Here's another one. Gerald Crabtree, an idiot scientist from Stanford, has a paper in which he argues that human intelligence has declined from its peak. His argument, as I understand it, is two-fold:
--Intelligence is a matter of survival. As survival, of the not-getting-eaten-by-a-bear type, gets easier and easier, there is not as much natural selection (stupider people getting eaten) for intelligence.
--The rate of mutation, which can be calculated, means that harmful brain mutations have resulted in an overall decay of human intelligence, over thousands of years. With no way of selecting out those mutations, there is no counterbalancing force to maintain the original level of intelligence.
The critical thinking exercise is to poke holes in this argument, which I hope I have not stated too facetiously (right).
1. First of all, the conclusion seems a bit trivial if it does not state by how much, exactly, intelligence has fallen. In other words, the decline might be real, but so negligible that nothing really follows from it. Is it .001%? Or .01%? Then the variability of intelligence within the human race will basically negate its effects. In other words, the smartest people around today will still be as smart as anyone 6,000 years ago. It would have to be a fairly large effect to be significant in the least. How much of an effect would be necessary? I have no idea, but does Crabtree? Does he make any argument about that?
2. Is the ability to avoid bears what we mainly mean by "intelligence"? Presumably our closest genetic ancestors also developed ways of not getting eaten, with much less of what we mean by "intelligence" than we do. In fact, any ape living today is better than we are at wilderness survival. In other words, there seems to be an unexamined disconnect between definitions of intelligence. High-level cognitive abilities, like those involved in solving complex mathematical equations, are not necessary at all for basic survival. In fact, often the smart guy will be the first to be eaten by the bear.
3. Intelligence is not selected just by survival, but also, presumably, by sexual selection. That kind of selection is probably more in play in modern, technologically advanced societies.
4. Any mutation harmful enough to do real harm to the overall intelligence of the species might have been weeded out (selected against) by a variety of means in more recent times. For example, it might have been as hard to survive to reproductive age as a serf in Tsarist Russia than on the savannah. We could also argue more complex the society, the more cognitive ability comes into play for survival, since many cognitive abilities like abstract reasoning aren't even relevant to hunter-gatherer conditions.
5. The whole thesis lacks any kind of corroboration. For example, we know ancient civilizations did great things requiring prodigious brain power. We know that modern peoples from 1500 on have also done similar things. There is no decline in intelligence that has to be explained in some way. Without any kind of corroboration, the argument boils down to idle speculation. Idle, in the sense that the thinking does not get us anywhere, like a car with the engine on and idling. In this, it resembles the worst of evolutionary psychology, a field comprised by "just so stories."
6. The science behind the calculations of mutations is something I have not the expertise to question. Note, however, that this scientific evidence is mustered to support an argument that raises many other questions of interpretation.
Please, no comments about the decline of intelligence as manifested by "kids today" or reality shows. GC is not arguing that the results are visible or detectible in any way. In fact, he is hiding behind the weakness of his own claims.
Media coverage of this will be terrible, I predict. First of all, it will call forth declensionist narratives of human decline. Headlines like "Yes, we really are stupider, scientist discovers." But his actual argument is for a decline that can hardly be detected at all, over many millennia. He is not arguing for a decline that is palpable over the course of a few generations, but the media spin will all go in that direction.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Friday, November 16, 2012
Plagiarism as cross-contamination
You often hear people say, "It's not deliberate plagiarism, just carelessness." Actually, however, cross-contamination is a better metaphor for most cases of plagiarism than theft. The idea that plagiarism is stealing ideas or words is confusing for a lot of people, because theft is usually a deliberate act. "I didn't mean to do it" is not a legitimate excuse, and non-intentional plagiarism is still plagiarism. Imagine I got on a bike, thinking it was mine, and got home with it. Later I realize it is not mine. I didn't mean to steal the bike, but I still did something wrong.
[Of course, wholesale appropriation of others' ideas is theft, and is plagiarism.]
So the secret to avoiding plagiarism is not to be careless. It is a matter of higiene: keeping your words separate from those of others, meticulously keeping track of who said what / when / how.
