Short Takes
- Lip Reading Babies: Utter nonsense!
January 17, 2012 | 8:54 pmSays psychologist David Lewkowicz of Florida Atlantic University, who led [a] study published yesterday…
’The baby in order to imitate you has to figure out how to shape their lips to make that particular sound they’re hearing,’’
Can you “figure out” why this is utter nonsense? I should as obvious as monkey see, monkey do. With this sort of thing passing for science, we are surely doomed.
- The Mark of Cain
November 9, 2011 | 3:13 amWatching Herman Cain duel with his female accusers is like watching the Jerry Springer Show. Not a pretty picture. If you partake, be sure an wash you hands afterwards.
- The Truth About Sovereign Debt
November 1, 2011 | 4:01 pmDuring the housing bubble people bet on rising home prices by taking out loans on to-good-to-be true terms and investment banking made bets on the rising home prices by lending on to-good-be-true terms. Everyone drank the Kool Aid. Prices went down. Having made bad bets, home owners should default on their loans and bankers should take their losses. This is the simple-minded logic of every-man-for-himself market economics.
The nations that joined the EU placed bets on rising economic prosperity that would come from joining the EU and adopting the Euro and borrowing from the EU banks on to-good-to-be-true terms. The EU investment bankers made speculative bets on EU member nations by lending them billions on to-good-to-be-true terms. The borrower economies went down not up. Everyone drank the Kool Aid and having made bad bets the borrowers should default on their loans and the bankers should take their losses. This too, is the simple-minded logic of every-man-for-himself market economics.
So how do the bankers hold the world hostage to their bad bets? They claim they are too big to fail. In other words, the only game they know is heads they win, tails we lose.
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Archive for Short Takes »
- Lip Reading Babies: Utter nonsense!
Category Archives: statistical thinking
Humans are not Evolving
Here’s an interesting idea: Humans are not evolving.
For humans to evolve we would have to allow variation to run wild and then stand by and watch while most variations wither on the vine to see some very few selected for, … Continue reading
What Learning Is
Your knowing of the world is not “inside your head”! There’s no hard drive in your skull—no root directory nor subdirectories in which binary files filled with tomes of knowledge are stored.
What a silly idea!
As counter-intitive as it sounds, the … Continue reading
Things Go Wrong
NYT, Dec. 7, 2011 – Japan Split on Hope for Vast Radiation Cleanup
In the United States, the average person gets six millisieverts of radiation a year. Around the Fukushima plant, officials evacuated areas where people would have gotten an estimated … Continue reading
What’s Wrong with the Scientific Method
I’ve been involved in an online discussion about Deming’s model for creating knowledge (aka continuous improvement) called PDSA. Most correspondents have argued that PDSA is just another version of the “scientific method”.
PDSA is not the scientific method and for good … Continue reading
Starling Patterns
There’s no true fixed point of reference in life. The observed and the observer in interaction, constantly vary. There is only relation between patterns. And for a knowing creature, patterns carry meaning.
“We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing … Continue reading
Deming’s Pop Psychology
In his later years Deming tried to explain the full scope of his work with his model for a “System of Profound Knowledge” (SoPK). He explained that such a system must embrace a theory of knowledge, appreciation of a system, … Continue reading
Defend Your Rights, You Lose!
W. E. Deming saw the assertion of rights as a losing proposition but American society is built upon rights such as those set forth in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights and the vast and complex body of laws that make … Continue reading
All Knowing is Prediction
If you have followed this blog for very long you know that I see the process of prediction at the root of human consciousness. It is not that prediction is first among equals or first among lesser processes. Human knowing—human … Continue reading
Negotiating Techniques
Today, President Obama, speaking before American Israel Public Affairs Committee, explained that in his speech on the subject of the Middle East was not reported correctly. He said…
“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines … Continue reading
Flies in the Ointment
Two seemingly unrelated stories in today’s NYT deserve your attention. They have more in common than you might think.
Culture of Complicity Tied to Stricken Nuclear Plant
“Widely practiced in Japan’s main industries, amakudari allows senior bureaucrats, usually in their 50s, to … Continue reading
Getting out of Bed
Everything you do or do not, is risky.
Every decision you make is a prediction.
Every action you take is a gamble.
Business 101 for the New Economic Age: The Efficiency Myth
“The 14 points for management in industry, education, and government follow naturally as the application of this outside knowledge (SoPK), for transformation from the present style of Western management to one of optimization.”
W. E. Deming
When W. E. Deming spoke of … Continue reading
Betting the Farm
NYT, April 12, 2011 - The condition of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan is “static,” but with improvised cooling efforts they are “not stable,” the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told a Senate committee on Tuesday.
Reading between the … Continue reading
The Spirit Level
“A well controlled study of over 1,600 players on 29 (baseball) teams over a nine year period found that major league baseball teams with small income differences among players do significantly better than more unequal teams.”
Spirit Level
Does this finding surprise … Continue reading
Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK)
Even if you are not involved in business management and know and care nothing about the ideas of the great teacher, Dr. W. E. Deming , the following discussion of what he resorted in his later years to calling, a … Continue reading →