This has been around for three days but no comments so far:
http://madisonian.net/archives/2006/08/05/burying-innovation/
I wonder whether this is because the story is not taken up by the mainstream media. Apparently there is a new scholarly book on blogging: http://snurb.info/index.php?q=node/158. May be it will tell us why.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Saturday, August 05, 2006
A gambling case before WTO
The following interesting and cheery news via madisonian.net and
http://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com/2006/08/up-down-and-strange-but-ch_115470362238672778.html
From
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301390_pf.html;
"Scoffing, the Antiguans are asking the WTO to declare that Washington is defying its ruling. Many experts expect Antigua to win again, after months of delay.
Then comes the hard part for Antigua.
The WTO cannot force a country to do anything. Even if found guilty, a country can refuse to change its trade practices. The WTO largely enforces its rulings by giving the victorious country the right to impose punitive duties on the loser's products.
That enforcement mechanism works for big, rich countries such as the United States because other nations fear losing the vast U.S. market. But Antigua's economy is so tiny that few U.S. companies would notice.
"The WTO gives the little guys clout, but it cannot guarantee symmetry of justice," said Claude Barfield, a trade expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
So the Antiguans plan to ask the WTO for the right to impose sanctions that would hurt -- namely, permission to copy and export U.S.-made DVDs, CDs and similar material. Hollywood is not amused."
Read the full story at the above link to Washington Post.
http://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com/2006/08/up-down-and-strange-but-ch_115470362238672778.html
From
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301390_pf.html;
"Scoffing, the Antiguans are asking the WTO to declare that Washington is defying its ruling. Many experts expect Antigua to win again, after months of delay.
Then comes the hard part for Antigua.
The WTO cannot force a country to do anything. Even if found guilty, a country can refuse to change its trade practices. The WTO largely enforces its rulings by giving the victorious country the right to impose punitive duties on the loser's products.
That enforcement mechanism works for big, rich countries such as the United States because other nations fear losing the vast U.S. market. But Antigua's economy is so tiny that few U.S. companies would notice.
"The WTO gives the little guys clout, but it cannot guarantee symmetry of justice," said Claude Barfield, a trade expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
So the Antiguans plan to ask the WTO for the right to impose sanctions that would hurt -- namely, permission to copy and export U.S.-made DVDs, CDs and similar material. Hollywood is not amused."
Read the full story at the above link to Washington Post.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Interesting threads from blogs
One of the crticisms of Putnam's social capital is that it is a local and small scale. Responses to pandemics may show how to combine such local efforts when there is a common cause. The science blog 'Effect Measure'
has the surprising example of Hezobollah's organization as a network of local units without strict hierarchies of conventional armies which makes it effecive and suggests similar strategies to fight pandemics:
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2006/08/what_hesbollah_can_teach_publi.php#more
SciDev.Net has continuous updates of efforts and news from all over the world.
There are several new articles on mirror neurons, parly stimulated by a sceptical post in 'mixing memory':
http://scienceblogs.com/cgi-bin/MT/mt-search.cgi?search=mirror%20neurons&Template=combinedSearch
It is not clear what makes a topic break the 36 hour life span. Possibly topics taken up by main stream media still make them popular in blogs. An article in New york times describing the role of early development on health in later life seems to be generating a fair amount of discussion:http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/07/on-being-your-mothers-son.php
Related work of Robert Fogel and others is reviewd in
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1UF3SPVQUE2RH/103-9810104-7233449?ie=UTF8
I hope to learn more of this.
I am still looking for a nice and simple write up on Bernoulli Effect with some pointers to everyday life.
has the surprising example of Hezobollah's organization as a network of local units without strict hierarchies of conventional armies which makes it effecive and suggests similar strategies to fight pandemics:
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2006/08/what_hesbollah_can_teach_publi.php#more
SciDev.Net has continuous updates of efforts and news from all over the world.
There are several new articles on mirror neurons, parly stimulated by a sceptical post in 'mixing memory':
http://scienceblogs.com/cgi-bin/MT/mt-search.cgi?search=mirror%20neurons&Template=combinedSearch
It is not clear what makes a topic break the 36 hour life span. Possibly topics taken up by main stream media still make them popular in blogs. An article in New york times describing the role of early development on health in later life seems to be generating a fair amount of discussion:http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/07/on-being-your-mothers-son.php
Related work of Robert Fogel and others is reviewd in
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1UF3SPVQUE2RH/103-9810104-7233449?ie=UTF8
I hope to learn more of this.
I am still looking for a nice and simple write up on Bernoulli Effect with some pointers to everyday life.
Market economy?
I heard this kind of horror stories when I was in school. Apparently they are not just stories:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060801/od_nm/india_beggars_dc_1
Courtesy: "Marginal Revolution".
See http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2006/07/20/organ-markets-social-justice-and-the-poor-a-reply-to-professor-pasquale/ for a discussion of the ethics of the organ market.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060801/od_nm/india_beggars_dc_1
Courtesy: "Marginal Revolution".
See http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2006/07/20/organ-markets-social-justice-and-the-poor-a-reply-to-professor-pasquale/ for a discussion of the ethics of the organ market.
SciDev.Net news team wins an award
From http://www.scidev.net/ms/abswaward/
Friday 21 July 2006
SciDev.Net news team wins top UK science writing award
Lawrence McGinty, Health & Science Editor, ITN News (far left) and
Martin Taylor, Chairman of Syngenta (far right) present the award to
SciDev.Net's director, David Dickson and senior correspondent,
Catherine Brahic.
The Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net) news team has been awarded "best science journalism on the world wide web" by the UK's top science writing body.
The prize was presented to SciDev.Net by the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW) for its online coverage of the consequences of the tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean in December 2004, claiming 300,000 lives.
Its timing coincides with calls to improve the region's tsunami early warning system, put in place in the aftermath of the 2004 disaster. This week, a new tsunami struck the Indonesian island of Java. Although the threat was detected, the warning messages did not reach the coastal communities, contributing to a death toll that is currently nearing 550.
SciDev.Net's coverage is grouped into a continually updated feature known as 'Tsunami update'. This combines regular news coverage of tsunami-related research, policy decisions and events with detailed background information about the causes of the disaster, analysis of its consequences and comment about lessons for the future.
SciDev.Net's coverage of the tsunami was coordinated by news editor Mike Shanahan, senior correspondent Catherine Brahic and South Asia regional coordinator T. V. Padma.
Other contributors to 'Tsunami update' during 2005 include SciDev.Net freelance reporters Sanjit Bagchi in India, Mustak Hossain in Bangladesh, Dilrukshi Handunnetti and Nalaka Gunawardene in Sri Lanka, Ochieng' Ogodo and Kimani Chege in Kenya, Abiodun Raufu in Nigeria, and Marilyn Smith in France.
In announcing the award, Ted Nield, the president of the ABSW, said that the short-list for the web-writing awards had provided a strong set of contenders that all made full use of the web’s capabilities. "Our winner delivered a really high quality writing product," said Nield. "Science writing for the web has finally arrived."
David Dickson, the director of SciDev.Net, said that he and the organisation's news team had been thrilled and honoured to receive recognition of its work by the ABSW. "I would like to thank all of those who contributed to this achievement, which demonstrates that one can combine good science journalism, the new possibilities opened up by the Internet, and a commitment to improving people's lives," he said.
The SciDev.Net news team has decided to donate its UK£2,000 prize money to the Disasters Emergency Committee, a coalition of aid agencies providing ongoing relief in areas affected by the 2004 tsunami.
Also at the 2005 ABSW science writing awards, Sonja van Renssen, who worked as an intern at SciDev.Net in the summer of 2005 and contributed to 'Tsunami update' during this time, won the category of "Young broadcaster of the year" for a radio programme about the ethical dilemmas raised by military research.
See http://www.scidev.net/content/opinions/eng/we-need-a-slow-race-for-science-based-development.cfm
for a flavour of some of their posts.
Friday 21 July 2006
SciDev.Net news team wins top UK science writing award
Lawrence McGinty, Health & Science Editor, ITN News (far left) and
Martin Taylor, Chairman of Syngenta (far right) present the award to
SciDev.Net's director, David Dickson and senior correspondent,
Catherine Brahic.
The Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net) news team has been awarded "best science journalism on the world wide web" by the UK's top science writing body.
