There is an awesome article on the “Top 25 Informative Maps That Teach Us Something Uniquely Different About the World.” The following is the map of world level of happiness per country.
Check out the rest.
Month: January 2014
The Conservative Mormon View on Female Ordination
I had big plans to not write a post for Times And Seasons this Monday ’cause trying to write a really good post every week is actually getting tricky with all the other things I’ve got going on. But apparently the 6 months or so of weekly posting have ingrained the habit so deeply I can’t stop even when I want to. Or, in other words, I got all fired up by a discussion on the T&S backlist (an email list for the permanent bloggers) and just had to write a post. So, I did.
The interesting thing is that after finishing this long, drawn-out analysis of female ordination someone posted this article that made me wonder what all the fuss is about. It’s an article from the Pew Research Center from back in October 2013 that’s actually delving into data from a 2011 survey of over 1,000 Mormons that found (among many other things) that support for female ordination is really low.
I have to admit that after seeing that I thought (1) why did I just waste so much time and effort over what is apparently a non-issue outside the bloggernaccle and (2) wow, blogging can really skew your perspective.
There are some proponents of female ordination who think that these numbers are disproportionately low because faithful Mormons won’t support something that the leaders haven’t approved. As Alison Moore Smith wrote on the comments to my post at Times And Seasons:
If/when the priesthood ban on women is lifted, I expect to find a few curmudgeons who just can’t believe the heresy of it all while everyone else is rejoicing in the street and “suddenly” embracing the the new policy.
I understand where she’s coming from, but I don’t really agree. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for a faithful Mormon to answer “yes” to the question despite supporting their leaders who are saying “no” thus far. The whole premise of the Ordain Women movement, after all, is that members can faithfully agitate for change. And that’s what 4% of the high religious commitment folks are doing. I really don’t think there’s a significant proportion f the 95% of high religious commitment folks who are just waiting for leaders to lift the “ban” (I don’t agree with that term) to run out and celebrate in the streets.
That doesn’t make me feel any sense of smugness, by the way. It makes me feel really sad for the folks out there who are really hurting over this issue. I think female ordination is a bad idea, but I really empathize with some of those who look to it as a solution to genuine problems and genuine heartache.
Freedom in the 50 States
Most people interested in economics are likely familiar with the Fraser Institute’s annual Economic Freedom of the World reports along with the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has a Freedom in the 50 States report, parsing and ranking all 50 states in terms of economic and personal freedoms. My own state, Texas, comes in at #14 in the latest ranking (our neighbor Oklahoma comes in at #5).
Check it out and discover how your state ranks.
Can Time Guess Your Politics?
Time gave it their best shot, but it didn’t turn out so well.
Not really their fault. I’ve often observed that in terms of temperament I’m much more like liberals than conservatives. So I wasn’t surprised that they were wrong. I could even easily tell, question-by-question, which ones would get me nudged in which direction or the other. Here are the specific results, by the way:
No big surprise, some of them some contradictory. Example “You wish there were no countries,” vs. “You’re proud of your country’s history.” Yeah: I’d love to live in one, giant, happy global community. Apparently humans tend to need an adversary (a “them”) to define a community (an “us”), but I’ve always hoped that a communal endeavor–something like exploring the Solar System–could unite us without the need for an enemy. I’d love to live in that world. We just don’t. Yet.
New Movie Challenges Pro-Choice Narrative on Pregnancy Centers
There’s a new movie coming out called Gimme Shelter staring Vanessa Hudgens that includes some pretty strong pro-life themes and questions the pro-choice attacks on crisis pregnancy centers while it’s at it. The trailer is pretty intense.
Most of what I know about the movie comes from this Secular Pro-Life piece, but I’m definitely intrigued. I hope I have a chance to check it out and, if I do, I’ll review it here.
Scientific Belief vs. Scientific Literacy
Back in November, Nathaniel had a Times & Seasons post based on a survey from Pew Research. The survey looked at beliefs regarding evolution across various religious denominations. Yet, Nathaniel pointed out that the survey isn’t really about evolution. “It’s basically a roll call to see where people stand on the perceived cultural war between religion and science”:
Folks who embrace strong, anti-scientific rhetoric are flaunting their disregard for the world’s estimation of their IQ and burnishing their loyalty for all to see. They are signalling to their fellows, yes, but it’s more than that. They are enacting a narrative of persecution and using the scorn that comes their way to validate their sense of importance and role in a larger narrative. The folks on the other side of the fence, those who mock the anti-science crowd, are displaying their sophistication and cosmopolitan nature. Once again, they are signalling to their fellows and strengthening social bonds, but they are also paying the cover charge to see themselves as participants in some grand endeavor. Instead of taking the role of a stalwart band of besieged disciples, however, they are playing the part of foot soldier in the ongoing march of progress. Mocking those who seem ignorant is a cheap price to pay for feeling like you’re part of the rising tide of enlightened reason. (Especially if you bear the burden of a near total lack of relevant scientific expertise.)
This astute observation from Nathaniel has some backing from the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School. Dan Kahan, Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law & Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School, has a couple posts demonstrating that “”believing in evolution” is not the same as “understanding” or even having the most rudimentary knowledge of science knows about the career of life on our planet. Believing and understanding are in fact wholly uncorrelated.”
