http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/02/world-of-difference-richard-lynn-maps.php#2.01
The link is to a lengthy review of a book called Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. I have not read the book, but the reviewer (Malloy) seems a better scholar than the author (Lynn). The main advantage I might derive from looking through the book would be a clearer estimate of the quality of the studies on which the book is based. Distinguishing valid from invalid studies is necessary for scientific progress in any field.
The most obvious and one of the most important points of superiority Malloy evinces over the author is in his discussion of IQ difference between American whites and blacks. It has run at about 15-17 points consistently among various IQ tests and over the course of decades since first tested during World War I. This is roughly a standard deviation. Its real world effects are seen most clearly in differential academic performance, which are more pronounced even than the IQ difference itself (the anti-intellectualism of black American culture and the greater prevalence of poverty among blacks exacerbating the deficit). Thus, this issue is of consequence to America. But, it has, as well, major ramifications for black Africa. Finding the cause ought therefore to be a priority, since it may be remediable. Lynn apparently claims the black American IQ deficit is entirely due to genetics. As Malloy points out (facts well-known to me), there are several environmental factors that may be more detrimental to blacks than whites. He mentions low rates of breast-feeding among blacks compared to whites--studies have shown that more breast-feeding reliably increases intelligence by a few points. I would also note that blacks experience higher lead exposure, which limits IQ potential. Though there is some interesting evidence for Lynn's pure genetics claim (especially the very limited range of black IQ found in various developed nations--average IQs range from 83 to 87 among American, Canadian, Dutch, and British blacks), nevertheless the counterevidence I just mentioned, when added to our imperfect understanding of the environmental determinants of IQ, ought to extinguish his certainty. As I said in a previous post, the science currently points to a combination of nature and nurture as the explanation.
Even Lynn concedes that black Africans, with IQs averaging 67, suffer severe effects from a harsh environment--he calculates the environment costs them 13 points. For those of us who estimate the genetic potential of blacks as higher than 80, as I do and Malloy appears to, the cost is even more brutal. I would estimate it at 18 points. But, whether it amounts to 13 or 18 points, it's a terrible toll. The link between the development of a modern civilization and the average IQ of the population seems a matter of mere common sense. Play out the African bell curve and you find that only 2% of Africans have IQs over 97. In the modern world there are an awful lot of vital things people with sub-97 IQs cannot do--engineering, management of businesses and governments and militaries, programming, entrepreneurship, much of banking and finance, much of medicine, etc. Lynn wrote a useful book on this issue called IQ and the Wealth of Nations. I am disgusted by the ignorance and hypocrisy of those who dismiss the international importance of IQ. Almost every problem poor nations face could be solved by development--but this requires intelligence--sine qua non. The "Wealth of Nations" book has, however, had some influence, as Malloy reminds us: "the 'Copenhagen Consensus', ranked improving micronutrient levels as the second most important action to help the developing world. The impact of nutrition on intelligence was a prominent part of their argument, with 54 references to the word 'cognitive' and 10 references to 'IQ' (Jones 2005)."
As to the evolutionary theory Lynn presents for racial IQ differences, his idea is that people who evolved in the last two ice ages at a higher latitude evolved higher intelligence as a necessary adaptation to a harsher environment. The evolutionary logic is clear, but more evidence is needed. I was surprised by a powerful correlation that Malloy notes: "skin pigmentation (mostly a record of evolutionary latitude according to recent evidence) has a very strong correlation with intelligence, .92." This is shocking. On the other hand, one might wonder whether the poverty and malnutrition prevalent among the darker races in their tropical climes constitutes a cause or a result of low IQ. I suspect both, that is, a low IQ causes a poor environment which contributes to low IQ--a vicious circle, in effect.
I enjoy making educated guesses. They involve the mind in such challenges as absorbing new information, ordering and organizing it, identifying biases in the information and in one's mind, deducing the completeness of the information. I think Lynn's theory is correct, that there is a cline of intelligence influenced by the latitude at which evolution occurred--but, I also think there are other genetic factors in racial differences and highly significant environmental differences. The main point of this whole investigation is to find out what are the environmental factors in IQ--finding the genetic factors is useful only to that end, since we are not yet in a position to modify genes. The maximum of racial IQ differences (eg, NE Asian vs black African) seems to be 20-25 points under equalized developmental conditions. It may be lower than that. I posit that a twenty point difference between societies constitutes a difference in kind, not of degree. For example, comparing a healthy black African society with an average IQ of 80 and a European society with an average IQ of 100 (presuming racial homogeneity in each), one discovers that in the IQ range of 130+ which is a precondition for technical innovation the Africans would be outnumbered by a ratio of at least 70 to 1. They would be outgunned in many other fields as well: commercial competition, scientific research, espionage--but, almost every aspect of modern society is dependent upon the intelligence of its members. See: http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatters.pdf
Also, there may be numerically small groups who make exceptions to this limit. For example, Ashkenazi Jews have IQs estimated anywhere from 103 to 115 under developed conditions. African Bushmen and Australian Aborigines are about 54 and 62 under undeveloped conditions. Under equal conditions these relatively small groups might still be 30-40 points apart. Much more research remains to be done, probably led by the Chinese given Western "moral" reservations (I would call them immoral reservations). The research ought to focus on remediation among the poor, as the Copenhagen conventions implicity recommended, since this is the most feasible near term goal. But, with a Chinese lead it looks to go a different way, toward the fashioning of genetically engineered or pharmaceutically powered super intelligence--which, though it might not be cost-effective from a global perspective, is much after my own taste.
