Bad Statistics, Worse Science Writing

As if bad statistics – “bad science” being kind of weak shorthand – wasn’t bad enough in fueling conspiratorial anti-research sentiment (which the Net is teeming with), science-reporting-in-service-of-revenue comes along and makes it all flat out ridiculous.

The scientific validity of the recently-published “QWERTY Effect” – claiming that words implementing letters from the right-hand side of the modern keyboard tend to have a more positive mental association than left-hand words – was demolished within days of its publication. But in that short space of time, science writers vying for attention in a crowded media field really outdid themselves. As Geoffrey Pullum of the Chronicle noted in an article on this issue (also coining the wonderful term, “unresult”):

Publicity for the unresult of their paper in Psychonomics Bulletin and Review has garnered them some appallingly stupid press coverage (“The Keyboards Are Changing Our Language!“; Just Typing ‘LOL’ Makes You Happy“; etc.). The worst I saw was in the Metro, a free tabloid in Britain: “SEX is depressing—but only if you use your left hand,” they began. “Typing letters with your left hand conveys more negative emotions than typing with your right, British and U.S. scientists say.” (The authors say nothing about what “conveys more negative emotions,” of course.) And in conclusion: “despite their meaning, words such as ‘lonely’ cheer us up more than, say, ‘sex’.” (If there was ever a worse example of illicit inference about particular cases from aggregated results, don’t show it to me, I might cry.)

Couldn’t have put it better. Betcha it sold some papers, though!

אוכלוסיית הצפרדעים בלאפלנד (הדרת נשים)

השלב הנוכחי בדיון הציבורי סביב הדרת נשים מלווה במתקפת-נגד של כותבים חרדים וחרד”לניקים, וכן כמה חילונים המכים על חטא. זה אולי הזמן להזכיר שנושא הדיון בהדרת נשים בציבור על ידי החברה החרדית הוא – הדרת נשים בציבור על ידי החברה החרדית. אני מרגיש צורך לציין זאת, כי אחוז גבוה מדי מהמלל מתייחס לדיון פיקטיבי אחר, תחת הכותרת “חילונים או דתיים: מי טובים יותר?”; נושא אבסורדי מיסודו.

חלק גדול ממתקפת הנגד (אין, לצערי, מה להשתמש פה במונח “דיון”) מורכב מטענות מסוג אד הומינם – טיעונים לגופו של אדם. נובע מהן שלא יוכל חילוני לטעון כנגד הפרדה מגדרית באוטובוס ציבורי, אלא אם הוא קודם הוכיח מעבר לכל ספק ש-א) התאור העובדתי גרידא אינו נגוע באיבה שמבעבעת ממש מתחת לפני השטח (מה שמעט קשה להוכחה), ו-ב) שאין בחברה החילונית כל בעיה או פגם.

האמת היא, שגם אם קיים דבר כזה פונדמנטליזם חילוני, גם אם יש חוליים ב”חברה החילונית”, גם אם ניתן לתאר את ייצוג האישה בפרסומות כסוג נוסף של דיכוי נשים, וגם אם בין הצועקים לגבי “הדרת נשים” יש כאלה ששונאים חרדים באשר הם – הדרת נשים מתרחשת, בפועל, ביוזמת חלק ממנהיגי החרדים. זה נכון ללא תלות במידת הרוע או החולי בציבור החילוני, במחזורי הירח, בשער הדולר או באוכלוסיית הצפרדעים בלאפלנד.

R.I.P, Statistical Abstract of the USA

The US Statistical Abstract, published annually since 1878, is being cut from the latest federal budget. I personally think that easy, open access to a wide range of data is quite possibly the single most important service a federal government can provide; everything else is secondary (and hotly debated). This is a terrible mistake, and a real shame.

Robert Samuelson nicely mirrors my thoughts on this here and here. Also check out David Cay Johnston’s somewhat crude but still debate-worthy calculations on this issue, under the title “Budget Cuts That Raise Costs“.

