Freewheel Burning

How did I miss this moron? Satoshi Kanazawa, a Tokyo born academic at the London School of Economics, inexplicably earned his PhD at the University of Arizona. Now, he spends his time publishing papers on why Africans are a) ugly and b) stupid. Recently, Psychology Today’s editors slept on the job and even gave him a forum with which to spread his idiotic, racist research, which is of a statistical quality one might expect more of college freshmen than PhD’s at a respectable institution.

While I am late in jumping on this liberal bandwagon (call me what you will), the crux of his latest piece of nonsense is this: Black women are more unattractive than anyone else in the world, yet mistakenly believe that they are the most attractive. Kanazawa, using zero evidence, confidently claims that this is because women of African (read Sub-Saharan, err black) descent have higher levels of testosterone, and thus are more masculine in appearance.

Please. Aside from the incredible difficulties of assigning race, and the massive genetic variation that exists in every method of partitioning humanity, we must ask, has this man ever been to Africa? Satoshi reminds me of my drunken 55 year old racist english conversation students that I used to teach in Japan, who enjoyed ignorantly pigeonholing the world’s vast collection of geographic regions, peoples, cultures and individuals into three nice and convenient categories. His command of written English is about as proficient. Actually, he would do well in racist circles in any part of the globe.

One is free to find a particular type of person attractive or unattractive, but besides the incredible methodological difficulties in assigned groups and measuring “attractiveness,” we have to ask, what is the value of this research?

Fortunately, many, including Scientific American, have stepped up to debunk his methods and you can read about them here.

A couple of years ago, my graduate school financial support was working at the Center for Statistical Consultation and Research (CSCAR) at the Univ. of Michigan. In that time, it was fascinating to see that English departments had caught up with the world and started taking advantage of our now vast computing resources to mine thousands of years worth of written work. Researchers can now get amazing insights into the development of language, cultural trends and the evolution of social attitudes and historical change.

Google Books has managed to digitize nearly 11% of all the world’s written work. Assuming that World War III doesn’t break out and decimate the world wide web and that which powers it, they might be able to get to at least 50% by the end of my lifetime. Fortunately, they’ve put all their scanned text into a database and made it publicly available.

The Ngram Viewer tracks the percentage of times a word or word sequence is mentioned relative to the entire body of scanned literature.

I just spent five minutes playing with it, and found that, God was really big in the 16th and 17th centuries, but His almighty popularity has waned. Now, the all powerful deity must compete with “War”. God and war still outpace science in the English language press, but we appear to be gaining ground against sex! Belief in fantasy figures and killing far outpaces procreation and rational thought. Josef Stalin and Santa Claus beat Hugh Hefner and Darwin.

For the past three years, I’ve made it a point to go the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science Conference (SACNAS). SACNAS is an organization devoted to encouraging minority students to pursue graduate education and careers in science. Although I am likely well beyond the targeted age demographic, it’s a really great time to hang out and talk with younger kids embarking on careers in science; kids who are largely the first members of their family to graduate high school, let alone go to University. More or less, many of these hard working and excellent kids aren’t much different than me. I go to a few conferences every year, and find that most are filled with the typical one-upmanship and grandstanding that you would expect in the science world. SACNAS on the other hand, with its emphasis on younger scientists, is entirely laid back. It’s incredible to meet faculty and working scientists in an environment outside their element.

This time, I was able to present a poster of a project that I’ve been working on. While the poster was nothing to get excited about, one of my judges, a Chicano gentleman from New Mexico State, and I must have talked for more than a half an hour about the importance of science as a tool to make the world a better place. After more than a half an hour of explaining how my research could be used to influence health policy to more efficiently deliver health services to isolated and at risk populations, the gentleman teared up and gave me a huge bear hug. It was incredible and completely out of my academic experience at the U of M, where more often than not, it seems that making a name for yourself and keeping the economics of science moving is priority one.

