~ Sun Tzu
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A Tee Is Not Just For Xmas - Top Tees
1 hour ago
Monday, December 31, 2012
Well Said...
"The reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men is foreknowledge."
~ Sun Tzu
Sun Tzu (ca 544-496 BC)
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~ Sun Tzu
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Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Well Said...
"My failures have been errors in judgment, not of intent."
~ Ulysses S Grant
Hon Ulysses S Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; 1822-1885)
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~ Ulysses S Grant
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Friday, December 28, 2012
Well Said...
"The education of a man is never completed until he dies."
~ Robert E Lee
Gen Robert Edward Lee, CSA (1805-1870)
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~ Robert E Lee
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Thursday, December 27, 2012
Austerity a Lost Cause
Fiscal policy-makers in government need to accept that the cause of "austerity" (as in "tax increases" and "spending cuts") will never win support as a popular movement.
Surely, politicians in both parties can come up with better, more persuasive language in their talking points. Different words such as "tax cuts" and "security" would better ring the peoples' bell in a way that "austerity" cannot. Let's face it, calling for more "austerity" is a lost cause.
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Surely, politicians in both parties can come up with better, more persuasive language in their talking points. Different words such as "tax cuts" and "security" would better ring the peoples' bell in a way that "austerity" cannot. Let's face it, calling for more "austerity" is a lost cause.
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Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Well Said...
"It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid."
~ from the film, "High Plains Drifter" (1973)
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~ from the film, "High Plains Drifter" (1973)
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Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Well Said...
"If we take the widest and wisest view of a Cause, there is no such thing as a Lost Cause, because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause. We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that it will triumph."
~ T S Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965)
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~ T S Eliot
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Saturday, December 22, 2012
The National Math and Science Initiative
As reported by the National Math and Science Initiative:
I applaud this 21st century education program. Our nation needs more professionals with advanced skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has never been greater. To meet this challenge, the US must expand its cadre of talented mathematics and science teachers in the public school system. Again, I endorse the National Math and Science Initiative.
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The US is failing to produce and retain sufficient numbers of qualified math and science teachers to keep America internationally competitive. It is estimated that the US will need 280,000 more math and science teachers by 2015. Talented math and science teachers with strong content knowledge are urgently needed to help students reach their potential.Learn More
I applaud this 21st century education program. Our nation needs more professionals with advanced skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has never been greater. To meet this challenge, the US must expand its cadre of talented mathematics and science teachers in the public school system. Again, I endorse the National Math and Science Initiative.
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Thursday, December 20, 2012
"Follow Me!"
Some inspirations are forever. One of those silent inspirations for me has been the stalwart image of "Iron Mike" who currently stands at the entrance to the National Infantry Museum in Columbus, GA. The image of "Iron Mike" has been with me since 1975 when I first laid eyes on him while attending Airborne (parachute) training at Ft Benning, GA. The "Iron Mike" statue stands as an icon for all infantryman, past and present, who have carried arms in the US Army.
"Iron Mike" standing at the entrance to the National Infantry Museum, Columbus, GA
Regards to my brothers in arms around the world who wear or have worn the crossed rifles on their uniforms. Follow the link below to learn more at the National Infantry Museum located in Columbus, GA.
National Infantry Museum
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Regards to my brothers in arms around the world who wear or have worn the crossed rifles on their uniforms. Follow the link below to learn more at the National Infantry Museum located in Columbus, GA.
National Infantry Museum
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Well Said...
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
~ from the film, "V For Vendetta" (2005)
Protestors wearing "Guy Fawkes" masks...
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~ from the film, "V For Vendetta" (2005)
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Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Well Said...
"The teacher can seldom afford to miss the questions: What is the unknown? What are the data? What is the condition? The student should consider the principal parts of the problem attentively, repeatedly, and from various sides."
