Kate Rauner's Blog, page 35

The Most Important Thing You Know About Wealth in the 20th Century Is Wrong

[image error]Whatever you believe about how profits should be shared, capitalism is the undisputed best way to create wealth. But nothing exists in a social vacuum, and capitalism may have had a big boost from unexpected trends.

Global wealth surged starting in the 19th century. What is less publicized is that the explosion was accompanied by similar breakout in population, and economists connect the two — when population grows, GDP has tended to rise with it. axios.com

[image error]We may not deserve as much self-congratulations as we think. Advances in manufacturing, technology, and finance made possible a new economy. I recall reading a book by a South American economist that said, America’s ability to turn everything including the family home into capital allowed its people to surge ahead of traditional cultures.

But advances also occured in public health, understanding of disease, vaccines, and food production and safety. Human lifespans increased and infant mortality plummetted in the “First World.”

It’s easier for any economic system to grow when the population grows, and when workers become healthier and more plentiful. Now populations are shrinking in many wealthy countries, or growing only where immigration is embraced (with whatever mixed emotions) and in the poorer areas of the world.

Our “western” economic miracle assumes constant growth. What about when growth slows and reverses? What ya gonna do now, capitalism?

Oh, the world will coast along for a while, but success seems to breed – or rather, not breed… Hmm, you see the issue? Endless increases in the number of humans might doom the planet, so I’m not complaining, but our falling numbers means something has to change.

I’m not worried. I may not be able to imagine an economy with falling GDP, but GDP isn’t the only measure of success. People with new ideas will come forward. Humans are a resourceful species. A hundred years from now, people will pity us backwards sods. But someone is in for an interesting ride.

I usually post about science, and economics is called “the dismal science.” That’s a term from the 19th century when we were beginning our climb. Don’t spend a lot of time looking into the author who coined the term – he wanted to bring back slavery to increase sugar production. Eek!

Any of you with fresh new ideas, with visions of a society that I, a flat-footed engineeer, can’t imagine… get to work. The future needs you.

Coral in Devastated Florida Reef Hovering at Extinction – Breakthrough May Save the Species #coral #Florida #marinelife #aquarium

[image error]Florida’s coral reefs are in big trouble. Pillar coral has been reduced to a single male and single female clusters are too far apart to breed.

Atlantic corals have never been bred in captivity, so when the Florida Aquarium in Tampa, Florida, decided to try, hopes weren’t high.

But they did it!

It’s pure excitement to be the first to achieve a breakthrough in the world,” CEO of the Florida Aquarium Roger Germann told CNN. “Our team of experts cracked the code…that gives hope to coral in the Florida Reef Tract and to coral in the Caribbean and Atlantic Oceans.” cnn.com

Coral reefs take a beating world wide.

Runoff, pollution, overfishing, blast fishing, disease, invasive species, overuse by humans and coral mining and the digging of canals and access into islands and bays are localized threats to coral ecosystems.

Broader threats are sea temperature rise, sea level rise and ocean acidification, all associated with greenhouse gas emissions. wikipedia

Even air poluution can stunt corals. Yikes! Maybe corals and some of the fishes, crustaceans, and other marine life they support can exist in aquaria while we figure out how to create protected areas in the oceans. At least now, there’s a better chance.

This is Comforting or Terrifying – Which Depends on You #Genetics #science #people #research #why

[image error]You’re a sane, rational person with a mind of your own. Sure, your genes may determine how tall you are or whether you can taste PTC (you did that test with PTC papers on your parents and siblings for high school science class, didn’t you?)

But surely, your tastes in foods come from your sophisticated lifestyle. And your taste in politicians from a hard-nosed study of facts and social morality.

Ha!

