for in the past, when someone is dying, they had the right to die naturally. Now, scientific technology is 'forcing' us to stay alive and cling on to a life that may be deemed being worthless if we were standing outside our bodies looking at our comatose selves. Then again, this may just be MY personal standpoint. But I have to argue, who gave technology the right to make me a worthless vegetable!(and here I am, attaching a value/judgement onto an immobile human being..) Hence, being incompetent in making decisions for my unconscious self (or perhaps even brain dead), who should take responsibility for my life, for my existence? And on what basis are they allowed to help me out? Taking the other side of the argument, against euthanasia, we can say that the act of ending someone else's life is the act of destroying societal respect for life. Based on the utilitarian perspective, we are not thinking of the overall beneficence for society and disregarding the moral considerations encompassed within the state's interest to preserve the sanctity of all life. It has been said that life in itself takes priority over all other values. We should let the person live so as to give him/her a chance to wake up or hope for recovery (think comatose patients). But then again we can also argue that life is not the top of the hierarchy! A life without rights is as if not living a life at all? By removing the patient
  • juliet huang on 28 Oct 09
     
    as a human being, you supposedly have a right to live, whether you are mobile or immobile. however, i think that, in the case of euthanasia, you 'give up' your rights when you "show" that you are no longer able to serve the pre-requisites of having the right. for example, if "living" rights are equate to you being able to talk, walk, etc etc, then, obviously the opposite means you no longer are able to perform up to the expectations of that right. then again, it is very subjective as to who gets to make that criteria!
  • Magdaleine on 02 Nov 09
     
    hmm interesting.. however, a question i have is who and when can this "right" be "given up"? when i am a victim in a car accident, and i lost the ability to breathe, walk and may need months to recover. i am unconscious and the doctor is unable to determine when am i gonna regain consciousness. when should my parents decide i can no longer be able to have any living rights? and taking elaine's point into consideration, is committing suicide even 'right'? if it is legally not right, when i ask someone to take my life and wrote a letter that it was cus i wanted to die, does that make it committing suicide only in the hands of others?
  • Low Yunying on 04 Nov 09
     
    Similarly, I question the 'rights' that you have to 'give up' when you no longer 'serve the pre-requisites of having the right'. If the living rights means being able to talk and walk, then where does it leave infants? Where does it leave people who may be handicapped? Have their lost their rights to living?
Jun Jie Tan

Animal Cloning: Old MacDonald's Farm Is Not What It Used To Be - 6 views

http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/pecorino.html Cloning leads to amazing possibilities such as ability to harvest organs from genetically-engineered pigs to save human lives, to pres...

biotechnology

started by Jun Jie Tan on 21 Oct 09 no follow-up yet
Magdaleine

Immortality only 20 years away says scientist - 9 views

wow interesting! like a start to the creation of super heroes!! it kind of sound like science is playing God here, determining and extending lives. it is already evident now in this society without...

nanotechnology rights divide

started by Jody Poh on 27 Oct 09 1 follow-up, last by Magdaleine on 02 Nov 09
Satveer

SimpliCITY - New PC to encourage old people - 0 views

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8352606.stm A new computer has been created for old people that may never have used a computer before allowing them to gain better access and reap the benefi...

divde age technology internet

started by Satveer on 12 Nov 09 no follow-up yet
Weiye Loh

Designers Make Data Much Easier to Digest - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...03stream.html

