Part 1: The Expert is Dead!

Nowhere is it more clear that the expert is dead than in political discourse over climate change in America.

More evidence won't help the case of global warming/climate change environmentalists. More evidence would only help if there was a consensus on the legitimacy of the evidence, as well as a better sense of the baseline levels of crackpots in the scientific process. (The latter is necessary to judge roughly whether the current levels of dissent about anthropogenic global warming are actually indicative of a real "debate" or "open question".)

Scientists can't defend the models and implications of climate change if scientists themselves, and perhaps the scientific process in general, is regarded as illegitimate. Consequently, I am pessimistic about the prospects of "education" or "more, better evidence" changing the politics of climate change. More research, of course, will help refine models and provide, hopefully, better predictive power for mitigation efforts.

In case what I've said is completely beyond comprehension of those reading this for whom science in general, and scientists in particular, take that they are legitimate as a given, let me use what I believe to be an accessible example.

Many (but not all) scientists are somewhere between agnostic and atheist. For them, Biblical literalism is seen as ridiculous because the Holy Bible itself lacks legitimacy, either as absolute historical truth, or a legal/moral authority. Quoting scripture to justify an interpretation of God's will won't convince an atheist for pretty obvious reasons - the entire line of argument is seen as starting from a bad foundation.

Now, there will be people who argue that this is an unfair comparison. Science, they might say, is based on observable, testable results, while religion in general, and fundamentalist Christianity in particular, is not.

That's not the point.

The point is that it is often a waste of time to argue with someone using what you perceive as gold but the other person perceives as crap. All it does is reinforce your own prejudices and piss everyone the hell off.

I think that the grumbling I hear/read from economic conservatives, moderates, and intellectuals about the ridiculousness of present-day politics comes from the decline of the legitimacy of experts. Americans, historically, have distrusted central authority. But during certain periods (the Cold War being a particularly good example), experts in general, and scientists in particular, were held in particularly high esteem. They were seen as highly trusted, dependable, and patriotic.

So what happened?

I'm speculating that it could be traced to three reasons.

1. The gulf between promises and reality

Remember when we were supposed to have floating cars by the 1970s? Or travel to Europa in phallic spacecraft by 2001?  These didn't happen. And while we do have things that, upon further contemplation, may be even more amazing (and useful) , it still remains that the nature of both funding and human behavior causes advocates of long-term projects, however necessary, to often overpromise and underdeliver. If one manages expectations appropriately, it is possible that one will lose funding to those that are willing to promise the Moon (sometimes literally). Consensus projects like National Science Foundation Decadal Surveys are supposed to counteract this possibility, but this process is not immune to abuse, or more probably, managerial incompetence.

2. The abuse of public trust and scientific research by a few bad apples

Many scientists were, and remain, exemplary models not only of professionalism, but also of citizenship. The bad apples are rare - but they do damage far out of proportion of their numbers. Every scandal, every instance of academic fraud, or even the suggestion of fraud, damages the public trust in the scientific process, and those engaged in research.

During the Cold War, science had it pretty good, physicists in particular. Masters of the atomic bomb, they had unparalleled access to policymaking and funding priorities. Some departed company from real science and became engaged in influence peddling. There are probably many examples of this, but the example talked about in my field was Edward Teller. In addition to leading the development of the thermonuclear bomb (the H-bomb), he ruined Oppenheimer by leveling McCarthyist charges against him, advocated creation of harbors using nuclear weapons, and promoted the Strategic Defense Initiative (a missile shield), a program that, then as well as more recently, has been a huge drain on resources and promising very little in terms of practical ICBM defense.

More recently, the scandal involving Andrew Wakefield and the relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism proved tremendously destructive to science. It caused tremendous fallout, both within the medical community and outside of it, and its impact is still being felt, whether in misinformation spread by a prominent (former) presidential candidate , or the creation of a public health hazard due to declining vaccination rates or the mailing of infected lollipops.

