Interesting Links for 17-05-2015

[andrewducker]

I concise guide to the current UK Cabinet. Well worth a read. (tags: uk politics conservatives ) JavaScript at 20 (tags: javascript ) Exercise alone won’t make you lose weight. (tags: exercise weight ) Beware Eurosceptic versions of history and science (tags: history science Europe ) How Many Americans Are Married To Their Cousins? (And how

Comments

[steer]

The Most Depressing Discovery About the Brain, Ever

I'm not terribly surprised. I imagine I can sometimes come across as right wing because I correct my friends when they post articles using spurious facts or poor arguments to support beliefs I actually agree with.

The problem is, even if you know this bias, if you see something you disagree with then you look for flaws... and often immediately you stop when you find them. (One a lot of my friends do with science papers is to stop at "no control group" or "small sample size" -- despite the fact that the paper will almost inevitably cover this fact.)

Also, however, we're now used to rather clever media manipulation so that factcheck stuff becomes very open to manipulation. So, for example the question in one of their papers is whether you agree with "President Bush has banned stem cell research in the United States" Their claim is that this is untrue. Actually, that's a really weaselly way to phrase that question.

I think if we're being entirely precise he vetoed the removal of a law that made it illegal to federally fund stem cell research based on human embryos that destroyed the embryos.

The phrase "stem cell research" we should here understand to be short hand for "stem cell research on human embryos" because that's the bit that is controversial. And by banning we really mean "stopping federal funding" because that's all he can easily ban and that's the most important source of funding. If the PM tomorrow stopped all funding for nuclear research in the UK it would be (IMHO) completely reasonable to say "Cameron bans nuclear research".

So Bush did not ban all funding for all stem cell research. But he did continue the ban (despite house vote) on all the funding he could easily ban for stem cell research of the type that was debated. So, reading about the subject and reading the paper where they claim it is incorrect, I actually am more strongly inclined to agree with the statement "President Bush has banned stem cell research in the United States" than I was before I read their paper or read more on that subject.

In other cases the papers cited test unprovable hypotheses. For example ": "Immediately before the U.S. invasion, Iraq had an active weapons of mass destruction program, the ability to produce these weapons, and large stockpiles of WMD, but Saddam Hussein was able to hide or destroy these weapons right before U.S. forces arrived." -- now I don't believe this is true or even probable but it remains possible. Lordy knows how Hussain would do this, it would boggle belief but it can't be conclusively shown to be 100% false just 99.9999% unlikely. If you believe that then an article showing you what tests had been done might just lead you to think of more ways those tests could fail. (So, they checked every one month -- but what if every 15 days...)

One problem is that a lot of our political statements are imprecise enough that actually, there is a certain amount of freedom to believe what you will. "Have the conservatives helped reduce the deficit?" seems a clear question but it gets into all kind of arguments about deficit versus debt (the deficit has improved, the debt worsened) and also about what "helped" means, "can their policies be shown to have helped?" versus "has the situation improved?" (which of course it would have of its own accord). (And of course do we mean the raw numbers deficit, the deficit ratio with respect to GDP or the same corrected for growing population size... they're all different measures of "the deficit" -- I think you might recall an argument I had with someone on twitter who wrote a passionate argument about how more people than ever could vote -- the measure we pick is important).

I'm writing this not to convince you that WMD in Iraq could exist or to sway your opinions on George Bush and stem cell research but instead to convince you that in this day and age, often rejecting media reports not agreeing with your mindset can be a reasonable and rational response. These questions are more slippery than those research papers state. (And, of course, it's entirely possible the subjects thought that the "facts" shown were such outrageous lies that they became more convinced.)

[steer]

And one final thought along those lines that may convince you that people are being more "rational" than you think: the "Aha, what about what they didn't know?" effect.

I know at least two highly intelligent people with what I consider to be highly irrational beliefs: one a WMD true believer and one a 9/11 conspiracy believer. The former believes that certain things were found in the desert and these have been hushed up, the latter (a prof of pure mathematics) believes that the physics of the situation is such that there was insufficient energy to trigger the tower collapse.

Now for those people any reports they read that doesn't address their core objections will actually strengthen their belief. "Yet again, someone has been taken in by the media consensus but I know better because of fact X that does not appear in this article."

This seems unreasonable on the face of it. But all the time I read internet cranks saying "Einstein was wrong" and it is clear they haven't the foggiest about special or general relativity. The articles that show a lack of understanding of the reality of the situation don't affect my belief and might cause me to reassert my belief more strongly.