Data Visualization Data Statistics Design

shared by Weiye Loh on 03 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • On the benefit side, people become more engaged when they can filter information that is presented visually and make discoveries on their own. On the risk side, Professor Shneiderman says, tools as powerful as visualizations have the potential to mislead or confuse consumers. And privacy implications arise, he says, as increasing amounts of personal, housing, medical and financial data become widely accessible, searchable and viewable.
  • In the 1990s, Professor Shneiderman developed tree mapping, which uses interlocking rectangles to represent complicated data sets. The rectangles are sized and colored to convey different kinds of information, like revenue or geographic region, says Jim Bartoo, the chief executive of the Hive Group, a software company that uses tree mapping to help companies and government agencies monitor operational data. When executives or plant managers see the nested rectangles grouped together, he adds, they should be able to immediately spot anomalies or trends. In one tree-map visualization of a sales department on the Hive Group site, red tiles represent underperforming sales representatives while green tiles represent people who exceeded their sales quotas. So it’s easy to identify the best sales rep in the company: the biggest green tile. But viewers can also reorganize the display — by region, say, or by sales manager — to see whether patterns exist that explain why some employees are falling behind. “It’s the ability of the human brain to pick out size and color” that makes tree mapping so intuitive, Mr. Bartoo says. Information visualization, he adds, “suddenly starts answering questions that you didn’t know you had.”
  • data visualization is no longer just a useful tool for researchers and corporations. It’s also an entertainment and marketing vehicle.
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  • In 2009, for example, Stamen Design, a technology and design studio in San Francisco, created a live visualization of Twitter traffic during the MTV Video Music awards. In the animated graphic, floating bubbles, each displaying a photograph of a celebrity, expanded or contracted depending on the volume of Twitter activity about each star. The project provided a visceral way for viewers to understand which celebrities dominated Twitter talk in real time, says Eric Rodenbeck, the founder and creative director of Stamen Design.
  • Designers once created visual representations of data that would steer viewers to information that seemed the most important or newsworthy, he says; now they create visualizations that contain attractive overview images and then let users direct their own interactive experience — wherever it may take them. “It’s not about leading with a certain view anymore,” he says. “It’s about delivering the view that gets the most participation and engagement.”
Weiye Loh

BBC News - Stephen Fry prison 'pledge' over 'Twitter joke' trial - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...uk-13102490

Freedom of Speech Twitter Joke Terrorism

shared by Weiye Loh on 16 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Chambers' case has become a cause celebre on Twitter, with hundreds of people reposting his original comments in protest at the conviction.
  • Speaking generally about the internet and freedom of speech, Linehan told the audience: "We've got this incredible tool and we should fight any attempt to take it out of our hands."
  • The aim of the organisers is that he will not be forced to drop his case because of the possibility he would have to pay the prosecution's legal costs were he to lose.
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  • everyone seemed united by a desire to protect freedom of speech or at least the ability to recognise the difference between jokes and menacing terrorist threats.
  • "We should be able to have banter," he concluded. "We should be able to speak freely without the threat of legal coercion." Chambers - who now lives in Northern Ireland but lived in Balby, Doncaster, at the time - sent the message to his 600 followers in the early hours of 6 January 2010. He claimed it was in a moment of frustration after Robin Hood Airport in South Yorkshire was closed by snow. He was found guilty in May 2010 and fined £385 and told to pay £600 costs. His appeal is likely to go before the High Court later this year.
Weiye Loh