I'm assuming most food poisoning occurs not because someone is trying to poison the food, but because of a lack of hygiene. You can have separate notebooks for quotes from other people and your own ideas, just like you might have separate chopping boards for vegetables and meat. You should never transcribe a quote into your document without quotation marks or indentations. Don't go back and format later, because you might not remember. You should have a protocol in place to protect your scholarly integrity.
[Of course, wholesale appropriation of others' ideas is theft, and is plagiarism.]
So the secret to avoiding plagiarism is not to be careless. It is a matter of higiene: keeping your words separate from those of others, meticulously keeping track of who said what / when / how.
I'm assuming most food poisoning occurs not because someone is trying to poison the food, but because of a lack of hygiene. You can have separate notebooks for quotes from other people and your own ideas, just like you might have separate chopping boards for vegetables and meat. You should never transcribe a quote into your document without quotation marks or indentations. Don't go back and format later, because you might not remember. You should have a protocol in place to protect your scholarly integrity.
Shopping is research / cooking is writing
Menu planning is deciding what you are going to cook. [deciding on the topic of your articles, the chapters of your book...]
Making the grocery list. This is looking at the menu and figuring out what you need to buy. [making a list of the materials you will need for the paper]
Shopping. Going to the store or stores and buying what is on your list. [Research!].
Mise en place. Having everything in place before you start cooking. [organizing your research materials; knowing where to find them when you are writing.]
Cooking. Preparing the actual meal. [writing the article or chapter.]
Plating. Putting the food on the plates in an aesthetically pleasing manner. [preparing the final version of the article].
Now it is possible to do these steps in different order, to go to the store without having a list or a menu, for example. It is possible to start cooking and then realize you don't have some ingredients. Then you turn off the stove and go back to the store. You might have no mise en place in place. But, in general, this is the logical order of doing things. If you are writing before you do research, then what you are writing will be more of a menu plan or a grocery list than an article based on what you already know. That is fine, you should have a list, but you should know that that is what you are doing. It makes no sense to do these steps in a different order. Shopping is research and cooking is writing. The student Z had who had not read the primary text should simply be slapped down.
One caveat: my own process is a good deal more fluid than that. The metaphor suggests a straightforward efficient way of doing things, but we know in practice that research is not always efficient, that it answers to a higher efficiency.
***
PS: Plagiarism is cross contamination, like getting raw chicken juice into the ingredients for a raw salad.
Making the grocery list. This is looking at the menu and figuring out what you need to buy. [making a list of the materials you will need for the paper]
Shopping. Going to the store or stores and buying what is on your list. [Research!].
Mise en place. Having everything in place before you start cooking. [organizing your research materials; knowing where to find them when you are writing.]
Cooking. Preparing the actual meal. [writing the article or chapter.]
Plating. Putting the food on the plates in an aesthetically pleasing manner. [preparing the final version of the article].
Now it is possible to do these steps in different order, to go to the store without having a list or a menu, for example. It is possible to start cooking and then realize you don't have some ingredients. Then you turn off the stove and go back to the store. You might have no mise en place in place. But, in general, this is the logical order of doing things. If you are writing before you do research, then what you are writing will be more of a menu plan or a grocery list than an article based on what you already know. That is fine, you should have a list, but you should know that that is what you are doing. It makes no sense to do these steps in a different order. Shopping is research and cooking is writing. The student Z had who had not read the primary text should simply be slapped down.
One caveat: my own process is a good deal more fluid than that. The metaphor suggests a straightforward efficient way of doing things, but we know in practice that research is not always efficient, that it answers to a higher efficiency.
***
PS: Plagiarism is cross contamination, like getting raw chicken juice into the ingredients for a raw salad.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Tenure and Promotion Letters?
I have written exactly 15 tenure and promotion letters,including two for promotion to full professor. I have turned down a handful of requests as well, though usually I say yes. I cannot agree that the practice is idiotic. It is true that the vast majority of letters are positive: people are increasingly unwilling to write a negative one, so the problem for weaker candidates is to get enough letters. The Department chair might have to contact more people to get the six letters required. (It's six where I work; your mileage might vary.) People write insincere letters as well, though I am incapable of that. I once, and only once, wrote an absolutely negative letter. I should have checked first to see what the candidate had done, to save myself the trouble and feelings of guilt. I have been sincerely luke-warm on occasion. In other words, I have felt there is some merit to the case, not to be stated too strongly, and that I should write nothing to prevent the person from being promoted at a place where s/he was likely to remain a good fit.