To hell with that. Science is at its core subversive. It’s about shaking up preconceived notions of the world. All the way back to when Galileo disrupted the hegemony of the church by simply pointing out the world rotated around the sun. Now, with the world facing a litany of problems and challenges, the likes of which humanity has never seen, our voices are more important than ever.

Organizations like SACNAS encourage the perfect demographic to contribute to science. People who understand what the poor and marginalized experience. People who have just enough conscience to contribute to the betterment of the world and people who think in a unique enough fashion to avoid all the pitfalls of trendy scientific thinking and contribute exciting and original ideas.

My jaw dropped when I saw the contents of the Repuglican party’s revamped, 2010 version of the 1994 Contract on America. For those too young or those who were politically asleep in 1994, the Contract With America was a 10 point policy shopping list of what the Republican Party planned to implement during the next Congress. It was a sweeping document that including smoky promises of “fiscal responsibility” (we know how that turned out), a bolstering of law enforcement initiatives aimed at incarcerating and killing African American men, and the cutting of welfare programs in order to discourage black women from having babies, all the while giving tax breaks to white land and business owners in the name of “economic development”. In short, it was angry white people speaking out, desperately hoping to hold on to power in a country suffering under the thumb of out of control, dangerous and parasitic minorities and educated, atheistic liberals trying to enforce their anti-Jesus, pro-gay agenda. Liberals who wished to turn America into a vice filled cesspool akin to the Biblical Sodom and Gommorah. In short, not much different than anything we have today.

In the new version, what we get are the typical talking points of tax breaks for white people and a reining in of government spending, an end to TARP payments, bigoted social points relating to “traditional marriage”, anti-woman “life” measures and a bizarre condition that all bills presented by Congress have a Constitutional seal of approval, as if that wasn’t already the job of the Supreme Court. Buried in the text of this FOX News inspired treatise, is a hiring freeze on all new non-security federal employees. While I am sure that the employees of the Virginia hardware store where this was unveiled are thinking that this means that the feds will stop hiring black people and mexicans to work on the highways, what it really means is that the brightest and most productive members of American society will, for the time being, not have the option of entering public service. For example, American public health students will no longer need to apply for jobs at the Center for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USAID, or the NIAID .

Statisticians and trained scientists no longer need to bother applying to the Environmental Protection Agency, the US Department of Agriculture, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the Census Bureau, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US Department of Transportation, the Government Accountability Office or any other governmental agencies which help maintain and protect America’s infrastructure. Educated and experienced people who entered their respective academic fields in the hopes of entering the public sector and serving the greater good, need not look to the American government. Rather, they should get a job in the military, which is not such a bad gig but useless for domestic issues, or working the cash register at the local hardware store (not a bad gig, but a waste of a degree). It’s obvious that Republicans don’t believe that non-security agencies actually provide a worthwhile service. In fact, its pretty clear that they just don’t believe in government, which explains why they run it so badly.

The Republicans, while spewing talking points of economic development and tax breaks, have proven themselves over and over again to have incredible disdain for the educated. They, in their rhetoric, have done nothing less than vilify scientific research and knowledge. Only one of the Senate candidates believes that climate change is real. All of the new candidates spew excuses for blocking environmental policy as if they were experts, while not being able to digest even basic scientific thought. Note Rand Paul’s recent comparison of climate scientists to Osama Bin laden:

“Now Osama bin Laden had a quote yesterday. He’s says he’s after the climate change as well. It’s a bigger issue, we need to watch ‘em. Not only because it may or may not be true, but they’re making up their facts to fit their conclusions. They’ve already caught ‘em doing this.” [Rand Paul, 2/4/10]

Their new policies, while one the surface may appear to aim to cut spending and rein in debt, result in nothing more than closing the door on the educated, revealing yet another nail in the coffin for American science, hammered down by a dimwitted sector of the populace which would rather believe that humans rode dinosaurs and encourage large businesses to pollute than create a responsible and competitive society. Hiring freezes on services that the private sector can adequately provide may be in order, but the blanket wording of the Repug’s new Contract suggests grave implications in the shrinking of the American brain pool, arguably, our greatest resource. Note that all of the agencies I mentioned previously provide services that the private sector cannot responsibly perform. Blocking the hiring of young, talented, willing and qualified individuals from entering these important organizations will have implications that could extend for decades. Vote in November, someone’s job may count on it. Our future may count on it.