Turns out the scientific beliefs of the public actually end up being cultural beliefs; markers along political divisions with no basis in scientific literacy. Eye-opening stuff. Give it a read.
Sacrifice is OK for Principle, not People
Noah Smith, a recently minted econ PhD with some fame as a blogger, argues in a piece for The Atlantic that the Seattle Protests of 1999 were right about everything. (Actually, he said “on nearly every count.”) It’s an interesting piece, because it highlights the unexpected callousness of bleeding hearts. Consider:
The clearest example is competition from foreign workers, which really has slammed the American working class. Economists David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson did very careful empirical work and found that competition from China lowered wages and increased unemployment for American workers who were in competition with Chinese imports.
I don’t question the science here. I question the values. While American workers in direct competition with Chinese workers are doing worse, Chinese workers in direct competition with American workers are doing better. This is jingoism wrapping itself in the flag of humanitarianism. Later in the post, Smith says that he cares about the health of Chinese workers when it comes to pollution, but apparently his empathy is politically convenient. When it suits him for the welfare of Chinese workers to be irrelevant it gets ignored. When it suits him to be relevant, it goes on prominent display.
It reminds me of the way the American left frequently talks about our need to sacrifice by lowering our standard of living in order to reduce energy consumption and decrease carbon pollution. OK, so we’re willing to lower American standards of living to decrease carbon emissions, but not to raise the standard of living in the developing world?
Of course, Smith doesn’t address the issue of whether or not the widespread violence and vandalism was one of the “nearly every counts” on which the protests were right. Anarchists are so cute and cuddly when they’re smashing someone else’s windows, right?
3 Factors of Economic Mobility
Sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia has an excellent piece in The Atlantic, which analyzes data from the Equality of Opportunity Project on what factors contribute to economic mobility. Wilcox finds three main factors: (1) Per-capita income growth, (2) Prevalence of single mothers (negative), (3) Per-capita local government spending (likely a proxy for education spending or public transportation).
Wilcox concludes,
As the nation marks the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty this week, it’s worth considering that our attention to income inequality, although well-meaning, is distracting us from the most important pieces in the poverty puzzle. Growth, marriages, and local governments are three issues deserving more attention in our efforts to renew the American Dream for the nation’s poorest citizens.
The Problem with Free Stuff (College Tuition Edition)
Jordan Weissmann, writing for The Atlantic, thinks he has calculated the total cost of free tuition in the United States at public universities. The headline? “Here’s Exactly How Much the Government Would Have to Spend to Make Public College Tuition-Free.”[ref]emphasis added[/ref] It’s adorable, really.
First Weissmann gets the total amount spent on all public university tuition ($60b). Then he subtracts the government aid that currently goes to public schools (about $20b). Next, he carefully considers the impact that free education would have on the folks who go to private universities, and estimates how many of them would move to public school (no, I’m kidding, he totally ignores that.) Additionally, he considers all the folks who currently don’t go to college at all because the price and/or financial aid process is intimidating and generates an estimate for new entrants into college (ha, yeah, no: that’s not actually in there.) Then, he considers the indirect costs of overcrowding, the capital outlays that public universities would have to spend on new classrooms, housing, and facilities, and the costs of hiring and training all the new faculty and staff to handle the influx (yeah, that’s not mentioned in the article at all.) Finally, he considers related, complex issues like the future of the profit-machine that is college athletics and how it would interact with this new regime (by now you know very well that he did absolutely no such thing.)
Instead, he compares his make-believe $40b number[ref]it’s in the second update, not the original article[/ref] to this pretty chart.
Which tells us… nothing, really.[ref]Not gonna lie, I included the chart for the same reason he did. It’s pretty. Look at that color palette! Gorgeous![/ref]
On the one hand, I can’t blame Weissmann for not doing all that extra work. I spent about 20 minutes trying to get numbers, and it was not fun. But the problem with taking the easy way out is that (in this case at least) you end up with a phony estimate of an irrelevant number. If we think that free public education for K-12 is a good idea, then it’s entirely plausible that free public education for K-16 is a good idea. My point is not that Weissmann’s final conclusion is wrong. Rather, it’s that (1) lazy analysis is counter-productive and (2) pretending that markets don’t exist is silly. If you’re not talking about the way people will respond to major changes in prices, you’re not having a serious conversation of any kind.
The Science of Sleep: Some Links
Given my own tendency toward sleep deprivation, I found the following links illuminating:
- “How Sleep Deprivation Decays the Mind and Body” in The Atlantic provides an informative overview of the effects of sleep (or lack of).
- “Real Men Go To Sleep” at Harvard Business Review rejects the “deeply embedded American cultural tradition [that] dismisses sleep as a waste of time.”
- “Naps Are Wonderful, Especially If You Can Lay Down” at Stanford professor Robert Sutton’s blog points out research demonstrating that naps boost performance.
- “Why You Should Sleep Your Way to the Top” at Greater Good (Greater Good Science Center, UC Berkeley) features an interview with Matt Walker, associate professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and Principal Investigator at the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory.
- “The Quiet Secret to Success” at Greater Good links proper rest to elite performers.