Money = Truth!

A quick post on Popular Opinion. Deborah Smith of the SMH writes about Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst's new book, Trick or Treatment:

Edzard Ernst, the world's first professor of complementary medicine, is on a mission. He wants people to know the truth about the "potions, pills, needles, pummelling and energising" that make up the multibillion-dollar global alternative medicine industry.

She also interviewed Marc Cohen, a professor of complementary medicine at RMIT University in Melbourne. He engages in special pleading and throws about a few factoids, but the one thing that really got me was this:

He also points out that Australians spend four times as much out of their own pockets on alternative medicines as on pharmaceuticals. "Obviously people vote with their wallets. So it's likely they do it because they're receiving a benefit."

Which Smith follows with:

But it is not an argument that persuades Singh and Ernst.

That's because appealing to Popular Opinion is not an argument at all. Here's Cohen's "argument" again, but this time about gambling:

"Australians spend more money a week on gambling than they do on petrol or on alcohol. Obviously people vote with their wallets. So it's likely they do it because they're receiving a benefit."

Given the similarities between playing the pokies and B. F. Skinner's pigeons, the only thing they'll receive is a bout of superstitious behaviour. (The same analogy applies to most of the complementary therapies too, I'd suggest.)

Of course, another possible benefit is to the group. The same article I link to points out:

An average of 12% of state and territory revenue comes from gambling.

I don't buy into the whole group selection thing however...
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Hat tip Kylie S at Podblack Cat.

Not a week goes by...

until some some study comes along for a news source to confuse correlation with causation. I just wrote about emos and now it's mobile phones that are bad for teenagers:

...teens who made more than 15 phone calls and sent more than 15 text messages a day, slept poorly and had more careless lifestyles compared to those who made less than five of each per day.

Conducted by Sahlgren's Academy in Sweden using 21 teenagers...

Note it is only on 21 subjects. Not exactly a large sample size.

Now, as I said with my emo post, I wouldn't be surprised if it is the excessive use of the phone that is the cause of the lack of sleep. But, it could just as easily be the lack of sleep means they have nothing better to do than text their friends... You need to rule out this hypothesis before you know the direction of the cause. Otherwise you could be making the False Cause; Correlation Error. Perhaps the authors did this, but if so, the article does not make this clear.

What it does go on to say, after the quote above:

...the study found teenagers who made at least 15 calls and messages a day spent more time on computers and drank more caffeinated drinks and alcohol, had more irregular sleeping hours and found it more difficult to wake up and were more tired before midday.

And as you can see, we have uncontrolled variables. If we want to establish the mobile phone use as a causal mechanism for poor sleep, we'd need to rule out the other potential causes, e.g., the caffeine and booze. Perhaps they are addicted to caffeine (a drug) which keeps them up, which leads them to text and myspace, which keeps them mentally stimulated, which leads to more coffee or Red Bull, etc. A vicious circle or sorts, and another hypothesis.

To see the effect of the phone on its own, you'd need to control for these other variables. A simple experiment to set up. Perhaps the "natural" experiment has been done. Is there evidence of an increase in teen sleep deprivation (above and beyond better diagnoses) over the last 10-15 years?

Moreover, the article then goes on to relate this study to an unrelated one:

The second study, conducted by Fred Danner at the University of Kentucky on 882 Year 9 students, found teenagers who slept less than eight hours a night got worse grades and had a higher level of emotional disturbance and risk of ADHD.

The unstated claim is lack of sleep leads to worse grades. If this is the direction then I won't be surprised. But surely you have to get some students who were doing poorly to sleep more and see if their grades improve?

Note that by linking these two studies together, we now have the implication that using mobile phones leads to poor grades

I'll tell you what I would bet on. When questioned at length, I'd bet the authors of these studies would qualify these claims along the exact lines I have. The number one thing they'd say is more research needs to be done. In order to form any real position on claims in a field of current research it's best to take studies like this as interesting, but not conclusive. Wait and see where we are at in another ten years.

A problem with non-science journalists reporting science, is they don't often put qualifiers like this in the story. This can to lead to claims of Exaggerated Conflict from those wanting to dispute scientific claims. Think about climate science, or the reporting of stories on health and nutrition. Ben Goldacre writes about this very point in his Bad Science blog.