~ George Pólya
Prof George Pólya (1887-1985)
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~ George Pólya
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Tuesday, December 18, 2012
The Future of Public Education
The debate about public education reform is about to expand as a result of the shocking events that occurred recently in Newtown, Connecticut. In my view, what society needs to do is return children home for schooling via Internet-delivered primary and secondary school programs. The savings would be huge in terms of buildings, teachers, school buses, you name it. Plus, children would be kept safe at home with their parents where families can practice “gun control” as a household. I see public school changing as a result of these horrific incidents involving children and innocent bystanders. It’s time to start the public debate about returning public school programs to the home where they belong. The Internet is the game-changer that will enable these reforms, perhaps not this year or even this decade, but certainly before the end of the 21st century.
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Monday, December 17, 2012
Well Said...
"He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be so; and insolence, if unpunished, increases."
~ Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille (1606-1684)
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~ Pierre Corneille
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Saturday, December 15, 2012
Well Said...
"Knowledge is the currency of the universe."
~ Giorgio Tsoukalos
Giorgio A Tsoukalos (1978- )
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~ Giorgio Tsoukalos
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Friday, December 14, 2012
My Heartfelt Condolences...
My heartfelt condolences to the parents and families who lost children and loved ones today at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Such a senseless tragedy involving so many innocent children and good people. Words defy me...
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Such a senseless tragedy involving so many innocent children and good people. Words defy me...
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Thursday, December 13, 2012
Saturday, December 08, 2012
Well Said...
"We have sold ourselves into a fast food model of education, and it's impoverishing our spirit and our energies as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies."
~ Sir Ken Robinson
Sir Kenneth Robinson (1950- )
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~ Sir Ken Robinson
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Friday, December 07, 2012
US Employment to Population Ratio Stagnating
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the US employment to population ratio* for November 2012 stood at 58.8%, up from 58.7% a year ago in 2011, but down from 59.0% the previous month of October. The US employment to population ratio has been trending downwards since 2000.
Many economists believe that reporting the number employed as a percentage of the civilian population provides a more accurate description of the current state of employment than conjecturing the number of "unemployed" in a population. The US employment to population ratio reached an historical peak of 64.4% on an annual basis in 2000.
*The BLS defines employment and population (civilian noninstitutional) as follows:
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Many economists believe that reporting the number employed as a percentage of the civilian population provides a more accurate description of the current state of employment than conjecturing the number of "unemployed" in a population. The US employment to population ratio reached an historical peak of 64.4% on an annual basis in 2000.
*The BLS defines employment and population (civilian noninstitutional) as follows:
Employment consists of all persons who, during the reference week (the calendar week including the twelfth day of the month), (a) did any work at all (at least 1 hour) as paid employees, worked in their own business or profession or on their own farm, or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in an enterprise operated by a member of the family, or (b) were not working but had jobs or businesses from which they were temporarily absent because of vacation, illness, bad weather, childcare problems, maternity or paternity leave, labor-management dispute, job training, or other family or personal reasons, whether or not they were paid for the time off or were seeking other jobs.... The civilian noninstitutional population consists of persons 16 years of age and older residing in the 50 States and the District of Columbia who are not inmates of institutions (for example, penal and mental facilities and homes for the aged) and who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces.Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
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Try R Training
For those seeking to get started with the R programming language, O'Reilly Media is sponsoring a free online training course entitled, Try R. Follow the link below to learn more:
The Try R training program is delivered in an easy to follow "learning by doing" format divided into eight chapters as follows:
I completed the training and was delighted with the "learning by doing" approach of the program. Those new to R will find this offering to be an easy way to get introduced to how R works, as well as the power of the R programming language to perform vector and matrix analytics, which are fundamental to learning and applying advanced statistical methods. Again, Try R is a free training program sponsored by the experts at O'Reilly Media.