The New Hampshire Poverty Phenomenon… Adjusted

Some good, good friends of mine are moving from Israel to Manchester, New Hampshire. Yep, New Hampshire. Among their factors for choosing this rather eyebrow-raising destination is NH’s economic freedom. My friends are libertarians, so in their world view not only is economic freedom good – a lot of people would agree with that to no small extent – but in fact there’s practically no limit. The more the merrier. And New Hampshire is economically America’s freest state¹. So New Hampshire it is, -11ºC (12ºF) winters and all.

Libertarians have been pouring a lot of love on this otherwise oft-overlooked state (though some gripes remain). New Hampshire’s economic freedom has made it home base for the Free State Project, a libertarian movement calling for 20,000 like-minded folks from around the world to up stakes and move there (if you’re interested, the site explains why). You can kind of get the gist of the sentiment from the state’s official motto: “Live free or die”.

Of particular interest to this blog is the sometimes proud pointing out that the freest state also has the lowest poverty level in the US (although some say this might be changing). Writing on this very issue, Michael Nystrom of the Daily Paul (tagline, “inspired by Ron Paul”), wrote: “Does anyone see a connection?”

On the face of it, this is one hell of a coup for libertarians – seemingly a death-blow to liberal (or other) notions that the lower classes are invariably victims of freer economies. It almost speaks for itself – “See? Free up the economy and it’ll help the poor!”

Well, maybe – but these numbers don’t show it. We have a list of the freest states, as well as one for poverty levels². Here’s the thing – the next freest state, South Dakota, is #26 on the poverty level list, nowhere near NH. But maybe that’s a fluke. Let’s keep going – the 3rd freest state, Indiana, does even worse – #32 on the poverty list. The next freest, Idaho, does better at #12, but then comes Missouri, into the 20′s again at #25. Keep going down the list and, of the top 30 freest states, only 3 crack the top 10 lowest poverty rates (besides NH, none of these make the top 5). When Nystrom asked his presumably rhetorical question – implying to the reader that NH’s economic freedom is somehow linked with lower poverty levels – He might have checked if this connection holds with the other states before asking it. A simple statistical test across states shows that the correlation is effectively zero³ (and if anything just the tiniest bit negative).

Does this mean economic policy has no effect on poverty? Of course not. Only that deriving any meaning from these two sets of figures is invalid. If you’re going to trump two statistics that look really nice, intellectual rigor requires you put your numbers where your mouth is, and in this case the link just doesn’t hold.

So where does all this leave NH? Well, besides a huge dollop of freedom, there’s something else New Hampshire has a lot of – Caucasians. In fact, New Hampshire is the 4th “whitest” state, with only 7.7% of all minorities combined, placing it in the 6th percentile. Just to give you an idea of how low that is, 40 states have more than double – and 30 more than triple – that percentage. in fact, the national state average is nearly four times the New Hampshire percentage of minorities. Things aren’t much better when it comes specifically to African-Americans: at 1.2%, NH has the 6th fewest of the states, placing it in the 12th percentile. Once again, 40 states have more than double their percentage, and fully half the states have more than 6 times that percentage. You don’t even want to know how many times that the national average is (8.7). (If I may brag, I didn’t get all this from any article, etc., but rather sat down and calculated everything using data from the 2010 US census.)

But do minorities and/or specifically African-American percentages correlate with poverty rates? Well, whole volumes have been written on this topic, but even from a cursory analysis of these three datasets, the answer for both is yes⁴. This means that when it comes to poverty rates, simply having minority populations will, all else being equal, skew the numbers upwards. It’s important to say – lest I be misunderstood – that this in no way means minority populations are necessarily a cause of poverty (remember that old adage “correlation doesn’t imply causation”). All it means is that in order to gauge whether economic policy affects the poverty levels across states, you have to adjust for factors that correlate with poverty but don’t in themselves stem from such policies – and minority makeup is such a factor.

