Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 166
September 2, 2014
Letting Students Hit The Snooze Button
A new report indicates that science agrees with teenagers everywhere – school should start later:
Seeing the mounting evidence, the American Academy of Pediatrics [last week] released a new policy statement recommending that middle and high schools delay the start of class to 8:30 a.m. or later. Doing so will align school schedules to the biological sleep rhythms of adolescents, whose sleep-wake cycles begin to shift up to two hours later at the start of puberty, the policy statement says. The conclusions are backed by a technical report [pdf] the academy also released yesterday, “Insufficient Sleep in Adolescents and Young Adults: An Update on Causes and Consequences,” which is published in the September 2014 issue of Pediatrics.
The “research is clear that adolescents who get enough sleep have a reduced risk of being overweight or suffering depression, are less likely to be involved in automobile accidents, and have better grades, higher standardized test scores and an overall better quality of life,” said pediatrician Judith Owens, lead author of the policy statement, titled “School Start Times for Adolescents.”
The debate over whether to start school later has run for years, but a host of new studies have basically put it to rest. For one thing, biological research shows clearly that circadian rhythms shift during the teen years. Boys and girls naturally stay up later and sleep in later. The trend begins around age 13 or 14 and peaks between 17 and 19. The teens also need more sleep in general, so forcing them to be up early for school cuts into their sleep time as well as their sleep rhythm, making them less ready to learn during those first-period classes.
September 1, 2014
“The Lingering Stain Of Slavery”
Stephen Mihm studies it at length:
In 2002, two economic historians, Stanley Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff, published an influential paper that tried to answer a vexing question: why are some countries in the Americas defined by far more extreme and enduring levels of inequality—and by extension, limited social mobility and economic underdevelopment—than others? The answer, they argued, lay in the earliest history of each country’s settlement. The political and social institutions put in place then tended to perpetuate the status quo. …
Harvard economist Nathan Nunn offered a more detailed statistical analysis of this “Engerman-Sokoloff hypothesis” in a paper first published in 2008. His research confirmed that early slave use in the Americas was correlated with poor long-term growth. More specifically, he examined county-level data on slavery and inequality in the United States, and found a robust correlation between past reliance on slave labor and both economic underdevelopment and contemporary inequality. He disagreed with Engerman and Sokoloff’s claim that it was only large-scale plantation slavery that generated these effects; rather, he found, any kind of slavery seemed to have begotten long-term economic woes.
Nunn also offered a more precise explanation for present-day troubles.
In Engerman and Sokoloff’s narrative, slavery led to inequality, which led to economic underdevelopment. But when Nunn examined levels of inequality in 1860—as measured by holdings of land—these proved a poor predictor of future problems. Only the presence of slavery was a harbinger of problems. “It is not economic inequality that caused the subsequent development of poor institutions,” wrote Nunn. “Rather, it was slavery itself.”
This finding was echoed in a study by Brazilian economists Rodrigo Soares, Juliano Assunção, and Tomás Goulart published in the Journal of Comparative Economics in 2012. Soares and his colleagues examined the connection between historical slavery and contemporary inequality in a number of countries, largely in Latin America. The authors found a consistent correlation between the existence—and intensity—of slavery in the past and contemporary inequality. Moreover, this relationship was independent of the number of people of African descent living there today. As Soares said in an interview, “Societies that used more slavery are not more unequal simply because they have relatively more black people.”
The question, then, is how exactly did slavery have this effect on contemporary inequality? Soares and his colleagues speculated that limited political rights for slaves and their descendants played a role, as did negligible access to credit and capital. Racial discrimination, too, would have played a part, though this would not explain why whites born in former slaveholding regions might find themselves subject to higher levels of inequality. Nunn, though, advanced an additional explanation, pointing to an idea advanced by Stanford economic historian Gavin Wright in 2006.
In lands turned over to slavery, Wright had observed, there was little incentive to provide so-called public goods—schools, libraries, and other institutions—that attract migrants. In the North, by contrast, the need to attract and retain free labor in areas resulted in a far greater investment in public goods—institutions that would, over the succeeding decades, offer far greater opportunities for social mobility and lay the foundation for sustained, superior economic growth.
Wining And Opining
Charles Simic muses about the best philosophy to take toward wine:
I remember a story about President Nixon habitually guzzling rare vintage Bordeaux during state dinners without sharing it with his guests, having it poured into his glass by a trusted servant from a bottle wrapped in a white napkin to conceal the label. A part of me understands his reluctance to share. As Jesus said, “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet.” But when it comes to wine I can’t follow our Lord’s advice. I would die of shame in my own eyes were I to open a long-treasured bottle of wine when there’s no one at home, decant it into a decanter, let it breathe for a while before pouring it into a glass, swirl it a bit and, raising it to the light, gaze at it lovingly, then take that first, never to be forgotten sip. Drink of the best stuff, is my advice, because you never know what tomorrow may bring, and do so in the company of friends.