BioCentre - 0 views

www.bioethics.ac.uk/...reject-radical-enhancement.php

Human Technology Transhumanism Bioethics

shared by Weiye Loh on 14 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Humanity’s End. The main premise of the book is that proposals that would supposedly promise to make us smarter like never before or add thousands of years to our live seem rather far fetched and the domain of mere fantasy. However, it is these very proposals which form the basis of many of the ideas and thoughts presented by advocates of radical enhancement and which are beginning to move from the sidelines to the centre of main stream discussion. A variety of technologies and therapies are being presented to us as options to expand our capabilities and capacities in order for us to become something other than human.
  • Agar takes issue with this and argues against radical human enhancement. He structures his analysis and discussion by focusing on four key figures and their proposals which help to form the core of the case for radical enhancement debate.  First to be examined by Agar is Ray Kurzweil who argues that Man and Machine will become one as technology allows us to transcend our biology. Second, is Aubrey de Grey who is a passionate advocate and pioneer of anti-ageing therapies which allow us to achieve “longevity escape velocity”. Next is Nick Bostrom, a leading transhumanist who defends the morality and rationality of enhancement and finally James Hughes who is a keen advocate of a harmonious democracy of the enhanced and un-enhanced.
  • He avoids falling into any of the pitfalls of basing his argument solely upon the “playing God” question but instead seeks to posit a well founded argument in favour of the precautionary principle.
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  • Agar directly tackles Hughes’ ideas of a “democratic transhumanism.” Here as post-humans and humans live shoulder to shoulder in wonderful harmony, all persons have access to the technologies they want in order to promote their own flourishing.  Under girding all of this is the belief that no human should feel pressurised to become enhance. Agar finds no comfort with this and instead can foresee a situation where it would be very difficult for humans to ‘choose’ to remain human.  The pressure to radically enhance would be considerable given the fact that the radically enhanced would no doubt be occupying the positions of power in society and would consider the moral obligation to utilise to the full enhancement techniques as being a moral imperative for the good of society.  For those who were able to withstand then a new underclass would no doubt emerge between the enhanced and the un-enhanced. This is precisely the kind of society which Hughes appears to be overly optimistic will not emerge but which is more akin to Lee Silver’s prediction of the future with the distinction made between the "GenRich" and the "naturals”.  This being the case, the author proposes that we have two options: radical enhancement is either enforced across the board or banned outright. It is the latter option which Agar favours but crucially does not elaborate further on so it is unclear as to how he would attempt such a ban given the complexity of the issue. This is disappointing as any general initial reflections which the author felt able to offer would have added to the discussion and added further strength to his line of argument.
  • A Transhuman Manifesto The final focus for Agar is James Hughes, who published his transhumanist manifesto Citizen Cyborg in 2004. Given the direct connection with politics and public policy this for me was a particularly interesting read. The basic premise to Hughes argument is that once humans and post humans recognise each other as citizens then this will mark the point at which they will be able to get along with each other.
  • Agar takes to task the argument Bostrom made with Toby Ord, concerning claims against enhancement. Bostrom and Ord argue that it boils down to a preference for the status quo; current human intellects and life spans are preferred and deemed best because they are what we have now and what we are familiar with (p. 134).  Agar discusses the fact that in his view, Bostrom falls into a focalism – focusing on and magnifying the positives whilst ignoring the negative implications.  Moreover, Agar goes onto develop and reiterate his earlier point that the sort of radical enhancements Bostrom et al enthusiastically support and promote take us beyond what is human so they are no longer human. It therefore cannot be said to be human enhancement given the fact that the traits or capacities that such enhancement afford us would be in many respects superior to ours, but they would not be ours.
  • With his law of accelerating returns and talk of the Singularity Ray Kurzweil proposes that we are speeding towards a time when our outdated systems of neurons and synapses will be traded for far more efficient electronic circuits, allowing us to become artificially super-intelligent and transferring our minds from brains into machines.