I just got back from this year’s Wege lecture on sustainability that featured John P. Holdren, “Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.” He laid out the numerous initiatives being forwarded by the Obama administration, including energy policy, science and math education, technology development and funding for scientific research in all fields. I was impressed and relieved to hear about the expansion of governmental support for science and technology development in the US under the present administration, noting that, not in years have I heard a White House representative speak plainly and frankly of the need for climate research and the development of sustainable energy resources. I’ve been numbed by the 8 years we spent under the Bush admin, which touted pseudoscience, political hegemony and a general disregard and distrust  in the ability of Americans to develop competitive scientific research. While I realize that Mr. Holdren’s speech will certainly bias in favor of PR for the White House, the basic message was impressive and I realize how utterly cynical and ugly American politics have become. I also reflected on the American right’s successful poisoning of the most forward thinking and positive executive administration we’ve have in decades, a poisoning that has crept into every facet of political discourse on any side of the aisle.

It is quite easy to chide policy makers as self serving representatives of the upper class, beholden to conspiratory corporate interests. Truthfully, it is too easy. The current administration seeks to gain nothing financially from it’s support of science and technology, and stands to lose much politically, particularly in the face of the current health bill. However, sending an obviously dedicated proponent of the sciences to frankly speak of members of Congress who believe in unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and Biblical pseudo-science in front of an audience of 500 at a major university takes a certain amount of gusto. Politics is no easy business. There are trades of costs and benefits to every decision and a public which would rather hear about failures over successes. I believe that the Obama admin has a lot of hurdles to overcome, but given the make up of Obama’s handpicked advisory groups, I am proud to have voted for the man. The current admin is not perfect, but then no administration can be, given all of the things that everyone wishes it were. However, given the alternatives,, and given the wide spread insanity and corruption of the Bush Administration, I think that we can safely say that the Obama admin is a step above, and is an admin willing to listen to the ideas of the science community.

After a brief lecture outlining the efforts of the Obama administration, there were a number of questions from audience memebers. The very first question was from a likely well-meaning student, who attempted to throw a fast one at the White House by pointedly asking Mr. Holdren why the administration has chosen to support “clean coal” initiatives in its energy policy. Holdren responded by stating that there was no such thing as clean coal, but that there was such a thing as cleaner coal. Given that half of all energy in the US derives from coal sources, we have no choice but to pursue technologies which emit less pollutants and do less harm to the environment as a result of mining. The exchange was telling to me. All too often, the left operates in a black and white world or good guys and bad guys, while failing to contemplate the nuances, realities and complexities of American society. Mr. Holdren was very correct in his response to a less than eloquent pro-lifer regarding the expansion of stem cell lines that has occurred under the present admin. Nothing any administration will ever do will make every person happy, but that they do the best they can, given the circumstances. Administrations can listen, but it is patently impossible to satisfy the demands of every special interest.

I wish my son could have been present at the lecture. I think it would have been educational for him, as he is stuck, as most young people inevitably and respectably are, in a world of cops and robbers, where problems are solved by pseudo-violence and the suppression of sectors of society and the world that they dislike. He, of course, may read this and take issue, and that is fine, but in this respect I find that the youthful left is as guilty as the fundamentalist right in their inability to listen to the ideas of many persons, and to confront realities and facts which they may dislike. It was refreshing to hear Mr. Holdren, who clearly represents a particular political slant that I agree with, but who appears to take a realistic view on what may or may not be possible in the present political and economic climate.