Monday, June 23, 2008
The Morass
This is a fairly conservative take on American education, with a comparison to the European system that helps to clarify our strengths and weaknesses. I like the phrase "educational romanticism." Also, the author skewers leftist hypocrisy in amusing fashion. Our educational system is grotesquely wasteful--the republicans should really consider large chunks of it as just another piece of the welfare state (free babysitting and feel-good degrees at taxpayer expense).
Friday, June 20, 2008
Shadows and Skeletons
Assuming the man is not stupid, I wonder why he consented to listen to all the bullshit spouted by Wright and Farrakhan. Could it be that this form of silent apparent assent was a necessary precondition to his rise in politics and eventual election in a particular district of Chicago, a city notorious for its corrupt politics? Is this the type of sordor and stupidity that a certain part of the black underclass demands of it leaders?
I wonder what modern President attained office without a passage through realms of corruption. I think, in the end, grotesque as these associations are, there are stronger arguments against Obama.
Full of Passionate Intensity
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120450617910806563.html
The margins of the Islamic world have been radicalized by their obvious lack of power. Also, their religious leaders fear that the creep of secularization evident in most of the world will progress into Islamic lands and minds. I view this, on the whole, as a defensive response--though, of course, some of Europe's naturalized Islamic radicals overtly seek to expand the "caliphate" throughout Europe as well. Unfortunately, given the demographic explosion underway in most Islamic nations, plus their retrograde political institutions and economic policies, the number of potential recruits for such jihadism is likely to continue to increase. This article is mainly an anecdotal diagnosis (and thus leaves open the question of how broad its applicability may be), and it fails to offer any solutions. The solution is to address the demographic, political, and economic problems that seed the deathly garden. Or simply contain Islamic problems within Islamic lands--and stay out.
The margins of the Islamic world have been radicalized by their obvious lack of power. Also, their religious leaders fear that the creep of secularization evident in most of the world will progress into Islamic lands and minds. I view this, on the whole, as a defensive response--though, of course, some of Europe's naturalized Islamic radicals overtly seek to expand the "caliphate" throughout Europe as well. Unfortunately, given the demographic explosion underway in most Islamic nations, plus their retrograde political institutions and economic policies, the number of potential recruits for such jihadism is likely to continue to increase. This article is mainly an anecdotal diagnosis (and thus leaves open the question of how broad its applicability may be), and it fails to offer any solutions. The solution is to address the demographic, political, and economic problems that seed the deathly garden. Or simply contain Islamic problems within Islamic lands--and stay out.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Climatic Divergences
I've written a fairly lengthy reflection on the climate change issue. This was occasioned by the recent discovery of a worthy adversary--they are extremely rare in this arena.
The author of this article, Jim Manzi, did a front page report for the National Review on global warming a few months back. This article is a summarization of what he explained then. He essentially agrees with the scientific conclusions of the IPCC that there is a high likelihood that global warming is in progress and is largely attributable to human-sourced greenhouse gas emissions. However, unlike most articles that begin with this premise, he follows it with an intelligent argument against aggressive mitigation measures to reduce these emissions. Here's what's rare: the argument is made intelligently. Here we have a man who has a reasonable understanding of the issue, but a moral value system with which I and many other environmentalists differ. The use of this presentation is that it allows us to measure the gap created purely by moral differences--without the obscurities and confusions introduced by ignorance, stupidity, dishonesty, and other vices which so very frequently infect the discourse produced by both of the main parties to this dispute.
Mr. Manzi's modest appreciation of the value to be found in biological diversity may be estimated from his passing reference to the possibility that some damages from climate change may be "non-monetary." Diversity is deemed non-monetary by the economists for the simple reason that we do not know how to place an accurate, objective valuation upon this type of "asset." This is partly because we do not have a market price that businesses are willing to pay for the privilege of ecosystem destruction: businesses do not pay a price for this privilege, nor is there any market in such transactions. This prevents us from doing a conventional calculation of diversity's present value; our lack of future knowledge prevents effectual predictions of its future value. As a result of all this ignorance of value, the value of this "asset" is assumed to be zero or something very close to it in typical econometric models. So, here we have a values disagreement. I am willing to pay a higher price for conservation than he is, and, since climate change is likely to be a primary cause of ecosystem destruction, I am also willing to pay a higher price to limit it.