So the question now becomes, how does NH perform compared to its expected poverty rate when adjusted for minority size? The short answer is: subject to an important caveat (specified below, for the statistically minded) NH’s performance falls to #13. Not bad, but combined with the poor predictive powers of the economic freedom rankings, not enough to serve as rigorous proof that economic freedom alone brings low poverty levels.

[The caveat: First, one can't factor separately for "minorities" and "AAs", since one includes the other. So I ran the numbers, and found quite an impressive correlation between both African-American and Hispanic populations, and poverty, in states that have any minorities to speak of. The states that have very few lose this statistical connection, presumably because when you're down to the 1-3% levels of minorities, there's only so much they can mathematically still "explain"). So one can't make a perfect adjustment. However, in comparing NH to other states, adjusted for the relationship seen in the top 20 states by combined AA and hispanic population, it was #13 in poverty levels.]

Thanks, Liz, for giving me the idea to pursue this thread.

¹ according to the libertarian George Mason University.

² freedom and poverty rankings are both current. Ideally, to check a causal connection one would have to check for freedom a few years back, to see their effect on poverty today. However, 1) I didn’t have the time to start carrying out more complex causal chain models, 2) this isn’t a professional analysis, and so I just assumed ad-hoc today’s freedom level correlates closely enough with those of a few years ago, and 3) those referenced above haven’t taken this into account either.

³ Spearman rank correlation coefficient -0.057. There are different schools on interpreting when the Spearman coefficient means there’s a correlation, but the most permissive start considering a “moderate correlation” from +/- 0.3 (others only from +/- 0.5). Either way, this isn’t even close.

⁴ Pearson coefficient +0.34 and  +0.44 for minorities and for African-Americans, respectively. Why are you reading this? Nerds…

The Proper Use of Violence

There’s a right way and a wrong way to use violence.

…I refer, of course, to the word in the English language. “Violence” has joined a long list of words hijacked for purposes of argumentative rhetoric, selectively misapplied in order to take advantage of their negative (or positive) emotional associations, removing us one step further from constructive debate. Thus, for instance, meat is “murder” (as that Smiths song goes), maternity leave is “socialism“, Israel is a “colonialist power”, and taxation is “violent“.

This last example, especially popular among libertarians, refers to the fact that taxpayers, well, taxpay quite reluctantly (to say the least), without having free choice in the matter. libertarians’ negative view of this state of affairs comes as part of a larger worldview that is especially abhorrent of any kind of involuntary action (in the 2nd dictionary sense). While perfectly legitimate as such, some proponents of this viewpoint nevertheless distort(2) language when insisting to misconstrue taxation as “violent”.

Consider the following nuances of definition:

Force¹ – v. [with obj.] – ⑵ make (someone) do something against their will.

Coerce – v. [with obj.] – persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats.

Violent – adj. – ⑴ using or involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.

- from the New Oxford American Dictionary, 3rd ed., also at oxforddictionaries.com

Presumably even the most freedom-loving individual can find in the first two words a negative enough association to attach to taxation – while still presenting a reasonably true description. Most taxpayers are indeed forced to pay, one might argue that they are coerced. but where is the direct, physical, club-on-head action in taxation?

“Ah,” replies the well-versed libertarian, “but taxation most certainly is violence. If you avoid paying taxes long enough, men with guns (MWG) will come to your house and exhibit all sorts of behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something!”

I’ll get to the main problem with this in a moment. On a side note, I’d argue that the above generalization is a bit of a stretch: how many tax evaders (and minor law offenders) get away with a slap on the wrist – or less – every day? Also, libertarians often downplay the fact that they endorse this kind of ultimate threat of “violence” for purposes they do support, like law enforcement (however minimal), military defense, and defense of private property rights; I have yet to hear a libertarian bemoan how, in a libertarian society, all of these would be backed by their version of “violence”.