Learn More
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The Try R training program is delivered in an easy to follow "learning by doing" format divided into eight chapters as follows:
- Chapter 1: R Syntax
- Chapter 2: Vectors
- Chapter 3: Matrices
- Chapter 4: Summary Statistics
- Chapter 5: Factors
- Chapter 6: Data Frames
- Chapter 7: Working With Real-World Data
- Chapter 8: Installing Additional Packages
I completed the training and was delighted with the "learning by doing" approach of the program. Those new to R will find this offering to be an easy way to get introduced to how R works, as well as the power of the R programming language to perform vector and matrix analytics, which are fundamental to learning and applying advanced statistical methods. Again, Try R is a free training program sponsored by the experts at O'Reilly Media.
Learn More
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Thursday, December 06, 2012
Republican Party Lost
According to Bob Cesca in the Huffington Post (2012, December 6):
By all appearances, the Republican Party is lost.
Source: Cesca, B (2012, December 6), The Crazy Base Won't Let the Republican Party Change, Huffington Post.
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In the wake of the election, there's no doubt the Republican Party is capable of making some adjustments to rebrand itself... But it's obvious to anyone paying attention that the base simply won't allow the party to change in any meaningful way.... The [Republican] base is deeply encased within the twisted, alternate-reality looking glass that the GOP has been constructing throughout the last three decades: a realm of anger, racial resentment, distrust of government, hatred of immigrants and violently anti-choice misogynists and demagogues.Read More
By all appearances, the Republican Party is lost.
Source: Cesca, B (2012, December 6), The Crazy Base Won't Let the Republican Party Change, Huffington Post.
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RStudio: Your Gateway to R
I am frequently asked by statistics learners for open source software recommendations. My advice is always to check out RStudio, a free and open source integrated development environment for R. You can run RStudio on your desktop (Windows, Mac, or Linux) or even over the web using RStudio Server.
Major features of RStudio include:
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Major features of RStudio include:
- Syntax highlighting, code completion, and smart indentation
- Execute R code directly from the source editor
- Easily manage multiple working directories using projects
- Quickly navigate code using type ahead search and go to definition
- Workspace browser and data viewer
- Plot history, zooming, and flexible image and PDF export
- Integrated R help and documentation
- Sweave authoring including one-click PDF preview
- Searchable command history
- Works with any version of R (2.11.1 or greater)
- Runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and even over the web using RStudio Server
- Integrated with Git and Subversion for version control
- Free and open source (AGPLv3 license)
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Wednesday, December 05, 2012
The Appeal of Libertarianism
America's continuing political problems revolve around two competing factions pursuing two mutually exclusive approaches to building an economy: a) the big government Democrats, who guard entitlement spending while seeking to transfer the nation's wealth to entitlement beneficiaries, including government employees; and b) the military-industrial Republicans, who guard defense spending in order to transfer the nation's wealth into the hands of the military-industrial complex. The appeal of either party is to a populist majority at best (i.e., a simple majority), thus empowering a continued polarization of American politics around the two-party system.
The fact is that only the minimal government Libertarians stand for across the board cuts in government spending, lower total taxes for everyone, and a steadfast pursuit of liberty in the name of the people who own this country. Now is the time for everyone to reject the political ploys of big government Democrats and military-industrial Republicans, and to join the Libertarian Party, which is the only true party of principle. The appeal of libertarianism is universal with the potential to achieve a pluralist majority of support (i.e., a supermajority greater than two-thirds of the people), thus unifying our nation around libertarian ideals and principles. More at:
I plead with Americans to search their souls and beliefs, and to align those beliefs deliberately after a full consideration of the facts. For the record, I am a proud Libertarian, and I detest what the big government Democrats and military-industrial Republicans have done to our country and nation. Libertarianism gives me hope.
