Paul M. Jones

Journalist David Freedman walks us through an impressive list of false and conflicting claims made by experts in a variety of fields that really drives home the dubiousness of much -- if not most -- of what passes for expert wisdom. The book is worth this carefully assembled and annotated collection of dueling truth claims alone.

There’s plenty of blame for our expert misinformation to go around, says Freedman. From respected scientists to financial wizards to self-appointed relationship gurus, people whom we credit with specialized knowledge conduct sloppy research, suppress disconfirming data, and leap to unwarranted conclusions. Journalists oversimplify and misrepresent study findings. Bad advice thrives in part because the public demands easy fixes that are “resonant, provocative and colorful.”

via Skeptic » eSkeptic » Wednesday, July 14th, 2010.

I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. "Jeff, you're so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division." That's not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever."

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy -- they're given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you're not careful, and if you do, it'll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

via Princeton University - 2010 Baccalaureate remarks.

“The commission leaders said that, at present, federal revenues are fully consumed by just three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. ‘The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans -- the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries,’ Simpson said.”

The only solution is drastic cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, then, until they’re taking up something significantly less than the entirety of federal revenues. Ya know? But I think the whole point of the commission is to give political cover to tax increases, even though the problem they’re describing is much, much bigger than that.

via Instapundit » Blog Archive » DEBT IS A CANCER: “The commission leaders said that, at present, federal revenues are fully consume….

Cf. my post about the federal deficit at http://paul-m-jones.com/archives/1354.

For those of you who don't know, "universal constructor" is the name I give to PHP constructors that always and only take a single parameter. The parameter is an array of key-value pairs, which is then merged with a set of default keys and values. Finally, the array is unmarshalled, usually into object properties.

One benefit of the universal constructor is that it allows you to quickly and easily pass in configuration values from a config file (or other source) when building an object. You don't have to remember the order of parameters, and you only need to specify the values that override the defaults.

I standardized on a universal constructor in the Solar framework for PHP. As far as I know, Solar was the first to standardize on this pattern and give it a name, and other PHP projects appear to be adopting the idea based on my advocacy. I saw a link today to a universal constructor "in the wild", not the result of my direct advocacy, here: http://www.jqueryin.com/projects/mongo-session/.

It's nice to see the idea is getting around.

* Congratulate ourselves on the glory that is America? No, that’s delusional. We inherited America, and are squandering its strengths.

* Congratulate the founders on their accomplishments? Nice, but they would prefer that we maintain their work -- not wreck it.

* Pondering how to get America back on track? Yes. Watching fireworks with a beer in hand and friends around, while the children play -- a great background for some reflections on the current state of the American experiment.

via What we should Americans do on the 4th of July? « Fabius Maximus.

I saw this movie in the theater when it came out, and I found it a very powerful experience; let's say my allergies acted up through the whole thing. On my rating scale, I give it the highest marks: "see it twice at full price". I just watched it again this evening, via Netflix On-Demand, and I wasn't quite as much of a wreck this time, so I could pay more attention to deeper aspects.

While "Up" is perfectly appropriate for children, I think emotionally mature adults will have a hard time watching it without benefit of kleenex. Hell, this is the most shamelessly manipulative film from Pixar yet. It's a roller coaster: love and loss; innocence, and realizing the world is not what you expected; determination, and despair, and finding strength to go on anyway; and understanding at last what your promises really mean, and the sacrifices it will take to keep them.

There is one major theme that really stood out for me on this second viewing: that of personal growth, and of self-discovery, and of letting-go. (There's a lot of M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Traveled" here.)

It is Carl's childhood promise to Ellie to visit Paradise Valley that motivates him to leave his old world after her death, and go against his old safe nature to begin an adventure ("it's out there!") when thought he had nothing left to lose. But he *did* have something to lose, and he carries it around with him through the whole film. Carl's house is symbolic of everything about his old life: all his possessions, all his memories, everything that remains of Ellie, and everything else that he loved. He wants to keep these things and transplant them to new surroundings, to keep everything inside without changes while still keeping his promise to go to the valley. He wants to go to a new place, but stay the same person; he doesn't know yet that by the time you get to your destination, the journey will have changed you.

When he and Russell first touch down in the valley, he has his first brush with what will be required of him; as they teeter over a cliff, Carl literally screams into the abyss as he sees danger to him self (and to his sense of self). He carries all of his old life with him: it hangs over him, he lives in its shadow, he struggles to keep it; he won't let it go, but in some ways it carries him too. It's only when he has other people to take care of, when he sees where they are in their lives, when he makes promises to them like he made to Ellie to protect them and keep them safe, and when he fights to keep those promises in the face of despair and impossible circumstances, that he finds strength and talent and power he had never tapped before. His old life helps him through the new challenges, but when the time comes, he is finally ready to let it go -- and *then* he gains new life, while at the same time honoring all the best of his old life.

And that's just one aspect of the movie. It's a great, great film ... I just can't watch it very often, you know, because of the allergies.

But what surprised me was the reason that many fans defended rules that make it hard to score goals in soccer. Several commenters said that soccer would be boring if the best team always won, which makes the luck factor a good thing.

I agree that it is important for the underdog to have a chance. However, in the sport that I like, the underdog wins by playing better in that particular game or series. The Orioles did not upset the favored Dodgers in 1966 because of an arbitrary call or a bizarre mishap. The O's outplayed the Dodgers. Clearly.

I have my doubts about the case for giving the better team a high probability of losing due to bad luck just for the sake of making the games more interesting. That seems to me like wanting to tax rich people because you don't like people to be too successful. It sounds to me like soccer is the road to serfdom.

I thought the title of the post was funny. Via Are Soccer Fans Socialist?, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty.

I have accepted an offer from Company 52 to be their Vice President of Engineering. Many thanks to everyone who helped get the news out about my job search, to those who provided referrals and leads, and to those with whom I had the pleasure of speaking regarding their open positions, including such luminaries as Facebook, Mashery, and Message Systems.

The Supreme Court held Monday that the Constitution's Second Amendment restrains government's ability to significantly limit "the right to keep and bear arms," advancing a recent trend by the John Roberts-led bench to embrace gun rights.

...

Two years ago, the court declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess guns, at least for purposes of self-defense in the home.

That ruling applied only to federal laws. It struck down a ban on handguns and a trigger lock requirement for other guns in the District of Columbia, a federal city with a unique legal standing. At the same time, the court was careful not to cast doubt on other regulations of firearms here.

...

The Supreme Court already has said that most of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights serve as a check on state and local, as well as federal, laws.

... Alito noted that the declaration that the Second Amendment is fully binding on states and cities "limits (but by no means eliminates) their ability to devise solutions to social problems that suit local needs and values."

via Gun rights extended by Supreme Court.

Instapundit » Blog Archive » SENATOR ROBERT BYRD has died. UPDATE: More thoughts from West Virginian Don Surber. Also from E….