血鬃领地拉希亚在哪:科學的探索博文NICK BARROWMAN

作者NICK BARROWMAN
I'm a statistical scientist working in medical research in Ottawa, Canada.
星期日，2011年1月30號
因果語言
考慮下面的句子：“ 你吃藍莓，因為你的手指上有污漬。“ 對此有什麼奇怪的是，通常，當我們說“X，因為Y的”我們的意思是“Y是X的事業”。 例如，“窗口破了，因為棒球打它”是指棒球擊球窗口導致它打破。 但是，在這種情況下，句子肯定並不意味著你的手指被染色使你吃藍莓。 現在，有人可能會反對，這是一個奇怪的句子，而且反而 應該 是“ 我相信 你吃藍莓，因為你的手指上有污漬。 “ 但原來的版本不是一個講英語的混淆，人們有時也講這種方式。 語言是一個複雜的業務。 和語言有關 的因果關係 ，是特別棘手。
這是人所共知的 相關性並不意味著因果關係 。 但是，當科學的研究，傳媒報導，這格言是常常被遺忘。 米勒教授喬恩在北中央大學在Naperville，伊利諾伊州編制了巨大 設置鏈接 的新聞稿件報導的科學發現。 一些文章的標題為這些建議的因果關係，有些則不然。 點擊通過對實際的新聞文章表明，本意是因果關係往往是一個延伸，至少可以這樣說。 例如：電視會引起高血壓，肥胖的孩子：學習
新聞文章報導說：研究人員發現孩子誰看了兩到四個小時的電視分別為 2.5倍，可能有高血壓與那些誰看了不到兩小時的電視一天。 那些誰看了4個多小時，每天分別為 3.3倍，可能有高血壓。換言之，這是一項觀察研究，建立了 相關 關係看高數額的電視每日有高血壓。 相反的是標題，這項研究並沒有表明，看電視是 造成 高血壓。 為方便起見，讓我們返工的標題，同時保持其因果的含義：看電視會增加患高血壓的可能性。 （1）因果關係的含義，可去除寫作：電視觀眾有較高的概率高血壓。 （2）在維基WTO對 因果關係的語言 古斯塔沃Lacerda指出，採取行動的話往往表現的因果關係。 請注意，在當前的例子，為了消除因果方面：（1），因此有必要改變動詞“看”到的名詞“觀察家”和動詞“增加”到名詞“更高”。
有趣的是，有一個聽起來接近貝葉斯公式（1）：作為一個電視觀察者增加了概率，一個孩子有高血壓。請注意，此版本具有動詞“增加”，如（1），而不是動詞“看”。 相反，它的表述為：“作為一個電視的守望者”，這表明集團的成員，而不是採取行動或選擇。 正是這種信息組成員，用於更新的概率高血壓，按照貝葉斯食譜。
預測與因果關係
預測聽起來很像因果關係。 想想這句話：如果你運動，你就不太可能有心髒病發作。 （3）這是否意味著：人們誰行使不太可能比人誰不有心髒病發作。 （4）或者它意味著：該法案行使的機會減少了心髒病發作。 （5）它似乎很曖昧。 一方面，“如果你運動”聽起來像一個聲明您的選擇，而不是簡單地行使不行使，它支持解釋（5）。 另一方面，“如果你運動”表明你作為一個人誰演習，而且可以預測心髒病發作的風險，也許是因為人與人之間的另一個共同的行為誰行使，如健康飲食。 這將支持解釋（4）。
自然語言允許含糊。 它的方便，把事情做了，因為大家都知道我們的意思。 不是嗎？ 我看未必。 當然，在談到因果關係，模糊會導致混亂的麻煩。 在普通的講話中，相關性和因果關係之間的區別往往是模糊的。 聲明（三）項關於比較曖昧：不太可能比 人 有心髒病發作？ 不太可能比不運動的人誰？ 不太可能比你，如果你選擇不行使？
在我看來，這幾乎是一個必然的語言最壞的情況。 很多人會看到關注，因為不重要。 然而，關於因果關係的證據和信念是在任何干預的基礎，無論是在保健，教育，社會計劃，經濟，你有什麼。媒體和政客經常使用誤導性的因果關係的語言。 但是很難，即使我們努力做到清楚！
甜蜜生活
我最喜歡的Mueller的例子??是：少吃甜食，壽命更長 。所有您需要做的是並列“吃糖果”和“長壽”。 你的思想沒有休息。
標籤： 因果關係 ， 語言
張貼由尼克BARROWMAN的在 下午5點50 0條評論 
星期二，2011年1月11號
機遇與必然性
在一個 論壇版 在今天的問題，洛杉磯時報，邁克爾謝默寫了趕“尋找深層次原因令人震驚的事件”，參照拍攝圖森，亞利桑那州和最近的大規模鳥類死亡。
謝默取得了一些好點，但部分他的論點是有缺陷的。 例如，他引用統計，從國家精神衛生研究所辯稱，不平衡的人並不少見，鑑於這些統計數據，事件，如在圖森拍攝都會發生，無論多麼漂亮的政治家相互交談，或在競選國會，無論多麼極端茶話會口號是要殺政府方案，無論怎樣僵硬或鬆散的槍支管理法是在這個或那個國家。 一次偶然的機會 - 僅此而已 - 人們總是會有誰做的是不可想像的。換句話說，他是指出他所看到的是一個必然性，然後歸咎於它機會。 但是，一個不可避免的是相反的機遇：它是一個系統的模式。 而一個系統的模式，正是我們 可以 希望改變。 我傾向於同意謝默說：“人們總是會有誰做的是不可想像的。” 但是，我們當然應該盡我們所能，使此類事件發生的罕見的可能，以減少危害多，我們可以。
謝默完成他的作品如下：... 如不經常，活動的機會在生活中打開，隨機性和統計概率，而在很大程度上超出了我們的控制。 因此，呼籲“停止一切公開的和隱含的暴力，呼籲美國政治” - 如剛剛發布的MoveOn.org - 可能讓我們感覺更好，但他們不會有任何改變的必然性等一次性事件在將來。根據定義“一次性事件”是不可預測的，古怪。 然而，謝默說，他們是不可避免的。 這裡的明顯的混亂之間的統計概率，可用於製作相當肯定的預測，虛擬不可能預測在微觀層面。 例如，年齡和性別特異性發病率不同類型的癌症是由精心列 疾病預防控制中心 ，我們可以利用這些數字來預測利率的人誰是今年診斷出患有癌症。 但是，我們也無法預測 誰 將會是那些人。 有，但是，圖案。我們了解到，吸煙會導致肺癌（和心臟疾病，肺氣腫，....)並通過減少吸煙率，我們看到 的死亡率降低[PDF格式] 。 也許我們畢竟有一定的控制。
標籤： 癌症 ， 因果性 ， 必然性 ， 隨機性 ， 吸煙
張貼由尼克BARROWMAN的在 下午10時28分 0評論 
星期六，2010年12月11號
簡單化
該地圖的世界是一個熟悉的形象。 但仔細看看這表明，它是一個缺乏細節。 例如，一個數字的大島均缺席，包括不列顛群島，日本，島，我長大了，紐芬蘭。 在南極大陸已被省略。 此外，格陵蘭和埃爾斯米爾島的加盟，而北美和南美被切斷。 不過，地圖確實給一個總體思路大陸的形狀（當然除了南極洲）。 它肯定比我更可以抽獎！ 該地圖是一種簡化。 但是，它過於簡單？
在這裡，我想看看一般採取簡單化，因為它具有廣泛的現實意義和提出了一些微妙的問題。 地圖提供了便捷的例子，提出一些問題，又在其他地方。 特別是，我將重點放在如何獲得牽引簡單化想法在我們的社會，正說明這一點流行的三種非小說類書籍。
雖然在世界地圖上簡化了若干細節，重要的是要注意，在任何一個給定的尺度地圖涉及簡化。 細節是犧牲一個整體描述。 更何況，無論投影使用，任何二維世界地圖不可避免地提供了一個扭曲的表示我們的星球。 地圖是一個模型，正如我說 以前 ，人們不應該混淆的模型與現實，或在字的阿爾弗雷德Korzybski ，“地圖是不是領土。” 這是方便，但代表了全球在兩個維度上的各種細節簡化。 這是一個普遍的方面簡化：其所有費用，很方便。
不過，我們確實有這個字“簡單化”，這表明你可以有太多的好東西。 但如果這是真的，你會劃清界線呢？ 簡化是多少錢太多簡化？ 這個問題時，例如在科學教學。 如果你要教10歲的兒童對愛因斯坦的狹義相對論的理論，一些簡化是必要的。 如果你是教16歲的兒童，也將是必要的簡化，但在稍小的程度。 愛因斯坦本人所承認的挑戰簡化，而 ??且常常引述曾說過，“一切應盡可能簡單，而不是簡單”，這被稱為“愛因斯坦的剃刀”的提法 奧卡姆的剃刀 。 當然，這將是過於簡單，如果一個教大學的學生以同樣的方式作為一個10歲的（或“undersimplification”如果不是反過來，儘管沒有人使用的術語）。
但是，“簡單化”是常用的一個稍微不同的感覺，一種暗示失真，欺騙或不誠實。 那麼這個問題可能不會太大簡化，而是進行了簡化的方式，在某種程度上不適當的。 世界地圖上，也許提供了一個暗示這一點。 正如我上面提到的，一些實質性的島嶼從地圖上被省略。 但更大的，如馬達加斯加存在。 然而，一個巨大的陸地不存在：南極，儘管事實上，它是較大的土地面積超過澳大利亞。 一個可能的解釋是，南極洲被看作是不重要的，因為沒有人住在那（除了少數的科學家）。這可以被看作是一個類型的偏見。 這是一回事，簡化，但這樣做的另一個這樣一種方式，有系統地歪曲。 我不是真的走地圖生產商在這裡的任務這麼多的使用這個作為插圖偏頗的簡化。
我相信這是另一種方法可以簡化不當，那就是當有一個缺乏透明度。 一種簡化的描述不應該提出一些沒有解釋它是如何獲得的。 這提供了一些保護，從混亂的一種簡化的“真相”。 例如，在案件的世界地圖，不同的預測顯著不同的印象可以給我們的星球。 例如，比較開始在地圖上的這篇文章與 Eisenlohr形投影如下：

簡單化在流行的非小說作品
為了進一步開拓簡單化，我想最近考慮三個非虛構作品。 我的目的並不是要提供詳細的評論或評論，也沒有通過任何總體判斷，而是要探討的議題過分簡單化已經提出了其他人。
的道德景觀：科學如何能確定人的價值
