Links 12/23/10

52 comments

  1. attempter

    Re The Truth Wears Off:

    I’m not surprised that this effect correlates with the systematic corporatization of scientific research. Correlation or causality? I know where I’d put my money.

    Re mortgage interest deduction:

    That highlights how perverse the policy is. It does no good, only harm, from any social or productivity point of view. Of course the FIRE sector loves it. They’re why it exists.

    Sane policy would tax land rent (and all other rents) and not tax productive work. This deduction is not only counter to sanity, but aggressively rigs the tax code to reward such rentier idleness.

  2. russel1200

    Results driven science. It means that if you want to keep getting funding you need to show some type of result- nothing of interest here- is not allowed.

    So with everyone trying to shoe horn there data into some sort of pattern (a particular pattern if your corporate/medical) it is not a big surprise that results tend to fade.

  3. Andrew Foland

    Physicists have known about these sorts of results “withering away” for a long, long time. There’s nothing mysterious or sinister about them; it’s just the way statistics work. If you look at thousands of plots, dozens of them will be statistically significant at the P=0.01 level, even in the absence of any actual effect.

    This is the origin of the sayings in the community that “half of all three sigma results are wrong” and “first observations are always upward statistical fluctuations”. (For the more economically minded among you, you can think of scientific discovery as an option on upward statistical fluctuations.)

  4. Jon Corbett

    Re: The Truth Wears Out

    I agree with Andrew – this is exactly what one would expect statistically. I am actually assigning this article to my Intro to Stats class next semester to analyze. Most of it is pretty good, but the main subject (the psychologist) was either speaking lazily in the article or has some subtle, but serious, misconceptions about how statistics and statistical analyses work – see his statement about the nature of p-values for example.

    Very good article – I highly recommend seeking it out.

    1. Foppe

      I’m not sure what to make of the article, myself. From what I can read of it, it sounds as though the author assumes that the effects that “faded” were there in the first place, and this is not at all likely. As Ioannidis indicates in this atlantic interview, quite a lot of medical research that gets published, and especially the “spectacular” findings, are based on shoddy research that is subsequently shoddily analyzed. As Jon says, it may just be that they’re simply misunderstanding the “meaning” of p-values.
      A lot of research done in the social sciences is done via data-mining “results” to find a “significant” result, and then doing some post-hoc literature review to be able to “conclude” something. There are dozens of articles to be found that criticize this practice, a nice one is called “reasoning to a foregone conclusion”, but because of the “results-driven research”, and the refusal to publish null-results even when they are quite interesting all contributes to this.
      As such, it seems just as likely that they’re just noticing that lots of research that has been done (especially research that ‘proves’ the relative effectiveness of drugs (compared to the known-to-be-the-worst alternatives) is actually just crap.
      Bayesianism is the future ;-)

  5. Claire

    Yves,

    I believe (but I’m not sure) if you discussed banks using Trust Preferred Securities that essentially converted debt into equity for banks, thereby satisfying their Tier 1 Capital requirements.

    Do you know if this is still ongoing? If so, how prevalent is it and is it limited to just the financials (to your knowledge)?

  6. Jim Haygood

    From the NYT article about Prichard, Alabama’s failed pension plan:

    Companies with pension plans are required by federal law [ERISA] to put money behind their promises years in advance, and the government can impose punitive taxes on those that fail to do so, or in some cases even seize their pension funds.

    Companies are also required to protect their pension assets. So if a corporate pension fund falls below 60 cents’ worth of assets for every dollar of benefits owed, workers can no longer accrue additional benefits. (Prichard was down to just 33 cents on the dollar in 2003.)

    And if a company goes bankrupt, the federal government can take over its pension plan and see that its retirees receive their benefits. Although some retirees receive less than they were promised, no retiree from a federally insured plan in the private sector has come away empty-handed since the federal pension law was enacted in 1974. The law does not cover public sector workers.

    It’s scandalous that public sector plans are exempt from Erisa. Does the Fourteenth [equal protection of the law] Amendment actually mean anything? Why then should public plans be exempt from the effective prudential rules which govern private plans?