Our actions are governed by hidden biological forces—which is to say that we have little or no control over our personal tastes. Our behaviors and preferences are profoundly influenced by our genetic makeup, by factors in our environment that affect our genes, and by other genes forced into our systems by the innumerable microbes that dwell inside us. nationalgeographic.com

You and I are a couple of meat robots. We are our genes, but not in the old nature versus nurture dichotomy. It’s complicated. Our environment effects how our genes operate, and environment includes the microbes that call our bodies home. I love this quote*:

Genes are the piano keys, but the environment plays the song.

Nature and nurture are thoroughly intertwined.

Even in politics, genetics is close to your decisions. Do your neurotransmitters reward novelty? You’re more likely to be liberal. Is the amygdala structure of your brain relatively large? You’re more likely to be conservative.

That’s what I learned, and it leaves me with the question of, how much of me is my choice? My fault? Maybe I shouldn’t have laughed at you.

Genetics don’t mean I inevitably hunker down in a foxhole with my genetic friends and prepare to do battle with everyone else. Most of these statements come with qualifiers: More likely, tend to, generally.

[image error]

This is Bill Sullivan’s new non-fiction book – looks like an interesting read.

If you ever took one of the popular people-sorting personality tests like Meyers-Briggs, you know there’s a benefit to understanding that other people are not being stupid or malicious when they see the world differently. They can be valuable teammates who spot problems and opportunities you overlook.

Besides, you also have that big wad of gray matter in your brain that lets you think about things. Learning is part of the environment. So step outside your foxhole with hope. It takes a little effort to keep an open mind, but it also helps you keep an open heart.

Thanks to Bill Sullivan, professor of pharmacology and microbiology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, for the lovely quote above (*) and for his article.

Disturbing Scifi from the 1960s #sciencefiction #mentalhealthcare #scifi

I recently read a story by Philip K. Dick, a scifi author from the Golden Age. Buck Rogers it ain’t!

[image error]Dick explored philosophical, social, and political themes, with stories dominated by monopolistic corporations, alternative universes, authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness. wikipedia

I read every word, all the way through, but “fun” is not the right description.  Mild spoilers follow.

The book comes from 1964. I think the right approach today is to view the story as the alternative history of a Mars colony in 1950. Mars is barely habitable in shirt sleeves, with sparse plants and animals and a nearly-extinct race of Martians. Colonists use mimeograph machines and secretaries take dictation with a pad and pencil. Fascinating robotic teachers indoctrinate children in proper earthly culture.

Less adorably, one of the main characters makes remarks that are homophobic, misogynistic, and racist. He’s the villain, and casually cruel to everyone, but this can be off-putting. He uses the n-word to describe Martians who apparently look very much like African Saan people (another term for these people, Bushmen, is sometimes considered derogatory, depending on the usage.) There’s a brief suggestion that Martians and Humans were both seeded by some alien intelligence and so are related.

Despite the Martian setting, the story is about schizophrenia, which has become much more common on Mars than it is today in real-life today. That term and “autism” are both used, and Dick presents his scifi interpretation of them – those effected experience multiple times in the past and future, which prevents them from relating to “normal” people. The visions these people experience (and we get to see through their eyes) are gruesome and apocalyptic, even for people with mundane lives. Dick gives a striking feel for such disconnects with repeated scenes, sometimes out of sequence, from different characters in the scene. The story shows sympathy for it’s characters, even the unsavory ones.

While it’s not an action-packed tale, terrible things happen in this story. There is guilt and shame from the father of an autistic boy. There is infidelity. There is suicide, and given Dick’s own dark life experiences, I wonder if this comes from something more real than imagination. That will keep me thinking about the book for a long time.

[image error]

Dick wrote the cover story for this edition

I know a lot has changed in American culture since the story was written. I suspect a lot has changed in our understanding of schizophrenia and autism too, but I have no idea how readers familiar with these conditions will feel about the story. Please leave a comment and let me know.

The book, republished in 2012, is popular on Amazon and has 4 stars, where several reviewers find it’s look at mental illness to be kindly and sympathetic.

BTW, you know Dick’s work. The movies Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report are based on his writings.