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The fact is that only the minimal government Libertarians stand for across the board cuts in government spending, lower total taxes for everyone, and a steadfast pursuit of liberty in the name of the people who own this country. Now is the time for everyone to reject the political ploys of big government Democrats and military-industrial Republicans, and to join the Libertarian Party, which is the only true party of principle. The appeal of libertarianism is universal with the potential to achieve a pluralist majority of support (i.e., a supermajority greater than two-thirds of the people), thus unifying our nation around libertarian ideals and principles. More at:
I plead with Americans to search their souls and beliefs, and to align those beliefs deliberately after a full consideration of the facts. For the record, I am a proud Libertarian, and I detest what the big government Democrats and military-industrial Republicans have done to our country and nation. Libertarianism gives me hope.
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Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Well Said...
"An information retrieval system will tend not to be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him not to have it."
~ Calvin Mooers
Calvin Northrup Mooers (1919-1994)
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~ Calvin Mooers
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The Problem with Austerity...
The problem with austerity is that those who preach it the loudest are almost always hypocrites.
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Sunday, December 02, 2012
What is Jealousy?
jealous
adj
1. Fearful or wary of being supplanted; apprehensive of losing affection or position.
2.
a. Resentful or bitter in rivalry; envious: jealous of the success of others.
b. Inclined to suspect rivalry.
3. Having to do with or arising from feelings of envy, apprehension, or bitterness: jealous thoughts.
4. Vigilant in guarding something: We are jealous of our good name.
5. Intolerant of disloyalty or infidelity; autocratic: a jealous God.
jealously adv
jealousness n
Source: The Free Dictionary
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adj
1. Fearful or wary of being supplanted; apprehensive of losing affection or position.
2.
a. Resentful or bitter in rivalry; envious: jealous of the success of others.
b. Inclined to suspect rivalry.
3. Having to do with or arising from feelings of envy, apprehension, or bitterness: jealous thoughts.
4. Vigilant in guarding something: We are jealous of our good name.
5. Intolerant of disloyalty or infidelity; autocratic: a jealous God.
jealously adv
jealousness n
Source: The Free Dictionary
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Saturday, December 01, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
A Message for Monetary and Fiscal Policy-Makers
Main Street USA remains mired in economic depression as evidenced by: a) the long-term decline in real working wages; b) the long-term decline in real home values; and c) the long-term decline in the employment to population ratio. These indicators need to become the urgent focus of both monetary and fiscal policy in the US, or Federalism will risk decay or decline in detail. I urge everyone who knows someone who works in monetary or fiscal policy formation to forward this message to them in an effort to avert the end of Federalism as we know her. The US is running out of time...
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Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Conjuring Money
The notion of money (fiat currency) is the most insidious conceptualization ever conjured by humans.
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Well Said...
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
~ Albert Einstein
Dr Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
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~ Albert Einstein
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Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Well Said...
"Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
~ William Jennings Bryan
Hon William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)
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~ William Jennings Bryan
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Monday, November 26, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
US Defense Spending Devours America
According to the CATO Institute (2012), US real defense spending has roughly doubled since 2000.
Note that the US defense spending graphed in the chart above is in constant 2011 (inflation adjusted) dollars. No wonder the US is broke...
Source: Boaz, D (2012, January 11), Misleading Images on Defense Spending, CATO@Liberty.
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Note that the US defense spending graphed in the chart above is in constant 2011 (inflation adjusted) dollars. No wonder the US is broke...
Source: Boaz, D (2012, January 11), Misleading Images on Defense Spending, CATO@Liberty.
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Well Said...
"One lucky shot deserves another."
~ Shaquille O'Neal
Dr Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal (1972- )
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~ Shaquille O'Neal
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Saturday, November 24, 2012
Lifeline for Main Street USA
Main Street USA continues to endure the effects of economic austerity caused by a scarcity of money (as evidenced by declining real wages, declining real home values, and a declining employment to population ratio). However, both fiscal and monetary policy makers are finally taking notice as the Fed pursues QE3 in an effort to reverse Main Street's real estate catastrophe, and the GOP seeks to retrench as a result of their disconcerting election losses.