3. Lack of contact between professional researchers and the public

By its nature, scientific research is challenging and demanding. It takes a very specific type of person, with very specific priorities, to be successful in research science as it is currently constructed. Research is also conducted by a relatively small percentage of people. It is also true that these people don't always fit into mainstream patterns. For example, a former professor once told me that 94% of AAAS members are atheists. Even if he was off by a factor of two, that would still indicate a divergence in cultural values from mainstream America.

Interestingly enough, there are parallels to the cultural effects of having a professional military in which service is limited to about 1% of the US population, and generally more prevalent in the South than in other parts of the country. The experiences are widely divergent, obviously. But the fact remains - when you have a small minority of the population engaged in specialized work, or with very distinct experiences, integration with and understanding by the rest of society is often lacking.

One great counterexample I have for this: the liberal churches I have attended in my life. In both the church I grew up in, Montebello Plymouth United Church of Christ, and the church I attended in graduate school, St. Paul's United Methodist Church, there was a sizable scientific population, and also a majority of non-scientists. We got along well. It may have helped that the churches were liberal, and that, whatever doctrinal differences individuals may have had, generally we adhered to that key principle of Jesus:"Don't be an asshole."

4. Neo-Ludditism

Americans love technology; NSF surveys indicate that we are one of the most techno-friendly cultures of the OECD. But I don't think we love science. Especially recently, I think we see technology and science in terms of a divergence between opportunities afforded the technical elite and the rest of us. When the narrative shifts away from "working on the arsenal of freedom" to "20-year old college dropout Internet millionaire", look out!

There might be other cultural effects here - anti-nerd tendencies, jealousy/anger toward academically successful kids, etc. They all feed into this odd combination of a love of gadgetry but a distaste for science, especially if science is somehow tied to the obsolescence of your job.

5. The dilution of the definition of "expert".

"Expert" used to mean something pretty specific. It meant that someone was well-respected by his or her peers, had made critical contributions to the field, etc. Now that news has become more entertainment-based, anyone can be an expert, a "talking head". This has debased the value of the title "expert". There's a lot I could write about this, especially in its relationship to the proliferation of "think tanks" that are, functionally, lobbying and advocacy groups. But time grows short, and this post is long enough already. But don't confuse brevity with unimportance - this is a critical aspect of the modern American story of expertise. I just don't know if it is a symptom or a cause (likely both).

Next post: The expert is dead! Long live the expert?

Inspiration

There are moments that bring you out of contemplation of the past or future to the present - urgently, violently, beautifully.

When it happens, it is as if one is waking from a dream, and brought into a reality filled with deeper colors and sounds of exquisite complexity.

In my life, there have been perhaps three times this has happened. Each time, it was due to a particularly special someone.

Though the conversation or relationship be brief or limited, the moment of realization endures , even though time may do its best to rob us of the specifics of the memory.

I have had such an experience just now. It is the emotional/spiritual equivalent of being struck by lightning without a cloud in the sky. Unexpected, unhoped for, and uncertain about its impact or longevity, it may defy articulation.

But the fact remains - I know when I've been hit with a damn bolt. And I am grateful for it, even if I never see nor hear from the person again. For the experience has forced me to become more interesting, more present, more alive.

I do not feel like I can do anything. But I do feel like I can do everything I need to do in my life. And that is an amazing feeling indeed.

More passionate about sending out my own bolts of lightning, to enrich the lives of my family, my friends, my world.

May I never doubt the power of distant strangers again.

Giving up Facebook, at least for Lent

Although it's unclear how religious I am nowadays, Lent has always been a good opportunity to give up something that has two properties: (1) I like a lot, and (2) may not be contributing to my long-term well-being.

I depend on Facebook, perhaps far more than most of my friends (real and virtual). That's because I work from home, and, quite frankly, I don't get out much. In fact, I've recently been diagnosed with social anxiety. I never thought of myself this way - more awkward and self-conscious than full-blown DSM IV - but it fits. Those who know me well know that I love public speaking, but find it difficult to pick up the phone and call a friend for a favor, to schedule a dinner, for emotional support, or for nothing in particular. in conversation with my therapist, I've decided I need to call people less. Messaging online, or posting something and waiting for likes (pathetic, I know) just isn't cutting it.