The prize was presented to SciDev.Net by the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW) for its online coverage of the consequences of the tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean in December 2004, claiming 300,000 lives.
Its timing coincides with calls to improve the region's tsunami early warning system, put in place in the aftermath of the 2004 disaster. This week, a new tsunami struck the Indonesian island of Java. Although the threat was detected, the warning messages did not reach the coastal communities, contributing to a death toll that is currently nearing 550.
SciDev.Net's coverage is grouped into a continually updated feature known as 'Tsunami update'. This combines regular news coverage of tsunami-related research, policy decisions and events with detailed background information about the causes of the disaster, analysis of its consequences and comment about lessons for the future.
SciDev.Net's coverage of the tsunami was coordinated by news editor Mike Shanahan, senior correspondent Catherine Brahic and South Asia regional coordinator T. V. Padma.
Other contributors to 'Tsunami update' during 2005 include SciDev.Net freelance reporters Sanjit Bagchi in India, Mustak Hossain in Bangladesh, Dilrukshi Handunnetti and Nalaka Gunawardene in Sri Lanka, Ochieng' Ogodo and Kimani Chege in Kenya, Abiodun Raufu in Nigeria, and Marilyn Smith in France.
In announcing the award, Ted Nield, the president of the ABSW, said that the short-list for the web-writing awards had provided a strong set of contenders that all made full use of the web’s capabilities. "Our winner delivered a really high quality writing product," said Nield. "Science writing for the web has finally arrived."
David Dickson, the director of SciDev.Net, said that he and the organisation's news team had been thrilled and honoured to receive recognition of its work by the ABSW. "I would like to thank all of those who contributed to this achievement, which demonstrates that one can combine good science journalism, the new possibilities opened up by the Internet, and a commitment to improving people's lives," he said.
The SciDev.Net news team has decided to donate its UK£2,000 prize money to the Disasters Emergency Committee, a coalition of aid agencies providing ongoing relief in areas affected by the 2004 tsunami.
Also at the 2005 ABSW science writing awards, Sonja van Renssen, who worked as an intern at SciDev.Net in the summer of 2005 and contributed to 'Tsunami update' during this time, won the category of "Young broadcaster of the year" for a radio programme about the ethical dilemmas raised by military research.
See http://www.scidev.net/content/opinions/eng/we-need-a-slow-race-for-science-based-development.cfm
for a flavour of some of their posts.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Crazyfinger writes
"Be that as it may, it appears to me that, while our eye is on the ball for the impressive economic growth in the years to come, nothing noteworthy is happening on the law front. I haven’t read a single article or a news report that seriously talked about legal reforms, commensurate with economic reforms. Why is that? We occasionally read business community (international) complaining about the legal impediments to establishing scale businesses in India, but no response is reported. How is it that we embrace with so much enthusiasm our own economic boom while riding on the coattails of U.S. business world, but show no interest in the supreme U.S. legal system? If push comes to shove, I’d take the boom in legal reform anyday, over the boom in the economic reform. Puzzling. So I wanted to dig into history and try to figure out what is our legal tradition, what is its status now, and why is it that legal professionals don’t seem to participate in the social commentary.
All that and more I found in a gem called “Professor Kingsfield Goes to Delhi: American Academics, the Ford Foundation, and the Development of Legal Education in India” by Professor Jayanth Krishnan of William Mitchell College of Law (free download). Once in a while, when you are looking for something, it feels like all the answers are hidden in plain view already, lurking and springing forward as soon as you form the right question in the right way. This paper feels like one of those springing forward answers, if you are looking to understand what is happening to the state of legal education in India.
Writing with simple clarity is a hard-earned skill - a long and arduous labor before it becomes “natural” (or “intuitive”) - and deserves a premium appreciation by itself. Not only this approximately 55-page document written with an illuminating clarity, but it also reads like a Dashiell Hammett page-turner."
See http://www.crazyfinger.org/2006/03/its_the_law_not.html#comments
I ditto his sentiments.
All that and more I found in a gem called “Professor Kingsfield Goes to Delhi: American Academics, the Ford Foundation, and the Development of Legal Education in India” by Professor Jayanth Krishnan of William Mitchell College of Law (free download). Once in a while, when you are looking for something, it feels like all the answers are hidden in plain view already, lurking and springing forward as soon as you form the right question in the right way. This paper feels like one of those springing forward answers, if you are looking to understand what is happening to the state of legal education in India.
Writing with simple clarity is a hard-earned skill - a long and arduous labor before it becomes “natural” (or “intuitive”) - and deserves a premium appreciation by itself. Not only this approximately 55-page document written with an illuminating clarity, but it also reads like a Dashiell Hammett page-turner."
See http://www.crazyfinger.org/2006/03/its_the_law_not.html#comments
I ditto his sentiments.
Lalu goes to Harvard
Fromhttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1715301.cms
Lalu Prasad Yadav's work with the Indian Railways may soon be a part of the curriculum at Harvard.
His detractors may call him a 'clown and a joker', but there's no denying that Lalu Prasad Yadav has a flair for business. The way he turned around the Indian Railways -- written off by the Rakesh Mohan Committee and termed a white elephant by the government -- is the stuff business curriculums are made of. And it is not just IIMs who want to fete Laluji for posting a fund balance of Rs 11,280 crore in March 2006, even the premier international business schools are joining in.
Harvard Business School and HEC Management School, France, have shown interest in turning Lalu's experiment with the railways into case studies for aspiring biz graduates. For HEC, the crux lies in how a railway system, under the jurisdiction of a coalition government, can be put on the road to success.
Explains Karine Lejoly of HEC, "We are looking at making the Indian Railways a part of our course. While nothing has been finalised as of now, I will be visiting India in October-November to talk to the concerned officials."
....
Prof G Raghuraman from IIM-A, who first introduced Lalu in their curriculum, says, "We are not just working on the facelift that Lalu has given to the railways but also his personality, the team he works with and the initiatives he has taken. It was not as if Lalu applied some new principles, he was just the guy who said, 'Let's get down to it'."
Earlier story: Lalu goes to IIM-A:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1513349.cms
and some his ‘reforms’:
http://www.blonnet.com/2006/02/25/stories/2006022504010100.htm
Acknowledgement: kaburlu.com
For an overview of Lalu's turbulent period in Bihar see:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/casi/publications/india_in_transition.htm
Social Justice and Stalled Development:
Caste Empowerment and the Breakdown of Governance in Bihar, Spring 2006.
Update(September 1, 2006)
More links and news in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laloo_Prasad_Yadav
Foe a recent discussion and comments see http://acorn.nationalinterest.in/?p=2082#comments
Lalu Prasad Yadav's work with the Indian Railways may soon be a part of the curriculum at Harvard.
His detractors may call him a 'clown and a joker', but there's no denying that Lalu Prasad Yadav has a flair for business. The way he turned around the Indian Railways -- written off by the Rakesh Mohan Committee and termed a white elephant by the government -- is the stuff business curriculums are made of. And it is not just IIMs who want to fete Laluji for posting a fund balance of Rs 11,280 crore in March 2006, even the premier international business schools are joining in.
Harvard Business School and HEC Management School, France, have shown interest in turning Lalu's experiment with the railways into case studies for aspiring biz graduates. For HEC, the crux lies in how a railway system, under the jurisdiction of a coalition government, can be put on the road to success.
Explains Karine Lejoly of HEC, "We are looking at making the Indian Railways a part of our course. While nothing has been finalised as of now, I will be visiting India in October-November to talk to the concerned officials."
....
Prof G Raghuraman from IIM-A, who first introduced Lalu in their curriculum, says, "We are not just working on the facelift that Lalu has given to the railways but also his personality, the team he works with and the initiatives he has taken. It was not as if Lalu applied some new principles, he was just the guy who said, 'Let's get down to it'."
Earlier story: Lalu goes to IIM-A:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1513349.cms
and some his ‘reforms’:
http://www.blonnet.com/2006/02/25/stories/2006022504010100.htm
Acknowledgement: kaburlu.com
For an overview of Lalu's turbulent period in Bihar see:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/casi/publications/india_in_transition.htm
Social Justice and Stalled Development:
Caste Empowerment and the Breakdown of Governance in Bihar, Spring 2006.
Update(September 1, 2006)
More links and news in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laloo_Prasad_Yadav
Foe a recent discussion and comments see http://acorn.nationalinterest.in/?p=2082#comments
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Problems ahead for India?