Allen Street in State College, PA
Although late, the battle to win back Main Street political support is now in full swing as both big government Democrats and military-industrial Republicans create new strategies to address the Main Street depression still raging across the US. I expect the US will go over the fiscal cliff with tacit support from both Democrats and Republicans. The fiscal cliff losers will be the military-industrial complex, medical establishment, and government workers, who will now be required to make sacrifices for the first time since the economic crisis began in 2008.
Wise investors will seek to get involved in real estate development in order to exploit new capital being introduced by the Fed via purchases of mortgage-backed securities. I expect originations of new mortgage-backed securities to accelerate over the coming year, and to continue for at least the next 2-3 years. Main Street USA is finally being thrown a lifeline...
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Although late, the battle to win back Main Street political support is now in full swing as both big government Democrats and military-industrial Republicans create new strategies to address the Main Street depression still raging across the US. I expect the US will go over the fiscal cliff with tacit support from both Democrats and Republicans. The fiscal cliff losers will be the military-industrial complex, medical establishment, and government workers, who will now be required to make sacrifices for the first time since the economic crisis began in 2008.
Wise investors will seek to get involved in real estate development in order to exploit new capital being introduced by the Fed via purchases of mortgage-backed securities. I expect originations of new mortgage-backed securities to accelerate over the coming year, and to continue for at least the next 2-3 years. Main Street USA is finally being thrown a lifeline...
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Well Said...
"The loneliest people are the kindest. The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. All because they do not wish to see anyone else suffer the way they do."
~ Anonymous
The Sad, Wise Eye by Alessandro Cristallo at DeviantArt
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~ Anonymous
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Friday, November 23, 2012
Well Said...
"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation."
~ Plato
Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510)
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~ Plato
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Thursday, November 22, 2012
Happy Thanksgiving 2012
Best regards to everyone I care about this Thanksgiving Day...
Fall foliage from my home in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania
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Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Lladró Scientia
The Lladró Scientia, a demure monument that inters esotericism while pondering the light...
The Lladró Scientia (collection of Dr William J McKibbin)
My path...
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My path...
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Monday, November 19, 2012
Friday, November 16, 2012
America's Fiscal and Monetary Policy Options
Let's consider America's fiscal and monetary policy options at this point:
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Austerity in the form of government spending cuts[ruled out by most Democrats]Austerity in the form of tax increases[ruled out by most Republicans]Default in the form of debt renunciation[ruled out as unconstitutional]- Default in the form of monetary expansion leading to inflation
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Well Said...
"America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality...."
~ Warren G Harding
Hon Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865-1923)
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~ Warren G Harding
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Thursday, November 15, 2012
Well Said...
"Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit."
~ Napoleon Hill
Dr Napoleon Hill (1883-1970)
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~ Napoleon Hill
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Wednesday, November 14, 2012
What is an Autodidact?
autodidact
n
A self-taught person.
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (1452-1519)
Source: The Free Dictionary
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n
A self-taught person.
Source: The Free Dictionary
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Well Said...
"Time is the father of truth, its mother is our mind."
~ Giordano Bruno
Dr Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)
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~ Giordano Bruno
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Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Well Said...
"I am not bound to win but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed but I am bound to live up to what light I have."
~ Abraham Lincoln
The "Young" Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) by Charles Keck (1875-1951)
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~ Abraham Lincoln
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Monday, November 12, 2012
Sunday, November 11, 2012
The Great California Exodus: A Closer Look
According to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (2012, September), population growth in California may soon lag that of the US as a whole.
Follow the link below to learn more about the motivations behind those who are leaving California.
Source: Gray, T & Scardamalia, R (2012, September), The Great California Exodus: A Closer Look, Manhattan Institute for Policy Analysis.