薩姆哈里斯 的道德景觀 ，使道德問題的說法，不僅可以了解，但 回答 的科學。 薩姆哈里斯提出了一個更新版本的功利主義，即一個行動只是道義上的權利，如果它有利於“福祉”。 這個想法的版本已經存在很長一段時間：一些關鍵的貢獻進行了功利主義在1800年代，和許多反對和反駁自那時以來已作出。但正如 誇安東尼阿皮亞 中寫道紐約時報“，經過確認其中的一些並發症，[哈里斯]是傾向於他們推到一旁，繼續了他的道路。” 由於特洛伊Jollimore哲學教授 說 ：哈里斯可能是正確的，最好的辦法達成“更廣泛的受眾”，是為了迴避困難的哲學問題。 但就如何幫助更多的讀者可以到該書籍是，隱藏在複雜的題目，歪曲它聲稱，討論使真正困難的問題看起來簡單，簡單嗎？正如我前面提到的，歪曲的簡化是一個關鍵的特徵過於簡單化。 哈里斯還 批評 對於使用廣泛的定義不尋常的科學和它放置在一個容易錯過的註腳。 腳註內容如下：對於這次討論的目的，我不打算作出區分硬“科學”和其他知識產權環境中，我們討論“事實”，例如，歷史。 例如，它是一個事實，約翰肯尼迪遇刺身亡。 事實這種情況下屬於“科學”，廣義的解釋作為我們最大的努力，形成合理的帳戶在經驗事實。 誠然，一個不一樣普遍認為暗殺事件是“科學”的事實，但謀殺肯尼迪總統是完全證實的事實中可以隨處可見，而且會暴露出深刻不科學的心境否認它發生。 我認為“科學”，因此，應被視為專業部門的努力，形成一個更大的真正的信仰有關的事件在我們的世界。它似乎很奇怪放在一個腳註一種特殊的定義，一個詞，出現在書的副標題是中央和哈里斯的情況。請注意，哈里斯的一個廣義的概念使用的科學是一種形式的簡化。 沒有突出這一簡化可以被看作是過於簡單化了。
引爆點：如何小事情可以發揮很大作用
馬爾科姆格拉德威爾的 引爆點 ，探討因素也許可以解釋社會趨勢會突然流行起來。 在檢討在Amazon.com，本傑明諾斯羅普格拉德威爾寫道，“似乎是你展示什麼是真正背後的”窗簾“ -而不是一些無聊或混亂或技術，而是一些簡單和清晰和明確的！” 他接著說，但問題是，現實生活完全不是那麼簡單，也不是真正的科學。 複雜的現象有複雜的因果關係的組件。 ... 格拉德威爾，然而，disingenuously只提出的事實和故事，證明自己的觀點，使讀者誤以為真的有沒有辯論，他已經找到“答案”。Northrup的提及“複雜因果關係的組成部分”點 因果關係過於簡單化 。 許多現象有多種原因，減少他們看來是一個單一的機制可以使一個更引人注目的帳戶，但可能只提供一個假冒的理解。
空白的石板：現代拒絕人性
斯蒂芬平克的 空白的石板 攻擊培育一側的自然培育的辯論。 在 審查 ，大衛乙里克曼表明，平克建造了一個稻草人：我同意[平克]，一個人的基因結構是非常重要的，極端的空白石板的想法（即出生時沒有一人是人的本性，可以“寫在”像一張白紙）顯然是錯誤的。... 不過，我可以不遵循同樣極端的想法，只有我們的基因物質（一平克交替的概念，從維護和務虛會。）由於幾個人指出，在最近的研究一個基因的表達，主要是基因和環境之間的對話。 的確，有信譽的科學家認為，今天誰在絕對空白的狀態？一個稻草人是一種過於簡單：在廣泛的意見的課題，是違背自己的被簡化到一個單一的，極端的。如果真是這樣的話辯論兩極化，這可能是可以接受的，但這是難以實現的。 當打擊對手的一種極端的（儘管是自己的創造），人們可以發現自己提出高選擇性的證據，另一個標誌的簡單化。 另一位評論家，四帕爾默， 寫道 ：平克的觀點提出的其他問題只能在漫畫，顯然，其目標是說服讀者，沒有通知他。
來源過分簡單化
過於簡單的想法比比皆是。 所有這三個以上的書籍已到紐約時報暢銷書排行榜。 政客經常在簡單化處理，而投票的公眾往往似乎很樂意接受。 定型觀念和一概而論的日益流行。 顯然有一些非常吸引人的關於簡單化。 但正如我剛才如上所述，它是可能的，通過透明度和努力，以避免偏見，獨立的簡化，它不僅是有用的，但必須從過於簡單化。
那麼，為什麼如此普遍過於簡單？ 其中一個原因可能是因為它花費少智力成果接受簡化，沒有給出一個透明的解釋它是如何獲得的。 這是比較容易點到地圖，說：“這是地球”，而不是說“這是一個地球投影到兩個層面上誇大土地面積近極”。 地圖是最有用的，當我們接受它的比喻，就像一出戲是最愉快的，當我們暫停我們的懷疑。 但是看地圖，你需要看聰明的限制比喻，就像一個戲劇評論家需要能夠看到的演員，而不僅僅是人物，他們玩。 這需要付出努力，而且更容易被沖走根本沒有問題。
超時工作，克服簡單化
簡單的慾望似乎是普遍的。 但是，我們不必採取由簡單化，無論它來自我們自己的思想或文化在我們身邊。 我們可以開始通過區分簡化從簡單化。 如果有一個缺乏透明度，很可能是過於簡單的工作。
要防止簡單化滑落到簡單化，我們可以培養的紀律切換觀點。 一方面，要實現價值的簡化，我們需要假裝我們的模式是“真實”，而這個幌子下工作。 但在另一方面，我們需要認識到模型是什麼，一個方便的工具，而是一個結構，而不是現實。 從這個角度來看，我們可以看到限制了模型，並欣賞那裡可能讓我們誤入歧途。 反复交換看法，並結合所產生的見解，是很辛苦，但我認為這是必不可少的，如果我們想避免被囚禁我們的模型。
我會結束時引述歌德：“一切比你想像的更簡單和更複雜的同時比你的想像。”
標籤： 地圖 ， 模型 ， 簡單化 ， 簡單化
張貼由尼克BARROWMAN的在 上午08時26 0條評論 
星期一，2010年9月27日
當科學技術破壞
在當天的iPad的推出，蘋果售出 超過30萬 的平板電腦。從那時起，超過300萬台iPad已經售出。 我們的社會是迷戀技術，這會影響我們的方式既明顯又微妙。 在這裡，我想我們研究如何對技術的崇拜影響我們的思維方式對科學，並反過來我們如何看待我們的整個世界。 我要指出，我寫這篇文章作為一個科學家，有人用經過較長時間的興趣和迷戀技術。
由於科學技術的話往往是成對的，它們的含義往往被混為一談。 但是科學可以尋求與一些技術的附帶利益（這是與天體物理學的情況，例如）和技術可開發利用的科學沒有（像這樣的早期技術開發的試驗和錯誤的史前）。 當然，科學發現往往可以用於開發新技術，和現有的技術可以科學地進行評估。 但科學本身並沒有關於開發技術，它的有關學習，通過系統的觀察和（有時）實驗操作。 有人會說，這種區分是 單純的語義 ，但我會認為，科學和技術之間的混亂導致了一些非常不幸的後果。
因為我們採取的技術是如此，而且由於密切聯繫科學與技術，這並不奇怪，科學是很大的尊重。但這是一個雙刃劍。 技術的缺點（如久坐行為模式和新興的肥胖率，從全球變暖的二氧化碳排放量，有毒廢物等）有時歸咎於科學。 一方面，這是件：是好還是壞，沒有科學的，現代化的技術可能從來沒有被開發出來。 另一方面，肯定是我們社會的道德，經濟和政治的選擇，確定科學知識是如何應用，並負責這些選擇應該落在決策者。 但是，我們的這種區分模糊用語的混亂，科學技術是經常被視為是同一個。 表揚或批評，被視為一個相同的表揚或批評對方。 這導致了一種奇怪的兩極化意見。
科學教會
一方面，一個必勝的科學已經成為越來越普遍。 科學是越來越被看作是提供最值得信賴的信息，或者也許是 唯一可靠來源的知識，不只是物質世界，而是生活的各個方面。
我相信這種趨勢背後有兩個因素。 第一，產品的技術巫術提供了具體的示範掌握和控制的科學知識可以提供。 最重要的一點是這次示威的普遍性：沒有特殊的知識或教育需要欣賞功率技術。 這一技術因素騎在上面的認識論主張。 由於 盧克Muehlhauser 所說：科學的巨大成功使我懷疑，縱容的方法[原文]由科學是最成功的方法還知道我們已經發現。雖然這很可能是哲學上的說法，如這只會吸引了有限的觀眾，但它提供了智力肌肉皮膚下誘人的技術。
必勝信念對科學有著悠久的歷史傳承，體現在上半年的20世紀，在學校 邏輯實證 ，最近在一些著作中所謂的 新的無神論者 。 在他們的極端形式，這種觀點趨於 科學主義 ，認為，只有科學的報表有任何意義，而且，最終，科學將提供所有的答案。 麻煩的是，如果科學被視為有所有的答案，它必須是擴大到包括更廣泛的範圍的關注，否則解僱等問題的意義。 還剩下什麼倫理，哲學，文學，歷史，藝術嗎？ 雖然科學可以 告訴 每一個這些領域中，一個激進的重新界定，科學將需要吸收它們。 然而，這只是提出的是什麼。
哲學。 盧克Muehlhauser 辯稱：“我認為是最有生產力的理念，將IT功能時，作為一個擴展成功的科學...”。 在談到這種思想， 馬西莫皮柳奇 寫道：有深刻的分歧在方法，風格和類型的科學和哲學之間的問題，坦白說我認為人們誰否認或盡量減少這種根本沒有採取任何時間閱讀哲學，否則他們將立刻看到奇怪的是否認其中的差別。
更廣泛地說，我真的很難有時間了解這裡的人們的議程誰願意不惜一切代價解僱哲學或吸收它為科學。 你為什麼這麼熱衷於冒充更多的權力，科學認識論比它擁有？ 為什麼不好說，科學是迄今為止最好的方法，我們已制訂了解自然世界，而是有問題之外的謊言和其他學科，它是更好地解決這些問題呢？
倫理。 薩姆哈里斯最近發表了 TED講座 題為“科學道德問題可以回答”，其中他認為，“分離科學與人的價值是一種幻想”。 馬西莫皮柳奇 介紹了“病罷工哈里斯：科學主義，這個想法認為科學可以做一切，為我們提供了所有的答案，是值得擁有的。“ Thinkmonkey ，一位在皮柳奇的博客中寫道：
薩姆哈里斯竟然沒有完成了艱難的工作需要了解歷史和正在進行的論點在道德理論和後倫理學 - 上下文中的說法，他希望為了 *必須 *設。 也許這些論點沒有解決非常多，但他們至少建立了一些共同的術語，並作了重要區別：在不知道的術語和理解的重要區別（及原因它們），哈里斯不禁混淆 - 並引進更混亂的時候，他試圖與他進行批評。
哲學可以解答的問題，所有的生活，並可能得不到尊重，從而很多，但至少我們盡量避免這些類型的餐廳。 或者，如悉尼Morgenbesser著名的形容我們的集體工作：“你做一些區分。您澄清幾個概念。這是一個生活。”
人文科學。 學術學科關注人類生存條件包括歷史，文學，法律，語言，藝術，宗教研究。 這些方面和相關領域的研究可能是使用方法的社會科學。 但是，這些學科大部分地區使用的方法是不科學的。 這些學科的批評越來越普遍。 例如，網站的 邊緣：第三種文化 嘲笑：第三種文化由這些科學家和其他思想家誰在經驗世界，通過他們的工作和說明文，正在這個地方的傳統知識分子在渲染的深層含義可見我們的生活，重新定義我們是誰和什麼。