Interesting analysis in:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060723/india_nm/india260678_2
See also for intersting articles and links :http://communalism.blogspot.com/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060723/india_nm/india260678_2
See also for intersting articles and links :http://communalism.blogspot.com/
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Asian Future of Evolutionary Psychology
In the Evolotutionary Psychology yaoo discussion group, there is a link to an exchange between Professors Geoffrey Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa on the future of evolutionary psychlogy in Asia. The discussion seems to be of general interest and not really specific to one science. Strangely neither of them seems to take in to account the strong immigration component of the US population. I am enclosing the links to the papers and their abstracts. I hope that Madhukar Shukla and Abi will have some comments.
http://human-nature.com/ep/downloads/ep04107119.pdf
The Asian Future of Evolutionary Psychology
Geoffrey Miller, Department of Psychology, Logan Hall, 1 University of New Mexico, MSC03 2220, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1161, USA. Email: gfmiller@unm.edu.
Abstract: Asia’s population, wealth, cognitive capital, and scientific influence are growing quickly. Reasonable demographic, economic, and psychometric projections suggest that by the mid-21st century, most of the world’s psychology will be done in Asia, by Asians. Even if evolutionary psychology wins the battles for academic respectability in the United States and European Union, if it ignores the rise of Asian psychology, it will fail to have any serious, long-term, global influence in the behavioral sciences after the current generations of researchers are dead. I outline a ‘marketing strategy’ for promoting evolutionary psychology in the current Asian powers (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore), the new Asian mega-powers (China, India), and other developing Asia countries (e.g. Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia), in a way that takes advantage of Asia’s relative secularism, freedom from political correctness, sex-positive social attitudes, and intellectual traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.
http://human-nature.com/ep/downloads/ep04120128.pdf
No, It Ain’t Gonna Be Like That
Satoshi Kanazawa, Interdisciplinary Institute of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom. Email: s.kanazawa@lse.ac.uk.
Abstract: For cultural, social, and institutional reasons, Asians cannot make original contributions to basic science. I therefore doubt Miller's prediction for the Asian future of evolutionary psychology. I believe that its future will continue to be in the United States and Europe.
http://human-nature.com/ep/downloads/ep04129137.pdf
Asian Creativity: A Response to Satoshi Kanazawa
Geoffrey Miller, Department of Psychology, Logan Hall, 1 University of New Mexico, MSC03 2220, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1161, USA. Email: gfmiller@unm.edu.
Abstract: This article responds to Satoshi Kanazawa’s thoughtful and entertaining comments about my article concerning the Asian future of evolutionary psychology. Contra Kanazawa’s argument that Asian cultural traditions and/or character inhibit Asian scientific creativity, I review historical evidence of high Asian creativity, and psychometric evidence of high Asian intelligence (a cognitive trait) and openness to experience (a personality trait) – two key components of creativity. Contra Kanazawa’s concern that political correctness is a bigger threat to American evolutionary psychology than religious fundamentalism, I review evidence from research funding patterns and student attitudes suggesting that fundamentalism is more harmful and pervasive. Finally, in response to Kanazawa’s focus on tall buildings as indexes of national wealth and creativity, I find that 13 of the world’s tallest 25 buildings are in China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan – of which 11 were built in the last decade. Asian creativity, secularism, and architectural prominence point to a bright future for Asian science.
http://human-nature.com/ep/downloads/ep04107119.pdf
The Asian Future of Evolutionary Psychology
Geoffrey Miller, Department of Psychology, Logan Hall, 1 University of New Mexico, MSC03 2220, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1161, USA. Email: gfmiller@unm.edu.
Abstract: Asia’s population, wealth, cognitive capital, and scientific influence are growing quickly. Reasonable demographic, economic, and psychometric projections suggest that by the mid-21st century, most of the world’s psychology will be done in Asia, by Asians. Even if evolutionary psychology wins the battles for academic respectability in the United States and European Union, if it ignores the rise of Asian psychology, it will fail to have any serious, long-term, global influence in the behavioral sciences after the current generations of researchers are dead. I outline a ‘marketing strategy’ for promoting evolutionary psychology in the current Asian powers (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore), the new Asian mega-powers (China, India), and other developing Asia countries (e.g. Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia), in a way that takes advantage of Asia’s relative secularism, freedom from political correctness, sex-positive social attitudes, and intellectual traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.
http://human-nature.com/ep/downloads/ep04120128.pdf
No, It Ain’t Gonna Be Like That
Satoshi Kanazawa, Interdisciplinary Institute of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom. Email: s.kanazawa@lse.ac.uk.
Abstract: For cultural, social, and institutional reasons, Asians cannot make original contributions to basic science. I therefore doubt Miller's prediction for the Asian future of evolutionary psychology. I believe that its future will continue to be in the United States and Europe.
http://human-nature.com/ep/downloads/ep04129137.pdf
Asian Creativity: A Response to Satoshi Kanazawa
Geoffrey Miller, Department of Psychology, Logan Hall, 1 University of New Mexico, MSC03 2220, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1161, USA. Email: gfmiller@unm.edu.
Abstract: This article responds to Satoshi Kanazawa’s thoughtful and entertaining comments about my article concerning the Asian future of evolutionary psychology. Contra Kanazawa’s argument that Asian cultural traditions and/or character inhibit Asian scientific creativity, I review historical evidence of high Asian creativity, and psychometric evidence of high Asian intelligence (a cognitive trait) and openness to experience (a personality trait) – two key components of creativity. Contra Kanazawa’s concern that political correctness is a bigger threat to American evolutionary psychology than religious fundamentalism, I review evidence from research funding patterns and student attitudes suggesting that fundamentalism is more harmful and pervasive. Finally, in response to Kanazawa’s focus on tall buildings as indexes of national wealth and creativity, I find that 13 of the world’s tallest 25 buildings are in China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan – of which 11 were built in the last decade. Asian creativity, secularism, and architectural prominence point to a bright future for Asian science.
Iron Law of Oligarchy
From Penguin dictionary of Sociology:
“In his analysis of German Social Democracy, Robert Michels argued (1911) that labour organizations with democratic aims, such as political parties and trade unions, experienced a tension between the need foe efficiency and membership control of the making and execution of policy. As they grew in size, labour organizations became more complex and permanent bureaucracies developed to cope efficiently with the problems of administration. The officials, by virtue of their expertise and experience, became indispensable and difficult to change even when subject to periodic re-election. Once they occupied this strong position, the leaders began to emancipate themselves from member control and displace member goals with their own. These goals are usually less radical than those of the members and the official party or union ideology. As they controlled the channels of communication, they manipulated the flow of information to help buttress their positions. In the final analysis, goal displacement depended on the apathy and lack of involvement of members with issues of party or union government.
The modern study of trade-union government and the internal structure of mass political parties has been deeply influenced by Michel’s pessimism, though research shows that the ‘iron law’ of oligarchy does not always apply to such organizations.”
Some more about Michels is at:
http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y64l11.html
There seems to be an element of truth in the iron law, particularly when there are no grass roots political and social organizations. Lok Satta started developing such organizations and is now debating about becoming a political party. Coincidentally Govt. of India is trying to dilute RTI Act:
http://alternativeperspective.blogspot.com/2006/07/indias-improved-right-to-ifrain-act.html#comments.
According to Dilip D'Souza http://dcubed.blogspot.com/, a place to contact is:
NCPRI
C 17A Munirka, New Delhi 110 067, India
Telefax: +91 (0)11 26178048; Phone: 26168759,
email: ncpri.india@gmail.com
where my old friend Shekhar Singh seems to be working.
“In his analysis of German Social Democracy, Robert Michels argued (1911) that labour organizations with democratic aims, such as political parties and trade unions, experienced a tension between the need foe efficiency and membership control of the making and execution of policy. As they grew in size, labour organizations became more complex and permanent bureaucracies developed to cope efficiently with the problems of administration. The officials, by virtue of their expertise and experience, became indispensable and difficult to change even when subject to periodic re-election. Once they occupied this strong position, the leaders began to emancipate themselves from member control and displace member goals with their own. These goals are usually less radical than those of the members and the official party or union ideology. As they controlled the channels of communication, they manipulated the flow of information to help buttress their positions. In the final analysis, goal displacement depended on the apathy and lack of involvement of members with issues of party or union government.