But all of this is debatable, and secondary. The main problem is that even if the MWG scenario were true, using the word “violence” this way equates a potential outcome, when exacerbated to an extreme¹, with the state being discussed. (This is a line of argument I’ve mentioned before.) Unless that’s already in the definition of the word, it is an error to use it as such. X isn’t Y just because it might come to be Y. By the same logic, any assembly of people is a riotous coup (a pet argument of libertarians), not eating is the same as starvation, and annoying someone is the same as being killed by them in a fit of rage.

Thus, if one insists on invoking violence towards taxation, the closest one can get is to say that taxation is backed by the threat of violence. And there’s already a perfectly good word for that – coercion. Even here, I would argue it remains to be demonstrated categorically that in the event of serial tax evasion, the taxation Men With Guns – who presumably would come banging on the evader’s door – would in fact intend to hurt, damage, or kill someone and not, say, carry out economic sanctions (like foreclosure), or arrest him – without intent to hurt anyone. (That police violence occurs doesn’t prove this.) But again, that’s debatable, and one needn’t agree with it to accept my central argument. Taxation “is” no more violent than private property “is” violent.

None of this is to say there’s no room to criticize, analyze, or reassess taxation. But the discussion would be much more effective without the red herring of misleading terminology.

A word on the definitions: I’m big on the New Oxford American Dictionary, but lest I appear to have favored a particular definition for its convenience, here are a few more dictionary entries for “violence”. You’ll notice how all of them refer to the actual act of physical force – not a potential threat of using it, however inescapably, somewhere down the road – and state a physically destructive intent, rather than purposes such as tax collection.

Violence – n. -

Involving the use of physical force, with the deliberate intention of causing damage to property or injury or death to people.

(Macmillan Dictionary)

The use of physical force, usually intended to cause injury or destruction.

(Collins English Dictionary)

Physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing.

(American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

Physical force used so as to injure, damage, or destroy; extreme roughness of action.

(Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4^th ed.)

¹ Ironically, the slippery slope argument is a favorite of libertarian nemeses – dogmatic, social-justice moralizers.

Factpinion: “Regular” Economics as Euclidean Geometry

For 2000 years or so, Euclid’s system of geometry was geometry. There was no other system around, and no good reason to doubt its veracity. It had the infallibility of mathematical proofs – as final as “1+1=2″ – with the added bonus that it wasn’t only an idea on paper, but also referred to direct physical phenomena in (and for) our world. It consisted of logically impeccable proofs, leading any right-minded individual to conclude that, quite simply, there is nothing more to be said on the matter. But with the advancement of various non-Euclidean forms of geometry in the last 200 years or so, while Euclidean geometry hasn’t exactly been disproved or dismissed, it certainly has been shown to be inaccurate or fundamentally limited when describing the real world.

I think so-called “neoclassical” economics is the econ equivalent of Euclidean geometry. The traditional base for economics makes some basic, fairly sensible assumptions about matter, production, and human nature, and proceeds to develop a complete science from it. For a certain kind of person, it’s extremely satisfying in its careful, methodical advance from a simple, almost one-celled economic model to an entire system that, on the face of it, seems to be very close to ours. Moreover, in its ostensible ability to neatly and concisely explain certain phenomena that may have otherwise seemed impossibly complex to untangle, it has created its fair share of True Believers; people whose eyes have been opened, and who now see everything through the particular prism of this model. As an Econ major who studied with some of these people for 3 years, I can attest that that wonderful phrase “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” fits them perfectly.

The neoclassical economics offers much for us to learn, but when it comes to its interaction with the real world, there are warps, often significant warps, both in its descriptive ability – to accurately explain what is happening – and in its normative capacity – to convey to us what ought to be done. In many respects, it amounts to armchair philosophy. Merely making a succession of seemingly solid, common-sense assumptions and deductions, and then proceeding to assert that this is how the world works, doesn’t fly. The complexity of the system as a whole, as well as that of the individual human animal (as well as firms, governments, etc.), means that results will sometimes fly contrary to what an intellectual act of solid deduction might tell us.