... 傳統的美國知識分子，在某種意義上說，日益反動，而且經常自豪地（和倒行逆施）一無所知，許多真正重要的智力成果我們的時間。 他們的文化，科學解僱，??往往非經驗。 它使用自己的術語和洗自己的衣服。 它的主要特點是評論評論，評論螺旋膨脹的地步，最終達到真正的世界變得丟失。
數學。 有趣的是，聲稱只提供了可靠的科學知識的來源是很容易駁 ??倒。 利用數學推導得出一定的認識，一些科學無法做到的。 這是一個反應聲稱數學是科學的一部分。 當然，數學是一個關鍵的工具， 科 ??學的，但聲稱這是 部分 科學走得太遠。 不同的反應是指出，涉及到數學知識的抽象實體，因而在本身是不實際的。 這確實是正確的，但它強調的重點有不同類型的知識，這是不能被看作是競爭的，因為它們屬於完全不同的領域。
科學有時是確定 吹捧法院 與理性，並在you're，要么只能與美國或打擊，我們的動作，一切只不過是被視為非理性主義。 這更是一種修辭技巧不是一條線的推理，但我們再次看到了科學的定義正在擴張的意願。
科學作為小說
在另一個極端，是一種反科學的情緒，表現出來的支持偽科學，騙術和迷信。從喬布拉到晶體反疫苗接種運動，反科學的思想，是令人驚訝的普遍。 正如我前面建議，其中一些反應，這是一對明顯的問題產生的技術，再加上科學和技術之間的混淆。 但是，一些反科學的思想，是反應的那種必勝的科學我所描述的。
那怎麼辦呢？
我認為，模糊的定義做了真正的破壞，助長了宏偉的遠景科學及其另一面，一粗死灰復燃的迷信和反科學的思維。 配對科學和技術在這裡留下來，和魅力的技術將繼續推動誇張觀的科學。 有什麼可以做，在面對這一趨勢？
首先，它仍然是重要區分科學和技術。 粗心的融合兩方面有助於擴大不必要的科學概念。 其次，重要的是要挑戰企圖擴大對非職權範圍內的科學經驗的問題，如道德。 這不是沒有好處科學或道德。 雖然科學可以肯定告知倫理，道德的首要重點是 規範 ，而不是預測或解釋。 科學是最好的方法理解物理世界，但它是不是源價值和意義。 第三，偽科學，迷信和騙術應挑戰堅持高品質的證據。 但是我們應該記住，這種錯覺是滋養出大小索賠有關的科學普及統治。 詆毀新時代的廢話可能適得其反形而上學的索賠時，被指責為不科學的。 實證科學只能解決索賠。 非經驗索賠固然可能受到質疑，但不是科學。
少管閒事
許多問題我已經討論的特別讓人傷腦筋那裡，心是關心。 在神經科學進展鼓勵了 物理主義 認為，在其最極端形式認為，無非是心靈活動的神經元。 這種想法有一個有趣的連接與技術。 早期的計算機被描述為“像一個大腦”。隨著計算機變得越來越熟悉，比喻呈倒，大腦被看作是“就像一台計算機。”最近，這個過程已經全部落幕，這是經常聽到，大腦簡單“是一台電腦”。
當然，這是真的，大腦計算，儘管在不同的方式，而我們的數字電腦。 但不知何故，隨著計算，我們 的經驗 意識，自我意識，自由意志的印象。 我們體驗感覺（而不是簡單地處理信號），我們感到激動，我們喜悅的美，我們憎惡的醜陋。 有關這些方面的問題的心態已經佔據哲學家從最早的時候。 當然，在科學認識發展的大腦有重要影響的哲學思想。 但最根本的問題仍然存在。
不幸的是，還原論觀點對人的意識正在蓬勃發展，營養有關的事態發展都在神經科學的熱情，不帶偏見的技術驗收比喻說，“大腦是一台電腦”。 這也許是值得關注的是薩姆哈里斯，誰認為在他的新書的 科學可以判斷人的價值 ，已在神經科學博士學位。 在紐約時報審查哈里斯的書（與講題 科學最清楚 ），誇安東尼阿皮亞寫道：當他保持最親密的神經系統科學，他說很多是有趣的和重要的... 然而，這種科學是最好的讚賞與意義的東西，我們可以和不能期待它...事實上，我們應該這樣所有的科學方法。
標籤： 意識 ， 精神 ， 物理主義 ， 薩姆哈里斯 ， 科學 ， 科學主義 ， 技術
張貼由尼克BARROWMAN的在 下午10點34 0意見 
星期五，2010年9月3日
彩虹顆粒
我的兒子喜歡創建 Flash應用程序。 檢查此一出來：
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標籤： 閃光
張貼由尼克BARROWMAN的在 下午1點19 3條評論 
星期一，2010年8月23日
一個 ORnery問題
前一段時間，我寫的 遺漏值 ，以及他們如何生活複雜化的一個應用統計學家。 特別棘手的案件涉及一個 邏輯變量 ，我提供一個更詳細的解釋。
假設 X 是一個變量，代表一個人是否處於危險中發展 2型糖尿病 。 兩個已知的風險因素是：（ 一）被老年人和（ 乙 ）超重。 如果我們有一個數據庫，其中包含的年齡和體重，每個人在一組，我們可以計算 X 使用下面的 邏輯表達式 ：
X = 甲 或 乙 。（ X ， 一 ，和 乙 被稱為邏輯變量，它們分別取值為TRUE或FALSE根據相應的條件是否成立。）會發生什麼，但如果一些年齡和體重從數據庫中丟失？ 幸運的是喜歡R統計軟件和SPSS有內置的規則，將邏輯表達式的正確評價，即使 甲 或 乙 （或兩者）丟失。 完整的 真值表 如下（其中T是TRUE，F表示FALSE，並且缺少一個點的意思）：

請注意，如果 一個 為FALSE且 乙 丟失，其結果是丟失。 這是有道理的，因為如果實際值 乙 是真實的，其結果將是真實的，但如果實際值 乙 是假的，結果會是假。 因此，它是不可能說什麼值 X的。
麻煩的是，這個邏輯有時會適得其反。 假設 X ，而不是指病人是否感染試驗陽性具有一定的病毒。 但可能會出現兩種不同的血液測試（ 一 和 乙 ），患者可能會收到一個或另一個，或者兩者。 假設，如果任何測試是陽性，患者將被認為是感染。 邏輯變量 甲 和 乙 採取的價值觀真，假，或按是否缺少相應的測試是積極的，消極的，或者乾脆不執行。 不應該的邏輯表達式 X = 甲或 乙 正確處理這種情況？ 遺憾的是沒有。 假設只有一個測試是，它是消極的。 然後，事實表顯示， X 將會丟失，即使病人檢測結果呈陰性！
為什麼邏輯表達式處理缺失值的方式，我們希望在第一種情況，但不能這樣做，第二個呢？ 答案是，在第一種情況下不存在的值代表一個事實，即年齡或重量的特定人是 無法使用 ，而在第二種情況下，當測試結果是缺少數據庫，這意味著 沒有進行測試 ，因此，變量表示的結果是 不適用的。 另一種常見的案件不適用的變量與數據出現在多個場合表示意見。 例如，假設數據庫中的記錄是否客人在飯店吃飯的餐廳在第一天的住宿（EAT1），第二天（EAT2）或第三天（EAT3）。 有些客人逗留一天，而另一些人停留更長的時間。 該數據庫可能看起來像這樣：

這是一個例子，一個 衣衫襤褸的陣列 ，並作為與血液測試，問題是，分母（進行的測試的數量，或天數客人在酒店住宿）的形式存在。 要確定是否有客人在酒店餐廳吃了至少一次（我們將代表由邏輯變量吃），我們可以嘗試：飲食 = EAT1或EAT2或EAT3。不幸的是，隨血液測試的例子，這可能失敗時有遺漏值。 4號客人在上表中只逗留一天在酒店，並沒有在餐廳吃飯，所以吃應該是假的，但表達上面給出了一個存在的值。
解決方法在R
在R，豎線運營商|代表或和缺失值由不適用。 對於糖尿病的例子，下面的行為正是我們想要的：
>假|不適用
[1]不適用
換句話說，當一個人不具備的危險因素之一，但我們不知道其他人，那麼我們不知道的人處於危險之中。 但對於血液測試例子，我們需要使用下面的代碼：
>總和（假，不適用，na.rm =真）“0
[1]虛假
在 總結 函數邏輯值加起來通過把真為1，FALSE作 ??為零。 如該款項的邏輯值大於零，那麼至少有一個必須的價值是真的。 設置 na.rm =真 告訴 總和 忽略缺失值。
解決方法在SPSS
這種情況也是一樣在SPSS。 對於糖尿病的例子，下面的工作：
計算 x = A或B
執行。
但對於驗血例如，我們需要使用：
計算 x =琛（甲，乙）“0。
執行。
請注意，SPSS的功能 森 忽略遺漏值。
缺失值的錯誤
困難的部分，當然，在思考如何通過遺漏值在特定情況下應處理。 我懷疑，這個問題已經在無數的錯誤，導致在數據分析。 謹慎行事：一失一英里一樣好！
標籤： 遺漏值 ， ? ， SPSS軟件 ， 統計
張貼由尼克BARROWMAN的在 下午8時43分 0評論 
星期六，2010年6月26日
王子和辯論家
我已經寫了 之前 關於克里斯托弗希欽斯和他的嗜好的誇大言辭。 嗯，他在一次，這一次用 嚴厲抨擊 對查爾斯王子莫屬。 作為一個長期主張拆除君主制，你可能認為這將是我耳邊的樂曲。嗯，事實並非如此。 希欽斯'謾罵是卑鄙的和智力上有缺陷。
平均奔放的方面很容易編目和較低的意義。 希欽斯呼籲查爾斯王子“非常愚蠢的人”，“道德和智力的弱者”，“一個憂鬱蝙蝠耳和chinless人，過早老化，最糟糕的味道在皇家后妃”，其“空帆是如此操縱的要通過膨脹任何微風飄蕩或偏執和不能“。
什麼是更關心我，比這一切對罵希欽斯是實質的一角，它涉及一個 講話 王子在最近在牛津大學伊斯蘭研究中心。 原來，查爾斯王子是該中心的贊助人，並在他的講話，他說：
這是一個非常關心我的肯定，並鼓勵這些團體和信仰社區，少數在這個國家。 事實上，在過去 25年裡，我試圖找到盡可能多的方式，因為這樣可以幫助他們融入英國社會，並把建立良好的社區之間的關係我們的信心。 我忽然覺得這是最好的實現，強調通過多樣化的統一。 只有這樣，才能確保公平和建立相互尊重我們的國家。 如果我們得到它在這裡，那麼也許我們或許可以提供一個例子，在更廣闊的世界。希欽斯輕蔑標籤此為“Islamophilia”，並寫道：