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California was once a powerful draw for Americans on the move—a golden land, “west of the west,” in Theodore Roosevelt’s famous phrase, where everything could be better. But that California is no more. Around 1990, after decades of spectacular postwar growth, California began sending more people to other states than it got in return. Since that shift, its population has continued to grow (at a rate near the national average) only because of foreign immigration and a relatively high birthrate. Immigration from other nations, though, is declining, and it is likely that the state’s growth rate may soon fall behind that of the US as a whole. As a magnet of opportunity, the state now pushes out where it once pulled in.Read More
Follow the link below to learn more about the motivations behind those who are leaving California.
Source: Gray, T & Scardamalia, R (2012, September), The Great California Exodus: A Closer Look, Manhattan Institute for Policy Analysis.
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Well Said...
"The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves."
~ Willem de Kooning
William de Kooning (1904-1997)
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~ Willem de Kooning
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“I read Nate Silver. I’m a fan of Nate Silver. State senator, you’re no Nate Silver.”
by Sherman Dorn © 2012
The takeaway from the Nate Silver-punditry smackdown this fall is not that any quantification and set of algorithms beat the pants off your nearest broadcast yodeler, but that quantification done well will beat the pants off your nearest broadcast yodeler, and that your nearest broadcast yodeler presents the equivalent of the Washington Generals in battles with professionally competent quantification.
For the best argument about this, go no further than Nate Silver’s new book, The Signal and the Noise, which is largely about modesty in quantification and the difficulty of constructing accurate prediction systems. If you want a panegyric to algorithms, you instead need Christopher Steiner’s Automate This. Steiner is entertaining and should be the publicist for Sal Kahn, the School of One, and so on, but Silver is more realistic.
In particular, Silver addresses uncertainty in an explicit and transparent manner, in both his analysis of polling and in his discussion of predictions more broadly. The largest gap between Silver’s approach and the public discussion of quantification in education is the almost complete failure of both reporters and policymakers to address uncertainties in an open manner.[1] If any advocate, policymaker, or pundit uses Nate Silver (as an object lesson) to argue in favor of current practices in test-based accountability or the use of point estimates in any proposed policy, they are demonstrating that they haven’t read his book. To wit, the title of this entry.
Wonkish regret/adjustment: Silver also makes a wonderful argument in favor of probabilistic reasoning, specifically a Bayesian approach to statistics, though I suspect he will be less successful in that argument. Frequentists won the professional debate 100 years ago, and the standard introduction to statistics is rooted firmly in frequentism (quick: do you use the term “confidence interval” or “credibility interval”?).[2] But in addition to the dominance of frequentist approaches in professional training, it is also very difficult to think about probability in the abstract and more specifically to reason through quantification in the frame of conditional probability (the main engine of the Bayes theorem). If you want to test your ability to reason abstractly about conditional probability, see how much you resist the basic solution to the Monty Hall problem. Trust me: humans are pretty awful about this, even with quite a bit of education.
Fortunately, you don’t always have to think abstractly about conditional probability to use it. At least in relatively simple cases, there are two ways to get around our brains’ general incompetence at probabilistic reasoning: using real numbers in hypotheticals (for basic questions of conditional probability) or using a moderately-sized set of simulations to understand the dynamics of a simple system (what I used in September to look at the Chingos/Peterson research on whether the privately-funded voucher program they studied had consequences for college attendance). But we tend to have this blind spot and need to know how to get around it in some way.
Where Silver is inconsistent: Silver is less transparent in his own practice about building models and using human judgment (his exact models are proprietary), but both appear in the book. I’d pay more attention to his book than his practice here, at least in terms of using quantification in practice. Silver correctly sees landmines everywhere for those wanting to predict the performance of ballplayers to earthquakes, and he argues that the remarkable success in weather forecasting has depended on both increasingly detailed information about the atmosphere and also the human judgment that forecasters use in making predictions about tomorrow’s weather and the next three days of the tropical storm track. For that to make sense for public policy, the models should be public.