Citizen Scientists Study Hummingbirds in SW New Mexico #bird #birdwatching #citizenscience #ornithology

I visited the Mimbres Culture Heritage Center when they hosted a hummingbird banding weekend. Hummingbirds are fierce little warriors and fascinating to watch. I have three feeders out for them at my house now, and my windy ridgetop is not the best birding location in the county.

On your vacation through southwest New Mexico, be sure to visit the Mimbres ruins and, if you time it right, see the hummers.

Science – a gutsy human enterprise – built on good and evil #science #ethics

[image error]Wernher von Braun.

Brilliant rocket scientist.

Helped America reach the moon.

Nazi.

As we celebrate humanity’s first steps on the moon, ponder that. After World War II, the allies split up Nazi scientists as surely as they split up Nazi Germany. In America, we wanted to be sure that “our Nazis” were better than “Soviet Nazis.” Once Nazis were defanged, did it matter if some of them were living a good life? Did their contributions balance the agony they inflicted? Should we use Nazis research results at all?

There are few corners of scientific progress that are not tainted at some point in their history by immoral or unethical behaviour. Physics, biology, zoology, medicine, psychology, vaccine science, anthropology, genetics, nutrition, engineering: all are rife with discoveries made in circumstances that can be described as unethical, even illegal. How should we feel about making use of that knowledge? Especially when it could be of great service to civilisation and even save lives?

The antimalarial chloroquine, methadone and methamphetamines, as well as medical research into hypothermia, hypoxia, dehydration and more, were all generated on the back of human experiments in concentration camps. bbc.com

Read the article for more examples of science that, today, we condemn as unethical, illegal, and immoral. Is this the result of inevitable, and commendable, social progress? Have we increasingly found the Better Angels of Our Nature, leaving the nasty, brutish past behind us?

We can’t erase the past, so what should we do with it? Science isn’t the only place to debate this, but science can’t escape either.

[image error]When we use data obtained through abhorrent means, are we complicit in those vile acts? Or do we rescue something positive? Give meaning to those who suffered? Without, BTW, asking them. More distressingly, do we give tacit approval for future transgressions?

The answers will depend on who decides, who you are, which side of various experiments you sit on, and what results we’re talking about.

Don’t despair! I love science and celebrate its accomplishments. But, as Stephen Jay Gould noted, science isn’t the work of robots. It’s a gutsy human enterprise. The scientific method can save us from a lot of human error, but we are still the captains of our own souls.

Perhaps the most important problems stare us in the face, because we carry ethical issues with us into the future.

Can Trees Save the Earth? #botany #climatechange #ClimateAction #trees #forests

[image error]Trees! Planting trees has been a good thing to do for ages, and maybe it’s more important that ever.

Data finally exist to show that if the right species of trees are planted in the right soil types across the planet, the emerging forests could capture 205 gigatons of carbon dioxide in the next 40 to 100 years. That’s two thirds of all the CO2 humans have generated since the industrial revolution. “Forest restoration is by far our most powerful planetary solution today.” scientificamerican.com

There are details, of course. Always details, like the species and soil conditions can make trees better or worse soldiers in the fight against global warming. But a recent study by Tom Crowther, professor of global ecosystem ecology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, produced the jaw-dropping numbers quoted above. And Crowther’s study didn’t assume agriculture would be wiped off the face of the planet – we humans can co-exist with all these new trees.

In America, there are many areas where forests are growing back.

The United States went through a period of intense deforestation between 1600 and 1900, but the size of its forest areas has been relatively stable for the last hundred years… between 1990 and 2010, the nation added 7,687,000 hectares (18,995,000 acres) of forested land. The trend in reforesting areas has been driven by organizations such as the U.S. Forest Service and the Arbor Day Foundation. education.seattlepi.com

I’ve also noticed in areas I’ve lived that slopes once cut for firewood are now blanketed in trees. And that’s better than a blanket of carbon dioxide.