  • Having laid out the main ideas and thinking behind Kurzweil’s proposals, Agar makes the perceptive comment that despite the apparent appeal of greater processing power it would nevertheless be no longer human. Introducing chips to the human body and linking into the human nervous system to computers as per Ray Kurzweil’s proposals will prove interesting but it goes beyond merely creating a copy of us in order to that future replication and uploading can take place. Rather it will constitute something more akin to an upgrade. Electrochemical signals that the brain use to achieve thought travel at 100 metres per second. This is impressive but contrast this with the electrical signals in a computer which travel at 300 million metres per second then the distinction is clear. If the predictions are true how will such radically enhanced and empowered beings live not only the unenhanced but also what will there quality of life really be? In response, Agar favours something what he calls “rational biological conservatism” (pg. 57) where we set limits on how intelligent we can become in light of the fact that it will never be rational to us for human beings to completely upload their minds onto computers.
  • Agar then proceeds to argue that in the pursuit of Kurzweil enhanced capacities and capabilities we might accidentally undermine capacities of equal value. This line of argument would find much sympathy from those who consider human organisms in “ecological” terms, representing a profound interconnectedness which when interfered with presents a series of unknown and unexpected consequences. In other words, our specifies-specific form of intelligence may well be linked to species-specific form of desire. Thus, if we start building upon and enhancing our capacity to protect and promote deeply held convictions and beliefs then due to the interconnectedness, it may well affect and remove our desire to perform such activities (page 70). Agar’s subsequent discussion and reference to the work of Jerry Foder, philosopher and cognitive scientist is particularly helpful in terms of the functioning of the mind by modules and the implications of human-friendly AI verses human-unfriendly AI.
  • In terms of the author’s discussion of Aubrey de Grey, what is refreshing to read from the outset is the author’s clear grasp of Aubrey’s ideas and motivation. Some make the mistake of thinking he is the man who wants to live forever, when in actual fact this is not the case.  De Grey wants to reverse the ageing process - Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) so that people are living longer and healthier lives. Establishing this clear distinction affords the author the opportunity to offer more grounded critiques of de Grey’s than some of his other critics. The author makes plain that de Grey’s immediate goal is to achieve longevity escape velocity (LEV), where anti-ageing therapies add years to life expectancy faster than age consumes them.
  • In weighing up the benefits of living significantly longer lives, Agar posits a compelling argument that I had not fully seen before. In terms of risk, those radically enhanced to live longer may actually be the most risk adverse and fearful people to live. Taking the example of driving a car, a forty year-old senescing human being who gets into their car to drive to work and is involved in a fatal accident “stands to lose, at most, a few healthy, youthful years and a slightly larger number of years with reduced quality” (p.116). In stark contrast should a negligibly senescent being who drives a car and is involved in an accident resulting in their death, stands to lose on average one thousand, healthy, youthful years (p.116).  
  • De Grey’s response to this seems a little flippant; with the end of ageing comes an increased sense of risk-aversion so the desire for risky activity such as driving will no longer be prevalent. Moreover, plus because we are living for longer we will not be in such a hurry to get to places!  Virtual reality comes into its own at this point as a means by which the negligibly senescent being ‘adrenaline junkie’ can be engaged with activities but without the associated risks. But surely the risk is part of the reason why they would want to engage in snow boarding, bungee jumping et al in the first place. De Grey’s strategy seemingly fails to appreciate the extent to which human beings want “direct” contact with the “real” world.
  • Continuing this idea further though, Agar’s subsequent discussion of the role of fire-fighters is an interesting one.  A negligibly senescent fire fighter may stand to loose more when they are trapped in a burning inferno but being negligibly senescent means that they are better fire-fighters by virtue of increase vitality. Having recently heard de Grey speak and had the privilege of discussing his ideas further with him, Agar’s discussion of De Grey were a particular highlight of the book and made for an engaging discussion. Whilst expressing concern and doubt in relation to De Grey’s ideas, Agar is nevertheless quick and gracious enough to acknowledge that if such therapies could be achieved then De Grey is probably the best person to comment on and achieve such therapies given the depth of knowledge and understanding that he has built up in this area.
Weiye Loh