I don't know what will happen. Like I said, I'm pretty heavily dependent upon Facebook for most of my social interaction. I am worried that I might conclude that a stunted social life is better than none at all - but I'm also supposed to work on catastrophizing (as in avoiding the thought process).

Not funny, I know. Probably oversharing. But it's a step. I'm sorry I will miss some important life events. I'm sorry I will lose touch with some people who, whether they know it or not, I appreciate for their shares, their insight, and their humor.

If this seems overly dramatic, and even a bit odd - I am posting this, after all, on Facebook - it's because you don't know how critical it is for me to feel connected, some how, some way, to the people I appreciate from my past. It's not like losing a friend - it's like losing several. It feels as if I am voluntarily stepping across the boundary between dying and dead relationships. Again, as absurd as it may seem, it is a genuine feeling.

I might not come back. I have mixed feelings about virtual friendships in general, and Facebook in particular. Perhaps I'll be content to let the chips fall where they may, work on the relationships I can, and accept those that fade away.

So here's to the future, and to greater productivity and deeper relationships. If I call you during this time - and there's no guarantee that my social phobia will improve in this regard - it's not because I'm desperate, or in great distress. It's because I'm making a small step toward being a better person, and hopefully a better friend. If I don't, then I encourage you to call me, should you feel neglected or curious. And if you get married, divorced, fall into or out of love or a job, or just want to chat for a bit, I'll be here. Just not "here".

Goodbye, for now.

I have an unusually long hair on my arm

As the title suggests, this is about an arm hair that is significantly longer than the others.

I seriously considered posting a picture of it, but upon further consideration, I concluded that it would creep a lot of people out. Consequently, I'm reduced to describing it.

It is located on the outside of my arm only a couple inches from my shoulder. I also estimate it to be about four and a half times the length of a typical hair on my upper arm.

I have trimmed it in the past, but it always regrew to its former length. Anyone who remembers their basic biology or anatomy would know why - hair growth is controlled by the follicle, located inside the skin. Somehow, this one is getting buggy signals.

The shower is a good place to think. I was in the shower one day, contemplating this strand of rogue keratin, when an (allegedly) old Japanese metaphor came to me. "The nail that stands out will be hit by the hammer." It's a horrible lesson, emphasizing conformity and punishing individualism or ambition.

Such is the internal monlogue of the insecure:

Simplicio: Cut that hair! It's long and unusual, and therefore gross. Besides, who knows who might check you out, chat you up, invite you back to her place, and, right before the good stuff, get turned off by this freakish follicular flap? And ohmigod, what if it's cancerous?

Then, I thought, instead of cutting this hair, or ignoring it, I should celebrate this quirk of physiology. I will keep it as a reminder that uniformity is not the ideal - that we need to have something about us that makes us stand out from the crowd. Also, what is noteworthy is such, not necessarily because it is unusual in an absolute sense, but because it is remarkable within its specific environment. My gifts in math and science were not at all evident to me while I was in graduate school - but when I emerged from that rarefied environment to the wider world, I realized that I had something to offer the world.

Sagredo: Cut that hair and you move one step closer to conformity, to a standard of body image externally driven, to a perfectionism that rejects our basic human property of imperfection, all for vanity. What folly, that a man cannot find the personal courage to embrace his unique traits as anything other than imperfections, or place undue emphasis on the physical at the cost of spiritual and intellectual growth.

But then what about the double standard I set regarding nose hairs? Are some not unusually long? Didn't someone go from unusually long nose hairs to become the junior senator of Minnesota? Isn't the quest for universality in morality and philosophy one of the greatest sources of destruction and despair, in the 20th century as well as all the others?