... 他的方式，他通過他的分頁一疊沉悶的胡言亂語，一定有一些貪婪的笑容在他的穆斯林聽眾。這種含沙射影是典型的：在這裡和他的其他著作中，希金斯往往暗示穆斯林狂熱。 在這種情況下，至少，這似乎是完全的產品他的想像力。
查爾斯王子的演講題目是“伊斯蘭教與環境”。 他指出，“許多自然的重要，生命支持系統現在疲於應付的壓力下，全球產業化”，並接著認為：
... 什麼是不太明顯的是態度和一般觀，延續這種危險的破壞性做法。 它是一種方法，行為違反教義每一個世界的神聖傳統，包括伊斯蘭教。查爾斯王子解釋說，他所指的“一種機械還原論的方法和我們的科學理解我們周圍的世界。” 這也許並不奇怪，希欽斯之一的“新無神論者”一書的作者 好，是不偉大 ，刻畫這個作為一個聲稱“科學世界觀”是“侮辱世界上所有的”神聖的傳統。“但這種誤解王子在說什麼。後來在他的講話中，查爾斯王子認為：
... 有一點超過這個經驗不能完全意義上的世界。 它的工作原理是通過測試它們建立事實的科學過程。 它是一種語言和一個很細的一個，但它是一種語言無法捉摸的信仰或類似的經歷的事情的意義 - 它是不是能夠清楚事項的靈魂。希欽斯駁回此為“拼著談論'靈魂'的宇宙”。 但是，儘管作了大量使用王子的話猶如“靈魂”，“精神”和“信仰”，他的論點沒有好壞在狹窄的宗教解釋。 他指出，科學是有限制的，和誘惑假裝否則可能會導致我們誤入歧途。 查爾斯王子認為部分解決方案“的傳統教法，像那些發現在我們的關係定義伊斯蘭教與自然世界。” 不是每個人都將分享他的解釋，但它絕不是“farrago的廢話”的希欽斯稱。
我找到了王子的發言有趣，甚至發人深省。 閱讀它自己 ，看看你的想法。
以上為google 機器翻譯
原文
UNDAY, JANUARY 30, 2011
Causal language
Consider the following sentence: "You ate the blueberries because your fingers are stained." What is odd about it is that ordinarily, when we say "X because of Y" we mean "Y is the cause of X". For example, "The window broke because the baseball hit it" means that the baseball hitting the window caused it to break. But in this case, the sentence surely doesn't mean that your fingers being stained caused you to eat the blueberries. Now one might object that it's a weird sentence, and that instead it should be "I believe you ate the blueberries because your fingers are stained." But the original version is not confusing to an English speaker, and people sometimes do speak this way. Language is a complicated business. And language about causality is particularly tricky.
It is well known that correlation does not imply causation. But when scientific studies are reported in the media, this dictum is often forgotten. Professor Jon Mueller at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois has compiled a great set of links to news articles reporting scientific findings. Some of the headlines for these articles suggest causal relationships and some do not. Clicking through to the actual news articles shows that the purported causal relationships are often a stretch, to say the least. For example:TV raises blood pressure in obese kids: study
The news article reports that:The researchers found children who watched two to four hours of TV were 2.5 times more likely to have high blood pressure compared with those who watched less than two hours of television a day. Those who watched more than 4 hours per day were 3.3 times more likely to have hypertension.In other words this was an observational study, which established a correlation between watching high amounts of TV per day and having high blood pressure. Contrary to the headline, the study did not show that the TV watching was the cause of the high blood pressure. For convenience let's rework the headline, while preserving its causal sense:TV watching increases the probability of high blood pressure. (1)The causal implication can be removed by writing:TV watchers have higher probability of high blood pressure. (2)In a wiki entry on causal language Gustavo Lacerda points out that action words often express causality. Note that in the present example, in order to remove the causal aspect of (1), it was necessary to change the verb "watching" into the noun "watchers" and the verb "increases" into the noun "higher".
Interestingly, there is a Bayesian formulation that sounds closer to (1):Being a TV watcher increases the probability that a child has high blood pressure.Note that this version has the verb "increases", like (1), but not the verb "watching". Instead it's expressed as "being a TV watcher", which indicates group membership rather than action or choice. It is this information about group membership that is used to update the probability of high blood pressure, following the Bayesian recipe.
Prediction and causality
Prediction can sound a lot like causation. Consider this statement:If you exercise, you're less likely to have a heart attack. (3)Does this mean:People who exercise are less likely than people who don't to have a heart attack. (4)or does it mean:The act of exercising reduces your chances of having a heart attack. (5)It seems quite ambiguous. On the one hand, "if you exercise" sounds like a statement about your choice simply to exercise instead of not exercising, which supports interpretation (5). On the other hand, "if you exercise" identifies you as a person who exercises, and that may predict your risk of heart attack, perhaps due to another behaviour common among people who exercise, such as healthy eating. This would support interpretation (4).