An anecdote about dowsers being double-blind to their special pleading

For those who are unfamiliar with dowsing, it is:

…the action of a person--called the dowser--using a rod, stick or other device - to locate such things as underground water, hidden metal, buried treasure, oil, lost persons or golf balls, etc.

I already looked at an example of Substitution Richard Dawkins uses in the The Enemies of Reason (part 1). The second thing I want to look at from this documentary is the use of a double blind experiment, and the Special Pleading that follows.

In this clip from The Enemies of Reason part 1 (about 29 minutes into it), we see dowsers explaining why they only picked the correct bottle with water in it 1 time out of 6 (or 2 times at best). There were 6 bottles that had water, out of 36, and they assumed they would identify the correct one better than "chance" (if not 100 percent). When this fails to eventuate, the Special Pleading begins.

Ken Church (one of the Dowsers): How does dowsing work, that’s the number one question. [Surely that’s the number two question, if the answer to the number one question: “Is there any controlled evidence that shows dowsing works”, is “Yes”.] And nobody can answer you. We I reckon… I’m convinced… that something is helping me to dowse. One of the earlier chaps thinks it’s God.

Dawkins (to another dowser - Jim Negus): How do you do it? What’s your principle of dowsing?

Negus: I think the question, and I expect God to respond in a way that I understand… [He goes into some superfluous detail and demonstrates how when he walks forward, the wire bit follows the camera around. This only serves to demonstrate his ignorance of the ideomotor effect and Newton’s first law – inertia.]

Dawkins: Have you done the test yet, in the tent?

Negus: Yes I did.

Dawkins: And what was the result?

Negus: I was going to get six right, 100 percent

Dawkins: Yeah, and what happened?

Negus: One!

Dawkins: So what do you make of that then?

Negus: He’s having his laugh [points skyward], in’t he. He loves a joke. You don’t realise…

Thus we have the Special Pleading.

The next section gets on to explaining how the double blind experiment works. It then shows that all the dowsers tested perform within chance expectation – that is, on average, 1 out of 6 correct (6 bottles filled with water amongst 30 filled with sand, all hidden). The double blind wins again. Chris French, the psychologist running the experiment, goes on to explain that when talking to dowsers, they have many anecdotes of discovering water, or broken pipes, etc. They think it’s a “gift”, however, there are alternative hypotheses worth spinning. For example, could they only pay attention to and remember the times they correctly found water and forget the times they didn’t? I.e., are they counting the hits and forgetting the misses? This is called Observational Selection, or confirmation bias. Unless you write things down, to keep an accurate record, you can’t trust your own memory (I remember reading this somewhere once, or perhaps I heard it on the radio…).

This is the beauty of the double blind experiment; it rules out these biases. If they actually have special water finding powers, beyond random chance and hindsight-confirmation bias, a controlled double blind experiment would conclusively show it.

French goes on to explain that once the subjects are shown they don’t have magical powers, they begin to make excuses – they engage in Special Pleading. This is a common problem of close minded people. Not being prepared to change your mind in spite of evidence means you are guilty of Simple-Minded Certitude. This is a laughable criticism often levelled at skeptics and those accused of “scientism”. Supposedly we don’t believe in alien visitation or homeopathy or dowsing, or whatever, because we are “close minded”. However, it’s the complete opposite. We are perfectly prepared to believe in any of the above, so long as there is credible evidence in favour of it. Chris French is the perfect example of this, as are the scientists who investigated electromagnetic sensitivity. They give these claims “a fair go”.

“Fair go” is not synonymous with “credulous acceptance”, however. Fair go means to listen to the evidence and weigh it up against, or see where it fits in with, scientific orthodoxy. If it doesn’t fit in too well, the evidence would need to be strong. One of the best examples of an open minded person (one prepared to change one’s mind) who gave parapsychology a fair go is Susan Blackmore.

Anyway, back to the dowsing. French goes on to say:

I think that they are completely sincere, and that they’re typically very surprised when we run them through a series of trials and actually say, at the end of the day, “Well your performance is no better than we would expect just on the basis of guess work.” And then what typically happens, they’ll make up all kinds of reasons, some might say excuses, as to why they didn’t pass that particular test.

It then cuts back to Church and another dowser, Karen Fuller

Church: I feel the whole test… is wrong.