I think he is correct that the main thrust of mitigation should presently be government-led programs in the rich nations to develop new technologies that will render emissions reductions cheaper--ideally to the point that they are cheap enough to persuade developing nations voluntarily to forego greenhouse gas emitting technologies. Under every reasonable scenario, developing nations will emit more greenhouse gases than developed nations over the next few decades. Their climate policies matter immensely. This research policy is the most significant public policy option available in terms of long-term consequences and in terms of global impact.
Nevertheless, I'm inclined still to support the imposition of a carbon tax in the developed world. The transaction and enforcement costs he speaks of certainly would be prohibitive at this time in the developing world; yet, in the advanced nations such costs would be much lower. Also, if designed efficiently (starting at about 10 cents per gallon of gas and half a cent per kilowatt hour, then moving higher very gradually and predictably to perhaps 50 cents and 2.5 cents over 10 years), the economy could adjust slowly enough that its current capital investments would not be squandered. This would create the technology-forcing effect of which he speaks and cut a practical path for the rising nations to follow. As to his assumption that a carbon tax would be permanent, I say this is not in itself bad. Furthermore, I think there is an opportunity for a major political deal to be cut on this tax issue whereby for every dollar of revenue that is collected as a carbon tax, another specified type of tax is cut by an equivalent amount. In this way, politicians can say that taxes are not being raised, merely redistributed. How about this: instead of taxing production (eg, with the income tax and corporate income tax), tax consumption through a carbon tax? Would the economy not benefit if these particular taxes were simply switched, with no overall increase or decrease in tax revenues? Such a tax would probably have the collateral effect of reducing our dependence on oil from our enemies and non-friends.
One of Mr. Manzi's most important and insightful points is that those who claim certain knowledge that climate change will be catastrophic are intellectually equivalent to those who claim they know beyond doubt that the whole theory is a hoax: both arguments are braindead--climate science is uncertain by definition (I mean literally by definition, as in mathematically provable). Therefore no one can make predictions about the climate with certainty. Period. Once this is recognized, it becomes clear that there is a risk of catastrophe just as there is a risk that climate change will not occur due to balancing factors in the climate system. The question then arises (and Mr. Manzi correctly identifies this as the essential question to face on this issue), what price ought we to pay to limit this risk. Again, up to a point he conceptualizes this intelligently as a matter of hedging risks, like taking out an insurance policy on the world. But, he does not go far enough in distinguishing where the analogy breaks down between those who fear we are wasting money on a fantasy problem and those who worry that we are ignoring a huge risk of disaster. The distinction is this: the former stand only to lose a fairly limited amount of money (even the infamously aggressive mitigation measures proposed in the Stern report only entail spending about 2% of GDP each year at worst), while the latter may lose an unknown amount--not just of money, but of lives as well. When potential losses are unlimited, as Mr. Manzi implicitly states, would it not be wise to err on the side of reducing such an inordinate risk, even though this margin of safety must come at the expense of a greater risk of spending more than necessary? In other words, simply put, the two risks are not commensurate--even if both are equally likely, the risk of catastrophe is the one we ought to be more concerned with and toward which we ought to direct a preponderance of our resources. This imbalance of risks diminishes the utility of gauging the scale and optimal response to this problem through traditional cost-benefit analysis--or, at the least, it warps the conclusion of such analysis in the direction of taking stronger precautionary measures. Despite the low probability of enormous loss, the size of the loss is potentially so much larger than that expected under high probability scenarios that it comes to dominate the numbers turned out by a pure cost-benefit analysis. The other reason why this catastrophe possibility will tend to dominate analysis of the climate change issue is that it inspires a degree of justifiable fear that neither middle-of-the-road nor optimistic scenarios can match for psychological impact. Of course, deciding what to pay for this catastrophe insurance is a difficult question, or, I should say, a subjective question. Once more, at the end of the analytical path we arrive at a fundamentally moral dilemma: the value of our material comfort vs. the value of the lives and well-being of the unborn, the value of the lives and comfort of the rich vs. the value of the lives and comfort of the poor, the importance of the climate change priority vs. the importance of other competing priorities (like money for national defense or biomedical research or education...).
So far, at both national and global levels, we have done little more than research the nature of climate change (which is an extremely important activity, though not sufficient). We have yet to construct a single test plant for carbon sequestration. We're still shopping around for a suitable insurance policy as the risks mount. Globally, we are spending less on this issue than any sane analyst has recommended, including Mr. Manzi. This headless, undirected condition is directly attributable to the absence of American leadership. The EU has tried to lead, but lacks the executive energy and decisiveness necessary to make an impression. Practically, America has little to lose by becoming the vanguard nation on this matter--it will help us to maintain our technological preeminence and to reestablish our moral leadership. Also, the timing should be favorable. The Chief Engineer at General Electric (which manufactures a lot more windmills than solar panels) recently said that he expects solar to be competitive without subsidies in the sunnier parts of the country (and in a number of foreign countries) by 2015! The CEO of REC, the largest solar manufacturer in the world, expects this to happen even earlier, by 2012. We could don the mantle of leadership in the confident expectation of reaping PR benefits worldwide without suffering the burden of overly heavy carbon taxes or massive government research programs. The government could then function as a kind of coordinator to help the economy transition efficiently into the post-carbon era enabled, at bottom, by scientific discovery and actioned by private sector innovation.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Something against Propaganda
This Gladwell article is almost too stupid to acknowledge, much less argue with. The challenge he places before himself is this: whether it is possible so to interpret the scientific evidence as to demonstrate that there is no genetic basis for interracial IQ differences. And, wonder of wonders, he discovers that it is possible! There are a couple of minor caveats involved, of course. First, we must relegate logic to the dustheap of political incorrectness. Then, we must be extremely selective in deciding what evidence to adduce. By this procedure it is shown that Good-Thinking=Truth.