An interesting article by Mr. Holdren:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5862/424

In trying to decide what courses to take next semester, I did some exploring on complex systems modeling. I created a lame model of two distinct classes of people (or things) who have a certain dislike for one another and prefer to be surrounded with a certain number of like individuals within an arbitrary radius. An distributed number of individuals of both categories are initially randomly placed on a grid. Each individual then scans the area of certain radius around them, figures the percentage of individuals like them relative to the total number of individuals within the scan radius, then makes a decision to move based on an arbitrary threshold. The individual them moves to some randomly chosen open space on the grid within a certain move radius.

I am assuming that the model represents to distinguishable groups who have some dislike for one another. Consider African Americans and white people, Hutus and Tutsis, poor people and rich people, Republicans and Democrats, etc. Upon seeing that an unacceptable percentage of the people around them are of the other category, they then can only move within a certain distance, assuming that resources are limited or moving too far will remove them from some desirable geographic proximity to work, resources, etc.

The model is quite simple, but the results are rather interesting. First we start with a 100 x 100 grid, yielding 10,000 possible occupable spaces. We assume 5000 total individuals, and a 50/50 distribution of each group. Placing them randomly, we obtain an initial grid that looks something like this:

Blue represents an unoccupied space, and yellow and red represent spaces occupied by one of the groups.

I started by assuming that individuals would not tolerate any less than 50 percent representation of their group within a radius of 10 squares. If they happen to occupy a square where the percentage of their own group compared to the total number of individuals within 10 squares is less than 50 percent, they will move to a randomly selected open square somewhere within a 20 square radius of their present position. I repeat this process 25 times. At the end, we see that even after 25 steps, people have already formed segregated clusters of individuals that are not necessarily contiguous. In fact, the entire grid is completely segregated after a mere 10 steps:

Adjusting the parameters a bit, we increase the percentage that people will tolerate to 80%. We can see that given a higher level of “racism” and a dense population, groups have a more difficult time clustering and are thus relegated to a life of constant movement and avoidance, with no resolve. I found this behavior to be true given a smaller population, and even a wider radius of movement. Given a higly level of intolerance for the other group, individuals have a difficult time forming clusters but there is little stability.

Assuming a high tolerance for the other group, leads to the opposite effect, leaving more individuals happy with their present position and less willing to move. This leads to high stability and less segregation, as one would expect.

The “sweet spot” for total segregation appeared to be approximately 50% tolerance. Individuals are happy as long as they make up 50% of the community, but this level of tolerance leads to the highest level of segregation overall. It is assumed that if an individual were to randomly move to an area occupied by the other group, they would immediately move as they felt overwhelmed by the presence of a majority that consisted of individuals of a group other than their own.

I also ran a model assuming that one group only made up for a quarter of the overall population and a moderate level of racism. The results were interesting. The minority group was forced to maintain a nomadic existence while the majority group hardly moved at all. When adjusting for extreme levels of racism, the majority group clusters almost immediately and the whole grid basically becomes a segregated urban area after approximately 25 steps. I call this the Jackson, Mississippi model.

My conclusions were simple and expected, but I was surprised that even this simple model was able to bear them out. High levels of racism lead to high levels of instability but low clustering due to the random nature of movement in the model. Low levels of racism lead to low clustering, but high stability of movement. Moderate levels of racism that we likely see within the US, lead to high levels of segregation and clustering with high levels of stability as people, once they have clustered are unlikely to leave what they consider to be a favorable situation. When creating a less than even distribution of groups, the minority group must maintain a nomadic state of existence, while the majority group remains fixed. Having a high level of racism under these conditions, creates a segregated society as seen above demonstrating the interplay between racist attitudes and imbalance in group representation.

Found this on CNN today:

“Mr. McCain has also criticized Mr. Obama’s economic-stimulus plan, saying it has led to wasteful spending. He noted that universities in his home state of Arizona had received stimulus funding to study the division of labor in ant colonies.

“I had no idea so much expertise regarding ants resided in the major universities of my state,” he told reporters at a press conference Tuesday.”