    If Social Security (to name one example) were subject to Erisa, a multi-trillion dollar funding shortfall would be immediately apparent. Benefit accruals would stop, putting the five-alarm disaster right in front of peoples’ faces.

    Federal benefit plans have been looted of their reserves. Those responsible — Congress and lackey trustees who owe their allegiance to conniving Depublicrat politicians rather than to the best interests of beneficiaries — need to be pounded relentlessly as the fraudsters and scammers they are. These plans are bankrupt, and ‘free money’ ain’t gonna fix ’em.

  7. Philip Pilkington

    Yves,

    A quick – but well-intentioned – criticism.

    I truly enjoyed your book – sharp, elegantly written and cut straight to the heart of eco-nonsense. It will remain a classic, mark my words.

    My one major problem – and the reason I bring it up here is because of the New Yorker article above, that deals with something similar – is that you have far too much trust in other ‘sciences’ that often have a dubious record.

    I remember coming across some references to anti-depressants and the like and simply shaking my head. Having done some research into the history of psychiatric diagnoses and the like, I knew instantly that what you were saying about those medicines was very far off the mark.

    I won’t argue in any detail here about why certain countries pump kids full of amphetamine-derivatives (also known as Ritalin), but I will point out that this is a very lucrative monopoly business, run, not for the public good, but for profit. Without going into nuance, I believe that is the beginning of a fair assessment.

    Bias cuts very deep into many sciences today. Why? For a large part, because science has become corporatised (check the economist historian Philip Mirowski’s work on this entitled ‘The Effortless Economy of Science’ – but there is whole field of ‘science studies’ which deal with this).

    All I’m saying is: be careful to lend so much credence to other sciences where you doubt economics. Economics may be extreme hocus-pocus, but the crimes that are committed therein are also committed elsewhere – and usually, ironically enough, for economically motivated reasons!

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      I’m regularly very critical of medical science and most of all the overuse of psychoactive drugs so I find your remarks more than a bit perplexing. And the “science” that usually gets attacked the most in comments is climate science, where the charge that corporate money has anything to do with the consensus re global warming is bogus. Corporate money is in fact engaged in a campaign of agnotology on the other side of that issue.

      1. Philip Pilkington

        I’m not hugely familiar with the climate sciences debate – but I’m aware certain oil industries lobby to ‘disprove’ certain climate change theories. I agree, this is dangerous – but I will concede, much ecology appears to me as ethics passing itself off as science. In that it’s very similar to Austrian school economics and its ilk.

        As to the drug company thing – I’m not really speaking ideologically here – indeed, I don’t really know your stance on that whole debacle – I was more so scientifically. Here’s a quote from your book:

        “[D]epression is diagnosed with much greater frequency than in the past. Is the population really in that much worse shape? Possibly, yes, but that change seems to be the direct result of the development of new and less side-effect prone antidepressants. It appears that where the doctors draw the lines between health and illness has shifted as a result of the existence of improved treatments.” (P. 38)

        Barring the fact that this passage – to my eyes, at least – seems to say that everything is rosy in the dissemination of more and more anti-depressants due to their being ‘improved treatments’, my main problem was with the reasoning here (and this came up a few times in some of the scientific examples you gave to compare with economics).

        Diagnostic criteria have not changed due to the existence of new treatments – whether you consider these improved or otherwise. Diagnostic criteria have changed, in large measure, due to the ‘rationalisation’ (in Weber’s sense) of psychology in many modern institutions. Older forms of psychotherapy are being phased out for quick-fix, cheap solutions – these range from SSRIs to new psychotherapies administered by lay-people (which, personally, I consider dubious – and perhaps even dangerous).

        This change in diagnostic criteria – in my view – is part of something much larger… and that is an increasing rationalisation or ‘neo-liberalisation’ of certain scientific practices (again, Philip Mirowski and the domain of ‘science studies’ is a key reference here). By saying that they are ‘streamlining’ certain scientific – and medical – practices, administrators (our culture’s version of the priest – only they speak micro-economic jargon rather than the Word of the Lord) cut back on true scientific practice in favour of cheap alternatives.