[andrewducker]

I was having a discussion last night of how much media bias affected the last election, or the independence referendum. And how chunks of the people on "my side" in both cases sound a bit tinfoil-hattish in detecting plots.

But then stuff does come out where civil service people are leaking information to the press and announcing that because they _really_ didn't like the idea of independence, the normal rules of impartiality didn't apply. And then I wonder if sometimes I'm too anti-conspiracy!

[steer]

Well I think that's the viewpoint thing -- taking the "leaking information" thing, you see "conspiracy from supporter leaks information to the press supporting their political interest" I am seeing "heroic whistleblower releases facts that are important to question being resolved."

In a different universe where the vote went the other way there might be people thinking "why on earth wasn't I aware of that information before the vote?" (I mean if the RBS did have plans to leave then actually, I think that certainly should be brought to people's attention because it is really important and will influence how people vote... whereas I assume you think it should not in case it influence the vote.)

We all view the stories through our biases.

[andrewducker]

Oh, no. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be released - I'm saying that it was deliberately released in an illegal manner. I'd have been fine with RBS releasing that information themselves.

"The communication was also issued while the RBS board was meeting to discuss the matter and before the bank had first made a statement to the financial markets, breaching trading rules. "

I wasn't trying to say "That information should have been hidden", I was saying "There was a deliberate move by people who should have been independent to hand any information which would be useful to the No campaign to them."

[steer]

it was deliberately released in an illegal manner

That is the nature of the whistle-blower/leak debate certainly cf Assange, Snowden, Manning...

There was a deliberate move by people who should have been independent to hand any information which would be useful to the No campaign to them."

There was a move by people to release information which proved true and which we do not know would otherwise have been released. If it would have been released before the vote anyway then the net effect of the vote is nothing so they did no harm to the vote. If it would not have been released before the vote then we both believe it should have been.

[andrewducker]

The manner in which information is released matters nearly as much as the facts that are in it.

"LEAKERS PROVE THAT RBS WILL FLEE IF YOU VOTE TO DESTROY SCOTLAND!" has a different impact than "RBS confirm that they have plans in place to ensure that your money is safe, in event of Yes vote."

(Note: I work for a company who thought that they were releasing the latter, and were most upset to find it spun as the former - minus the "leaks" bit.)

[steer]

I see the two headlines as different spin on the same information (modulo the "leaks" part).

[andrewducker]

The leaks bit is rather important, as it makes it look like information was being kept secret in order to influence things.

(Rather than this being an unusually large bit of business planning for dealing with a change in regulations, by a company that is already dealing with numerous borders, what with being a massive multinational.)

[steer]

The information was being kept secret -- it was circulated privately within the company and those outside did not know about it. If it was not being kept secret then it would definitionally have not been possible to leak it.

Maybe the information would have got out there in the end, perhaps before the referendum vote... and maybe not.

[andrewducker]

It was being kept secret because it hadn't been finalised and was still being discussed by the board at that point!

You can hardly expect RBS to announce new plans they haven't finalised yet!

[steer]

As with any leak you could argue that the information would have come out eventually yes.

[andrewducker]

You certainly can when the board was meeting _at the point where it was leaked_ to discuss the release of the information.

And you're still missing the basic point here - which is that lots of people were dismissive of the idea that the civil service were involved in the No campaign at the time, calling it tinfoil-hat nonsense, and later on it turned out that, yes, actually, there were senior members heavily involved. Whether you approve or disapprove is beside the point!

[steer]

The thing is, to me your argument looks like this:

1) People were told some information that was true.

2) The information swayed their political beliefs in a way you did not agree with.

3) There is a possibility that this information would have been released later in a way that would have swayed people's beliefs in a way you did agree with although it can't be certain the information would have been released at all.

So to me the startling thing here isn't what side of the debate the civil service were on. The startling thing here is that you're passionately arguing that the right course is that this information should be kept secret until it can be put out there in a manner more favourable to the political viewpoint you agree with in order to influence a vote in a direction you would like. Don't you think that's a bit... well, it's not the usual side you would argue. I mean if it had been the other way round, some heroic pro-independence person sneaked out a report showing something favourable to your side, would you be castigating them for being partisan or not going through the proper channels?

[andrewducker]

" The startling thing here is that you're passionately arguing that the right course is that this information should be kept secret until it can be put out there in a manner more favourable to the political viewpoint you agree with in order to influence a vote in a direction you would like"

No, no, and no.

And you now seem to be actively ignoring what I'm actually saying for reasons I really don't understand, arguing against something that I never started talking about.

[steer]

You seemed to be arguing that he should not have released the information.