Natural language allows ambiguities. It's convenient to leave things out because everyone knows what we mean. Don't they? Not necessarily. Certainly, when it comes to causality, ambiguity can lead to a mess of trouble. In ordinary speech, the distinction between correlation and causation is often blurred. Statement (3) above is ambiguous about the comparator: less likely than whom to have a heart attack? Less likely than people who don't exercise? Less likely than you would be if you chose not to exercise?
It seems to me that causal language is almost a worst-case scenario. Many people would see the concern as unimportant. And yet evidence and beliefs about causation are at the foundation of any intervention, whether in health care, education, social programs, economics, what have you. The media and politicians routinely use misleading causal language. But it's difficult even when we try to be clear!
Sweetness and life
One of my favorite of Mueller's examples is:Eat sweets, live longer.All you have to do is juxtapose "eat sweets" and "live longer". Your mind does the rest.
Labels: causality, language
POSTED BY NICK BARROWMAN AT 5:50 PM 0 COMMENTS 
TUESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2011
Chance and inevitability
In an op-ed in today's issue of the Los Angeles Times, Michael Shermer wrote about the rush "to find the deep underlying causes of shocking events", with reference to the shooting in Tucson, Arizona and the recent mass bird deaths.
Shermer made some good points, but parts of his argument were flawed. For example, he cited statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health to argue that unbalanced people are not uncommon, andGiven these statistics, events such as the shooting in Tucson are bound to happen, no matter how nicely politicians talk to one another on the campaign trail or in Congress, no matter how extreme tea party slogans are about killing government programs, and no matter how stiff or loose gun control laws are in this or that state. By chance — and nothing more — there will always be people who do the unthinkable.In other words, he is pointing out what he sees as an inevitability, and then attributing it to chance. But an inevitability is the opposite of chance: it is a systematic pattern. And a systematic pattern is precisely what we can hope to change. I tend to agree with Shermer that "there will always be people who do the unthinkable." But surely we ought to do what we can to make such occurrences as rare as possible, and to reduce the harms as much as we can.
Shermer finishes his piece as follows:... as often as not, events in life turn on chance, randomness and statistical probabilities that are largely beyond our control. So calls for "an end to all overt and implied appeals to violence in American politics" — such as that just issued by MoveOn.org — may make us feel better, but they will do nothing to alter the inevitability of such one-off events in the future.By definition "one-off events" are unpredictable and idiosyncratic. And yet Shermer says they are inevitable. The apparent confusion here is between statistical probabilities that can be used to make fairly certain predictions, and the virtual impossibility of prediction at the micro level. For example, age- and sex-specific incidence rates of different types of cancer are carefully tabulated by the CDC, and we can use these rates to predict the number of people who will be diagnosed with cancer this year. But we can't predict wellwho those people will be. There are, however, patterns. We learned that smoking causes lung cancer (and heart disease, and emphysema, ....) and through reduced smoking rates we have seen reductions in mortality [pdf]. Perhaps we do have some control after all.