        I won’t go into any more detail – as this is neither the time nor the place – but this then ‘meshes’ in with the goals of monopoly industries which copyright and produce certain products – like SSRIs.

        The incredible BBC documentary maker Adam Curtis dealt with this in his three-part documentary ‘The Trap’ – which I think you’d enjoy (watch here: http://thetrapdoc.blogspot.com/ – and here are the rest of his films for those interested: http://adamcurtisfilms.blogspot.com/).

        Watch out specifically for Dr. Jerome Wakefield – the psychiatrist who invented the modern DSM (that’s the diagnostic criteria for modern psychiatry). See how he fears that he’s unleashed a monster on the world. By rationalising diagnostic criteria – he fears that he has caused many people to be grossly misdiagnosed.

        As I said, I don’t want you to think that this is a substantial criticism of your work – which I value highly. But people need to be aware what’s going on behind closed laboratory doors.

        1. Philip Pilkington

          “Watch out specifically for Dr. Jerome Wakefield”

          Sorry – I meant Dr. Robert Spitzer. Wakefield is a different interviewee. Spitzer is in the second half of the first episode.

          You guys should get an ‘edit’ button…

        2. DownSouth

          Philip,

          I’ve only watched the first segment of the BBC documentary you recommended, but I am in full agreement that it is outstanding.

          Thanks so much for the heads up.

          1. Philip Pilkington

            It’s an exceptional film – and you’re not likely to see it elsewhere. The conclusions are debatable – but the substance is true. We’ll see where these things go – because if they go nowhere – then we’re lost!

          2. Philip Pilkington

            Oh, and I’d really encourage everyone to watch his other films – especially ‘The Century of the Self’ – which is even better than ‘The Trap’. The link above is broken, so here:

            http://adamcurtisfilms.blogspot.com/

            Curtis has moved his work onto his brilliant blog – where he posts amazing BBC footage contextualised with brilliant commentary:

            http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/

            Just to give a taste of the kind of stuff Curtis deals with – and, of course, to give myself the obligatory plug – here’s an article I did on his piece on behaviorism, which ties into the discussion (sort of) taking place here:

            http://fixingtheeconomists.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/hey-there-pigeon-brain/

            Happy Christmas!

          3. DownSouth

            I started viewing The Power of Nightmares too, and again Curtis hits it out of the ball park.

            The Century of the Self I believe is one of Yves’ all-time favorite documentaries and she has recommended it several times here.

            Curtis must be quite a scholar, and quite a multi-disciplinarian at that. Not very many people could do the work he does.

            The guy is truly amazing.

        3. Yves Smith Post author

          You read my quote from ECONNED completely backwards It clearly states that the existence of new drugs has led to diagnosis boundaries being redrawn so more people are classified as depressed. That’s a clear sign of a bogus approach.

          1. Philip Pilkington

            Granted – I may have… but it was a little ambiguous… The dangers of using irony in print, I guess…

            Anyway, my criticisms of the shift in diagnoses still stands. This isn’t just some pharmacological discovery – this is something far more sweeping (wow, do I sound like a conspiracy theorist, or what?). Philosophers call it ‘instrumental rationality’ – I mean that in the negative sense of the term – and its begun to sweep through too many institutions these days… undermining actual rationality.

      2. Paul Repstock

        Sadly, whether it be ‘climate science’ or phsycological science, the emphasis seems to be more on getting financial gain from solutions, than on solving the problems. Because of that there is a tendancy to seek causuality which lends itself to commercial solutions. In the case of climate, the near perfect coorelation of sunspot activity (over which we have no control), is mostly ignored in favor of CO2 reductions which are hugely profitable. This is inspite of the fact that there is no provable link showing that CO2 causes warming outside the laboritory.