Do peer reviewers get worse with experience? Plus a poll « Retraction Watch - 0 views

retractionwatch.wordpress.com/...wers-get-worse-with-experience

Peer Review Academic Research Academic Journal

shared by Weiye Loh on 22 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • We’re not here to defend peer review against its many critics. We have the same feelings about it that Churchill did about democracy, aka the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried. Of course, a good number of the retractions we write about are due to misconduct, and it’s not clear how peer review, no matter how good, would detect out-and-out fraud.
  • With that in mind, a paper published last week in the Annals of Emergency Medicine caught our eye. Over 14 years, 84 editors at the journal rated close to 15,000 reviews by about 1,500 reviewers. Highlights of their findings: …92% of peer reviewers deteriorated during 14 years of study in the quality and usefulness of their reviews (as judged by editors at the time of decision), at rates unrelated to the length of their service (but moderately correlated with their mean quality score, with better-than average reviewers decreasing at about half the rate of those below average). Only 8% improved, and those by very small amount.
  • The average reviewer in our study would have taken 12.5 years to reach this threshold; only 3% of reviewers whose quality decreased would have reached it in less than 5 years, and even the worst would take 3.2 years. Another 35% of all reviewers would reach the threshold in 5 to 10 years, 28% in 10 to 15 years, 12% in 15 to 20 years, and 22% in 20 years or more. So the decline was slow. Still, the results, note the authors, were surprising: Such a negative overall trend is contrary to most editors’ and reviewers’ intuitive expectations and beliefs about reviewer skills and the benefits of experience.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • What could account for this decline? The study’s authors say it might be the same sort of decline you generally see as people get older. This is well-documented in doctors, so why shouldn’t it be true of doctors — and others — who peer review?
  • Other than the well-documented cognitive decline of humans as they age, there are other important possible causes of deterioration of performance that may play a role among scientific reviewers. Examples include premature closure of decisionmaking, less compliance with formal structural review requirements, and decay of knowledge base with time (ie, with aging more of the original knowledge base acquired in training becomes out of date). Most peer reviewers say their reviews have changed with experience, becoming shorter and focusing more on methods and larger issues; only 25% think they have improved.
  • Decreased cognitive performance capability may not be the only or even chief explanation. Competing career activities and loss of motivation as tasks become too familiar may contribute as well, by decreasing the time and effort spent on the task. Some research has concluded that the decreased productivity of scientists as they age is due not to different attributes or access to resources but to “investment motivation.” This is another way of saying that competition for the reviewer’s time (which is usually uncompensated) increases with seniority, as they develop (more enticing) opportunities for additional peer review, research, administrative, and leadership responsibilities and rewards. However, from the standpoint of editors and authors (or patients), whether the cause of the decrease is decreasing intrinsic cognitive ability or diminished motivation and effort does not matter. The result is the same: a less rigorous review by which to judge articles
  • What can be done? The authors recommend “deliberate practice,” which involves assessing one’s skills, accurately identifying areas of relative weakness, performing specific exercises designed to improve and extend those weaker skills, and investing high levels of concentration and hundreds or thousands of hours in the process. A key component of deliberate practice is immediate feedback on one’s performance. There’s a problem: But acting on prompt feedback (to guide deliberate practice) would be almost impossible for peer reviewers, who typically get no feedback (and qualitative research reveals this is one of their chief complaints).
  • Weiye Loh on 22 Apr 11
     
    92% of peer reviewers deteriorated during 14 years of study in the quality and usefulness of their reviews (as judged by editors at the time of decision), at rates unrelated to the length of their service (but moderately corre
Weiye Loh

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: Analysis of the Nisbet Report -- Part II, Political Views of S... - 0 views

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...-of-nisbet-report-part-ii.html