Salviati: Ah, wise words, Sagredo. But I detect hints at forming a universally applicable principle. While embracing the physical imperfections, take care that you make allowances for the limits of personal inconsistency. They need not reflect an illogical mind, or an immature philosophy - rather, the principle of consistency and universality should be subordinate to the superordinate goods of practicality, societal norms, and personal preferences. For we exist in the real, material world, not merely an abstraction where the individual is an island, and therefore, completely free.

Then, I considered the psychological implications of attempting to establish a philosophy of principle upon a body hair.

Me: You're talking about a fucking hair. Now finish the damn shower before you drive up the water bill, you self-indulgent ass!

The hair remains, a reminder of both the beauty of the unusual, the perils of universalism, and the fragility of mental health.

Day of Remembrance

Yesterday was the 70^th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the mandatory relocation of mainland Japanese-Americans to camps sprinkled across the United States. It is called a day of remembrance. The optimistic slogan, used prior and since, is “Never forget”. But I can say, without sarcasm or humor, I have forgotten why I remember.

The Japanese Relocation Camps were not special. They were neither the most brutal, or the first, or the largest. They are not worthy of remembrance solely because I am Japanese, or because they directly affected my family. (Indeed, my family history of relocation predates February 19, 1942.) We cast off all manner of personal and familial history, either willingly or because the years put enough distance between us and the experience. One day, we look at it as one looks at a painting in a museum. We can still appreciate it, even be moved and shaped by it. But it is coded as non-life and external.

So it is not important to remember for those reasons that I believe I remember, or ought to remember.

So why do I remember?

I remember, and they are worthy of remembrance, because the camps were American.

For that reason alone I measure its tragedy and its place in history. For that reason alone I believe it is worthy of remembrance, a place in the heart, even as other, more violent, more brutal, more destructive, more identity-altering events from those crowded years clamor for the right to be remembered first, remembered best, even to escape non-life and be the cause, justification, and scapegoat for foreseeable tomorrows.

For the one article of faith – or the shadow of a piece of the faith – that I retain and cling to in my desperate casting about, is this: that we must not only judge ourselves against the standards of others, or, worse yet, their actions. We have our own standards, higher standards, and it is against those that our actions and inactions are to be measured.

The mass, forced relocation of Japanese-Americans isn’t comparable to the Nazi concentration camps. It doesn’t have to be. The American camps were wrong according to the standards we have, or ought to have, for ourselves.

Other nations do not engage in our occasionally self-consuming, debilitating, and masochistic self-analysis. And we skip it when exploring our past and present when it is expedient. But, in the end, it is a vital, even essential, part of the American identity. We must know. Failure is punishing. But willful ignorance of our principles and where we fall short is unforgivable and irredeemable.

This piece of history is perfectly placed for me, because those who were children there now walk slowly, burdened not by the legacy of a miscarriage of justice, but rather arthritis and cancer. Their eyes are not haunted by their experiences. They, too, have forgotten and moved on. I am not reminded of that past when I see them. It is distant enough that they, and I, are free of its shadow. 

And yet it is close enough to be unfree of its lessons.

Instead, I remember when I see, or hear, or feel, the shifting of the tide of expeditious and opportunistic prejudice against another. I remembered when, after 9/11, some called for the incarceration of Arab Americans. I remembered when, naïve but passionate, I marched in protest of the invasion of Iraq at a point when invasion was inevitable. I remembered when I saw Hurricane Katrina bring images of the Third World in America, to America. And I remembered when I argued with a relative, a child in Rohwer, in defense of gay marriage and civil rights.

I forgot at points in my life. When I did, and I failed to be my best, failed to live up to my responsibilities as caretaker of a small, but real, part of the dream.

So I remember, because it is a part of America, and I am American. 

The relocation of Japanese-Americans is a failure that has, and will continue, to pave the way toward greater successes, greater triumphs, that will vindicate the delicate blend of caution, wisdom, optimism, and patriotism that I believe is my duty and my true and better nature. I remember not to shame, or out of shame, but as a necessary part of embracing the identity, legacy, and responsibility of being an American, to take ownership of disappointments as well as progress.