  8. Cynthia

    With the article entitled “Family Escalates Fight Against Air Force Academy for Allowing On-Campus Proselytizing” in mind, listen to Jeff Sharlet on the radio link below discussing how our military is being Christianized from the top down. But if you’re already having nightmares about our military using its money and might to turn America into a Christian theocracy, I suggest you avoid this link like the plague:

    http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2009/05/04/segments/130897

    1. Tertium Squid

      One wonders what you’re worried about – that “God and Country, My Country Right or Wrong” blah de blah is already firmly entrenched. This is like fretting that France will be overrun by the French.

      If you’re worried about some dangerous ideologues taking over the military, despising the rule of law, and using it for their own benefit and glory, well I have some bad news for you…

  9. Paul Tioxon

    I am waiting for someone to show how Obama is really boot licking the secret Pythagorean Brotherhood of Scientist Philosophers that are our true overlords. I would not worry about the withering away of truth from science, except for the absolute fraud that can on occasion get published. Particularly in psychology you will find a long standing discourse between two poles of methodology the idiographis vs the nomothetic. One lends itself to mathematical analysis, assuming the effectiveness of such analysis to fruitful, valid knowledge. However, what if mathematics only produced fruitful results in physics, and was an invalid methodology when applied to the social sciences, particularly economics? When Niels Bohr was questioned over the wave/particle dilemma of the nature of light, he said that we need to acknowledge what we observe, not rethink it or explain it away as say, statistically insignificant.

    Roberto Poli of McGill University delivered a number of lectures entitled The unreasonable ineffectiveness of mathematics in cognitive sciences in 1999. The abstract is:

    My argument is that it is possible to gain better understanding of the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics in study of the physical world only when we have understood the equally “unreasonable ineffectiveness” of mathematics in the cognitive sciences (and, more generally, in all the forms of knowledge that cannot be reduced to knowledge about physical phenomena. Biology, psychology, economics, ethics, and history are all cases in which it has hitherto proved impossible to undertake an intrinsic matematicization even remotely comparable to the analysis that has been so fruitful in physics.) I will consider some conceptual issues that might prove important for framing the problem of cognitive mathematics (= mathematics for the cognitive sciences), namely the problem of n-dynamics, of identity, of timing, and of the specious present. The above analyses will be conducted from a partly unusual perspective regarding the problem of the foundations of mathematics.

  10. Paul Tioxon

    I am waiting for someone to show how Obama is really boot licking the secret Pythagorean Brotherhood of Scientist Philosophers that are our true overlords. I would not worry about the withering away of truth from science, except for the absolute fraud that can on occasion get published. Particularly in psychology you will find a long standing discourse between two poles of methodology the idiographis vs the nomothetic. One lends itself to mathematical analysis, assuming the effectiveness of such analysis to fruitful, valid knowledge. However, what if mathematics only produced fruitful results in physics, and was an invalid methodology when applied to the social sciences, particularly economics? When Niels Bohr was questioned over the wave/particle dilemma of the nature of light, he said that we need to acknowledge what we observe, not rethink it or explain it away as say, statistically insignificant.

    Roberto Poli of McGill University delivered a number of lectures entitled The unreasonable ineffectiveness of mathematics in cognitive sciences in 1999. The abstract is:

    My argument is that it is possible to gain better understanding of the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics in study of the physical world only when we have understood the equally “unreasonable ineffectiveness” of mathematics in the cognitive sciences (and, more generally, in all the forms of knowledge that cannot be reduced to knowledge about physical phenomena. Biology, psychology, economics, ethics, and history are all cases in which it has hitherto proved impossible to undertake an intrinsic mathematicization even remotely comparable to the analysis that has been so fruitful in physics.) I will consider some conceptual issues that might prove important for framing the problem of cognitive mathematics (= mathematics for the cognitive sciences), namely the problem of n-dynamics, of identity, of timing, and of the specious present. The above analyses will be conducted from a partly unusual perspective regarding the problem of the foundations of mathematics.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Well, math is very difficult.

      Just the other day on NPR, they were talking about how it took Bertrand 70 pages into the Vol. 2 of his Principia Mathematica to prove 1 + 1 = 2.

      I imagine it will be much harder to show 1 – 1 = 0.