Science Politics Conservative Liberal Ideological Affiliation Data

shared by Weiye Loh on 24 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • One part of Matthew Nisbet's recent report that has received very little attention is its comparative analysis of ideological and partisan perspectives of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Nisbet shows that AAAS members are extremely partisan and ideological.  The word "extremely" is mine, and what do I mean by it?  Look at the figure above:  AAAS members are more partisan than MSNBC viewers and even Tea Party members.  AAAS members are more ideological than evangelical churchgoers but less so than Fox News viewers.  In both cases AAAS members are very different than the public as a whole.
  • Dan Sarewitz has discussed the problems with the ideological and partisan likemindedness of our scientific community, which has been exploited and reenforced in political debates: During the Bush administration, Democrats discovered that they could score political points by accusing Bush of being anti-science. In the process, they seem to have convinced themselves that they are the keepers of the Enlightenment spirit, and that those who disagree with them on issues like climate change are fundamentally irrational. Meanwhile, many Republicans have come to believe that mainstream science is corrupted by ideology and amounts to no more than politics by another name. Attracted to fringe scientists like the small and vocal group of climate skeptics, Republicans appear to be alienated from a mainstream scientific community that by and large doesn't share their political beliefs. The climate debacle is only the most conspicuous example of these debilitating tendencies, which play out in issues as diverse as nuclear waste disposal, protection of endangered species, and regulation of pharmaceuticals. How would a more politically diverse scientific community improve this situation? First, it could foster greater confidence among Republican politicians about the legitimacy of mainstream science. Second, it would cultivate more informed, creative, and challenging debates about the policy implications of scientific knowledge. This could help keep difficult problems like climate change from getting prematurely straitjacketed by ideology. A more politically diverse scientific community would, overall, support a healthier relationship between science and politics.
  • It should come as no surprise that the increasing politicization of science has come to make science more political rather than politics more scientific.  At the same time, the more partisan and/or and ideological that you are, the more welcome and comfortable that you will find the politicization of science, as it reenforces your preconceptions.
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  • It also fits perfectly into a political strategy that holds that arguments about science can help to resolve political debates.  Climate change is only the most visible of this tendency, where the empirical evidence shows that efforts to wage climate politics through climate science have had the greatest effect in magnifying the partisan divide.  Some are blinded by these dynamics -- for instance Chris Mooney excuses the extreme partisanship/ideology of AAAS members by blaming  . . . George W. Bush.
  • Anyone concerned with political decision making in a society that contains a diversity of partisan and ideological perspectives should be concerned that, in one sector at least, the experts that we rely on have views that are far different than the broader society.  One response to this would be to wage a political battle to try to convert the broader society to the values of the experts, perhaps through the idea that improving science communication or education a great value transformation will occur.
  • My sense is that this strategy is not just doomed to fail, but will have some serious blowback effects on the scientific community itself.  More likely from my view is that such efforts to transform society through science will instead lead to the partisan debates across society taking firmer root within our expert communities. This is a topic that deserves more discussion and debate.  Dan Sarewitz concludes provocatively that, "A democratic society needs Republican scientists."
  • It is important to recognize that hyper-partisans like Joe Romm and Chris Mooney will continue to seek to poison the wells of discussion within the scientific community (which is left-leaning, so this is a discuss that needs to occur at least to start within the left) through constant appeals to partisanship and ideology.  Improving the role of science and scientists in our political debates will require an ability to rise above such efforts to associate the scientific community with only a subset of partisan and ideological perspectives.  But science and expertise belongs to all of us, and should make society better as a whole.
  • anecdote is not the singular of data.
  • One benefit of the politicizing of science is that it caused smart people outside the field to look closely at what was going on behind the curtain. That has been harmful to the short run reputation of science, but helpful to the long run competence of science.
  • I think that the Nisbet report missed the point entirely.This is a better summary of the problem the AGW promotion industry is facing:http://www.publicserviceeurope.com/article/136/climate-fatigue-leaves-global-warming-in-the-cold#commentHere is a nice part:"The public's concern about global warming as a pressing problem is in marked decline not least because of the growing realisation that governments and the international community are ignoring the advice of climate campaigners. Instead, most policy makers around the world refuse to accept any decisions that are likely to harm national interests and economic competitiveness.They are assisted in this policy of benign neglect by a public that has largely become habituated to false alarms and is happy to ignore other claims of environmental catastrophe that are today widely disregarded or seen as scare tactics."Nisbet's intricate mechanisms resolutely avoid facing this reality, and in doing so is left with little meaning.
Weiye Loh

Want people to get on board with a shift to clean energy? Shield them from economic ins... - 0 views