The modern study of trade-union government and the internal structure of mass political parties has been deeply influenced by Michel’s pessimism, though research shows that the ‘iron law’ of oligarchy does not always apply to such organizations.”
Some more about Michels is at:
http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y64l11.html
There seems to be an element of truth in the iron law, particularly when there are no grass roots political and social organizations. Lok Satta started developing such organizations and is now debating about becoming a political party. Coincidentally Govt. of India is trying to dilute RTI Act:
http://alternativeperspective.blogspot.com/2006/07/indias-improved-right-to-ifrain-act.html#comments.
According to Dilip D'Souza http://dcubed.blogspot.com/, a place to contact is:
NCPRI
C 17A Munirka, New Delhi 110 067, India
Telefax: +91 (0)11 26178048; Phone: 26168759,
email: ncpri.india@gmail.com
where my old friend Shekhar Singh seems to be working.
Dr. Free-Ride's Advice to Non-Scientists
Interesting article by Janet Stemwedel at:
http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2006/07/things_nonscientists_can_do_to.php#more
"Rather, I think what I'd be happy with is a population which:
has a sense of the kinds of questions science can answer -- and the kinds of questions science cannot answer
has a reasonable understanding of the methods scientists use to try to answer these questions
has a reasonable understanding of the types of "qualitiy control" to which putative scientific findings are subjected
This kind of basic grasp of science puts the non-scientist in a position to get something more from reports of scientific findings than an updated set of facts to take on someone else's authority. My hope, anyway, is that a better feel for the way science works will help people be more critical consumers of science reporting -- an audience that will read past the headline to the "fine print" that provides the qualifiers about the precise conditions the scientists examined and the strength of their conclusions. An audience that knows something about how scientific knowledge comes into being can ask questions about what kinds of assumptions were made in studying a particular question, how widely applicable the findings are, and what questions remain unanswered."
There is much more and also some concrete advice in the article.
http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2006/07/things_nonscientists_can_do_to.php#more
"Rather, I think what I'd be happy with is a population which:
has a sense of the kinds of questions science can answer -- and the kinds of questions science cannot answer
has a reasonable understanding of the methods scientists use to try to answer these questions
has a reasonable understanding of the types of "qualitiy control" to which putative scientific findings are subjected
This kind of basic grasp of science puts the non-scientist in a position to get something more from reports of scientific findings than an updated set of facts to take on someone else's authority. My hope, anyway, is that a better feel for the way science works will help people be more critical consumers of science reporting -- an audience that will read past the headline to the "fine print" that provides the qualifiers about the precise conditions the scientists examined and the strength of their conclusions. An audience that knows something about how scientific knowledge comes into being can ask questions about what kinds of assumptions were made in studying a particular question, how widely applicable the findings are, and what questions remain unanswered."
There is much more and also some concrete advice in the article.
Training the Brain
Two free articles in the current issue of “Scientific American Mind”, one about training the mind using computer games and the second about taste In ‘Circuit Training’:
http://www.sciammind.com/article.cfm?articleID=00016C9D-2761-1477-9D3383414B7F0000
Kasper Mossman discusses Ryuta Kawashima’s game ‘Brain Age’. Kawashima’s idea is that your brain has its own age and if you do not train it, it gets old. He has various exercise to train the brain. Gross man who is only 34 had an estimated brain age of 60 to begin with but:
“After a week of exercises such as Low to High, CalculationsÅ~100, and Head Count, were my synapses any slicker? It is hard to say, when there is no external yardstick against which to measure progress. But one week into brain training, while taking a phone message, I found I could effortlessly hold one 10-digit number in my head and scribble down another. Maybe Kawashima is onto something.”
Mossmam also describes other computer games designed for children with attention difficulties and patients recovering from brain injuries.
See also another free article by Ulrich Kraft “Train Your Brain”:
http://www.sciammind.com/article.cfm?articleID=000C075D-4357-13D9-810183414B7F0000
I have already forgotten the contents of this earlier article. It is time to start training my brain.
http://www.sciammind.com/article.cfm?articleID=00016C9D-2761-1477-9D3383414B7F0000
Kasper Mossman discusses Ryuta Kawashima’s game ‘Brain Age’. Kawashima’s idea is that your brain has its own age and if you do not train it, it gets old. He has various exercise to train the brain. Gross man who is only 34 had an estimated brain age of 60 to begin with but:
“After a week of exercises such as Low to High, CalculationsÅ~100, and Head Count, were my synapses any slicker? It is hard to say, when there is no external yardstick against which to measure progress. But one week into brain training, while taking a phone message, I found I could effortlessly hold one 10-digit number in my head and scribble down another. Maybe Kawashima is onto something.”
Mossmam also describes other computer games designed for children with attention difficulties and patients recovering from brain injuries.
See also another free article by Ulrich Kraft “Train Your Brain”:
http://www.sciammind.com/article.cfm?articleID=000C075D-4357-13D9-810183414B7F0000
I have already forgotten the contents of this earlier article. It is time to start training my brain.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Toxoplasmosis
Toxoplsma gondii is a parasite related to the malaria parasite and can be carried by many warm-blooded mammals including humans. But its definitive host is cats and it can sexually reproduce only in cats. Its eggs are spread in cat faeces. A passing rat can pick it up from the moist infected soil. Apparently rats behave recklessly when infected (resulting in toxoplasmosis or toxo for short) , are more active and less scared of new things and are even attracted to cat's urine. This makes them easy prey to cats and the life cycle of the parasite continues.
Between 30 to 70 percent of the humans (depending on the country) are supposed to be infected with this parasite and the effects may vary considerably. Apparently it can affect one’s intelligence, has been linked to schizophrenia and may raise chances of being knocked out by a car. But the main danger seems to be to pregnant women and pregnant women are urged to be vary of handling cats and cat litter:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/toxoplasmosis/factsht_toxoplasmosis.htm
According to New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17623665.200;jsessionid=GDHALMBFEDLA
the definite host is cats and the effects on humans may be much less harmful and depend on the gender:
“The results from personality tests were complicated and showed confusing gender differences, but men at least seemed to mimic one aspect of rat manipulation. Infected men tended to be more independent and inclined to break rules, although infected women tended to go the other way. Could it be that males are being made more reckless, like the rats, while for some reason the mind-control chemical has the opposite effect in females? “
“But one test, measuring reaction times and attention span, gave more consistent results (Parasitology, vol 122, p 515). Both men and women who had a latent infection took longer to press a computer key after a prompt from the monitor. People without an infection took about 250 milliseconds to react, but those with a latent infection reacted about 8 per cent slower. What's more, toxo-positive subjects did worse as the experiment went on, suggesting that they have shorter attention spans. Again, the effects in humans seem to be mimicking those in rats.
Until recently, few people have taken Flegr's results very seriously. So what if toxo causes a few strange lab results, what difference does that make in the real world? What made people sit up and take notice was research published in August by Flegr's team showing that humans with a latent infection are 2.7 times more likely to be involved in a car accident (BMC Infectious Diseases, www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/2/11).”
It is possible that this parasite has very little affect on humans but I was reminded of it by the developments in the middle east.
Update (August 2, 2006). See http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2006/08/01/a_nation_of_cowards_blame_the.php
for the latest.
Between 30 to 70 percent of the humans (depending on the country) are supposed to be infected with this parasite and the effects may vary considerably. Apparently it can affect one’s intelligence, has been linked to schizophrenia and may raise chances of being knocked out by a car. But the main danger seems to be to pregnant women and pregnant women are urged to be vary of handling cats and cat litter:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/toxoplasmosis/factsht_toxoplasmosis.htm
According to New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17623665.200;jsessionid=GDHALMBFEDLA
the definite host is cats and the effects on humans may be much less harmful and depend on the gender:
“The results from personality tests were complicated and showed confusing gender differences, but men at least seemed to mimic one aspect of rat manipulation. Infected men tended to be more independent and inclined to break rules, although infected women tended to go the other way. Could it be that males are being made more reckless, like the rats, while for some reason the mind-control chemical has the opposite effect in females? “
“But one test, measuring reaction times and attention span, gave more consistent results (Parasitology, vol 122, p 515). Both men and women who had a latent infection took longer to press a computer key after a prompt from the monitor. People without an infection took about 250 milliseconds to react, but those with a latent infection reacted about 8 per cent slower. What's more, toxo-positive subjects did worse as the experiment went on, suggesting that they have shorter attention spans. Again, the effects in humans seem to be mimicking those in rats.