Simic also links the grape to the birth of philosophy as a discipline:
Years ago I read in a work of some Byzantine historian the claim that Greeks became philosophers once they started watering their wines. Before they did that their wines were so high in alcohol that one was good for nothing after drinking them, except to pick up a shield and a spear and look for someone to have a fight with. Then one day a miracle occurred. A little rain fell into the wine cups left outdoors by a party of friends and when they returned to resume their drinking and tasted the watered wine they were astonished by how pleasant it was to drink and how clear their heads were afterwards. The news of their discovery spread far and wide and in no time there was a philosopher in every village in Greece.
A Poem For Monday
From the anthology, Tudor Poetry and Prose, which I praised last week, I relish the following passage about lyrics from song-books of the time:
Singing seems to have been almost universal in Elizabeth England. The countryside, the street corner, the cottage, and the tavern rang with ballads, rounds, catches . . . . The craftsman’s shop was ‘a very bird-cage’ says [Thomas] Dekker, and [Thomas] Deloney in his Gentle Craft writes that every journeyman shoemaker had to be able to ‘sound the trumpet, or play upon his flute, and bear his part in a three-man’s song, and readily reckon up his tools in rhyme.’ Among the educated, singing was a necessary social accomplishment. The breeding of a man who could not join in the song after supper, reading his part at sight, was in question.
Songs were also a staple of plays. Here’s one of my favorites by the Restoration poet John Dryden (1631-1700), born after Elizabeth’s reign and so beyond the compass (but not the influence) of the period celebrated in the anthology, appointed Poet Laureate in 1668, and buried in Westminster Abbey near Chaucer in what later became known as Poets’ Corner.
“Song for a Girl,” from Love Triumphant, by John Dryden:
1
Young I am, and yet unskill’d
How to make a Lover yield:
How to keep, or how to gain,
When to love; and when to feign.
2
Take me, take me, some of you,
While I yet am Young and True;
E’re I can my Soul disguise;
Heave my Breasts, and roul my Eyes.
3
Stay not till I learn the way,
How to Lye, and to Betray:
He that has me first, is blest,
For I may deceive the rest.
4
Cou’d I find a blooming Youth,
Full of Love, and full of Truth,
Brisk, and of a jaunty mean
I shou’d long to be Fifteen.
(Portrait of Dryden by James Maubert, circa 1695 , via Wikimedia Commons)
A Double Negative
Ivan Kreilkamp entertainingly tears down the practice of titling polemics “Against [X]“:
The crankily oppositional intellectual journal N+1 has made a regular diet of “Against [X]” in the past decade: “Against Exercise,” “Against the Rage Machine,” “Against Reviews.” The formula’s quality of brashly counterintuitive overstatement is well suited to twenty-first-century online publishing. When someone throws down the gauntlet against something as seemingly benign, necessary, or positively good as interpretation, happiness, exercise, or young-adult literature, who can resist taking a peek? Here lies a problem with “Against [X].” Its contrariness can seem contrived or ginned up for effect, aiming, with an excess of self-congratulation, for a outraged or scandalized response: Yes, folks, I’m dismissing happiness itself in a two-word title. Can you handle it?
But the contemporary manifestations of the form can appear weakly liberal when considered within the longer history of this genre. For the early “Against [X]” polemics by the likes of Augustine, Athanasius, or Tertullian (“Adversus Marcionem”), nothing less than the fate of the Church was at stake; their scorching blasts were designed to shore up correct orthodoxy against a heretical enemy whom they aimed to drive into exile. The contemporary, post-Sontagian polemics adopt a posture of provocation in faintly echoing such forebears, but they are, in their hearts, pluralistic, and in fact suggest only a slight revision in perspective. Lawrence Lessig isn’t really against transparency, of course: rather, his claim is that “we are not thinking critically enough about where and when transparency works, and where and when it may lead to confusion,” and so on.
Faces Of The Day
Photographer Laura Grabman emails us the background on the above pic:
That party took place exactly 5 years ago, Labor Day weekend on the boardwalk at Coney Island in 2009. I happened to be walking by this group of partiers and I wound up staying for two hours photographing them. By the time I left they were hugging and kissing me goodbye. These people loved the camera and they loved to dance. I took about 300 photographs that day and I really enjoyed how uninhibited they were and how much fun they were having. The late afternoon light was perfect and so was the music.
See more work from the series here. Update from a reader:
I know that guy! His name’s Tony Ferrante, he cuts my hair at New Street Barbershop right near Wall Street. He was on “America’s Got Talent” and every summer he goes to Coney Island every weekend to dance on the boardwalk. He’s like 78 but he still LOVES dancing and is in good shape. There are a couple of videos of him on Youtube, and the audition tape is especially tight. Here he is just chilling on the boardwalk.