www.grist.org/...eld-them-from-risk-instability

Climate Change Policy Politics Environment

shared by Weiye Loh on 01 May 11 - No Cached
  • The reality is that a bold new energy and climate change policy would inevitably result in dislocations in certain industries and upset long-established ways of life in many regions; in addition, it would lead to higher prices for basic commodities such as gas, home heating oil, and food. In societies where there are strong social safety nets -- universal healthcare, universal preschool, strong support for new parents, significant investments in public transportation, and sustained support for higher education -- the changes wrought by a paradigm shift in energy will tend not to result in hugely destabilizing effects across whole towns and communities. In fact, with good planning and investments in critical infrastructure, strong environmental policies can result in overall improvements in the quality of life for nearly everyone. Throughout much of the developed world, citizens are willing to pay prices for gasoline that would lead to riots in American streets, because they know that the government revenue raised by high gas taxes is used for programs that directly benefit them. In other words, ten-dollar-a-gallon gas isn’t such a big deal when everyone has great healthcare, great public transportation, and free high-quality schooling.
  • Americans are so battered and anxious right now. Median wages are flat, unemployment is high, politics is paralyzed. Middle-class families are one health problem away from ruin, and when they fall, there's no net. That kind of insecurity, as much as anything, explains the American reticence to launch bold new social programs.
  • Michael Levi points to a fantastic piece by Nassim Taleb and Mark Blyth wherein they approach a similar subject from a seemingly contrary angle, arguing that government efforts to suppress social and economic volatility can backfire. Without the experience of adjusting to small shocks as they come, we won't be prepared when the big shocks arrive:
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  • Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks. In fact, they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate beneath the surface. Although the stated intention of political leaders and economic policymakers is to stabilize the system by inhibiting fluctuations, the result tends to be the opposite. These artificially constrained systems become prone to "Black Swans" -- that is, they become extremely vulnerable to large-scale events that lie far from the statistical norm and were largely unpredictable to a given set of observers. Such environments eventually experience massive blowups, catching everyone off-guard and undoing years of stability or, in some cases, ending up far worse than they were in their initial volatile state. Indeed, the longer it takes for the blowup to occur, the worse the resulting harm in both economic and political systems.
  • If a society provides a basic measure of health and economic security for its citizens, its citizens will be more tolerant of a little volatility/risk/ambition in its social and economic policy.
  • This gets at why I think its extremely difficult to reconcile modern-day conservatism and serious efforts to address climate change (and future resource shortages, and other various other sources of long-term risk). The U.S. conservative politic program is devoted to increasing economic and social insecurity for average people and decreasing it for wealthy business owners. That is roughly the opposite of the approach you'd want to take if you want to increase society's resilience to the dangers approaching.
  • Weiye Loh on 01 May 11
     
    First there's this extremely smart piece from economist Jason Scorse. It makes an argument that I wish had gotten much more attention during the fight over the climate bill, to wit: "people are much more willing to support environmental policies that come with large risks and disruptions to their way of life when other policies are in place to shield them from excessive risk and instability."
Weiye Loh

Income inequality: Rich and poor, growing apart | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...income_inequality

Income Inequality Policy Politics

shared by Weiye Loh on 07 May 11 - No Cached
  • THINK income inequality growth is primarily an American phenomenon?  Think again:American society is more unequal than those in most other OECD countries, and growth in inequality there has been relatively large. But with very few exceptions, the rich have done better over the past 30 years, even in highly egalitarian places like Scandinavia.
  • Over the past decades, OECD countries have undergone significant structural changes resulting from their closer integration into a global economy and rapid technological progress. These changes have brought higher rewards for high-skilled workers and thus affected the way earnings from work are distributed. The skills gap in earnings reflects several factors. First, a rapid rise in trade and financial markets integration has generated a relative shift in labour demand in favour of high-skilled workers at the expense of low-skilled labour. Second, technical progress has shifted production technologies in both industries and services in favour of skilled labour...Finally, during the past two decades most OECD countries carried out regulatory reforms to strengthen competition in the markets for goods and services and associated reforms that aimed at making labour markets more adaptable. For instance, anti-competitive product-market regulations were reduced significantly in all countries. Employment protection legislation for workers with temporary contracts also became more lenient in many countries. Minimum wages, relative to average wages, have also declined in a number of countries since the 1980s. Wage-setting mechanisms have also changed; the share of union members among workers has fallen across most countries, although the coverage of collective bargaining has generally remained rather stable over time. In a number of countries, unemployment benefit replacement rates fell, and in an attempt to promote employment among low-skilled workers, taxes on labour for low-income workers were also reduced.
  • It's tempting to look at this list of regulatory changes and argue that it was these rule changes which facilitated growth in inequality. That may be true to some extent, but the unverisality of the reform experience makes me think it's at least as likely that underlying trends (like globalisation and technological change) made the prevailing rules unsustainable.
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  • it's critical to address this issue if popular support for liberal economic activity is to be maintained.
  • Weiye Loh on 07 May 11
     
    while national factors can influence the degree of inequality growth and can mitigate (or not) the negative impacts of that growth, there seem to be broader, global forces pushing inequality up across countries.
Weiye Loh