Labels: cancer, causality, inevitability, randomness, smoking
POSTED BY NICK BARROWMAN AT 10:28 PM 0 COMMENTS 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2010
Oversimplification
The map of the world is a familiar image. But a closer look at this one reveals that it is lacking detail. For example, a number of large islands are absent, including the British Isles, Japan, and the island where I grew up, Newfoundland. The continent of Antarctica has been omitted. Furthermore, Greenland and Ellesmere Island are joined, while North and South America are disconnected. Still, the map does give a general idea of the shape of the continents (except of course Antarctica). And it's certainly better than I could draw! The map is a simplification. But is it an oversimplification?
Here I want to take a general look at oversimplification because it has broad relevance and raises some subtle questions. Maps provide a convenient example and raise some issues that turn up elsewhere. In particular, I'm going to focus on how oversimplified ideas gain traction in our society, as illustrated by three popular nonfiction books.
Although the world map above simplifies a number of details, it is important to note that any map at a given scale involves simplification. Fine detail is sacrificed for an overall description. What's more, regardless of the projection used, any two-dimensional world map inevitably provides a distorted representation of our planet. A map is a model, and as I argued previously, one should not confuse models with reality, or in the words of Alfred Korzybski, "the map is not the territory." It is however convenient to represent the world in two dimensions with various details simplified. This is a general aspect of simplification: for all its costs, it is convenient.
Nevertheless, we do have the word "oversimplification", suggesting that you can have too much of a good thing. But if that is true, where would you draw the line? How much simplification is too much simplification? This issue arises, for example, in science teaching. If you were to teach 10-year-old children about Einstein's theory of special relativity, some simplification would be necessary. If you were teaching 16-year-old children, simplification would also be necessary, but to a slightly lesser degree. Einstein himself recognized the challenge of simplification, and is often quoted as having said that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler," which has been dubbed "Einstein's razor" in reference to Occam's Razor. Certainly, it would be oversimplification if one taught a university student the same way as a 10-year-old (or "undersimplification" if it were the other way around, though nobody uses the term).
But "oversimplification" is often used in a slightly different sense, one that hints at distortion, deception, or dishonesty. The issue then may not be too much simplification, but rather that the simplification is carried out in a way that is somehow improper. The world map above may perhaps offer a hint of this. As I noted above, some substantial islands have been omitted from the map. But larger ones such as Madagascar are present. However, one enormous landmass is not present: Antarctica, despite the fact that it is larger in land area than Australia. A possible explanation is that Antarctica is seen as unimportant because nobody lives there (except for a handful of scientists). This could be seen as a type of bias. It is one thing to simplify, but another to do so in such a way as to systematically misrepresent. I'm not really taking the map-maker to task here so much as using this as an illustration of a biased simplification.
I believe there is another way in which simplification can be improper, and that is when there is a lack of transparency. A simplified portrayal should not be presented without some explanation of how it was obtained. This provides some protection from confusing a simplification with "the truth". For example, in the case of a world map, different projections can give strikingly different impressions of our planet. For example, compare the map at the beginning of this article with the Eisenlohr conformal projection below:

Oversimplification in popular works of nonfiction
To further explore oversimplification, I'd like to consider three recent works of nonfiction. My purpose here is not to provide detailed reviews or commentary, nor to pass any overall judgment, but rather to explore issues of oversimplification that have been raised by others.
The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape makes the claim that moral questions can be not only informed but answered by science. Sam Harris proposes an updated version of utilitarianism, whereby an action is only morally right if it contributes to "well-being". Versions of this idea have been around for a long time: some of the key contributions to utilitarianism were made in the 1800's, and numerous objections and counterarguments have been made since then. But as Kwame Anthony Appiah writes in the New York Times, "having acknowledged some of these complications, [Harris] is inclined to push them aside and continue down his path." As philosophy professor Troy Jollimore wrote:Harris might be right that the best way to reach a "wider audience" is to sidestep difficult philosophical issues. But just how helpful to that wider audience can a book be that hides from the complexities of its subject, and misrepresents what it alleges to discuss by making genuinely difficult questions look straightforward and simple?As I noted earlier, misrepresented simplification is a key feature of oversimplification. Harris has also been criticized for using an uncommonly broad definition of science and for placing it in an easily-missed footnote. The footnote reads:For the purposes of this discussion, I do not intend to make a hard distinction between “science” and other intellectual contexts in which we discuss “facts”—e.g., history. For instance, it is a fact that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Facts of this kind fall within the context of “science,” broadly construed as our best effort to form a rational account of empirical reality. Granted, one doesn’t generally think of events like assassinations as “scientific” facts, but the murder of President Kennedy is as fully corroborated a fact as can be found anywhere, and it would betray a profoundly unscientific frame of mind to deny that it occurred. I think “science,” therefore, should be considered a specialized branch of a larger effort to form true beliefs about events in our world.It does seem odd to put in a footnote an idiosyncratic definition of a word that appears in the book's subtitle and is central to Harris' case. Note that Harris' use of a generalized notion of science is a form of simplification. Failing to highlight this simplification could be seen as oversimplification.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point explores factors that may explain how social trends can suddenly catch on. In a review on Amazon.com, Benjamin Northrop wrote that Gladwell "seems to be showing you what's really behind the "curtain" - not something boring or muddled or technical, but rather something simple and crisp and clear!" He goes on to say thatThe problem, however, is that real life is not so simple, nor is real science. Complex phenomenon have complex causal components. ... Gladwell, however, disingenuously presents only the facts and the stories that prove his point, giving the reader the false impression that there really is no debate, he has found "the answer".Northrup's mention of "complex causal components" points to causal oversimplification. Many phenomena have multiple causes; reducing them to a single purported mechanism can make for a more compelling account, but may provide only a counterfeit understanding.
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate attacks the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate. In a review, David B Richman suggests that Pinker has constructed a straw man:I agree with [Pinker] that a person's genetic makeup is highly important and that the extreme blank slate idea (that humans are born without a human nature and can be "written on" like a blank slate) is obviously wrong. ... However, I cannot follow the equally extreme idea that only our genes matter (a concept that Pinker alternately defends and retreats from.) As several people have pointed out in recent research the expression of a gene is primarily a dialog between genome and environment. Indeed, is there any reputable scientist today who believes in the absolute Blank Slate?A straw man is a kind of oversimplification: the wide range of views on a topic that are contrary to one's own are simplified down to a single, extreme one. If debate were really so polarized this might be acceptable, but this is rarely the case. And when countering an extreme opponent (albeit of one's own creation), one may find oneself presenting highly selective evidence, another hallmark of oversimplification. Another reviewer, D. Palmer,writes:Pinker presents other points of view only in caricature, apparently with the goal of persuading the reader, not informing him.
The sources of oversimplification
Oversimplified ideas abound. All three of the above books have made it to the New York Times Bestseller lists. Politicians routinely deal in oversimplification, and the voting public often seems only too happy to accept it. Stereotypes and sweeping generalizations are ever popular. Clearly there's something very appealing about oversimplification. But as I have argued above, it is possible, through transparency and efforts to avoid bias, to separate simplification—which is not only helpful but essential—from oversimplification.
So why is oversimplification so prevalent? One reason may be that it takes much less intellectual effort to accept a simplification that is presented without a transparent explanation of how it was obtained. It is easier to point to a map and say "this is the Earth" than to say "this is a projection of the Earth onto two dimensions that exaggerates land areas near the poles". A map is most useful when we accept its metaphor, just as a play is most enjoyable when we suspend our disbelief. But to read a map intelligently you need to see the limits of the metaphor, just as a theater critic needs to be able to see the actors and not just the characters they play. This takes effort, and it is easier to simply be swept along without question.
Working overtime to overcome oversimplification
The desire for simplicity seems to be universal. But we need not be taken in by oversimplification—whether it comes from our own thoughts or from the culture around us. We can start by distinguishing simplification from oversimplification. If there is a lack of transparency it's likely that oversimplification is at work.
To prevent simplification from slipping into oversimplification, we can cultivate the discipline of switching perspectives. On the one hand, to realize the value of simplification we need to pretend that our model is "true", and work under this pretense. But on the other hand, we need to recognize the model for what it is, a convenient tool, but a construct, not reality. From this perspective we can see the limits of the model, and appreciate where it may lead us astray. Repeatedly switching perspectives, and integrating the resulting insights, is very hard work, but I believe it's essential if we want to avoid being imprisoned by our models.
I will conclude with a quote from Goethe: "Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you can imagine."