Until recently, few people have taken Flegr's results very seriously. So what if toxo causes a few strange lab results, what difference does that make in the real world? What made people sit up and take notice was research published in August by Flegr's team showing that humans with a latent infection are 2.7 times more likely to be involved in a car accident (BMC Infectious Diseases, www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/2/11).”
It is possible that this parasite has very little affect on humans but I was reminded of it by the developments in the middle east.
Update (August 2, 2006). See http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2006/08/01/a_nation_of_cowards_blame_the.php
for the latest.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Hard Blogging (Science)
From http://drrob.typepad.com/hpb_etc/
Razib at GNXP (Classic) says:
John Hawks is the Chris of Mixing Memory for paleoanthropology, and Chris of Mixing Memory is the John Hawks of cognitive psychology. And Robert Skipper is the philosopher & historian of science equivalent of the pair. Can you name other weblogs that stand head & shoulders above the pack in terms of their scholarly orientations?
What Razib didn't say, modestly, is that his own blogging at GNXP and GNXP Classic "stands head & shoulders above the pack" in terms of scholarly orientation. I'll add RPM at Evolgen. And in philosophy of biology, John Wilkins' stuff on species at Evolving Thoughts is required reading.
Some of these links:
http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/
http://johnhawks.net/weblog
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/
http://scienceblogs.com/evolgen/
http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/
http://drrob.typepad.com/hpb_etc/
Pl.check also the comments in gnxp
Razib at GNXP (Classic) says:
John Hawks is the Chris of Mixing Memory for paleoanthropology, and Chris of Mixing Memory is the John Hawks of cognitive psychology. And Robert Skipper is the philosopher & historian of science equivalent of the pair. Can you name other weblogs that stand head & shoulders above the pack in terms of their scholarly orientations?
What Razib didn't say, modestly, is that his own blogging at GNXP and GNXP Classic "stands head & shoulders above the pack" in terms of scholarly orientation. I'll add RPM at Evolgen. And in philosophy of biology, John Wilkins' stuff on species at Evolving Thoughts is required reading.
Some of these links:
http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/
http://johnhawks.net/weblog
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/
http://scienceblogs.com/evolgen/
http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/
http://drrob.typepad.com/hpb_etc/
Pl.check also the comments in gnxp
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Some science sites
Science seems to be getting more and more complicated. May 25th issue of Nature has an article: "What is a gene". It seems that two decades ago, the concept of gene was explained in two hours to fresh undergraduates. Now, it takes a whole semester. According to one scientist "Diecrete genes are beginning to vanish. We have a whole continuum of transcripts". Even many of the teachers are unaware of basic discoveries in other areas. I am listing below a few online journals which have popular science articles. I will correct and update it from time to time.
1 Science magazines and sites (free):
http://www.sciencedaily.com/
http://www.physorg.com/
http://www.eurekalert.org/
http://www.livescience.com/
http://www.world-science.net/
http://www.edge.org/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/
http://www.virology.net/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/
2 Longer articles and downloadable books:
http://www.biology.com/
http://www.biologymad.com/
http://www.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/biobooktoc.html
http://www.howstuffworks.com/
http://inventors.about.com/library/bl/bl12.htm
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/
3 Science magazines and sites (some free articles):
http://www.newscientist.com/home.ns
http://www.sciammind.com/
http://scientificamerican.com/news_directory.cfm
http://www.americanscientist.org/
4 Science news and discussion blogs :
http://scienceblogs.com/
http://www.gnxp.com/
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/cat_trends_human_evolution.html
http://science.slashdot.org/
5 Sustainable development, water resources
http://www.planetark.com/
http://www.cseindia.org/
http://www.zeri.org/
6 Future prospects
http://www.kurzweilai.net/
7. Continuous updates about interesting sites
http://forumhub.mayyam.com/hub/viewtopic.php?t=5010
1 Science magazines and sites (free):
http://www.sciencedaily.com/
http://www.physorg.com/
http://www.eurekalert.org/
http://www.livescience.com/
http://www.world-science.net/
http://www.edge.org/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/
http://www.virology.net/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/
2 Longer articles and downloadable books:
http://www.biology.com/
http://www.biologymad.com/
http://www.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/biobooktoc.html
http://www.howstuffworks.com/
http://inventors.about.com/library/bl/bl12.htm
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/
3 Science magazines and sites (some free articles):
http://www.newscientist.com/home.ns
http://www.sciammind.com/
http://scientificamerican.com/news_directory.cfm
http://www.americanscientist.org/
4 Science news and discussion blogs :
http://scienceblogs.com/
http://www.gnxp.com/
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/cat_trends_human_evolution.html
http://science.slashdot.org/
5 Sustainable development, water resources
http://www.planetark.com/
http://www.cseindia.org/
http://www.zeri.org/
6 Future prospects
http://www.kurzweilai.net/
7. Continuous updates about interesting sites
http://forumhub.mayyam.com/hub/viewtopic.php?t=5010
More from theotherindia.org
In retirement, I have started trying to find out how things are in India. The period I still remember distinctly is the decade of post independence. By that time, I was bitten by the mathes bug and did not pay much attention to the world around. By 60’s there seemed to be some improvements and the time of major famines seemed to be over. The whole Indira Gandhi period was a bit of haze for me though traumatic for many others. Off and on when I visited home, I heard comments that our caste was loosing out and the lower castes did not know their place any more. Overall, there seemed to be improvements. I hoped that the period when poverty dehumanised both haves and have nots was over. Since, I do not have too much faith in the mainstream media, I started looking at blogs. There seem to be many brilliant people and many brilliant blogs, generally interested and anxious about India’s development, but somehow frenetic and I could not get a picture of how things actually work in India. I also feel that the problems are too complex, news too unreliable that it is difficult for any one person to understand the current realities and one has to be a part, formally or informally, of a discussion group to get a grip on the current events and future directions.
One such group seems to be www.theothetindia.org
I read comments in some other blogs that these are commies, but as far as I can see from individual blogs, some of them seem to be suspicious of ideologies. They all seem vaguely left (for me left means those who are concerned about others irrespective of their race and creed. Possibly many economists are leftists according to this definition). At the moment, I am sold on this blog and hope that many more such group blogs will arrive. To get an idea of how difficult social change may be in India, look at the articles and comments on reservations. To get an idea of how things actually work and the nitty-gritty of clash of ideologies, politics, egos see mrajshekhar’s articles about Orissa and ‘World Bank, SHGs, market linkages and the private sector”. In spite of all the anxiety about development, there seem to more comments about caste and reservation and less about development. There are more such articles in the ‘My Articles’ section of http://www.fracturedearth.org/, for example, http://www.fracturedearth.org/articles/itc-hll.pdf.
I do not know how long the site will last but at the moment it seems to be doing a good job of educating people like me about India.
One such group seems to be www.theothetindia.org
I read comments in some other blogs that these are commies, but as far as I can see from individual blogs, some of them seem to be suspicious of ideologies. They all seem vaguely left (for me left means those who are concerned about others irrespective of their race and creed. Possibly many economists are leftists according to this definition). At the moment, I am sold on this blog and hope that many more such group blogs will arrive. To get an idea of how difficult social change may be in India, look at the articles and comments on reservations. To get an idea of how things actually work and the nitty-gritty of clash of ideologies, politics, egos see mrajshekhar’s articles about Orissa and ‘World Bank, SHGs, market linkages and the private sector”. In spite of all the anxiety about development, there seem to more comments about caste and reservation and less about development. There are more such articles in the ‘My Articles’ section of http://www.fracturedearth.org/, for example, http://www.fracturedearth.org/articles/itc-hll.pdf.
I do not know how long the site will last but at the moment it seems to be doing a good job of educating people like me about India.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Living from a suitcase
Since a trip last October, I have been living from a suitcase. One of the daughters moved back and all the bedrooms in the house are taken up. In the nights, I move my mattress, a few books and laptop to the rumpus room and when my wife takes over the room in the day time try to I find some room wherever in the house. It is bit like the situation of some Japanese derelicts living in stations each near a pole which I saw long ago. I try to pretend that this gives me some glimpse of how the other half lives and keep reading and thinking about social change.