Fuller: I’m shocked beyond words that this has happened. But I did say from the outset, couldn’t we just sort out some grey blocks and some scaffold boards, so that I can walk above it, which is what I would routinely do, and I’ve done for forty years. [I wonder if she'd have made the same complaint if she'd correctly identified all six?]

Church: Who knows where, or what bottles, were in what tubs…

Dawkins: That’s the whole point isn’t it? That’s the whole point…

Church: Well, yeah, but, if you understand dowsing like I do, you’ll understand that everything leaves an image.

And there we have it; an extreme example of Special Pleading, “If you understand dowsing like I do…”

I'll leave the last words to Dawkins:

This state of denial is extraordinary. Even when confronted with hard fact these dowsers prefer not to face up to truth but retain their delusion.

Double blind wins again

...but will it make a difference? No.

Are some people sensitive to mobile phone signals? (BMJ. 2006 April 15; 332(7546): 886–891.). Short answer, "No".
Long answer from the abstract:

Objective: To test whether people who report being sensitive to mobile phone signals have more symptoms when exposed to a pulsing mobile signal than when exposed to a sham signal or a non-pulsing signal.

Participants: 60 “sensitive” people who reported often getting headache-like symptoms within 20 minutes of using a global system for mobile communication (GSM) mobile phone and 60 “control” participants who did not report any such symptoms.

Intervention: Participants were exposed to three conditions: a 900 MHz GSM mobile phone signal, a non-pulsing carrier wave signal, and a sham condition with no signal present. Each exposure lasted for 50 minutes.

Results: Headache severity increased during exposure and decreased immediately afterwards. However, no strong evidence was found of any difference between the conditions in terms of symptom severity. Nor did evidence of any differential effect of condition between the two groups exist. The proportion of sensitive participants who believed a signal was present during GSM exposure (60%) was similar to the proportion who believed one was present during sham exposure (63%).

Conclusions: No evidence was found to indicate that people with self reported sensitivity to mobile phone signals are able to detect such signals or that they react to them with increased symptom severity. As sham exposure was sufficient to trigger severe symptoms in some participants, psychological factors may have an important role in causing this condition.

I.e., once they thought they were being exposed to electromagnetic waves, they got a headache. QED for psychosomatic symptoms and the nocebo effect.

Back to my first point. Does this fairly conclusive and simple study make a difference?

A group in Santa Fe says the city is discriminating against them because they say that they're allergic to the wireless Internet signal. And now they want Wi-Fi banned from public buildings. Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones.

What is the journalistic and legalistic take on this?

The city attorney is now checking to see if putting up Wi-Fi could be considered discrimination.

Here's an idea. What about checking to see if there's any evidence for this "disability", beyond a psychosomatic response? If it's not a real physiological problem, then legally, there is no problem. Moreover, we might get to the truth of the matter. (I guess I can't expect this to be the motivation of a journalist of lawyer, can I...) Given the credulous reporting of this story, and similar stories, I won't be at all surprised if electrical sensitivity becomes a factoid.

It's not as if the evidence isn't two words away. The paper I linked to is the first peer reviewed double blind trial I found using google scholar which looked at "electromagnetic sensitivity". One hopes if it gets to court, the lawyers will give google a crack.

Here's an even better solution. The city of Santa Fe could label all their WiFi points as "natural" and "organic". That'd do the trick. Or they could offer all the sensitive people "tin-foil deflector beanies". They combat mind control too! (Although there is evidence these might amplify some signals.)
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Hat tip SGU for the Santa Fe story.

Leave the emos alone

I don't know anything of this story other than this article:

Around 100 teenagers have marched on the offices of a widely read British tabloid to protest at its suggestion that their favourite emo band, My Chemical Romance, encouraged suicide.

They say they object to Daily Mail's description of the US group as a "suicide cult band" in an article about a teenage student who hanged herself two weeks after she started listening to its music...

...The article that sparked the protest concerned a coroner's inquest into the death of Hannah Bond, 13, who hanged herself allegedly after starting to listen to the band's music and becoming obsessed with death.

I have to say I agree with the emos^#. The implication is listening to music can be a causal agent for behaviour (in this case, suicide). This is an old argument, previously applied to rock and roll, punk, hip-hop, heavy metal, techno, grunge and now emo. There may be a correlation with behaviour and music, but correlation does not demonstrate causation.