Labels: maps, models, oversimplification, simplification
POSTED BY NICK BARROWMAN AT 8:26 AM 0 COMMENTS 
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2010
When technology undermines science
On the day the iPad was launched, Apple sold over 300,000 of the tablet computers. Since then, over 3 million iPads have been sold. Our society is infatuated with technology, and this affects us in ways both obvious and subtle. Here I want to examine how our adoration of technology influences the way we think about science, and in turn how we see our whole world. I should note that I write this as a scientist, and someone with a long-time interest in, and fascination with technology.
Because the words science and technology are often paired, their meanings tend to be conflated. But science can be pursued with few technological spin-offs (as is the case with astrophysics, for example) and technology can be developed without the use of science (as was the case with the early technologies developed by trial and error in prehistory). Certainly scientific discoveries can often be used to develop new technologies, and existing technologies can be evaluated scientifically. But science itself is not about developing technology, it's about learning through systematic observation and (sometimes) experimental manipulation. Some would argue that this distinction is mere semantics, but I will argue that confusion between science and technology leads to some very unfortunate consequences.
Because we're so taken with technology, and because of the close connection between science and technology, it's not surprising that science is held in high esteem. But this is a double-edged sword. The downsides of technology (e.g. sedentary behaviour patterns and burgeoning rates of obesity, global warming from carbon emissions, toxic waste, etc.) are sometimes blamed on science. On the one hand, this is fitting: for better or worse, without science, modern technologies could never have been developed. On the other hand, surely it is our society's moral, economic, and political choices that determine how scientific knowledge is applied, and responsibility for those choices should fall to the decision makers. But our terminological confusion blurs such distinctions, and science and technology are routinely seen as one and the same. Praise or criticism of one is seen as identical to praise or criticism of the other. This has lead to a curious polarization of views.
The church of science
On the one hand, a triumphalism of science has become more and more common. Science is increasingly seen as providing the most trustworthy information, or perhaps the only reliable source of knowledge, not just about the physical world, but about all aspects of life.
I believe two factors underlie this tendency. First, the products of technological wizardry provide a concrete demonstration of the mastery and control that scientific knowledge can provide. The most important point here is the universality of this demonstration: no special knowledge or education is required to appreciate the power of technology. This technological factor rides on top of an epistemological claim. As Luke Muehlhauser puts it:the massive success of science leads me to suspect that methods condoned [sic] by science are the most successful methods of knowing we have discovered yet.And while it seems likely that a philosophical argument such as this will only appeal to a limited audience, it nevertheless provides the intellectual muscle beneath the alluring skin of technology.
Triumphalism about science has a long historical lineage, expressed in the first half of the 20th century in the school of logical positivism, and more recently in some of the writings of the so-called new atheists. In their extreme forms, such arguments tend towardsscientism, the view that only scientific statements have any meaning and that, ultimately, science will provide all the answers. The trouble is, if science is seen as having all the answers, it must either expand to encompass a much broader range of concerns, or else dismiss such concerns as meaningless. Where does that leave ethics, philosophy, literature, history, art? While science can inform each of these fields, a radical redefinition of science would be required to assimilate them. And yet that is just what is being proposed.
Philosophy. Luke Muehlhauser argues: "I think philosophy will be most productive when it functions as an extension of successful science ... ". Commenting on such thinking,Massimo Pigliucci writes:There are profound differences in method, style and type of problems between science and philosophy, and frankly I think that people who deny or minimize this simply have not taken their time to read any philosophy, or they would immediately see how bizarre it is to deny the difference.
More broadly, I am having a really hard time understanding the agenda of people here who wish at all costs to dismiss philosophy or absorb it into science. Why are you so bent on arrogating more epistemological power to science than it possesses? Why is it not good enough to say that science is by far the best approach we have devised to understand the natural world, but that there are problems that lie outside of it and other disciplines that are better equipped to address those problems?
Ethics. Sam Harris recently gave a TED talk titled “Science can answer moral questions”, in which he argues that "The separation between science and human values is an illusion".Massimo Pigliucci described the "malady that strikes Harris: scientism, the idea that science can do everything and provides us with all the answers that are worth having."Thinkmonkey, a commenter on Pigliucci's blog wrote:
Sam Harris has simply not done the hard work needed to understand the historical and ongoing arguments in ethical theory and metaethics - the context in which the argument he wishes to make *must* be situated. Perhaps these arguments have not settled very much, but they have at least established some shared terminology and made important distinctions: Without knowing the terminology and understanding the important distinctions (and the reasons for them), Harris cannot help but be confused - and to introduce still more confusion when he attempts to engage with his critics.
Philosophy may be where all the unanswered questions live, and may not get a lot of respect thereby, but at least we try to avoid these kinds of messes. Or, as Sydney Morgenbesser famously described our collective work: "You make a few distinctions. You clarify a few concepts. It’s a living."
The Humanities. The academic disciplines concerned with the human condition include history, literature, law, languages, art, and religious studies. Aspects of these and related fields may be studied using the methods of social science. But large parts of these disciplines use methods that are not scientific. Criticism of these disciplines is increasingly common. For example, the website of Edge: The Third Culture sneers:The third culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are.
... the traditional American intellectuals are, in a sense, increasingly reactionary, and quite often proudly (and perversely) ignorant of many of the truly significant intellectual accomplishments of our time. Their culture, which dismisses science, is often nonempirical. It uses its own jargon and washes its own laundry. It is chiefly characterized by comment on comments, the swelling spiral of commentary eventually reaching the point where the real world gets lost.
Mathematics. Interestingly, the claim that science provides the only reliable source of knowledge is easily refuted. Mathematics uses deduction to arrive at certain knowledge, something that science cannot achieve. One response to this is to claim that mathematics is part of science. Certainly mathematics is a key tool of science, but claiming that it is partof science goes too far. A different response is to point out that mathematical knowledge pertains to abstract entities, and thus in itself is not practical. This is indeed correct, but it highlights the key point that there are different kinds of knowledge, which cannot be seen as competing, because they belong to entirely different spheres.
Science is sometimes identified tout court with rationalism, and in a you're-either-with-us-or-against-us manoeuvre, everything else is simply deemed to be irrationalism. This is more a rhetorical trick than a line of reasoning, but once again we see the definition of science being expanded at will.
Science as fiction
At the other extreme, is an anti-science sentiment that manifests itself in support for pseudoscience, quackery, and superstition. From Deepak Chopra to crystals to the anti-vaccination movement, anti-science thinking is surprisingly prevalent. As I suggested previously, some of this is a reaction against the evident problems engendered by technology, coupled with a confusion between science and technology. But some of the anti-science thinking is a reaction to the kind of triumphalism of science that I have described.
What is to be done?
I've argued that fuzzy definitions have done real damage, fueling a grandiose vision of science and its flip side, a crude resurgence of superstition and anti-science thinking. The pairing of science and technology is here to stay, and the allure of technology will continue to promote an exaggerated conception of science. What can be done in the face of this tendency?
First, it remains important to distinguish between science and technology. The careless fusing of the two terms contributes to the unwarranted expansion of the notion of science. Second, it is important to challenge attempts to expand the purview of science to non-empirical matters such as ethics. This does no good to either science or ethics. While science can certainly inform ethics, the primary focus of ethics is normative, not predictive or explanatory. Science provides the best way to understand the physical world, but it is not a source of values or meaning. Third, pseudo-science, superstition, and quackery should be challenged by insisting on high-quality evidence. However it should be remembered that such delusions are nourished by out-sized claims about the universal dominion of science. Attempts to discredit new-age nonsense can backfire when metaphysical claims are denounced as being unscientific. Science can only address empirical claims. Non-empirical claims may certainly be challenged, but not by science.
Mind your own business
Many of the issues I have discussed are particularly vexing where the mind is concerned. Advances in neuroscience have encouraged aphysicalist view that in its most extreme form argues that the mind is nothing more than the activity of neurons. This idea has an interesting connection with technology. Early computers were described as being "like a brain". As computers became more familiar, the simile was inverted, and the brain was seen as being "like a computer". More recently this process has reached its conclusion, and it is common to hear that the brain simply "is a computer".