The author of this CHE article seems to think that research can be evaluated in house. That might be true of his field (Finance) which has a quasi-official ranking of the three top-tier journals. You can simply count up the journal articles and see how many are in Journal 1, 2, and 3. My field is much more subjective. I could never evaluate someone doing Colonial Latin American Literature without knowing what people in that field thought about my colleague's research.
In cases I have seen over the years, negative letters turned out to be "right" in the long term. In other words, negative letters pointed to real problems in the research. Not always, of course. The problem is that, with letters skewing so positive, negative letters become comparatively richer in information. Because of a general unwillingness to go negative, we assume the naysayer is more sincere. The negative assessment stands out. I feel better about getting three rave review, two luke-warm assessments, and one pan. That gives me more information than six raves.
There are many things dysfunctional in academia, but I am not sure that the system of getting outside letters for t&p is one of them. Of course, I only speak from my own experience writing and reading such letters. I don't know what letters about my own case said.
The author of this CHE article seems to think that research can be evaluated in house. That might be true of his field (Finance) which has a quasi-official ranking of the three top-tier journals. You can simply count up the journal articles and see how many are in Journal 1, 2, and 3. My field is much more subjective. I could never evaluate someone doing Colonial Latin American Literature without knowing what people in that field thought about my colleague's research.
In cases I have seen over the years, negative letters turned out to be "right" in the long term. In other words, negative letters pointed to real problems in the research. Not always, of course. The problem is that, with letters skewing so positive, negative letters become comparatively richer in information. Because of a general unwillingness to go negative, we assume the naysayer is more sincere. The negative assessment stands out. I feel better about getting three rave review, two luke-warm assessments, and one pan. That gives me more information than six raves.
There are many things dysfunctional in academia, but I am not sure that the system of getting outside letters for t&p is one of them. Of course, I only speak from my own experience writing and reading such letters. I don't know what letters about my own case said.
Monday, November 12, 2012
The End of the Southern Strategy
Ok, this off topic for this blog. I hate politics, so I rarely blog about things like this, but here is my analysis.
Nixon devised the Southern Strategy. The idea was to use Civil Rights (supported by Kennedy and LBJ) as a wedge to make Southern Racist Democrats into Republicans. The Democratic "Solid South" became the Solidly Republican South we now see on Electoral College maps. The Republican party was so unpopular in the Old South that it practically did not exist.
This strategy worked for Nixon, Reagan, and the two Bushes. The Democrats could only win with Southern white candidates: Carter, Clinton, and Gore. (Well, Gore won the popular vote and lost the electoral college because of the most questionable SCOTUS decision of the century, Bush v. Gore.) Mass. democrats like Dukakis and Kerry lost during this same period.
McCain and Romney still won (most)of the old Confederacy and former slave states like Missouri, but Obama was the first non-Southerner to win the presidency for the Democratic since JFK. (I'm counting LBJ as Southerner since was a Texan.) Virginia and NC were swing states in 2008 and 12, joining Florida.
So the Southern Strategy no longer works: you can win almost the whole South, but that doesn't add up to 270, even if you throw in Kansas, the Dakotas, and Utah, states large in territory but without that many electoral college votes. The Obama coalition of Asian-Americans, Latinos, African-Americans, young people, single women, non-theistic, and highly educated people now outnumber the core of the Republican base: religious conservatives, Southern Whites, white men and married white women, the extremely wealthy, older people, and people without college degrees. (Of course, some people from all of these groups voted the "other way" from the majority in their demographic: I am speaking of trends, not absolutes. If 100% of women voted for one candidate that candidate would win easily if sh/e got only 45% of men.) As a result, Obama could be elected TWICE as the antithesis of everything the old Confederacy stood for.
I've seen people object to maps juxtaposing Civil-War era politics, or Jim Crow laws, with current-day electoral maps. I think these juxtapositions hold an important truth. The Deep South can stay as Republican as it wants, and Democrats can still hold on to the White House without White Southern candidates like Carter, Clinton, and Gore.