I'm not worried about the actual facts of this sad story, or even if the Daily Mail made the claims as reported. Assuming the above is all correct we have a common example of the post hoc error (post hoc ergo propter hoc - after this therefore because of this).

The classic example is violent TV shows/movies/video games (entertainment) are correlated with violent behaviour. Therefore, some claim, violent entertainment causes violent behaviour. On it's own, correlation does not mean causation, it merely shows two variables may be linked. As such, there is good reason to investigate further.

Until further investigation is conducted, correlation does not show which direction the link (if there is one) goes. It also does not rule out the hypothesis that a third factor could be the causal agent of change for the two correlated variables.

For example, perhaps naturally violent people are attracted to violent entertainment. I.e., there is causation, but in the other direction. Or, perhaps there are no "naturally" violent people, but the social group they happen to be in promotes violence (this is the third factor). As such they are prone to acting more violently and being entertained by violence.

This is not to say violent entertainment isn't the cause (or rather, one of the causes) of violent behaviour, just that you have to show more than a correlation to substantiate this claim. Something along the lines of controlled experiments with half the randomised subjects watching Bambi, the other half watching Rambo, then getting them to give each other different strength electric shocks (measure who is the most prone to increase the voltage) or some other twisted experiment psychologists seem to enjoy creating.

Cause and effect with human behaviour is generally not unidirectional. For whatever it's worth, my bet would be, whilst violent entertainment or suicidal music is not the cause of correlated behaviour (but rather an effect of predispositions) it may reinforce and increase behaviour in the manner of a positive feedback loop.

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^#Just because I agree with them in this case doesn't mean I have any real time for people who sit around pretending to be depressed.

The GIGO fallacy

Here, at humbugonline, from time to time, we find the need to either coin or promote a name for a new type of humbug. Not necessarily because we have made an original discovery of a hitherto unidentified error in reasoning; but because there seems to be a niche for a new term. I.e., people have previously recognised the flawed reasoning, but have not yet given the flaw a name or the name is in not yet in common use. This could happen because the “new” form of dodgy reasoning has only recently gained prevalence and has not been dealt with before, or simply because an old term doesn’t encapsulate the error as well (in our view) as a new term. For example, I think I am right in saying we can claim originality to LAME claim (Look At Me Everybody), WTF? Fallacy, Argument by Artifice, Burden of Solution, and False Attribution, and promoting Appeal to Celebrity. There is a varying level of merit with these new fallacies. Some are more for humour than critical analysis. However, they do seem to “work”.

With that in mind, I was recently reminded of a concept that, though not yet explicitly recognised as a fallacy, has been used as if it is a fallacy. Given a google search does not produce a substantial result for “GIGO fallacy” I think I can claim some “originality” (for whatever that’s worth when you simply re-contextualise someone else’s idea). The closest I've seen it being used explicitly as a fallacy is by Gary Curtis.

GIGO is actually a reasonably well known (if you mix in my circle anyway) principle: Garbage In, Garbage Out. See this Wikipedia page for the history of GIGO.

The way I like to put it is Garbage In = Garbage Out.

My working definition for GIGO is:

If the data, evidence or underlying theory used as the basis of a claim is flawed, then the claim and all conclusions based on it should be treated with great skepticism. (The claim and any conclusions may or may not be true; however there is simply no reasonable evidence either way.)

From this principle we can derive the "GIGO fallacy". In this case GIGO stands for:

Garbage In = Gospel Out.

(As with the original meaning of the second “G” in GIGO, I don’t claim originality to second “G” in this second version.)

The GIGO fallacy – Description

The advocate is certain his or her belief is true, even though the data, evidence or underlying theory used as the basis of the belief is demonstrably flawed or unsubstantiated. Another way of putting it is when the advocate treats conclusions leading from some poorly controlled or flawed data, unsubstantiated evidence or theory, as gospel.

Example

Rose Well is having an online discussion at AboveTopSecret.com, explaining to her friend Joan Mack why she believes there is “life out there”.