      In fact, being a man of impecable intellectual integrity, I am going to suspend my belief in 1 + 1 = 2 until I actually read that proof myself, refusing to commit that logical fallacy of argument from authority, even though its conclusion might not be untrue.

      1. attempter

        Let’s get rid of that satanic zero. It came from Islam. That’s what’s keeping the Air Force down, and that’s what our theocratic heroes there are trying to fix.

  11. Greenguy

    Re: The Truth Wears Off – philosophers of science like Paul Feyerabend and Imre Lakatos were describing these phenomena decades ago and questioning the standard opinions of the scientific method. Feyerabend argued that the scientific method was anything but, and that science was conducted on the basis of ad hoc methods. Scientists tend to have a set of incommensurable beliefs or an ideology that leads them to dismiss studies and findings that contradict the core beliefs of their scientific paradigm. It may be we are reaching a point where many of our current scientific paradigms are hitting a wall, and the technology is there to point this out sooner.

    1. Anonymous Jones

      Summation: The world is complicated. Our heuristics and adopted simplification theories only last so long before their failure exposes our lack of capacity to understand the complexity of the world.

    2. Philip Pilkington

      True enough – and I’ll go one more interesting again. One of Lakatos’ students, Spiro Latsis – now a billionaire – did a very interesting paper on determinacy in economics:

      http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/3/207.full.pdf

      Not an easy read, I’ll grant – but very enlightening.

      Of course determining the ’causes’ at the root of human behavior – whether in marginal utility or in dopamine levels – is quite impossible. This goes much further back even than Lakatos and Feyerabend and right back to David Hume and Immanuel Kant.

      But then, who would dare bring up a philosophical point in an economics or a psychological debate – he’d be laughed at, right? Philosophy is for navel-gazing students and impractical charlatans. It should be confined to be being badly taught in the cultural studies department.

    3. ScottS

      I think it’s confirmation bias. We tend to look for evidence that supports our worldview.

      The more I look for confirmation bias, the more evidence I find that it’s true.

  12. PQS

    Just bringing down the always stratospheric discourse here at NC….

    I feel just like that hamster looks, after chomping down on too many Christmas goodies in the office lunchroom. (Which I am 100% grateful to be experiencing right now, after having been unemployed for six long months this year…)

    Happy Holidays to all at NC, and Yves, I bought your book from Powell’s as a present to myself.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      That hamster is feeling the way you would feel after being abducted by illegal aliens, not from Mexico, but those from outerspace.

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        Correction.

        Those illegal aliens from outerspace could land, maybe due to their faulty navigation, south of the border and sneak in from there.

        So, you could actually have illegal outerspace aliens from Mexico, theoretically.

    2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      PQS, you can soar into the stratosphere too but just make sure your foundation is solid…that you are certain 1 + 1 = 2.

      1. PQS

        Oh, I’m certain 1+1=2, but in my world, (construction), the outcome is always dependent on schedule, subcontractor performance (or lack thereof), the weather, and various other factors.

        So sometimes 1+1 = Change Order for $16.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          What about this –

          Love + Love = Love

          Love + Love = 2Loves????

          I think this is where math is not very useful.

          1. ScottS

            Shared pain is half pain.
            Shared joy is double joy.

            Working on a formula for double rainbows.

            Happy holidays, NC!

  13. Tertium Squid

    Buy Vs Rent:

    “buy when the ratio is below 15 and rent when the ratio is above 20.”

    Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburg buy buy buy!

    The ratios are low for a reason…

    1. Tertium Squid

      Good heavens – I just realized that I’ve been putting in the wrong link for my blog all this time!

      Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything interesting anyway…

  14. Tertium Squid

    NYT on pension defaults:

    “Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired workers, breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement benefits in full.”

    This sort of law is my absolute favorite. Next we’ll pass a law requiring everyone live to be at least 75.

    “He was a proud enough man that he wouldn’t accept help.”

    That is too proud. A humble man recognizes his reliance on others and on God.

    1. Paul Repstock

      Squid; I think the man’s problem was misdiagnosed. He may well have been “too proud”. But, what probably killed him was the destruction of his “reality”.