Nixon devised the Southern Strategy. The idea was to use Civil Rights (supported by Kennedy and LBJ) as a wedge to make Southern Racist Democrats into Republicans. The Democratic "Solid South" became the Solidly Republican South we now see on Electoral College maps. The Republican party was so unpopular in the Old South that it practically did not exist.
This strategy worked for Nixon, Reagan, and the two Bushes. The Democrats could only win with Southern white candidates: Carter, Clinton, and Gore. (Well, Gore won the popular vote and lost the electoral college because of the most questionable SCOTUS decision of the century, Bush v. Gore.) Mass. democrats like Dukakis and Kerry lost during this same period.
McCain and Romney still won (most)of the old Confederacy and former slave states like Missouri, but Obama was the first non-Southerner to win the presidency for the Democratic since JFK. (I'm counting LBJ as Southerner since was a Texan.) Virginia and NC were swing states in 2008 and 12, joining Florida.
So the Southern Strategy no longer works: you can win almost the whole South, but that doesn't add up to 270, even if you throw in Kansas, the Dakotas, and Utah, states large in territory but without that many electoral college votes. The Obama coalition of Asian-Americans, Latinos, African-Americans, young people, single women, non-theistic, and highly educated people now outnumber the core of the Republican base: religious conservatives, Southern Whites, white men and married white women, the extremely wealthy, older people, and people without college degrees. (Of course, some people from all of these groups voted the "other way" from the majority in their demographic: I am speaking of trends, not absolutes. If 100% of women voted for one candidate that candidate would win easily if sh/e got only 45% of men.) As a result, Obama could be elected TWICE as the antithesis of everything the old Confederacy stood for.
I've seen people object to maps juxtaposing Civil-War era politics, or Jim Crow laws, with current-day electoral maps. I think these juxtapositions hold an important truth. The Deep South can stay as Republican as it wants, and Democrats can still hold on to the White House without White Southern candidates like Carter, Clinton, and Gore.
Mise en place (2)
In reality, I do not have a good "mise en place" for my own scholarly writing. I tend to just sit down and do it without worrying about whether I have everything ready to go. As a consequence, I have a lot of lacunae in my drafts that I have to fix later by going back and looking for references, quotes, etc... So my actual approach resembles that of Thomas more than what I recommended myself. Maybe I think that other people could not stand to do what I do, which is to master the subject so much that I can seem to fly by the seat of my pants. For example, my method of doing a peer review is to read the article one day, taking almost no notes, and then to write the review the next day, looking at the article only to find specific examples to quote or cite. I suspect most people would have to take notes, then work from those notes.
So I have a difficult time giving advice to people, because I am a different kind of writer than most. On the one hand, I feel that if I were really efficient and prepared, I would be an even more productive scholar. On the other hand, I can pretty much kick ass the way I am doing things now, so why change?
So I have a difficult time giving advice to people, because I am a different kind of writer than most. On the one hand, I feel that if I were really efficient and prepared, I would be an even more productive scholar. On the other hand, I can pretty much kick ass the way I am doing things now, so why change?
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Mise en place
In cooking, "mise en place" means having everything available and ready before you start. You never have to go look for something in the middle of your cooking. I recently learned this term and it makes a lot of sense. I am a very fast cook, rarely wasting time. The other day I cooked steak, grilled red peppers and asparagus, and a pasta dish with a carmelized onion, baby bella mushrooms, and red wine sauce. I timed myself and it took 36 minutes from washing my hands to putting it all on the plate for myself to eat. If I know where everything is before I start, if I spend a few minutes at the beginning getting my mise an place organized, then I am never interrupted. Nothing is burnt or undercooked. When I shop for a meal, I leave everything in the shopping bag in the fridge until I am ready to cook. Then I don't have to root around in the refrigerator for everything I need.
In scholarly writing "mise en place" means exactly the same thing. Every book or article you are going to cite should be on hand before you start your writing session. Some day I will be able to do this as efficiently as I cook. It's something for me to think about. I've always used the excuse that I live in two places. Once I move permanently away from St Louis, I will have no more excuses.
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