“The Drake equation proves it”, she says. “It states that: N = R* x Fp x ne x fℓ x fi x fc x L, where N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we might hope to be able to communicate; and R* is the average rate of star formation in our galaxy, fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets, ne is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets, fℓ is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point, fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life, fc is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space, L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

When you substitute all the right values into it, you get an answer of 5000! That means there are at least 5000 civilisations in our galaxy that we can communicate with. Imagine how many more there are in the entire universe!”

Joan Mack is a well respected psychologist and as such has an understanding of fallacies. She types back:

“Look, you can get whatever answer you want with the Drake equation – so long as you pick the input values that give you the answer you want. GIGO! I am happy to accept the equation itself as valid. But this doesn’t mean we can get any useful information from it. For example, we can calculate the strength of the Earth’s gravitational field (g) at the surface, using the equation: g = GM/r2. Where G = the universal gravitational constant, M = the mass of the Earth, and r = the radius of the Earth.

If we didn’t know the actual values for G, M and r, we could just choose numbers that “feel” right (i.e., based on our best guess). If enough people have enough guesses, we might even chance upon the right answer (9.8 N/kg), because the equation works (though this would be extremely unlikely in itself). However, we’d never know, because we were just guessing at the values we assigned to the input variables. Even if the equation is right, it is useless without the correct input data.

The problem with the Drake equation, why it falls into the GIGO category, lies with the parameters. There is no way to tell if the values we assign to the input parameters are garbage or not. Given the impossibility of assigning justifiable values to them, we can treat them all as garbage (though we can argue about which values stink more). All probabilities found using the Drake equation are therefore, to some extent, invalid (even if you accidentally guessed the right values). Some are more reasonable than others, but all the answers the Drake equations spits out still suffer from GIGO.”

Rose replies: “So, are you saying you don’t believe?”

“Of course not”, replies Joan. “Just that the Drake equation is not a good argument. However, in my practice as a psychologist I have specialised in treating patients who have been abducted and fiddled by aliens. Now that’s conclusive proof. Unfortunately the rules of doctor-patient confidentially prohibit me from backing up this claim with any specific evidence – other than the cash money I’ll no doubt make when my book comes out. I’ve also been very successful in treating my patients with my anti-alien mind control helmet.”

“Cool.” Types Rose. “Where can I order mine?”

More examples of GIGO:

• WTF? Fallacy of the year

An example of a non-fallacy

Sometimes the best way of coming to understand something is by seeing an example of what it isn't, or as in this case, someone else's misunderstanding. Peter S. Williams provides us with this opportunity. For someone who claims to be a philosopher, to make such "school boy errors" in logic is extraordinary. That's why I used the word "claims". Perhaps I'm being overly harsh. He writes a lot, and the more you write, the more opportunity for error. However, in this article, Darwin’s Rottweiler and the Public Understanding of Scientism, he claims Richard Dawkins is guilty of making many fallacies in his arguments. I think Williams is wrong in nearly everything he says. (Here's a guy who claims the non-answer: "God did it" is scientific - he even "trumpets" peer reviewed paper on Intelligent Design. The worth of peer review depends on your peers. It was published in Philosophia Christi and is available via Discovery.org. Was it that he was still waiting for some experimental data - so wasn't quite ready for Nature or Science?) As such, I have neither the time, inclination, or respect to deal with all his misidentifications of fallacies. (Besides the above, he wrote a book on angels - gimmie a break, and a fan guide on both Doctor Who and The Matrix... see the first link.) I will probably return to it in the future, as "there's gold in them there hills".

For the moment, I'll deal with this specific example, where Williams thinks he has spotted an example of Begging the Question. He is wrong. The following italicised text is his work:

2. Begging the Question - ‘this fallacy occurs when a disputant uses his conclusion as one of the premises employed to establish [his] conclusion.’ [5]

Dawkins asserts that: ‘As time goes by and our civilization grows up more, the model of the universe that we share will become progressively less superstitious, less small-minded, less parochial. It will lose its remaining ghosts, hobgoblins and spirits, it will be a realistic model, correctly regulated and updated by incoming information from the real world.’ [6] How can Dawkins know this assertion is true before all the evidence is in? Dawkins assumes that his conclusion is true and then promises that it will be justified on evidential grounds at some unspecified point in the future.

