Three Great Essays

Three essays by William James: (1) The Ph.D. Octopus. Quote: “The truth is that the Doctor-Monopoly in teaching, which is becoming so rooted an American custom, can show no serious grounds whatsoever for itself in reason. As it actually prevails and grows in vogue among us, it is due to childish motives exclusively. In reality it is but a sham, a bauble, a dodge, whereby to decorate the catalogues of schools and colleges.”

(2) The Social Value of the College-Bred. Quote: “What the colleges—teaching humanities by examples which may be special, but which must be typical and pregnant—should at least try to give us, is a general sense of what, under various disguises, superiority has always signified and may still signify. The feeling for a good human job anywhere, the admiration of the really admirable the disesteem of what is cheap and trashy and impermanent—this is what we call the critical sense, the sense for ideal values. It is the better part of what men know as wisdom. Some of us are wise in this way naturally and by genius; some of us never become so. But to have spent one’s youth at college, in contact with the choice and rare and precious, and yet still to be a blind prig or vulgarian, unable to scent out human excellence or to divine it amid its accidents, to know it only when ticketed and labeled and forced on us by others, this indeed should be accounted the very calamity and shipwreck of a higher education.”

(3) The Moral Equivalent of War. Quote: “Pacifists ought to enter more deeply into the aesthetical and ethical point of view of their opponents. Do that first in any controversy, says J. J. Chapman, then move the point, and your opponent will follow. So long as antimilitarists propose no substitute for war’s disciplinary function, no moral equivalent of war, analogous, as one might say, to the mechanical equivalent of heat, so long they fail to realize the full inwardness of the situation. And as a rule they do fail. The duties, penalties, and sanctions pictured in the utopias they paint are all too weak and tame to touch the military-minded.”

More here.

I Love Lucy

Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate candy assembly line. Fantastic!

New Yorker Cartoon

When Consultants Commit Suicide

A project manager leaves suicide PowerPoint presentation.

Is Work Hell?

The back cover of Work is Hell.

CEO Pay

A search at JSTOR shows that about 200 articles on CEO pay were published at the top Sociology journals in the last 30 years. What is the sociological explanation for that? (Granted there are more than 1,200 articles about leadership from 1920 to 2008, but that too needs an explanation.)

Mark Twain from the Grave

Paul Auster reads excerpts from Mark Twain’s essay “The privilege of the grave,” published this week by the New Yorker.

The Legacy of Friedrich von Hayek

A collection of 7 lectures which were given between October 7 and November 13 1999 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek. The lecture series was sponsored by Liberty Fund and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

The Value of Teaching

A recent PhD Comic forcibly expressed the general idea:

Apropos the value of teaching, this is what Barzun said, with his usual irony, in The House of Intellect: “To bring new and valuable knowledge by lecturing before fifty or a hundred students a year is not research, for it is not publication, except in the legal sense. But to print such knowledge in a periodical where only a few will peer at it with skepticism or dismay—that is to enlarge human horizons, to make the university shine in a new glory, and to justify an early promotion.”

The Boundary of the Firm

Here is a title for an article about the boundary of the firm: “Transgressing the Boundaries of the Firm: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.” Although the article is only a variation on a theme, it will surely be a great hit.

The Beauty of LaTeX

The beauty of : article by Dario Taraborelli.

Bibliometric Indices

Articles about the use and misuse of bibliometric indices in evaluating scholarly performance.

Quantifying the relative performance of individual scholars, groups of scholars, departments, institutions, states, regions and countries has become an integral part of decision-making over research policy, funding allocations, awarding of grants, faculty hirings, and claims for promotion and tenure. Bibliometric indices (based mainly upon citation counts), such as the h-index and the journal impact factor, are heavily relied upon in such assessments. There is a growing consensus, and a deep concern, that these indices — more-and-more often used as a replacement for the informed judgment of peers — are misunderstood and are, therefore, often misinterpreted and misused. The articles in this ESEP Theme Section present a range of perspectives on these issues. Alternative approaches, tools and metrics that will hopefully lead to a more balanced role for these instruments are presented.

Multiple Choice Tests

Terence Tao thinks that there are a number of ways in which multiple choice tests could be used to assess mathematical knowledge. Jacques Barzun (1945:300–302) wrote the following regarding their use:

They should go. They are an insult to Intelligence, except when played with as parlor games. And something else must go at the same time; I mean the form of such tests. Every man of education ought to take a solemn vow that he will never ‘check’ anything on a printed list. Students should not be asked to pass so-called objective examinations, which are the kind composed of mimeographed questions to be marked Yes or No, or to be solved by matching the right name with a definition. I have kept track for some ten years of the effect of such tests upon the upper half of each class. The best men go down one grade and the next best go up. It is not hard to see why. The second-rate do well in school and in life because of their ability to grasp what is accepted and conventional, the ‘ropes’ of the subject. They become pillars of society and I have no quarrel with them. But first-rate men are rarer and equally indispensable. They see into situations quickly, and with the fresh, clear eye of Intelligence, and they must be encouraged to continue. To them, a ready-made question is an obstacle. It paralyzes thought by cutting off all connections but one. Or else it sets them thinking and doubting whether in that form any possible answers really fits. Their minds have finer adjustments, more imagination, which the test deliberately penalizes as encumbrances. This basic difficulty occurs no matter how carefully the questions are drafted and how extensive their coverage. I sat and worked on a committee that prepared objective questions in history for the so-called Graduate Record Examination, which is now widely used to test college seniors’ readiness for graduate work. In committee, it was revealing to see how a question that seemed ‘foolproof’ and ‘obvious’ to two or three men, thoroughly trained in their field, struck others of the same caliber as ‘ambiguous’ or ‘misleading.’ Add modifiers and you can make the question so unwieldy that it can hardly be grasped at one reading; simplify and you reduce it to bare common fact. Neither extreme, moreover, brings anything out of the student’s mind; yet the power to relate, to think up, to see into, is what distinguishes the first rank from the second in all walks of life. The results of the Graduate examination no doubt correlate very satisfactorily with other indices, but they scarcely give data for the most needful kind of diagnosis. Nor have they ever been tried on the masters of the profession, which would be the test of tests, provided running comments were allowed. When one courageous man proposed just this at an institution that thrives on endless testing, the idea was dismissed as a joke in poor taste.

Barzun wrote more about multiple choice tests in Begin Here: The Forgotten Condition of Learning (1991). See in particular chapter 3.

In the Shandean Scripture

Tristram Shandy on writing, gentleman:

That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident that my own way of doing it is the best.—I’m sure it is the most religious,—for I begin with writing the first sentence,—and trusting the Almighty God for the second. (Book VIII, Chapter II)

That feels familiar.

“Unnecessary” “Quotation” “Marks”

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks.

How Magicians Protect Intellectual Property

Loshin, Jacob (July 2007) Secrets revealed: How magicians protect intellectual property without law. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1005564. Abstract:

Intellectual property scholars have begun to explore the curious dynamics of IP’s negative spaces, areas in which IP law offers scant protection for innovators, but where innovation nevertheless seems to thrive. Such negative spaces pose a puzzle for the traditional theory of IP, which holds that IP law is necessary to create incentives for innovation.

This paper presents a study of one such negative space which has so far garnered some curiosity but little sustained attention – the world of performing magicians. This paper argues that idiosyncratic dynamics among magicians make traditional copyright, patent, and trade secret law ill-suited to protecting magicians’ most valuable intellectual property. Yet, the paper further argues that the magic community has developed its own set of unique IP norms which effectively operate in law’s absence. The paper details the structure of these informal norms that protect the creation, dissemination, and performance of magic tricks. The paper also discusses broader implications for IP theory, suggesting that a norm-based approach may offer a promising explanation for the puzzling persistence of some of IP’s negative spaces.

To Academic and Professional Colleagues

An international call to academics and professionals from Nobel laureates and university presidents to stand in solidarity with Israeli academic and professional colleagues.

Well, Well

Evidence makes Richard Vedder radical (via Organizations and Markets).

* Too many students, not too few, are going to college;

* College and universities are extremely inefficient, and at the marginal public spending on them more likely lowers rather than raises economic growth;

* The federal financial aid programs have contributed to raising higher education costs, lowering efficiency, and increasing corruption within higher education –and done precious little good, sending few more kids to college than would have gone anyway (which, given the first point, is not all bad);

* Colleges and universities often violate an implicit contract with their donors in the way they allocate resources, very often paying scant attention to the needs of the undergraduate students who typically are their bread and butter;

* People need knowledge and skills more than ever, but alternative forms of providing those skills, such as vocational schools and on-the-job training are often superior and lower cost options.

* A greater percentage of entering college students should be attending community colleges, moving up to four year universities only if they succeed well at the community college level.

Firefox Tricks

15 cool Firefox tricks.

The Beginning of the End?

Even when done properly, statistical significance tests are of no value.

Baby-Name Consultants

What’s in a name?

Sociologists and name researchers say they are seeing unprecedented levels of angst among parents trying to choose names for their children. As family names and old religious standbys continue to lose favor, parents are spending more time and money on the issue and are increasingly turning to strangers for help.

Some parents are checking Social Security data to make sure their choices aren’t too trendy, while others are fussing over every consonant like corporate branding experts. They’re also pulling ideas from books, Web sites and software programs, and in some cases, hiring professional baby-name consultants who use mathematical formulas.

Experimental Design

Mistakes in Experimental Design and Interpretation by Peter Norvig.

Cognitive Biases

26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong. Among them: Bandwagon effect, blind spot bias, choice-supportive bias, confirmation bias, congruence bias, contrast effect, disconfirmation bias, endowment effect, focusing effect. (Via GeekPress).

Visualizing Wikipedia

Actually, visualizing the power struggle in Wikipedia (via infosthetics).

Walk of Ideas

Source: Wikipedia.

Case Study on Wikipedia

A Harvard Business School Case on Wikipedia (via Organizations and Markets).

RPS Tactics

How to Win at Rock-Paper-Scissors. See also and.