So many great minds have thought about social change before and what hope do I have of solving these problems. Unfortunately one has to vote, think about jobs for near and dear and take a stand sometimes and it seems that one has to think about the decisions of various people around the world. With so much information, it seems possible to support any stand one takes and one usually ends up forming opinions which seem beneficial and at the same time makes one feel moral and a bit better than most others. One tries to confirm and strengthen such good feelings by gossip. In any case, the world seems so complex that it is impossible to have informed opinion on every issue. But we have some idea and consensus on what are good in life and institutions and if one can develop some ways of quantifying such things, it may be possible to make some decisions and formulate flexible courses of actions. Robert Putnam has been trying to do such measurements in terms of what he calls ‘social capital’. From his 1995 article “Bowling Alone” part of which appeared in:
http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itdhr/0796/ijde/putnam.htm
“Recently, American social scientists of a neo-Tocquevillean bent have unearthed a wide range of empirical evidence that the quality of public life and the performance of social institutions (and not only in America) are indeed powerfully influenced by norms and networks of civic engagement. Researchers in such fields as education, urban poverty, unemployment, the control of crime and drug abuse, and even health have discovered that successful outcomes are more likely in civically engaged communities. Similarly, research on the varying economic attainments of different ethnic groups in the United States has demonstrated the importance of social bonds within each group. These results are consistent with research in a wide range of settings that demonstrates the vital importance of social networks for job placement and many other economic outcomes.
No doubt the mechanisms through which civic engagement and social connectedness produce such results as better schools, faster economic development, lower crime, and more effective government are multiple and complex. While these briefly recounted findings require further confirmation and perhaps qualification, the parallels across hundreds of empirical studies in a dozen disparate disciplines and subfields are striking. Social scientists in several fields have recently suggested a common framework for understanding these phenomena, a framework that rests on the concept of social capital. By analogy with notions of physical capital and human capital -- tools and training that enhance individual productivity -- "social capital" refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.”
Putnam has studied measurements and development of social capital in three books and some web sites. The books are “Making Democracy Work”, “Bowling Alone” and “Better Together”. I read the last, browsed through the second and have not yet seen the first, which is supposed to be the best of the lot. In “Bowling Alone” he gives exhaustive statistics to show the decline of social capital in USA since around 1965. In the third book, he gives diverse examples of organizations which raised social capital in their communities; Valley Interfaith in Southern Texas working for the education of migrant children, branch libraries in Chicago, Tupelo model in Southern Mississippi developing an impoverished agricultural community to a thriving semi-industrial community etc. The last mentioned case is impressive though there are fresh conflicts. These are all small scale local phenomena and even the one internet community discussed craigslist.org mainly works in the San Fransisco area though similar sites have sprung up in other towns and cities. One of the main criticisms of Putnam’s programme is that the work is necessarily of local nature and small scale and it is not clear that these can achieve the sort of changes for the whole society which Putnam envisages. See, for example, the reviews:
http://www.la.utexas.edu/chenry/civil/archives95/csspapers/0006.html
http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/boc01/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/13805
Politicians and even KKK may bring cohesiveness to some communities which may not be palatable for other communities. Moreover there are strange factors about social capital; a war may increase the social capital in a community or a country and prosperity may lessen it as it has done in USA. So, in spite of its apparent measurability, the very concept seems to be rooted in some contradiction. Perhaps, that is the only way we can go.
A more extreme form of social capital called ‘asabiya’ has been studied by a theoretical bioligist Peter Turchin in “War, Peace and War”. Asabiya used by Arab historian Ibn Khladun apparently means ‘collective solidarity’ in Arabic and according to Tutchin “Asabiya of a group is the ability of its members to stick together, to cooperate; it allows a group to protect itself against the enemies, and to impose its will on others” and “Putnam’s social capital is abasiya for democratic societies, with an emphasis on its non-military aspects”. Turchin used this concept of asabiya to study the rise and fall of empires and he also has mathematical studies of various other cycles; see for example the reviews by Herbert Gintis and of a mathematical version of the book byPaul Seabright (The reviews can be found at: http://www.eeb.uconn.edu/faculty/turchin/Clio.htm). Though Turchin’s analysis looks impressive, it is probably not so difficult to cast a net to explain the past and the power of any theory also lies in its predictiveness. In any case, most of Turchin’s study is about agrarian states and we seem to in a completely different set up now. One of the few people who predicted with a fair amount of accuracy seems to be Daniel Bell about the information age but he failed in other predictions (so far):
http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&DocID=346
http://www.slate.com/id/3123/
People like Jeffrey Sachs (in “The End of Poverty”) have pointed out that over all there is much development in the past two hundred years in all continents and much larger percentage of people are generally living much better now than a few decades ago. Perhaps we should look at progress over 3-4 generations rather than one generation. Is it possible for one person to understand all this and make decisions? Perhaps we need more informed discussions among groups; some way of combining local social capital information of the sort Putnam described with global information and reach through a group of like minded people around the world and concerned about the less privileged. One site which seems to be trying to make such study and provide information in India is www.theotherindia.org/
Perhaps there are more such sites.
For the moment I seem go along with the thoughts about the faults in the texture of existence expressed by Pankaj Mishra in his review of “The Namesake”. I will go back to science where things are a bit more clearer.
So many great minds have thought about social change before and what hope do I have of solving these problems. Unfortunately one has to vote, think about jobs for near and dear and take a stand sometimes and it seems that one has to think about the decisions of various people around the world. With so much information, it seems possible to support any stand one takes and one usually ends up forming opinions which seem beneficial and at the same time makes one feel moral and a bit better than most others. One tries to confirm and strengthen such good feelings by gossip. In any case, the world seems so complex that it is impossible to have informed opinion on every issue. But we have some idea and consensus on what are good in life and institutions and if one can develop some ways of quantifying such things, it may be possible to make some decisions and formulate flexible courses of actions. Robert Putnam has been trying to do such measurements in terms of what he calls ‘social capital’. From his 1995 article “Bowling Alone” part of which appeared in:
http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itdhr/0796/ijde/putnam.htm
“Recently, American social scientists of a neo-Tocquevillean bent have unearthed a wide range of empirical evidence that the quality of public life and the performance of social institutions (and not only in America) are indeed powerfully influenced by norms and networks of civic engagement. Researchers in such fields as education, urban poverty, unemployment, the control of crime and drug abuse, and even health have discovered that successful outcomes are more likely in civically engaged communities. Similarly, research on the varying economic attainments of different ethnic groups in the United States has demonstrated the importance of social bonds within each group. These results are consistent with research in a wide range of settings that demonstrates the vital importance of social networks for job placement and many other economic outcomes.
No doubt the mechanisms through which civic engagement and social connectedness produce such results as better schools, faster economic development, lower crime, and more effective government are multiple and complex. While these briefly recounted findings require further confirmation and perhaps qualification, the parallels across hundreds of empirical studies in a dozen disparate disciplines and subfields are striking. Social scientists in several fields have recently suggested a common framework for understanding these phenomena, a framework that rests on the concept of social capital. By analogy with notions of physical capital and human capital -- tools and training that enhance individual productivity -- "social capital" refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.”
Putnam has studied measurements and development of social capital in three books and some web sites. The books are “Making Democracy Work”, “Bowling Alone” and “Better Together”. I read the last, browsed through the second and have not yet seen the first, which is supposed to be the best of the lot. In “Bowling Alone” he gives exhaustive statistics to show the decline of social capital in USA since around 1965. In the third book, he gives diverse examples of organizations which raised social capital in their communities; Valley Interfaith in Southern Texas working for the education of migrant children, branch libraries in Chicago, Tupelo model in Southern Mississippi developing an impoverished agricultural community to a thriving semi-industrial community etc. The last mentioned case is impressive though there are fresh conflicts. These are all small scale local phenomena and even the one internet community discussed craigslist.org mainly works in the San Fransisco area though similar sites have sprung up in other towns and cities. One of the main criticisms of Putnam’s programme is that the work is necessarily of local nature and small scale and it is not clear that these can achieve the sort of changes for the whole society which Putnam envisages. See, for example, the reviews:
http://www.la.utexas.edu/chenry/civil/archives95/csspapers/0006.html
http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/boc01/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/13805
Politicians and even KKK may bring cohesiveness to some communities which may not be palatable for other communities. Moreover there are strange factors about social capital; a war may increase the social capital in a community or a country and prosperity may lessen it as it has done in USA. So, in spite of its apparent measurability, the very concept seems to be rooted in some contradiction. Perhaps, that is the only way we can go.