This is not an example of Begging the Question as Williams claims. There is no premise in Dawkins’ statement. There is also no conclusion. Ergo, it’s not Begging the Question. It is simply an assertion. You can choose to agree or disagree with it, but it’s certainly not Begging the Question. Begging the Question would be more like:

‘As time goes by and our civilization grows up more, the model of the universe that we share will become progressively less superstitious, less small-minded, less parochial. It will lose its remaining ghosts, hobgoblins and spirits, it will be a realistic model, correctly regulated and updated by incoming information from the real world.’ [My added bit that would turn this into Begging the Question follows] This will occur because as we build more realistic models that are based on good information, we rely less on finding supernatural, small-minded and parochial answers for hitherto unexplained phenomena.

Note the bolded word in my added section - because. This clearly shows this is the sentence I’m using to try and justify the claim in the initial section. But of course, it’s simply the initial claim reworded to sound like a justification. Now it is a Question Begging argument. The actual statement itself may or may not be true (I happen to think and hope that it is/will be true). But the point is it can only be Begging the Question if a claim is made, and then attempted to be justified using the same point as was made in the original claim.

As I said above, Dawkins could only be accused of making an unsupported assertion. Every sentence simply repeats this assertion in a different manner for more emphasis. Reading it again, with emphasis on the right words makes this quite clear:

‘As time goes by and our civilization grows up more, the model of the universe that we share will become progressively less superstitious, less small-minded, less parochial. It will lose its remaining ghosts, hobgoblins and spirits, it will be a realistic model, correctly regulated and updated by incoming information from the real world.’

By only saying “it will” Dawkins is only making a claim. "It will be this, it will be that..." We need a “because”, or an “as”, or a “since” or whatever synonym Shift F7 delivers, to have some kind of justification. In saying this, for all we know Dawkins has been taken out of context and did forward some reasons for this belief. Further to this, my version would not be Begging the Question if the “because” I added was demonstrably true. I’d suggest this is possible to do. The most obvious would be we can see this occurring as a simple historical fact. Over the centuries, with more and more science, or more and more education, humans become less and less superstitious. The data support this – once someone has a university degree their superstition dies of dramatically. If we accept this premise, and add to that as we move forwards in time we will have the required economic and social capital to continue with scientific research and (universal) education, the conclusion – less superstitious etc., follows.

Of course, off the top of my head I can’t remember where I read this. I think it was some really impressive journal, a paper by some super smart researcher, so you’ll just have to take my word for it… you trust me don’t you?

Mean, Median and Sex

I found the workings of an old post I never got around to posting. So here it is.

Time for a maths lesson for Gina Kolata of the New York Times, who reported on a survey that found:

…men had a median of seven female sex partners. Women had a median of four male sex partners. Another study, by British researchers, stated that men had 12.7 heterosexual partners in their lifetimes and women had 6.5.

Apparently "mathematicians" don't understand the difference between various measures of central tendency:

But there is just one problem, mathematicians say. It is logically impossible for heterosexual men to have more partners on average than heterosexual women. Those survey results cannot be correct.

Um, yeah, they can. This falls under the category of Misuse of Information. The explanation is pretty much the same as the example in our book, but dirtier.

The mean number of partners for men and woman has to be the same. But the median, as was quoted above, does not. The majority of women tend to have less sexual partners than the majority of men. The median for women is lower. However, there could be enough dirty women who have many, many partners - enough to keep the means even, but skew the distribution.

To be fair to Kolata, she and her mathematician corrected this the next week:

He had looked at the actual data from the survey citing medians and found that it could not possibly be correct. Of course he knew the difference between a median and a mean.

It's still a good example nonetheless. (And a good example of why you should always say what you mean, with all the caveats, as clearly as possible.)

We don’t want technology because it’s not perfect

A quick post about cricket and using technology to help umpires make correct decisions. If you don't follow the game then this post will be a little discombobulating.

Nearly all the commentators say that the umpires get decisions wrong, and agree that we know this because we can check using technology. But some then go onto argue because the technology is not perfect, we ought to not use it to help umpires make decisions? Anyone else see the obvious "does not compute" here? Here's the executive sports producer from Channel Nine (cricket broadcaster):

"I'd hate us to be involved in the judicial system of cricket," Crawley told the Sydney Morning Herald. "We've only got one thing 100% backed up by science and that's Hot Spot; the others aren't 100%.