This guy is pathetic. I suppose the only proper uses of money are billions spent on McCain’s cronies. Here’s the research project in question, which McCain surely has not read anything about:

http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/3/567

Idiot McCain presents an embarassing document (http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=a28a4590-10ac-4dc1-bd97-df57b39ed872) of what he deems to be “wasteful spending” and inserts this quip:

“Over the past ten years, the national debt more than doubled as Congress went on a spending spree—and yet we still find ourselves in the midst of an economic downturn.”

I guess he forgot that we had a Republican controlled executive AND Congress for most of those 10 years.

I challenge McCain and Coburn to go and talk to every single one of the people who applied for these grants. Specifically, McCain should get off his lazy ass and go down the street and talked to ASU and let them know how many graduate students they were able to keep on the rolls, and how the insertion of funds in a bad economy can keep the U from laying off support staff, or raising tuition to pay for infrastructure maintenance. Clearly, McCain and Coburn know more about blowing smoke out of their collective asses to appeal to bitter old white guys than they do about the groups of people who rely on these grants and the people who are able to have jobs thanks to them.

By now, most everyone has heard of the scandal produce by the illegal break in and publication of private email contained on mail servers at the East Anglia Climate Research unit. In these stolen emails, there exist the childish banter that goes on between colleagues of any occupation, that hopefully are separate from public, and more internally regulated, activities. Yet, in more than 1000 emails, we get a few sound bites that supposedly indicate that scientists at the EACRU attempted to obfuscate or falsify results that could indicate that man’s connection to climate change worldwide.

Make it known, that I am highly skeptical that there is any sort of scandal here and beg that someone ask the question as to who staged the break in of private servers and to what end these mails were edited and disseminated on the internet for public viewing. I would also hope and assume that of the multiple publications listed on Phil Jones’ website, at least one would have been noted in the review process to contain suspicious results, assuming that wrongdoing truly occurred. What disturbs me here is not the content of the mail themselves, nor the possibility of wrongdoing, but the reaction of a public at large that the trend toward a climate that rejects and disparages scientists and scientific results.

Recently, I read the “Age of American Unreason” by Susan Jacoby. While I do not necessarily agree with many points in her book , I do agree that the American populace overwhelmingly chooses to steadfastly maintain a status quo of unverifiable claims, fantasies tales of spirits, luck, coincidence and magical fantasies and a celebration of ignorance all the while claiming to have the answers for everything through the power of “folksy common sense”, whatever that is. It seems that every time I read the news, every single American is a qualified economist, a doctor, an epidemiologist, a military expert and an authority on history and theology but the people who are qualified in these fields are maligned as evil, conspiratorial enemies of humanity who are, in no certain terms, to be trusted. This East Anglia debacle along with the absurd conspiratorial nonsense spread about the H1N1 vaccine surely unveils more about the state of the education level of the public and it’s propensity to believe fantasies rather than facts. than anything else.

It is my opinion, that at no time in American history has the general public ever been more anti-science. During the 2008 presidential election, I can clearly recall the endless statements by politicians regarding the waste in scientific spending. Specifically, I can remember Sarah Palin’s rant against “fruit fly research in France”, all the while ignoring that the research itself was performed in conjunction with grape farmers in California dealing with falling profits from an infestation of fruit flys, a variety of which is similar to that which has been afflicting farmers in France as well. So stupid. Way to go Palin, pro business, but anti science, even when it seeks to protect important sectors of our local economies.

I believe the politicization of science to be a bad thing. Hence, the level of involvement and passion amongst climate related scientists in the public foray. politics in science inevitably leads to a desire to make statements in a manner such that support the claims to be made, and to downplay the details and uncertainties. The public does not deal with that which we scientists deal with on a daily basis, namely that the uncertainty is what drives us in this field. Withoutt the uncertainty, we would no longer be necessary and the constant checking and rechecking that is the norm in the world of scientific publication would no longer be required. Fortunately, policy does not work in this manner for if it did, nothing would get accomplished.

Now, what was I talking about?