His thesis seems to be that the Flynn effect (the observation that IQ scores in advanced nations have been rising about 2 points per decade for a century) undermines the idea that intelligence is genetically determined. This is what we call a straw man argument, since no consequential scientist in the last two generations has claimed IQ is purely heritable. The current consensus is that adult IQ is 70-80% heritable--the rest is hammered out by various "nurture" factors. So Gladwell can be congratulated for beating this non-existent foe.
But, then he segues into his real interest, racial differences. My deduction from much evidence reviewed over the years is that the 17 point white-black American IQ gap is partly genetic, partly environmental--my educated guess is 10 points genetic, 7 points environmental--though we would have a clearer idea of this if the whole field of intelligence research weren't considered morally dubious at best. Gladwell mentions two forms of evidence that these differences are environmentally determined. The studies on which he bases the first are not noted and I do not know what they are. I seriously doubt, though, that they were valid for Gladwell’s purposes here. The second form of evidence is the 1961 Eyferth study—read about it on Wikipedia. The bottom line is that these “black” GIs were not altogether black and, moreover, were smarter than average black Americans, whereas the control group of white GIs were not smarter than average white Americans. Also, the children were tested at age 10 on average, at which stage, per Gladwell, there is typically an 8 point white-black IQ gap. By adulthood, the gap, per Gladwell, is 16.6 points. Given that these children are at most half black, one would expect only a 4 point gap at that age. I would guess they are genetically only 30% black (American blacks are 20% white on average and north africans are not black), which would produce a 2.4 point gap. When you have such a long list of qualifications (and I could continue ad nauseam as this is an abysmal study) this is the result: it's not a valid study to prove interracial IQ equality, IQ inequality, or anything else.
I think my indictment on grounds of lack of logic and lack of evidence should produce an easy conviction of this Gladwell on the charge of rank mendacity. And, yet, he's a celebrated author among our "educated" classes. Why? He's part black and all politically correct.But, then he segues into his real interest, racial differences. My deduction from much evidence reviewed over the years is that the 17 point white-black American IQ gap is partly genetic, partly environmental--my educated guess is 10 points genetic, 7 points environmental--though we would have a clearer idea of this if the whole field of intelligence research weren't considered morally dubious at best. Gladwell mentions two forms of evidence that these differences are environmentally determined. The studies on which he bases the first are not noted and I do not know what they are. I seriously doubt, though, that they were valid for Gladwell’s purposes here. The second form of evidence is the 1961 Eyferth study—read about it on Wikipedia. The bottom line is that these “black” GIs were not altogether black and, moreover, were smarter than average black Americans, whereas the control group of white GIs were not smarter than average white Americans. Also, the children were tested at age 10 on average, at which stage, per Gladwell, there is typically an 8 point white-black IQ gap. By adulthood, the gap, per Gladwell, is 16.6 points. Given that these children are at most half black, one would expect only a 4 point gap at that age. I would guess they are genetically only 30% black (American blacks are 20% white on average and north africans are not black), which would produce a 2.4 point gap. When you have such a long list of qualifications (and I could continue ad nauseam as this is an abysmal study) this is the result: it's not a valid study to prove interracial IQ equality, IQ inequality, or anything else.
I have never seen or heard of a study that demonstrates that equal environments for blacks and whites produce equal IQs. This would, of course, be the holy grail of the elite establishment as it would justify to the end of time government intervention to impose equality of results among all the peoples of the world.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The Nuclear Santa
It's reassuring to know that Mr. Khan sits comfortably in Pakistan under a sufficiently luxurious "house arrest" while we spend great sums and risk many lives seeking to find a much less dangerous man: Osama bin Laden. Khan is a national hero in Pakistan, which is amazingly stupid of the Pakistanis given that he helped nuclearize one of Pakistan's natural enemies, Iran. But this ring of Khan illustrates the multiplication of proliferation risks engendered when primitive nations acquire WMD knowledge. Once such knowledge begins to spread among the primitives of the world it develops an internal logic which necessarily causes it to infect ever more nations (the domino theory of proliferation). By internal logic I mean that proliferation provides more sources from which to acquire atomic knowledge and thus a greater probability of successful acquisition. Also, the anarchical nature of international relations deters states from settling for an inadequate defense capability: when their neighbors go nuclear they are constrained to follow if possible. Thus, acquisition of the knowledge becomes easier and the incentive to avail oneself of it increases at the same time. Stacking the odds against oneself is the wrong way to gamble.