"Snicko is very well informed but it's not 100%, and Hawk-Eye's not 100%. And also there's the time-frame. Yesterday, with one of the decisions, Snicko, like all computer systems, went down and it had to be rebooted and it was four minutes before we got it up. Mostly, it's only a couple of deliveries but those sorts of things can happen."

Ignoring the fact they are already in the judicial system of cricket (for run outs, stumpings, etc.), if the technology helps by adding more concrete evidence (or more uncertainty, this is a help in that it raises doubt, and doubt means a batter is to be given not out) then it should be used. To say we shouldn't use it because it's not 100% "proven" to work, or it is occasionally unavailable is to invoke the Perfect Solution fallacy. Moreover, human senses are deeply flawed, which is why we invented measuring instruments to overcome this. It's the use of such inventions that has improved everything.

I'll use two apt analogies to finish. It's bizarre to rule out technology to keep the human element (read mistakes); the "mistakes are a part of the game" argument. Who insists their doctor doesn't use technology to improve his/her decision making? That'd be potentially fatal. However, I wouldn't let technology "make" my decisions for me. Anyone blindly drive their car following the instructions of a GPS? Potentially fatal too I'd assume (keep your eyes open). Having a working GPS (and being competent in its use) sure does make navigating easier though.

It’s okay to be a racist…

so long as you are raising a family, says cricket writer Peter Roebuck.

I haven't blogged for who knows how long because A) I was working hard, and B) the cricket's been on.

Now that I can blog about cricket and fallacies, I'm back.

Amongst all the hubbub over the 2^nd test in Sydney, Roebuck has called for the boning of Australian captain, and all-round legend (the best since Bradman), Ricky Ponting. The entire article is a vitriolic diatribe but there's one bit in particular which is worth picking out as a classic Red Herring:

Harbhajan Singh can be an irritating young man but he is head of a family and responsible for raising nine people. And all the Australian elders want to do is to hunt him from the game. Australian fieldsmen fire insults from the corners of their mouths, an intemperate Sikh warrior overreacts and his rudeness is seized upon.

Never mind that Harby called Andrew Symonds a "big monkey" after he'd been told, repeatedly, that it was an offensive racist term, and after all the coverage of the incidents in India last year. To Roebuck, Harby is a "Sikh warrior" who is the head of a family with nine children. Wow. It must be tough raising nine children, what, with the millions of dollars he gets from bowling a bit of red leather. (Not to mention not being at home most of the year.)

That's all I'll say regarding a specific fallacy. Just one more point regarding Roebuck's worth as a commentator. He thinks Ponting and Bucknor should be sacked for arrogance and incompetence (respectively), I'd say the same applies to him.

Arrogance: A pom writing a deliberately inflammatory piece calling for the Australian captain to be sacked for arrogance (without any hint of irony).

Incompetence - making this claim:

But ABC cricket commentator Peter Roebuck says there are still serious doubts about next week's Perth Test going ahead.

Roebuck says there is little chance of the two captains being part of any conciliatory talks.

"These two sides are so far apart right now that I think the Perth Test has got no more than a 40 per cent chance of taking place, Bucknor or no Bucknor," he said.

And what do you know, just few hours later:

Indian cricket officials say the tour of Australia will continue, after the sport's governing body stepped in to defuse a crisis over the second Test in Sydney.

The attempted blackmail by the BCCI was obviously a bluff. If you couldn't pick that Peter, your credibility as a commentator is shot. (Who stands to lose the most $$$ if there is no TV coverage of the two remaining tests, let alone the 20-Twenty and One-Day matches?)

More proof Bush is dumb – youtube factoid

This hardly needs any explanation. Bush said this the other day:



Now he's not the most articulate guy in the world, but come on, it's obvious he didn't literally mean Nelson Mandela is dead; killed by Saddam Hussein.

Anyone who thought this, like most of the enlightened commentators on youtube, ought to ask themselves how biased they are. Of course, that won't happen.

For example, Phil, at Larvatus Prodeo decided to Propagate this Factoid:

Usually he’s just too easy a target to bother posting on his many gaffes, and after almost two full terms you’d think you’d get used to this president, but unfortunately George Bush still conspires to surprise with another incredible dose of the stupid.