Notes
1. Researchers also tend to believe that their research findings are more accurate and trustworthy than they are, something Silver discusses in his book. Yes, research psychologists have studied the extent to which research psychologists are numerate.
2. Silver’s academic/training background is an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Chicago, and then four years of work at KMPG.
Source: Dorn, S (2012, November 7), “I read Nate Silver. I’m a fan of Nate Silver. State senator, you’re no Nate Silver.” Sherman Dorn.
Republished with kind permission of Sherman Dorn © 2012
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The takeaway from the Nate Silver-punditry smackdown this fall is not that any quantification and set of algorithms beat the pants off your nearest broadcast yodeler, but that quantification done well will beat the pants off your nearest broadcast yodeler, and that your nearest broadcast yodeler presents the equivalent of the Washington Generals in battles with professionally competent quantification.
For the best argument about this, go no further than Nate Silver’s new book, The Signal and the Noise, which is largely about modesty in quantification and the difficulty of constructing accurate prediction systems. If you want a panegyric to algorithms, you instead need Christopher Steiner’s Automate This. Steiner is entertaining and should be the publicist for Sal Kahn, the School of One, and so on, but Silver is more realistic.
In particular, Silver addresses uncertainty in an explicit and transparent manner, in both his analysis of polling and in his discussion of predictions more broadly. The largest gap between Silver’s approach and the public discussion of quantification in education is the almost complete failure of both reporters and policymakers to address uncertainties in an open manner.[1] If any advocate, policymaker, or pundit uses Nate Silver (as an object lesson) to argue in favor of current practices in test-based accountability or the use of point estimates in any proposed policy, they are demonstrating that they haven’t read his book. To wit, the title of this entry.
Wonkish regret/adjustment: Silver also makes a wonderful argument in favor of probabilistic reasoning, specifically a Bayesian approach to statistics, though I suspect he will be less successful in that argument. Frequentists won the professional debate 100 years ago, and the standard introduction to statistics is rooted firmly in frequentism (quick: do you use the term “confidence interval” or “credibility interval”?).[2] But in addition to the dominance of frequentist approaches in professional training, it is also very difficult to think about probability in the abstract and more specifically to reason through quantification in the frame of conditional probability (the main engine of the Bayes theorem). If you want to test your ability to reason abstractly about conditional probability, see how much you resist the basic solution to the Monty Hall problem. Trust me: humans are pretty awful about this, even with quite a bit of education.
Fortunately, you don’t always have to think abstractly about conditional probability to use it. At least in relatively simple cases, there are two ways to get around our brains’ general incompetence at probabilistic reasoning: using real numbers in hypotheticals (for basic questions of conditional probability) or using a moderately-sized set of simulations to understand the dynamics of a simple system (what I used in September to look at the Chingos/Peterson research on whether the privately-funded voucher program they studied had consequences for college attendance). But we tend to have this blind spot and need to know how to get around it in some way.
Where Silver is inconsistent: Silver is less transparent in his own practice about building models and using human judgment (his exact models are proprietary), but both appear in the book. I’d pay more attention to his book than his practice here, at least in terms of using quantification in practice. Silver correctly sees landmines everywhere for those wanting to predict the performance of ballplayers to earthquakes, and he argues that the remarkable success in weather forecasting has depended on both increasingly detailed information about the atmosphere and also the human judgment that forecasters use in making predictions about tomorrow’s weather and the next three days of the tropical storm track. For that to make sense for public policy, the models should be public.
Notes
1. Researchers also tend to believe that their research findings are more accurate and trustworthy than they are, something Silver discusses in his book. Yes, research psychologists have studied the extent to which research psychologists are numerate.
2. Silver’s academic/training background is an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Chicago, and then four years of work at KMPG.
Source: Dorn, S (2012, November 7), “I read Nate Silver. I’m a fan of Nate Silver. State senator, you’re no Nate Silver.” Sherman Dorn.
Republished with kind permission of Sherman Dorn © 2012
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