I don’t know if he uses e-mail but, the next time I go there, I will show him that he was on the Dish.
(Hat tip: Jenna Garrett)
Keeping The World On Track
Of the 15.5 million miles of road estimated to be added to the planet’s surface by the year 2050, 90% will be in developing countries. For a new paper headed by conservation biologist William Laurance, scientists created a Global Road Map to mark “regions that should stay road-free, those where roads would be most useful and those where there is likely to be conflict between the competing interests of human development and protecting nature”:
Laurance and his colleagues argue that roads could have the most benefit when they link agricultural areas to the rest of society, since global food demand is expected to double by the middle of this century. With that in mind, the researchers identified the regions of the world that are most suitable for intensifying agricultural production. These are largely areas that are warm for at least part of the year and have enough rainfall to grow crops. Then the team created a map of regions that would be best to preserve, such as those with high biodiversity, those important for carbon storage and protected areas like national parks. …
The Amazon, Siberia and southwest Africa were among the regions where further road building would be unwise, according to the maps. India, Africa just south of the Sahara, large swaths of land stretching from Eastern Europe west into Russia, and the central United States would be home to prime spots for new roads that would assist agriculture. Central America, Southeast Asia, Madagascar, Turkey and Spain, though, have a lot of area where the nations would have to weigh the needs of their populations with the desire to protect the land. Many of the conflict areas are in poor countries, “and telling those countries not to build roads is hardly going to be popular,” Stephen Perz of the University of Florida, Gainesville, writes in an accompanying commentary. However, “a global road plan is not intended to ‘keep developing countries poor’, but rather to highlight the costs as well as the benefits of building roads,” he argues.
(GIF showing roads and croplands encroaching on the Amazon rainforest in Brazil between 2000 and 2012 via NASA Earth Observatory and Smithsonian.com)
(Un)happy Labor Day
Is the American labor movement “friendless”? Roger Martin reflects on its unpopularity in partisan politics:
A key marker occurred in 1992 when President Bill Clinton signed into law a tax change that allowed only the first $1 million in CEO compensation to be deducted for corporate income tax purposes. It was supposed to discourage corporations from paying their CEOs more than what was then thought to be an excessive $1 million (imagine that!) – and failed spectacularly as they were given stock options instead, which made them wealthier than ever before.
But in whose favor was this measure intended? Labor? Hardly. There was no obvious benefit to them. Capital? Yes indeed. Shareholders were complaining about CEOs demanding ever-higher compensation – and the Democrats responded to help capital reign in CEO talent. Arguably the attention to the needs of capital has continued in the Obama administration. This administration featured enthusiastic embrace of the TARP bailouts of banks that protected their shareholders first and foremost and the continued low interest policies that favor capital owners. Of course, the argument can be made that these policies help labor too, by avoiding a recession/depression. But the careful attention to capital first is a relatively new behavior for the Democrats.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party has increasingly shifted its allegiance to high-end talent, a tiny offshoot of labor that began to emerge around 1960. During the Reagan era, for instance, they cut the top marginal income tax rate from 70% in 1980 to 50% just two years later. By 1988 it was 28%. In seven years, an executive earning a million-dollar salary went from keeping $340,000 after federal taxes to keeping $725,000. That’s quite a raise.
Don’t Knock Weird Science
That’s Josie Glausiusz’s takeaway after reading a paper published earlier this year by Patricia Brennan, an evolutionary biologist who’s received federal funding for her research into the sexual anatomy of ducks:
Brennan and her colleagues explain … that many people believe the federal government should fund only applied science designed to “cure disease, develop renewable energy, or improve agriculture.” They may not understand that the scientific process is “convoluted and unpredictable,” or that it takes a great deal of basic science work before its application leads to significant health or economic benefits. Another problem, Brennan told me, is that many people “have absolutely no idea how science is funded and how little money we actually get for it.” In fact, as she notes, the percentage of the overall budget that Congress allocates to science “has declined from 2.91 to 2.77 percent of our GDP between 2009-2011 (and that percentage includes the science budget for the Department of Defense, which is about half of all our research budget).” For comparison, 19 percent of the U.S. budget, or $643 billion, was allocated for defense and “security-related international activities” in 2013.
She and her colleagues cite a number of technologies inspired by esoteric evolutionary innovations. Examples include Geckskin, “a reusable, glue-free adhesive pad” invented after decades of research on the soft hairs coating gecko toepads, which enables the lizards to walk upside down; and widespread use of an enzyme called Taq polymerase—first isolated in 1965 from a bacterium surviving in hot springs in Yellowstone National Park—to replicate short strings of DNA. That enzyme has brought “vast benefits” to medicine, agriculture, and the criminal justice system, they say. Brennan’s own research could lead to improved understanding of hypospadias, a birth defect that causes malformation of the penis in baby boys.
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