      Nothing destroys people as easily as disorientation. Therein lies the huge threat and flaw in our search for “security”, and the government’s attempt to provide security. Mankind is simply not smart enough and governments are not powerful enough, to prevent the effects of random events on this planet.

      In Western countries we have lulled into thinking that nothing can happen that the “government cannot handle”. This is partly nonsensical denial, and partly abdication of responsibilty. Also, governments has fostered the idea to cement their own relevance.

      1. Tertium Squid

        Well said.

        A man reliant on his government does not realize how isolated he actually is.

        I think you’re right – being disappointed by the government would be akin to being disappointed by God. A powerful disillusionment indeed.

        And such disappointed people, isolated and bitter, are very dangerous to themselves and others.

        True interconnectedness, based on actual virtues of love and charity and not some cold, formal and impersonal bureaucracy, are the best antidote.

  15. Fractal

    apologies if someone already posted this additional link, but WaPo front page above the fold of print edition today (Thurs. 12/23) has blockbuster:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/22/AR2010122205828.html

    My take: Fannie & Freddie knowingly & deliberately ordered & facilitated assembly-line foreclosures by servicers AND law firms, including especially Stern Law Firm, now under investigation for fraud. Fannie & Freddie knew about the assembly-line (i.e., unverified, pell-mell, hasty, unjustified) foreclosure mills SINCE THE YEAR 2000!

    Time to indict Fannie & Freddie and put some GSE executives in jail.

  16. plschwartz

    There is a simple answer to why say diagnosis of
    of depression has grown. It is because of the
    way insurance companies have changed their reimbursement criteria for treatment, especially for psychotherapy.
    So if they will pay more for more serious diseases
    then Presto the provider makes a more serious
    diagnosis.
    I suggest that the anti-depressant meds are still
    effective as before for a true major depressive diagnosis
    but not effective against say a depressive personality
    problem upgraded to a diagnosis of Major Depresion
    This makes it seem that the meds are losing effectiveness
    but I believe that is untrue.

    1. Francois T

      Depression is much more prevalent today because so many people live alone compared to any other period since 1900.

      Moreover, the pace of social change is accelerating, and the trend is not the one we’d like to see. Econ insecurity also generate a lot of depression cases, most especially in kids.

      1. Paul Repstock

        Francois; it is probably many things. And perhaps the causes may vary with geography. The three you mention are important. But there is also the population aspect. I suspect there is a near perfect reverse coorelation between the incidence of depression and birth rate.

      2. Richard Kline

        So Francois and Paul, I agree with you both.

        Modern societies are a real-time experiment in how much we can erode social bonds and still maintain sanity. We’ve eroded kin-based communities. Then we eroded kin groups. Then we pulled apart extended families. Now we’ve split up nuclear families. Now it’s true that other folks can make you crazy, but we’re social animals who are well-demonstrated to experience functional declines in the absence of social ties. And all this in the context of exceptional population densities so that we experience our personal isolation in the psychical effluent of the multitude.

        We’ll only know we’ve gone too far when ‘everything falls apart.’ Walk down any inner city ghetto and you’ll see what ‘too far’ looks like. . . . Population crash is one likely result. Might not be a bad thing, for the earth or for the genus . . . .

  17. Richard Kline

    I will be interested to read the New Yorker article on the decline effect in full. —But the implication–that validation in scientific practice is often far shakier than we assume–should surprise no one. Statistical evidence is never proof, only probability. The practice of modern science, certainly of corporate science, has veered far from either proof or truth. The ‘method’ as now used is simply to generate results which fall above a confidence range, often without doing any of the heavy lifiting of theory and explanatory explication. This is lazy science but it’s become the coin of the realm. It is just such statistical conveniences which are vulnerable to being found out as situational realities, not general ones, and thus ‘not true,’ or at least not _certain_ of result.

    If you can’t say _why_ you got a result, you can’t say with confidence what result you got, but that’s a verity left by the wayside on the rust to publish in contemporary science. I’m perpetually amazed at the blatant lack of curiosity and absence of theory, to say nothing of command of theory, in much of science today.

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