A more extreme form of social capital called ‘asabiya’ has been studied by a theoretical bioligist Peter Turchin in “War, Peace and War”. Asabiya used by Arab historian Ibn Khladun apparently means ‘collective solidarity’ in Arabic and according to Tutchin “Asabiya of a group is the ability of its members to stick together, to cooperate; it allows a group to protect itself against the enemies, and to impose its will on others” and “Putnam’s social capital is abasiya for democratic societies, with an emphasis on its non-military aspects”. Turchin used this concept of asabiya to study the rise and fall of empires and he also has mathematical studies of various other cycles; see for example the reviews by Herbert Gintis and of a mathematical version of the book byPaul Seabright (The reviews can be found at: http://www.eeb.uconn.edu/faculty/turchin/Clio.htm). Though Turchin’s analysis looks impressive, it is probably not so difficult to cast a net to explain the past and the power of any theory also lies in its predictiveness. In any case, most of Turchin’s study is about agrarian states and we seem to in a completely different set up now. One of the few people who predicted with a fair amount of accuracy seems to be Daniel Bell about the information age but he failed in other predictions (so far):
http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&DocID=346
http://www.slate.com/id/3123/
People like Jeffrey Sachs (in “The End of Poverty”) have pointed out that over all there is much development in the past two hundred years in all continents and much larger percentage of people are generally living much better now than a few decades ago. Perhaps we should look at progress over 3-4 generations rather than one generation. Is it possible for one person to understand all this and make decisions? Perhaps we need more informed discussions among groups; some way of combining local social capital information of the sort Putnam described with global information and reach through a group of like minded people around the world and concerned about the less privileged. One site which seems to be trying to make such study and provide information in India is www.theotherindia.org/
Perhaps there are more such sites.
For the moment I seem go along with the thoughts about the faults in the texture of existence expressed by Pankaj Mishra in his review of “The Namesake”. I will go back to science where things are a bit more clearer.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Pankaj Mishra
I have read very little of Pankaj Mishra but the little I read stayed with me. The first is this last paragraph from his review Of Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake”
“This is the melancholy awareness that suffuses Lahiri's catalogs of desirable things and people. And so while such obvious underdogs as Nazneen and Chanu arouse pity and indignation, an overprivileged immigrant like Ni-khil leaves one with more disturbing feelings: an intimation, such as the one his father once had, of "all that was irrational, all that was inevitable about the world"; a suspicion that "all men are mild lunatics engaged in pursuits that seem to them very important while an absurdly logical force keeps them at their futile jobs." It is as if we have been given a glimpse not so much of an unjust social or political setup as of what Nabokov, writing about "The Overcoat," called "flaws in the texture of life itself."
in http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16837
The second is his story “Edmund wilson in Benares” again from The New York Review of Books: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/887
which reminded me very much of my own growing up in villages, small towns in A.P. and then the exposure to the world of books and ideas in Madras.
Since then I have read a few articles but none of his books. A friend from UK forwarded a review of his latest book:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1793848,00.html
May be I will read this book.
Jo's response (13/6/06): Some writers are most impressive without making you wish you could interact directly and personally with them. Mishra is attractive on both counts.
“This is the melancholy awareness that suffuses Lahiri's catalogs of desirable things and people. And so while such obvious underdogs as Nazneen and Chanu arouse pity and indignation, an overprivileged immigrant like Ni-khil leaves one with more disturbing feelings: an intimation, such as the one his father once had, of "all that was irrational, all that was inevitable about the world"; a suspicion that "all men are mild lunatics engaged in pursuits that seem to them very important while an absurdly logical force keeps them at their futile jobs." It is as if we have been given a glimpse not so much of an unjust social or political setup as of what Nabokov, writing about "The Overcoat," called "flaws in the texture of life itself."
in http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16837
The second is his story “Edmund wilson in Benares” again from The New York Review of Books: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/887
which reminded me very much of my own growing up in villages, small towns in A.P. and then the exposure to the world of books and ideas in Madras.
Since then I have read a few articles but none of his books. A friend from UK forwarded a review of his latest book:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1793848,00.html
May be I will read this book.
Jo's response (13/6/06): Some writers are most impressive without making you wish you could interact directly and personally with them. Mishra is attractive on both counts.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
An old review
I started looking through some Indian blogs and many of them turned out to be very interesting. An enthusiastic review by Tabula Rasa:
http://nomologic.blogspot.com/2006/05/theory-development-as-freak-management.html
made me look at my write up in Telugudanam last year. Here it is:
"Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (William Morrow, 2005)seems to be becoming a cult book with its own web site and a column in NewYork Times. I enjoyed the book and though I have some reservations, Irecommend the book. It can be classified under Microeconomics ( thoughsome of the pieces seem to be more like investigative journalism) and startswith a worldview of five general principles, two of which are: "Incentives arethe cornerstones of modern life" and `Knowing what to measure and how tomeasure it makes a complicated world much less so". I will quickly sketch twosmaller pieces in the book.Paul Feldman was an economist working for the US Government, got bored with his job, resigned and started selling bagels. He would deliver bagels tovarious companies in the mornings and come back before lunch to collectleftover bagels and money deposited in boxes. Soon he was delivering 8,400bagels a week to 140 companies. He expected about 95 percent of thepeople to be honest but expected that he could get by even if 80 to 90 percentpeople are honest. It turned out that the percentage 87 and he soon earned more than he did in his previous details.There are some other twists and turns, differences between small and big companies and the affects of 9/11.Check what this has to do with Adam Smith!Another small story is detecting corruption among sumo wrestlers which was difficult because the yazuka threats and the reluctance of the police. Thatthere was corruption was proved just by examining the data which consistedof about 32,000 bouts between 281 wrestlers. A wrestler's ranking and hencehis earning are based on his performance in the elite tournaments held six times an year. In each tournament, there are fifteen bouts and if the wrestler finishes with a winning record (that is at least eight wins) he does not loose his rank and it may rise. So, the first thing that was investigated was the record of the fights of 7-7 wrestlers (7 wins and 7 losses) against 8-6opponents. Statistically (here some technical expertise comes in, but it isnatural to guess that the percentage should be less than 50), the 7-7 wrestleris expected to win 48.7 percent of the time where as they won 79.6 percent ofthe time. Clearly there is some thing funny going on here which warrantedfurther investigation.The chapter I liked most is "Why do drug dealers live with their moms?" basedon Levitt's work with Alladi Sudhir Venkatesh. I have doubts about the next two topics: "Where have all the criminals gone?'and the next two chapters on parenting. For one thing, the conclusions in thetwo chapters seem to contradict each other. The first topic was based on Levitt's own research in which he attributes the decline of violent crime from1990s to the Supreme court ruling in Roe vs Wade and he does not evenmention the follow up papers which did not agree with him. There may be a correalation and may be it just that. There are any number of other theoriesfrom the raise of rap music to reemergence of role models in some ghettos.I get the impression that Levitt has some neat ideas and did some good research ( he won a prize awarded every two years to the best Americaneconomist under forty) and seems to have padded up these with somecareless chapters to make a quick buck. But this is the tendency with many popular books these days. Many educated have disposal incomes and arecurious to know about thing outside the areas of their expertise and there area lot of one idea revelation books (selfish gene etc) by good scientists eithercarried away by their own ideas or trying to make money. I guess we shouldtale all these revelations with a grain of salt.But I like this book. It indicates how even amateurs can study somemicroeconomic problems and problems of corruption. Among the follow upstories in New York Times, there is an interesting story of an Yale economistKeith Chen teaching monkeys how to use money:http://freakonomics.com/times0605col.php
P.S. (June 10, 2006) I may be wrong about "The Selfish Gene". It certainly influenced a generation but the pendulam seems to be swinging back. E.O. Wilson seems to have changed his opinion (?) about group selection and Trivers is back with a new book. More about this later.
Browsing through "Freakonomics" again, I realize why I thought later parts (chapters 5 and 6 on parenting) had contradictory elements. The first part of Chapter 5 is based on Judith Harris' work and is explained in much more detail in Steven Pinker's "The Blank State". If I remember right, Harris's data mainly came from middle class white families. In the later part of Chapter 5 of Freakomomics, the data comes from much wider group of blacks as well as whiltes and of varying economic status. May be that is why the conclusions seemed contradictory.