So what should be done? Well, Karl Popper’s quote in the last post below put it about as well as I could hope: Be humble about this. Continue revising (and even discarding, if need be) our conjectures, and test, test, test, using the enormous – and growing – amount of data and computing power at our disposal. Most importantly, we need to retain what Popper referred to as the “critical attitude” (also described in the same quote below).

The significant advances, especially over the last 40 years, in statistical and data analysis techniques, in research on human psychology and choice theory, game theory, information asymmetries, irrationality, etc. have greatly expanded our analytical tool box. If one chooses to ignore these facets – as many continue to do across the economic spectrum, and in popular discussion – one will invoke a Lego-type world, not the real one.

Factpinions Quote #6: Popper on the Self-Affirming Theory

Karl Popper, one of the great thinkers of the 20th century, is known for his influential philosophy of knowledge. Popper rejects the notion of a manifest truth, suggesting rather that our knowledge can only progress via a series of rigidly criticized – and tested – conjectures; essentially, by trial and error. In describing various self-affirming explanations – still abundant today – he wrote [stresses are Popper's]:

“Once your eyes were [..] opened you saw confirming instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refused to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still ‘un-analysed’ and crying out for treatment. [..]“

“[T]he dogmatic attitude is clearly related to the tendency to verify our laws and schemata by seeking to apply them and to confirm them, even to the point of neglecting refutations, whereas the critical attitude is one of readiness to change them – to test them; to refute them; to falsify them, if possible.”

- Conjectures and Refutations, pp. 45, 66.

Factpinions Quote #5: Aristotle on Seeing Both Sides of the Question

In Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, he wrote this pearl – as true today as it was 2300 years ago:

“We must be able to employ persuasion – just as strict reasoning can be employed – on opposite sides of a question, not in order that we may in practice employ it in both ways (for we must not make people believe what is wrong), but in order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and that, if another man argues unfairly, we on our part may be able to confute him.”

- Aristotle, On Rhetoric I, 1, ca. 322 B.C., OUP 1954 edition.

ציטוט עובדעות #4: הפוליטיזציה של… הכל

אתר לאטמה פוליטי ברובו הגדול, זה לא סוד, אבל מגיע להם כבוד על היושר האינטלקטואלי שבכתבה “הכל משתעבד לנקודת המוצא“.  על הפוליטיזציה שחדרה כיום לכל אקט, מעשה, תופעה או עמדה, כבר עמד בשנות ה-50′ יהושע בר-יוסף, בכתבה ב”מעריב”. כפי שהוא כתב שם, ארעה

“פוליטיזציה מוחלטת של חיי האזרח. שוב אין סומכים על כח שיפוטו של האדם הפשוט. מסבירים לו הכל, אפילו את השלג דאשתקד, בצורה שלא יבוא חס-ושלום לידי ניע-מחשבה של עצמו. [..] הטוטאליות, שהיא ביסודה ניגוד מוחלט לאורח המחשבה הדמוקרטית [..] הורסת בעצם מהותה את טעם המשטר הדמוקרטי ואת חופש המחשבה.”"

Factpinions Quote #3: Will Durant on Pessimism

In The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant delivers his (otherwise respectful) criticism of the great pessimistic determinist, Arthur Schopenhauer:

“There is, of course, a large element of egotism in pessimism: the world is not good enough for us, and we turn up our philosophic noses at it. But this is to forget Spinoza’s lesson, that our terms of moral censure and approbation are merely human judgments, mostly irrelevant when applied to the cosmos as a whole. Perhaps our supercilious disgust with existence is a cover for a secret disgust with ourselves: we have botched and bungled our lives, and we cast the blame upon the “environment,” or the “world,” which have no tongues to utter a defense. The mature man accepts the natural limitations of life [..] In truth the world is neither with us or against us; it is but raw material in our hands, and can be heaven or hell according to what we are.”