Of course it's true that the brain computes, albeit in a way rather different from our digital computers. But somehow, along with the computation, we experience consciousness, a sense of self, the impression of free will. We experience sensation (rather than simply processing signals), we feel emotion, we delight in beauty and we abhor ugliness. Questions about these aspects of mind have occupied philosophers from the earliest times. Naturally, developments in the scientific understanding of the brain have had an important impact on philosophy of mind. But the fundamental questions remain.
Unfortunately, reductionist views about the mind are flourishing, nourished by both enthusiasm about developments in neuroscience and uncritical acceptance of the technological metaphor that "the brain is a computer". It is perhaps noteworthy that Sam Harris, who argues in his new book that Science Can Determine Human Values, has a PhD in neuroscience. In a New York Times review of Harris's book (with the telling title Science Knows Best), Kwame Anthony Appiah writes:when he stays closest to neuroscience, he says much that is interesting and important ... Yet such science is best appreciated with a sense of what we can and cannot expect from it ...Indeed we should approach all science this way.
Labels: consciousness, mind, physicalism, Sam Harris, science, scientism, technology
POSTED BY NICK BARROWMAN AT 10:34 PM 1 COMMENTS 
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 03, 2010
Rainbow particles
My son enjoys creating Flash applications. Check this one out:
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Labels: Flash
POSTED BY NICK BARROWMAN AT 1:19 PM 3 COMMENTS 
MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 2010
An ORnery problem
Some time ago, I wrote about missing values and how they complicate the life of an applied statistician. A particularly tricky case concerns logical variables, and I give a more detailed explanation here.
Suppose X is a variable representing whether a person is at risk for developing type-2 diabetes. Two known risk factors are (A) being older and (B) being overweight. If we had a database containing the age and weight of each person in a group, we could compute Xusing the following logical expression:
X = A OR B.(X, A, and B are known as logical variables, and they each take values TRUE or FALSE according to whether the corresponding condition holds.) But what happens if some ages and weights are missing from the database? Fortunately statistical software packages like R and SPSS have built-in rules that will correctly evaluate the logical expression, even if A orB (or both) are missing. The complete truth table is as follows (where T means TRUE, F means FALSE, and a dot means missing):

Note that if A is FALSE and B is missing, the result is missing. That makes sense because if the actual value of B were TRUE, the result would be TRUE, but if the actual value of B were FALSE, the result would be FALSE. Thus it is not possible to say what the value of X is.
The trouble is, this logic can sometimes be perverse. Suppose X instead represents whether a patient tests positive for infection with a certain virus. But there may be two different blood tests (A and B), and patients may receive one or the other, or perhaps both. Suppose that if any of the tests is positive, the patient will be considered to be infected. The logical variables A and B take the values TRUE, FALSE, or missing according to whether the corresponding tests were positive, negative, or simply not performed. Shouldn't the logical expression X = A OR B handle this situation correctly? Unfortunately not. Suppose only one test was performed, and it was negative. Then the truth table shows that X will be missing, even though the patient tested negative!
Why does the logical expression handle missing values the way we want in the first case, but fail to do so in the second? The answer is that in the first case a missing value represents the fact that the age or weight of a given person is not available, whereas in the second case, when a test outcome is missing from the database, it means that no test was performed, thus the variable representing the outcome is not applicable. Another common case of variables that are not applicable occurs with data representing observations on multiple occasions. For example, suppose a database records whether hotel guests eat at the hotel restaurant on the first day of their stay (EAT1), the second day (EAT2), or the third day (EAT3). Some guests stay for just one day, while others stay longer. The database may look like this:

This is an example of a ragged array, and as with the blood test, the issue is that the denominator (the number of tests performed, or the number of days a guest stays at the hotel) varies. To determine whether a guest ate at the hotel restaurant at least once (which we will represent by the logical variable EAT), we might try:EAT = EAT1 OR EAT2 OR EAT3.Unfortunately, as with the blood test example, this can fail when there are missing values. Guest number 4 in the table above stayed just one day at the hotel and did not eat at the restaurant, so EAT should be FALSE, but the expression above gives a missing value.
Workaround in R
In R, the vertical bar operator | represents OR, and missing values are represented by NA. For the diabetes example, the following behaviour is just what we want:
> FALSE | NA
[1] NA
In other words, when a person does not have one of the risk factors, but we don't know about the other one, then we don't know if the person is at risk. But for the blood test example, we need to use the following code:
> sum(FALSE,NA,na.rm=TRUE)>0
[1] FALSE
The sum function adds up logical values by treating TRUE as 1 and FALSE as zero. If the sum of the logical values is greater than zero, then at least one of the values must have been TRUE. Setting na.rm=TRUE tells sum to ignore missing values.
Workaround in SPSS
The situation is much the same in SPSS. For the diabetes example, the following works:
COMPUTE X = A OR B.
EXECUTE.
But for the blood test example, we need to use:
COMPUTE X = SUM(A,B)>0.
EXECUTE.
Note that the SPSS function SUM ignores missing values.
Missing value mistakes
The hard part, of course, is thinking through how the missing values in a given situation should be handled. I suspect that this issue has resulted in countless errors in data analyses. Proceed with caution: a miss is as good as a mile!
Labels: missing values, R, SPSS, statistics
POSTED BY NICK BARROWMAN AT 8:43 PM 0 COMMENTS 
SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 2010
The prince and the polemicist
I've written before about Christopher Hitchens and his penchant for overblown rhetoric. Well, he's at it again, this time with ascathing attack on none other than Prince Charles. As a longtime advocate of the dismantling of the monarchy, you might think this would be music to my ears. Well, it's not. Hitchens' diatribe is mean-spirited and intellectually flawed.
The mean-spirited aspects are easily catalogued and of lesser significance. Hitchens calls Prince Charles "a very silly man", "a moral and intellectual weakling", "a morose bat-eared and chinless man, prematurely aged, and with the most abysmal taste in royal consorts" whose "empty sails are so rigged as to be swelled by any passing waft or breeze of crankiness and cant".
What is of more interest to me than all this name calling is the substance of Hitchens' piece, which concerns a speech the prince gave recently at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. It turns out that Prince Charles is the patron of the Centre, and in his speech he said:
It has been a great concern of mine to affirm and encourage those groups and faith communities that are in the minority in this country. Indeed, over the last twenty-five years, I have tried to find as many ways as possible to help integrate them into British society and to build good relationships between our faith communities. I happen to believe this is best achieved by emphasizing unity through diversity. Only in this way can we ensure fairness and build mutual respect in our country. And if we get it right here then perhaps we might be able to offer an example in the wider world.Hitchens contemptuously labels this as "Islamophilia" and writes:
... as he paged his way through his dreary wad of babble, there must have been some wolfish smiles among his Muslim audience.This kind of innuendo is typical: here and in his other writings, Hitchens often hints at Muslim fanaticism. In this case, at least, it seems to be entirely the product of his imagination.
Prince Charles' speech was titled "Islam and the Environment". He pointed out that "Many of Nature's vital, life-support systems are now struggling to cope under the strain of global industrialization", and went on to argue that:
... what is less obvious is the attitude and general outlook which perpetuate this dangerously destructive approach. It is an approach that acts contrary to the teachings of each and every one of the world's sacred traditions, including Islam.Prince Charles explained that he was referring to "a mechanistic and reductionist approach to our scientific understanding of the world around us." It is perhaps not surprising that Hitchens, one of the "new atheists" and author of Good is Not Great, characterizes this as a claim that "the scientific worldview" is "an affront to all the world's "sacred traditions." But this misconstrues what the prince was saying. Later on in his speech, Prince Charles argued that:
... there is a point beyond which empiricism cannot make complete sense of the world. It works by establishing facts through testing them by the scientific process. It is one kind of language and a very fine one, but it is a language not able to fathom experiences like faith or the meaning of things – it is not able to articulate matters of the soul.Hitchens dismisses this as "vapid talk about the 'soul' of the universe". But although the prince made liberal use of words like "soul", "spiritual", and "faith", his arguments do not stand or fall on a narrow religious interpretation. He was pointing out that science has limits, and the temptation to pretend otherwise may lead us astray. Prince Charles sees part of the solution in "the traditional teachings, like those found in Islam that define our relationship with the natural world". Not everyone will share his interpretation, but it's hardly the "farrago of nonsense" that Hitchens alleges.
I found the prince's speech interesting and even thought-provoking. Read it yourself and see what you think.
POSTED BY NICK BARROWMAN AT 9:16 AM 5 COMMENTS