But, even without Khan it was only a matter of time before the more ambitious nations found a path to this capability. Maybe they would have purchased it from a corrupt scientist or, for the more advanced states, at much greater expense of time and resources, they may have developed it internally with their own scientists and engineers. Despite all this, what should make the nuke threat manageable in the long run is that an effective nuclear strike force cannot be assembled in silence--the snoops will find you out before it's ready to use. Result: deterrence. This is not true of bioweapons. They can be created in secrecy and disseminated in such fashion as to obscure the culpable party. In other words, in the worst case scenario, their development cannot be stopped and their use cannot be deterred. Knowing what is likely to follow, I am content to see the nuclear age, with all its perils and stupidities, drag itself out as long as it likes.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Science and Genius
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
It seems a matter of common sense that the more cognitively challenging the task of discovery or reconception is, the less likely it is to be discovered more than once. Leaping over a rivulet is possible for many, over a river for few. This begs the question: just how many scientific advances entail the application of an extreme degree of cognitive power? What Newton did and what Einstein did, in reconceiving the laws of physics, seem to be defensible examples of extremity. So much of science, though, especially outside the highly abstract realms of physics and mathematics, resembles a process of incremental, random discoveries, happy accidents, the accumulation of data to ramify an extant paradigm.
The key difference between those advances susceptible to access by multiple minds and those reserved for high genius may be the relative degree of discovery content versus thought content--discovering and describing a new species of beetle is entirely distinguishable from postulating the theory of relativity. And this distinction may also partially explain why there is more clarity in the arts as to who is and who is not a genius. Even an artist like Flaubert, a founder of the "realist" school, which emphasized details discovered in the real world, only achieved his greatness by selecting and placing those details to maximize their symbolic and aesthetic power. Thus, the "discovery" element, the knowledge of relevant details, is only a minor aspect of his work--their aura and their consequence derive from the conceptual powers active through them. The other form of artistic discovery is the imitation of other artists--their forms, techniques, perspectives. But, like the greatest scientists, who "stand on the shoulders of giants" and must reconceive their conceptual inheritance to make major advances, great artists also must achieve reconceptions or reinventions to create major works. Revolutions in science, which shower eternal glory upon the revolutionaries, seem rarer than revolutions in the arts--though it would be a reckless leap to assume that supreme genius is more common in the arts. The materials upon which artists and scientists work and the conditions under which they work are too different for a meaningful comparison of relative degrees of genius.
No one is a partner to
more multiples [multiple discoveries], he [sociologist Robert K. Merton]
pointed out, than a genius, and he came to the conclusion that our romantic
notion of the genius must be wrong. A scientific genius is not a person who
does what no one else can do; he or she is someone who does what it takes many
others to do. The genius is not a unique source of insight; he is merely an
efficient source of insight.
First, I notice that it's no mean achievement for a genius
to do single-handedly what would otherwise require the exertions
of many other great scientists (Gladwell leaves the impression that the
other discoverers are often just average scientists, but, except in the field
of beetle-discovery, this is not true). Great scientists are not cheap
commodities themselves. More important here is Gladwell's happy endorsement of
Merton's nonsequitur: because some discoveries can be made by multiple
individuals, all discoveries are available to multiple individuals--which
means "the genius is not a unique source of insight," and is
therefore scarcely a genius, but merely another rung higher on the
continuum of talent. I do not recall that any other candidates were available
to lead the Newtonian or Einsteinian revolutions--and those are merely the
clearest cases I know of. Very likely examples could be found, especially
in the conceptually intense fields of physics and mathematics. There is no
equality here or anywhere else in the nature of humanity. There is a natural
hierarchy, regardless of what type of artificial hierarchy the politico-social
environment imposes.
It seems a matter of common sense that the more cognitively challenging the task of discovery or reconception is, the less likely it is to be discovered more than once. Leaping over a rivulet is possible for many, over a river for few. This begs the question: just how many scientific advances entail the application of an extreme degree of cognitive power? What Newton did and what Einstein did, in reconceiving the laws of physics, seem to be defensible examples of extremity. So much of science, though, especially outside the highly abstract realms of physics and mathematics, resembles a process of incremental, random discoveries, happy accidents, the accumulation of data to ramify an extant paradigm.
The key difference between those advances susceptible to access by multiple minds and those reserved for high genius may be the relative degree of discovery content versus thought content--discovering and describing a new species of beetle is entirely distinguishable from postulating the theory of relativity. And this distinction may also partially explain why there is more clarity in the arts as to who is and who is not a genius. Even an artist like Flaubert, a founder of the "realist" school, which emphasized details discovered in the real world, only achieved his greatness by selecting and placing those details to maximize their symbolic and aesthetic power. Thus, the "discovery" element, the knowledge of relevant details, is only a minor aspect of his work--their aura and their consequence derive from the conceptual powers active through them. The other form of artistic discovery is the imitation of other artists--their forms, techniques, perspectives. But, like the greatest scientists, who "stand on the shoulders of giants" and must reconceive their conceptual inheritance to make major advances, great artists also must achieve reconceptions or reinventions to create major works. Revolutions in science, which shower eternal glory upon the revolutionaries, seem rarer than revolutions in the arts--though it would be a reckless leap to assume that supreme genius is more common in the arts. The materials upon which artists and scientists work and the conditions under which they work are too different for a meaningful comparison of relative degrees of genius.