Well, Well

Despite the doomsayers’ dearest predictions, humanity has never been in better condition (via Cafe Hayek). Here is the evidence:

Malthus wrote just before the turn of the 19th century, when the Earth was home to some 980 million human beings. The global population today is about 6.5 billion, a sevenfold increase. If the alarmists are right, our lives should be far more impoverished, degraded, and pitiful than those of our ancestors. But they aren’t. By and large, human beings today are healthier, wealthier, safer, cleaner, better fed, and more productive than those who lived in 1800.

Anyone tempted to dismiss such a claim as naive should spend some time with Indur Goklany’s “The Improving State of the World,” a new compendium of data making the case that as nations grow wealthier, the quality of human life rises. Far from being a disaster for our species and the planet, Goklany demonstrates, economic growth and technological change have been a boon for both, making it possible for ever more people to live ever-improving lives in an ever-cleaner environment. And while the developed countries may outstrip the developing world in wealth, it is in the world’s poorest societies that some of the greatest strides are being made.

Take food. Since 1950, the world’s population has soared by more than 150 percent. Yet food has become so abundant that global food prices (in real terms) have plunged 75 percent. Over the past generation, chronic undernourishment in poor countries has been slashed from 37 percent to 17 percent, while in the United States, staples such as potatoes and flour have dropped in price (relative to income) by more than 80 percent.

Or take infant mortality. Before industrialization, children died before reaching their first birthday at a rate exceeding 200 per 1,000 live births, or more than one in five. “In the United States as late as 1900,” Goklany writes, “infant mortality was about 160; but by 2004 it had declined to 6.6.” In developing countries, the fall in mortality rates began later, but is occurring more quickly. In China, infant mortality has plunged from 195 to below 30 in the past 50 years.

Life expectancy? From 31 years in 1900, it was up to 66.8 worldwide in 2003.

Health? We are more likely to be disease-free today than our forebears were a century ago. And the onset of chronic illness has been significantly delayed — by nearly eight years for cancer, nine years for heart diseases, and 11 years for respiratory diseases.

Education, child labor, clean air, freedom, famine, leisure time, global poverty — Goklany shows that by almost any yardstick you choose, humanity thrives as never before. Living standards do not fall as population rises. On the contrary: Where there are free markets and free minds — economic growth and technology — human progress and hope are all but guaranteed.

26 Letters

A history of writing and the alphabet from the British Library. This is beautiful.

Giving Directions

What male drivers do that drives women nuts.

No Ribs, No Juice

Interesting ads: 1, 2, 3.

15 Hours a Week

Straight talk about tenure. Indeed.

Peer Review and Global Warming

Very interesting post about the problems with the peer review process in the context of the global warming discussion.

More Than a Hundred Men With Guns

The Law and Economics of the Godfather.

The Superuser

The Myth of the Superuser: Fear, Risk, and Harm Online by Paul Ohm. (Via Bruce Schneier)

Fear of the powerful computer user, “the Superuser,” dominates debates about online conflict. This mythic figure is difficult to find, immune to technological constraints, and aware of legal loopholes. Policymakers, fearful of his power, too often overreact, passing overbroad, ambiguous laws intended to ensnare the Superuser, but which are used instead against inculpable, ordinary users. This response is unwarranted because the Superuser is often a marginal figure whose power has been greatly exaggerated.

The exaggerated attention to the Superuser reveals a pathological characteristic of the study of power, crime, and security online, which springs from a widely-held fear of the Internet. Building on the social science fear literature, this Article challenges the conventional wisdom and standard assumptions about the role of experts. Unlike dispassionate experts in other fields, computer experts are as susceptible as lay-people to exaggerate the power of the Superuser, in part because they have misapplied Larry Lessig’s ideas about code.

The experts in computer security and Internet law have failed to deliver us from fear, resulting in overbroad prohibitions, harms to civil liberties, wasted law enforcement resources, and misallocated economic investment. This Article urges policymakers and partisans to stop using tropes of fear; calls for better empirical work on the probability of online harm; and proposes an anti-Precautionary Principle, a presumption against new laws designed to stop the Superuser.

An Alternative Theory of Unions

Article by Paul Graham.

Supply and Demand 101

Greg Mankiw on living wages.

Where is the Knowledge?

From T. S. Eliot’s The Rock.

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.
O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

The lot of man is ceaseless labor,
Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder,
Or irregular labour, which is not pleasant.
I have trodden the winepress alone, and I know
That it is hard to be really useful, resigning
The things that men count for happiness, seeking
The good deeds that lead to obscurity, accepting
With equal face those that bring ignominy,
The applause of all or the love of none.
All men are ready to invest their money
But most expect dividends.
I say to you: Make perfect your will.
I say: take no thought of the harvest,
But only of proper sowing.

The world turns and the world changes,
But one thing does not change.
In all of my years, one thing does not change,
However you disguise it, this thing does not change:
The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.

2BR02B

A short story by Kurt Vonnegut.

10 Good Books

Donald J. Boudreaux’s list of books that introduce people to economics and to important economic issues.