I remember because I am a proud American, and remembering will make me a better one.

Sonnet to young lovers from a jealous heart

Cramps! The stomach rebels against my will
And up and down and out comes the cheap swill
Drunk this day, to salve my poor broken soul--
as they say, "make love to yon porcelain bowl".
Ay, me, this be a familiar sight--
Drink Pepto, Immodium through the night
And all for naught, in the end all for none
For I am, haggard, with the rising sun
Greeting the morn an empty container
Vomit and stench-- what a sad remainder
Of noble manhood, who once scoured deep space
And found there briefly purpose and place.

Yet,  being single with diarrhea
Beats love so true, marked by gonorrhea.


Dedicated to Julia, who once quoted Vonnegut, saying that even bad poems are a gift to friends. Perhaps she will reconsider.

In (qualified) defense of the state

Updated: Found the link! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ZosnxGKgk

This is the first of a series of articles I plan on writing to refine, for myself, what my political and economic philosophy is.

I was on Youtube recently (hell, I’m on there a lot), and an interesting ad caught my attention. I actually sat through the entire 2:30 spot, which is a credit to the designers of the ad. At some point I figured out that it was a Libertarian advertisement, and indeed, it was for the Liberty Institute. Cleverly, they combine an authoritative speaker (unfortunately reading the text from somewhere slightly offset from the camera) and cartoons. It’s worth a look. But it inspired this post because I think it ultimately provides a one-sided view of top-down regulation.

But here’s the premise. The speaker is stating that he knows how to get a free suit – he’ll charge a suit from Macy’s, and then tear up the bill when it arrives. However, it means he can’t get another suit from Macy’s. But then he’ll go to JCPenney and charge a suit there. He then goes on to say that Macy’s and JCPenney share information about fraud, even though they’re competitors. That’s because they determined that its in their best interests to cooperate, and they did this without government intervention. Therefore, it seems that a lot of things are handled by the market/individual firms, suggesting that government regulation is unnecessary to achieve good results.

This can be true in a lot of areas. However, let me use a counterexample. Let’s say you need to buy food for the week. While food suppliers in America are ostensibly in competition with each other, they recognize that it’s in their own best interest to avoid a price war. Therefore, they’ll cooperate (technically, collude) to ensure a price that is significantly above the cost of production – which is what they would get in a completely free market. Because the demand for food is inelastic (in other words, we need to eat to survive, and will pay whatever it takes to eat), price increases are born mostly by the consumer, and not the producer. Consequently, because of self-interest, you have higher food prices, and possibly societal starvation and unrest. Remember, an increase in food prices was perhaps the real driving factor behind the Arab Spring.

Similar arguments lead to conclusions about the necessity of countercyclical fiscal policy and some areas of R&D. Basically, any case where what is individually rational leads to results that are bad for everyone suggests a collective action problem, and therefore a role for government. (Salient example: if everyone saves a lot, then the economy contracts, which leads to layoffs, which in turn leads to more saving out of fear, which leads to more lost jobs...)

My general point is not to defend state regulation, or, heaven forbid, corporativism. It’s to state that the pure libertarian case just doesn’t hold water. Neither does the pure corporativist argument - that the state should have control of all aspects of life. (Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, etc.) So let's ditch the extreme arguments - they lend clarity of purpose and energy, but are pretty immature ways of going about actually organizing ourselves.

What’s more productive is to argue about specific areas, and to be data driven. History shows that deregulation of utilities lead to higher prices for consumers. Also, a lot of promised efficiencies and cost savings for consumers for large mergers never materialize. There is a role for the maligned state, and in fact, we should be trying to rehabilitate the attitudes toward public service and civil servants. 

By all means keep them honest. But let’s not delude ourselves into thinking the state is the dragon that needs to be slayed. The state is our guard dog. Improperly trained and guided, will turn on us. But with proper training and guidance, it will keep the thieves from breaking in.