I should add that I was provoked to this consideration by the PC implications of Gladwell's emphasis on the democratisation of discovery. There is nothing more PC than the assumption that all humans are equal. This is the unquestioned and unquestionable
foundation stone of PC ideology. When one of the priests of PC happens upon any
evidence to further press this notion upon the public consciousness, he is
religiously bound and equipped to extrapolate it to the edge of
nonsense. So does he slide into this premeditated nonsequitur:
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Cybernetic Speculations
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier/lanier_index.html
I recommend this essay's intro, parts 4-6, and the conclusion. The arguments presented by the author against the beliefs in the first 3 parts I pass over because they are rather embarassing, being either wrong, super-obvious, or irrelevant. But the author is knowledgeable within the bounds of his demesne. By his mode of negating the "cybernetic totalist" perpsective, he lays out one possible scenario of our technological future and gives his reasons. Essentially, he relies upon the lack of progress in software and the usual extreme slowness of natural evolution to ward off a singularity-style apocalypse. I do not know that these putative braking mechanisms will suffice. They do seem to be gook in the gears--yet what powerful gears! We have powerful forces facing off and enough unknown variables to leave me fairly agnostic.
Probably, we will be surprised at the speed of some advances, at the slowness of others, and at the interactions and ramifications of all the myriad factors at play. It promises entertainment value for years to come--unless the species takes a black swan to the head--though I wonder whether it would it even constitute a black swan at this point. At some stage in technological progress enough militaries possess enough species-threatening toys (not to speak of other organizations which may acquire similar capabilities) that our demise no longer resides at the outer bounds of the distribution of fate. In any case this essay's a good counter to Kurzweil's proclivity to head in a Panglossian direction at (almost) every chance.
I wrote the above before discovering some distinguished responses to the Lanier essay (this fellow is apparently well-known among the knowing)--and Lanier's response to them. I will reproduce here the most interesting reverberations.
From: George Dyson
Date: September 21 , 2000
I recommend this essay's intro, parts 4-6, and the conclusion. The arguments presented by the author against the beliefs in the first 3 parts I pass over because they are rather embarassing, being either wrong, super-obvious, or irrelevant. But the author is knowledgeable within the bounds of his demesne. By his mode of negating the "cybernetic totalist" perpsective, he lays out one possible scenario of our technological future and gives his reasons. Essentially, he relies upon the lack of progress in software and the usual extreme slowness of natural evolution to ward off a singularity-style apocalypse. I do not know that these putative braking mechanisms will suffice. They do seem to be gook in the gears--yet what powerful gears! We have powerful forces facing off and enough unknown variables to leave me fairly agnostic.
Probably, we will be surprised at the speed of some advances, at the slowness of others, and at the interactions and ramifications of all the myriad factors at play. It promises entertainment value for years to come--unless the species takes a black swan to the head--though I wonder whether it would it even constitute a black swan at this point. At some stage in technological progress enough militaries possess enough species-threatening toys (not to speak of other organizations which may acquire similar capabilities) that our demise no longer resides at the outer bounds of the distribution of fate. In any case this essay's a good counter to Kurzweil's proclivity to head in a Panglossian direction at (almost) every chance.
I wrote the above before discovering some distinguished responses to the Lanier essay (this fellow is apparently well-known among the knowing)--and Lanier's response to them. I will reproduce here the most interesting reverberations.
From: George Dyson
Date: September 21 , 2000
Without taking one side of Jaron's dogma or another (place me somewhere else entirely) I would disagree strongly with his "Argument from Software" — which is as flawed as Bishop Wilberforce's Argument from Design.
Back in the days when programs could be debugged but processing could not be counted on from one kilocycle to the next, John von Neumann wrote his final paper in computer theory: "Probabilistic Logics and the Synthesis of Reliable Organisms from Unreliable Components" [in Claude Shannon and John McCarthy, eds., Automata Studies (1956) pp. 43 — 99]. It makes no difference whether you have reliable code running on lousy hardware, or lousy code running on reliable hardware. Same results.
What should reassure the technophiles, and unsettle the technophobes, is our world of lousy code. Because it is lousy code that is bringing the digital universe to life, rather than leaving us stuck in some programmed, deterministic universe devoid of life. It is that primordial soup of archaic subroutines, ambiguous DLL's, crashing Windows, and living-fossil operating systems that is driving the push towards the sort of fault embracing template-based addressing that proved so successful in molecular biology, with us — and our computers — as one of its strangest results...