Singapore M.D.: You CAN put a price on everything... - 0 views

singaporemd.blogspot.com/...n-put-price-on-everything.html

Crime Cost Benefits Governmentality Data Measurement

shared by Weiye Loh on 28 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • The study aims to calculate the costs incurred as a consequence of crime, which includes "monetary loss in traditional terms" and "monetising the loss of life and trauma suffered by victims".Costs of crime prevention and enforcement will also be tallied. The study seeks to find out costs borne by private entities - such as security expenditure and insurance - as well as costs borne by public bodies such as proactive police patrols in anticipation of crime.The police also intend to calculate the costs incurred in response to crime - investigating cases, apprehending suspects as well as the costs expended by the State in prosecuting, convicting and incarcerating suspects.
  • While costs of crime prevention - such as installing alarm systems - and the State's response to crime could be measured, sociologist Paulin Straughan felt it might be "impossible" to measure the social costs of a spate of violence on a community. Social isolation and mistrust from these crimes would impact social capital on a community which would be difficult to estimate, she argued.However, the former Nominated Member of Parliament felt calculating the cost of crime would serve as "a reality check" for any society.
  • "We live in a world that is driven by economics," Associate Professor Straughan said. "We can't understand or appreciate unless it is documented in dollars and cents. So, this is one way of documenting it (crime) in dollars and cents to show you that every burglary cost you this (amount) … and highlight the importance of crime prevention."
  • Weiye Loh on 28 Jun 11
     
    As with healthcare and other valuable services, police work costs money; but as the cost is not borne by the user, the true cost is hidden and abuse occurs. Does this study by the SPF signal a desire on the part of the government to shift the cost of security from the public to the direct consumers? I certainly hope so. Now there will be people who will tell you that you cannot put a price on security (and health) - the truth is, you can: they just don't want to pay for it.
Weiye Loh

Are the Open Data Warriors Fighting for Robin Hood or the Sheriff?: Some Refl... - 0 views

gurstein.wordpress.com/...1-and-the-emerging-data-divide

Open Government Open Data

shared by Weiye Loh on 05 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • The ideal that these nerdy revolutionaries are pursuing is not, as with previous generations—justice, freedom, democracy—rather it is “openness” as in Open Data, Open Information, Open Government. Precisely what is meant by “openness” is never (at least certainly not in the context of this conference) really defined in a form that an outsider could grapple with (and perhaps critique). 
  • the “open data/open government” movement begins from a profoundly political perspective that government is largely ineffective and inefficient (and possibly corrupt) and that it hides that ineffectiveness and inefficiency (and possible corruption) from public scrutiny through lack of transparency in its operations and particularly in denying to the public access to information (data) about its operations.
  • further that this access once available would give citizens the means to hold bureaucrats (and their political masters) accountable for their actions. In doing so it would give these self-same citizens a platform on which to undertake (or at least collaborate with) these bureaucrats in certain key and significant activities—planning, analyzing, budgeting that sort of thing. Moreover through the implementation of processes of crowdsourcing this would also provide the bureaucrats with the overwhelming benefits of having access to and input from the knowledge and wisdom of the broader interested public.
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  • A lot of the conference took place in specialized workshops where the technical details on how to link various sets of this newly available data together with other sets, how to structure this data so that it could serve various purposes and perhaps most importantly how to design the architecture and ontology (ultimately the management policies and procedures) of the data itself within government so that it is “born open” rather than only liberated after the fact with this latter process making the usefulness of the data in the larger world of open and universally accessible data much much greater.
  • t’s the taxpayer’s money and they have the right to participate in overseeing how it is spent. Having “open” access to government’s data/information gives citizens the tools to exercise that right. And (it is argued), solutions are available for putting into the hands of these citizens the means/technical tools for sifting and sorting and making critical analyses of government activities if only the key could be turned and government data was “accessible” (“open”).
  • it matters very much who the (anticipated) user is since what is being put in place are the frameworks for the data environment  of the future and these will include for the most part some assumptions about who the ultimate user is or will be and whether or not a new “data divide” will emerge written more deeply into the fabric of the Information Society than even the earlier “digital (access) divide”.
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