Eat Your Marshmallow – it doesn’t condemn you to failure #psychology #science #scientific #experiment

[image error]

I never liked marshmallows much – it’s more fun to incinerate them

Psychology is having a replication crisis. Iconic studies are falling apart when researchers try the same experiment using improved methods and find… nothing’s there.

It turns out, a lot of psychology that’s entered modern culture is based on small studies of Western college students – hardly representatives of all humanity or even all Americans. Adding college employees and their families as subjects still offers a very limited sample.

Consider the marshmallow test. Young children who resist eating a marshmallow when promised, if they wait, they’ll get two, are supposedly on the road to successful adult lives.

Ultimately, a new study finds limited support for the idea that being able to delay gratification leads to better outcomes. Instead, it suggests that the capacity to hold out for a second marshmallow is shaped in large part by a child’s social and economic background—and, in turn, that that background, not the ability to delay gratification, is what’s behind kids’ long-term success. getpocket.com

If your pantry is empty or the adults in your life have trouble caring for you, then eating that marshmallow now instead of waiting makes sense.

Let’s not just pick on psychology. Medicine, economics, marketing, sports, and hydrology all need to clean up their act.

[image error]Sometimes, outright fraud has been involved. Replication in science is good at weeding out fraud, but it takes time. Part of the problem seems to be that journals like to publish exciting new studies, not yeoman replications. Ditto universities and anyone else funding research. It’s a situation so-sad-it’s-funny: in one Big Bang Theory episode, Leonard’s mother disses him for replicating someone else’s work.

But without reproducible results, you don’t truly have science.

More classic experiments fail replication, click this link.

Stanford Prison Experiment
Robbers Cave
Milgram electroshock test
Our brains can be subtly “primed” with thoughts and actions
Merely smiling caused people to become happier
Stereotype threat

Not all questionable studies are old:

“Narcissism epidemic” among millennials

Disproved studies are often retracted. Such news doesn’t make it into the popular press very often, but you can find more here.

I love science – it’s the best way to learn about the physical world we share. But as Stephen Jay Gould said, science must be understood as a gutsy human enterprise.

Human weaknesses follow us all, but the method will lead us true if we let it. That’s not always easy, but it’s right.

Apollo 11 Anniversary Begins – I still get goosebumps #NASA #Apollo50th #Apollo11

Happy Anniversary to Apollo, NASA, America, and the World.

Apollo 11 launched on July 16, human beings walked on the Moon on the 20th, and the astronauts splashed down safely back on Earth on July 24. That’s over a week of anniversaries.

Space Center Houston‘s becoming a bit of a theme park (which means some things cost money and the web-site has annoying pop-ups asking you to subscribe – sigh) so if you’re in the area, check out events here. There are also some neat photos, info, and other stuff on their site.

NASA has reopened Apollo mission control at the Johnson Space Center after a restoration that makes it look like it did in 1969. There’s functioning electronics, familiar furniture and other attentions to detail. The New York Times noted that there are even period-appropriate soft drink cans and cigarettes. engadget.com

So, pull on a short-sleeved, white shirt and narrow, black tie; slide a bunch of pens into your pocket protector; and relive the drama of  Apollo team members left behind on Earth.

You can find hours of Apollo 11 video on You Tube – join the mission yourself. I still get goosebumps and hold my breath as Armstrong pilots the lander. We copy you down Eagle.

Haiku for Every Element – You’ll Love This Cool Site #haiku #sciku #chemistry #poetry #ChemHaiku

I just ran into this site and have to share. If you love science-inspired poetry, you’ll get a kick out of this.

A review of the Periodic Table composed of 119 science haiku, one for each element, plus a closing haiku for element 119 (not yet synthesized). The haiku encompass astronomy, biology, chemistry, history, physics, and a bit of whimsical flair. Click or hover over an element on the Periodic Table to read the haiku. Share these poems and add your own on Twitter with hashtag #ChemHaiku. From Mary Soon Lee

[image error]

One of the cool things about the Periodic Table is that it organizes elements by their physical structure

Check out this site and then write your own poems.