Date: September 21, 2000
Dear George, your reply to Lanier is brilliant, profound, and also true. I remember that I wrote, at the end of Origins of Life, that the evolution of complex organisms became possible when the essential sloppiness and error — tolerance of life were transferred from the hardware to the software, from the metabolic apparatus to the genes. And now you are saying that exactly the same thing happened in the evolution of complex computer — systems. Obviously, that's the direction you have to go if you want to combine robustness with creativity. All I can say is, why didn't I think of that?
...So, directly to a basic point — beneath the CT [cybernetic totalist] position is a fundamental and unspoken axiom — the Pythagorean Conjecture that the universe is mathematical, and deeper still, that the universe is fundamentally understandable by humans. Pythagoras took it to a numerological extreme, but the fundamental myth still obtains with many people who work in science — everyone is looking for the Equation/Theory/axiomatic system that will explain Everything Forever. The CT position depends on this assumption. Yet, we have never had, nor do we have now, any conclusive proof that the universe is humanly understandable in the first place, much less representable in some reductivist symbology of mathematics or any other language for that matter. Indeed, with Godel et al, we have a number of theories demonstrating the very limitations of such endeavors in the first place.
The CT position assumes that the world is computable and their thinking machine project logically follows — logical machines for a logical universe.
My thinking is this: The Universe is beyond human comprehension, [Re: Haldane: "The Universe is not only weirder than you think — it's weirder than you can think" and Brockman: "Nobody knows and you can't find out."] and is therefore not computable...
Jaron doesn't have to worry about the cybernetic metaphor, because he says his main concern is that it has become sole metaphor of our time, or at least the sole metaphor of our tribe. If that were really true, I'd worry too. But it isn't.
What the cybernetic metaphor is is an extreme perspective, an inverted perspective that will eventually play out its usefulness. It is similar (and related) to Richard Dawkins' famous view of the selfish gene. Dawkins says that you can understand a lot which is new, and a re-understand a lot of the old orthodoxy, by looking at the world from the view of genes. In fact you can begin to look at everything that way, and for a while wherever you look, the world looks different. This view can unleash new understandings. What is important to remember is that while Dawkins looks at the world that way, this is not the only way he looks at it. In his daily life he adopts a quite ordinary view of the world. I have looked at the world in Dawkins selfish-gene way, and then the next minute I have looked at the world in Jaron's way. Most of the time (but not all!) I see more new things via Dawkins way. I might also look at the world via Freud's way, or Marx's way, but I usually don't see much interesting to me that way.
The new cybernetic metaphor, on the other hand, is very powerful. We can look at almost anything now, from physics, to emotions, to nature, to experience itself, and find new things when we imagine it as computation. We can imagine people as robots and learn all kinds of things....But the important thing is that right now almost anything we examine will yield up new insights by imaging it as computer code....
I think we have not come close to exhausting this metaphor, and as my earlier essay on it (called the Computer Metaphor) suggests, I think it will overturn our current ideas of physics and culture first, before we abandon it. It is dangerous, but not because it is our only tool.
From: Jaron Lanier
Re: Ray Kurzweil
...I see punctuated equilibria in the history of science. Right now we're in the midst of an explosion of new biology. Around the turn of the last century there was an explosion of data and insight about physics. Physics is now searching for its next explosion but hasn't found it yet.
I also see a distinction between quantity and quality that Ray doesn't. I see computers getting bigger and faster, but it doesn't directly follow that computer science is also improving exponentially.
Ray sees everything as speeding up, including the speed of the speedup.
I hope I can avoid being cast as the person who precisely disagrees with Ray, since I think we agree on many things. There are exponential phenomena at work, of course, but I feel they have robust contrarian company...
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Proportion Intoxicated
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/14/us/14florida.html --
The report’s findings track with similar studies by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which has found that roughly seven million Americans are abusing prescription drugs. If accurate, that would be an increase of 80 percent in six years and more than the total abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy and inhalants.
The Florida report analyzed 168,900 deaths statewide. Cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths, it found, while legal opioids — strong painkillers in brand-name drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin — caused 2,328.
Drugs with benzodiazepine, mainly depressants like Valium and Xanax, led to 743 deaths. Alcohol was the most commonly occurring drug, appearing in the bodies of 4,179 of the dead and judged the cause of death of 466 — fewer than cocaine (843) but more than methamphetamine (25) and marijuana (0).
The study also found that while the number of people who died with heroin in their bodies increased 14 percent in 2007, to 110, deaths related to the opioid oxycodone increased 36 percent, to 1,253.
So this comes to about 4500 drug-related deaths: 10% from alcohol, 20% from illegal drugs, 70% from pharmaceuticals. Clearly, these numbers do not include fatalities indirectly caused by drugs (for example, drunk-driving deaths which must be at least 500 per year in Florida--or the violent deaths common in the illegal drug business). The pharmaceutical fatalities do not concern me. I am content to give people the respect of a natural personal responsibility for their own health--a key element of liberty.
Need I mention the absurd contrast between the perils of alcohol and many pharmaceuticals compared to marijuana--which produced zero direct deaths despite frequency of usage which surpasses all others except alcohol. But, the huge senile contingent of voters plus the vast backwater of pseudo-christians, abetted by cowardly politicos keep that wonderful weed still confined to a semi-proscribed status. It ought to be legalized: this would save many billions presently spent on the police-prison-welfare industrial complex--and, as a small, incidental bonus, improve quality of life for millions. Also, it would set an example for the rest of the world to follow--though few of the wealthy nations have such costly pot policies as ours.