Apart from this both Levitt and Pinker do not take in to account data given in a 2002 study of Caspi and others described by Matt Ridley in his book "Nature via nurture" pp. 267-269 (see also the previous discussion on experiments with rhesus monkeys on page 255). This experiment studied over a long period the affect of maltreatment on over 400 boys born between 1972-73. They found that children with high-active MAOA gene were virtually immune to maltreatment.
It seems to me that many of these studies give interesting and useful insights but it may take a long time and several different type of studies to come to any suggestion that can be recommended.
http://nomologic.blogspot.com/2006/05/theory-development-as-freak-management.html
made me look at my write up in Telugudanam last year. Here it is:
"Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (William Morrow, 2005)seems to be becoming a cult book with its own web site and a column in NewYork Times. I enjoyed the book and though I have some reservations, Irecommend the book. It can be classified under Microeconomics ( thoughsome of the pieces seem to be more like investigative journalism) and startswith a worldview of five general principles, two of which are: "Incentives arethe cornerstones of modern life" and `Knowing what to measure and how tomeasure it makes a complicated world much less so". I will quickly sketch twosmaller pieces in the book.Paul Feldman was an economist working for the US Government, got bored with his job, resigned and started selling bagels. He would deliver bagels tovarious companies in the mornings and come back before lunch to collectleftover bagels and money deposited in boxes. Soon he was delivering 8,400bagels a week to 140 companies. He expected about 95 percent of thepeople to be honest but expected that he could get by even if 80 to 90 percentpeople are honest. It turned out that the percentage 87 and he soon earned more than he did in his previous details.There are some other twists and turns, differences between small and big companies and the affects of 9/11.Check what this has to do with Adam Smith!Another small story is detecting corruption among sumo wrestlers which was difficult because the yazuka threats and the reluctance of the police. Thatthere was corruption was proved just by examining the data which consistedof about 32,000 bouts between 281 wrestlers. A wrestler's ranking and hencehis earning are based on his performance in the elite tournaments held six times an year. In each tournament, there are fifteen bouts and if the wrestler finishes with a winning record (that is at least eight wins) he does not loose his rank and it may rise. So, the first thing that was investigated was the record of the fights of 7-7 wrestlers (7 wins and 7 losses) against 8-6opponents. Statistically (here some technical expertise comes in, but it isnatural to guess that the percentage should be less than 50), the 7-7 wrestleris expected to win 48.7 percent of the time where as they won 79.6 percent ofthe time. Clearly there is some thing funny going on here which warrantedfurther investigation.The chapter I liked most is "Why do drug dealers live with their moms?" basedon Levitt's work with Alladi Sudhir Venkatesh. I have doubts about the next two topics: "Where have all the criminals gone?'and the next two chapters on parenting. For one thing, the conclusions in thetwo chapters seem to contradict each other. The first topic was based on Levitt's own research in which he attributes the decline of violent crime from1990s to the Supreme court ruling in Roe vs Wade and he does not evenmention the follow up papers which did not agree with him. There may be a correalation and may be it just that. There are any number of other theoriesfrom the raise of rap music to reemergence of role models in some ghettos.I get the impression that Levitt has some neat ideas and did some good research ( he won a prize awarded every two years to the best Americaneconomist under forty) and seems to have padded up these with somecareless chapters to make a quick buck. But this is the tendency with many popular books these days. Many educated have disposal incomes and arecurious to know about thing outside the areas of their expertise and there area lot of one idea revelation books (selfish gene etc) by good scientists eithercarried away by their own ideas or trying to make money. I guess we shouldtale all these revelations with a grain of salt.But I like this book. It indicates how even amateurs can study somemicroeconomic problems and problems of corruption. Among the follow upstories in New York Times, there is an interesting story of an Yale economistKeith Chen teaching monkeys how to use money:http://freakonomics.com/times0605col.php
P.S. (June 10, 2006) I may be wrong about "The Selfish Gene". It certainly influenced a generation but the pendulam seems to be swinging back. E.O. Wilson seems to have changed his opinion (?) about group selection and Trivers is back with a new book. More about this later.
Browsing through "Freakonomics" again, I realize why I thought later parts (chapters 5 and 6 on parenting) had contradictory elements. The first part of Chapter 5 is based on Judith Harris' work and is explained in much more detail in Steven Pinker's "The Blank State". If I remember right, Harris's data mainly came from middle class white families. In the later part of Chapter 5 of Freakomomics, the data comes from much wider group of blacks as well as whiltes and of varying economic status. May be that is why the conclusions seemed contradictory.
Apart from this both Levitt and Pinker do not take in to account data given in a 2002 study of Caspi and others described by Matt Ridley in his book "Nature via nurture" pp. 267-269 (see also the previous discussion on experiments with rhesus monkeys on page 255). This experiment studied over a long period the affect of maltreatment on over 400 boys born between 1972-73. They found that children with high-active MAOA gene were virtually immune to maltreatment.
It seems to me that many of these studies give interesting and useful insights but it may take a long time and several different type of studies to come to any suggestion that can be recommended.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Why blog?
Lyla says that blogging is a bit of cop out; sitting in one's hut like a rishi and waiting for admirers to come in. Far from it. I blog because I am confused and ignorant. After Bush Jr. came to power, I started feeling that one cannot ignore the outside world and pure mathematics started feeling a bit dry.The few sites I tried had arguments, opinions, agendas and rarely discussions. At my age, it is not so easy to learn new things; a bit of science and economics are what I wanted to understand. But then I either only partially understand or keep forgetting. Jotting down partial understanding at intervals seemed a good strategy to keep track of what I am doing. As I go on, I feel that I should revise or delete some of the previous blogs. There are always personal responses from some friends and the very fact that others may look at these seems to put some intensity in to the effort and it seems to help in understanding things a bit better. There is a recent article by Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide:
http://eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/brain-of-blogger.html
which suggests blogging can be useful.
Actually, now I have found a number of good science blogs and sites like 'gene expression' 'evolutionary-psychology' group site and that lessens the need to blog too often.
Trying to follow the resrvations controvesy, I looked for Indian blogs and sites. Many seem frenetic and could not find much statistics about progress of B/Cs and OBCs in most of the sites. Finally Sujai Karampuri suggested:
http://alternativeperspective.blogspot.com/
which has the explanations for the terminology used and some statistics. From what little I have seen, it seems to be an excellent blog, one of the best blogs that I have seen so far.
Some other blogs in which I have read a few posts and I found interesting:
http://www.theotherindia.org/
http://nanopolitan.blogspot.com/
http://nomologic.blogspot.com/
http://vivekspace.wordpress.com/
If these blogs are any indication, the argumentative Indian is doing much better in blogs than discussion sites. Somehow discussion does not seem to be strong part of Indian culture and many discussion sites seem to gather groups who support each other's prejudices without much information gathering or discussion. Perhaps some of these blogs will act together and develop in to useful discussion groups.
P.S. (1/7/06) I just found out that bloggers are not exempt from bad writing awards:
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
http://eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/brain-of-blogger.html
which suggests blogging can be useful.
Actually, now I have found a number of good science blogs and sites like 'gene expression' 'evolutionary-psychology' group site and that lessens the need to blog too often.
Trying to follow the resrvations controvesy, I looked for Indian blogs and sites. Many seem frenetic and could not find much statistics about progress of B/Cs and OBCs in most of the sites. Finally Sujai Karampuri suggested:
http://alternativeperspective.blogspot.com/
which has the explanations for the terminology used and some statistics. From what little I have seen, it seems to be an excellent blog, one of the best blogs that I have seen so far.
Some other blogs in which I have read a few posts and I found interesting:
http://www.theotherindia.org/
http://nanopolitan.blogspot.com/
http://nomologic.blogspot.com/
http://vivekspace.wordpress.com/
If these blogs are any indication, the argumentative Indian is doing much better in blogs than discussion sites. Somehow discussion does not seem to be strong part of Indian culture and many discussion sites seem to gather groups who support each other's prejudices without much information gathering or discussion. Perhaps some of these blogs will act together and develop in to useful discussion groups.
P.S. (1/7/06) I just found out that bloggers are not exempt from bad writing awards:
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
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