I am theoretically in favor of legalization of all drugs. However, the relevant portion of our criminal law renders this problematic in practice, based as it largely is on the purpose and intent of the criminal. A sufficient degree of intoxication degrades one's capacity to formulate purpose and intent--and the less of these a criminal possesses the less likely he is to be convicted of a given crime and the shorter his sentence is likely to be. So it follows--most prevalent forms of intoxication (including alcohol, but not marijuana) increase the propensity to engage in criminal conduct, and the law reinforces this propensity by offering reduced punishment for the intoxicated. Before the Victorian era English common law (and presumably American as well) considered intoxication an aggravation of the offense, not a defense or mitigation. Under that venerable dispensation legalization could work; under ours, I fear, it cannot. In a rational analysis of which drugs are susceptible to legalization, the violence-promoting aspect ought to be foremost among the determinative factors (PCP, for example, would be an unattractive candidate, LSD probably attractive).
The report’s findings track with similar studies by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which has found that roughly seven million Americans are abusing prescription drugs. If accurate, that would be an increase of 80 percent in six years and more than the total abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy and inhalants.
The Florida report analyzed 168,900 deaths statewide. Cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths, it found, while legal opioids — strong painkillers in brand-name drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin — caused 2,328.
Drugs with benzodiazepine, mainly depressants like Valium and Xanax, led to 743 deaths. Alcohol was the most commonly occurring drug, appearing in the bodies of 4,179 of the dead and judged the cause of death of 466 — fewer than cocaine (843) but more than methamphetamine (25) and marijuana (0).
The study also found that while the number of people who died with heroin in their bodies increased 14 percent in 2007, to 110, deaths related to the opioid oxycodone increased 36 percent, to 1,253.
So this comes to about 4500 drug-related deaths: 10% from alcohol, 20% from illegal drugs, 70% from pharmaceuticals. Clearly, these numbers do not include fatalities indirectly caused by drugs (for example, drunk-driving deaths which must be at least 500 per year in Florida--or the violent deaths common in the illegal drug business). The pharmaceutical fatalities do not concern me. I am content to give people the respect of a natural personal responsibility for their own health--a key element of liberty.
Need I mention the absurd contrast between the perils of alcohol and many pharmaceuticals compared to marijuana--which produced zero direct deaths despite frequency of usage which surpasses all others except alcohol. But, the huge senile contingent of voters plus the vast backwater of pseudo-christians, abetted by cowardly politicos keep that wonderful weed still confined to a semi-proscribed status. It ought to be legalized: this would save many billions presently spent on the police-prison-welfare industrial complex--and, as a small, incidental bonus, improve quality of life for millions. Also, it would set an example for the rest of the world to follow--though few of the wealthy nations have such costly pot policies as ours.
I am theoretically in favor of legalization of all drugs. However, the relevant portion of our criminal law renders this problematic in practice, based as it largely is on the purpose and intent of the criminal. A sufficient degree of intoxication degrades one's capacity to formulate purpose and intent--and the less of these a criminal possesses the less likely he is to be convicted of a given crime and the shorter his sentence is likely to be. So it follows--most prevalent forms of intoxication (including alcohol, but not marijuana) increase the propensity to engage in criminal conduct, and the law reinforces this propensity by offering reduced punishment for the intoxicated. Before the Victorian era English common law (and presumably American as well) considered intoxication an aggravation of the offense, not a defense or mitigation. Under that venerable dispensation legalization could work; under ours, I fear, it cannot. In a rational analysis of which drugs are susceptible to legalization, the violence-promoting aspect ought to be foremost among the determinative factors (PCP, for example, would be an unattractive candidate, LSD probably attractive).
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Iran
Here's an update on the slow motion catastrophe that is Iran:
I think the administration's new strategy of letting the UN take the lead on this issue for now, while encouraging its more aggressive posture towards Iran by providing further intelligence resources, is a wise evolution. The UN has more global credibility on this issue (like it or not). This means that if we hit them we will have a strong evidentiary foundation to defend the strikes. The UN's involvement may even, if gradually, cause the rest of the world to realize that the only possible beneficiaries of an Iranian nuclear program are Iran and its satellites. In other words, there are few rational, pragmatic reasons for other nations to defend the Iranian program (though some will make a blanket argument that all sovereign nations have a right to determine what is required for their own defense). I focus on this global PR situation not because we need the rest of the world's permission to do these strikes--but because consistent global pressure before such strikes become necessary appears to me a potentially significant factor that could help induce a voluntary abandonment of the nuclear program. Such a voluntary about-face (as Libya, South Africa, and Brazil have previously done) is the only good solution available. War with Iran could be disastrous on a number of levels and there is no guarantee that we could stop their program unless we occuppied the country, which no one wants to think about.
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