Phil was told Bush doesn't literally believe Saddam Hussein had Nelson Mandela killed:

This isn’t stupid. Hussein DID kill anyone capable of establishing a Mandela-like profile against Hussein’s dictatorship.

You do understand that “Mandela” in this case doesn’t literally mean Nelson Mandela? Instead of acknowledging the error, he (and the Bush bashing commentators) Move the Goalposts. Now it's about it being a "bad analogy", not a "Bushism":

And that’s supposed to make it sound better Tim? Oh, and I thought Chalabi and the exile de jour was supposed to be Iraq’s “Mandela”? Sorry buddy, that don’t cut it.

"That don't cut it"? Touche.

No Phil, what really doesn't cut it is your arse clown backpedalling from this:

Of course it’s already on heavy rotation on You Tube where the WTF! impact strikes even harder.

Maybe he’s been using Miss Teen South Carolinas [sic] map of the Iraq as a guide.

To this:

BTW, I’m astounded that the flying monkeys have read a quick and simple post about Bush’s poor public speaking and mangled and inarticulate use of language (hence the Miss Teen Sth Carolina linkage) as they have, it should have been pretty obvious that I fully understood what Bush was on about in my response to Tim.

And this:

Of course more interesting to me was how inarticulately (?) he made his point, but it looks like that got lost in translation.

No. You were perfectly clear. You said Bush was stupid in the original post. Then, on finding out you were stupid, you claimed you actually meant he is inarticulate. Now you are not only stupid, but a liar as well.

Phil and co's attempted rationalisations remind me of a conversation I heard involving people stuck down a deep hole they'd dug. Instead of digging up, perhaps you could have just said: "Doh!"

Still. The comments from people who get their news from a comedy take it to another (lower) level.

Burn it all!

A nice little example of a figurative use of the term "scorched earth". Literally it means:

A military strategy of burning or destroying crops or other resources that might be of use to an invading enemy force. (ODE)

In the context of this Crikey article, it is a Weasel Word:

Just before the axing of ATSIC by the Howard government, and as part of its dissolution, the Yeperenye shopping centre was passed on to the local native title group, Lhere Athepe, and a body called Centrecorp, established back in the mid 1980s by the Central Land Council and other Aboriginal bodies as a charitable investment vehicle for Aboriginal traditional owner groups through central Australia.

Centrecorp, and its assets, is now in the sights of Brough as he adopts a scorched earth policy towards Aboriginal organisations in the Territory leading up to the next elections.

Note the implied (by reference to the looming election) Motive Impugning as well.

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HT to Ben for pointing this out.

Fallacy

...Opinion, Argument and Humbug!

Strangely, people care about another person's opinion. I, for one, don't get it? I mean opinions in the non-legal, colloquial sense, a statement concerning what someone believes without any justification. If an acquaintance of mine merely asserts an opinion, rather than making an argument, my response is usually something along the lines of: "Oh yeah, whatever you reckon…" After all, opinions are like backsides, everyone has one and everyone else's stinks. There is simply no point in attempting to refute an opinion; by definition it is without any justification and as such worthless. No humbug to be found.

An argument, on the other hand, might well involve a belief, but reasons for that belief are given. This justification is either sound or fallacious and this is what makes an argument compelling or poor. Thus we have a myriad of humbug possibilities. The first step in identifying a poor, humbug filled argument is to understand what a fallacy is. The broad, non-jargonised definition is that a fallacy is a claim that is not justified or an argument that has gone wrong. Often on first inspection a fallacious argument might seem sound, but it is found to be flawed with closer scrutiny. There are numerous specific reasons an argument can be flawed (hence the numerous types of fallacies) but in general there are three broad categories.

A commentator is fallacious if his or her claim is based on a reason that is irrelevant, insufficient, or itself unjustifiable.* For example, the fallacy Impugning Motives is an irrelevant argument - arguing that an opponent is wrong because they have devious motives. Motives have nothing to do with the truth of a matter, whether a claim is right or wrong. The fallacy Unfounded Generalization is an insufficient argument. A generalization can only be made when a study is performed on a large enough sample for an extrapolation to be justified. A small or unrepresentative sample, therefore, is insufficient to make a generalization. The fallacy, Begging the Question is an unjustifiable argument. When someone makes an argument that 'begs the question', their conclusion is simply a restatement of their premises, but in a different form. The conclusion has not been justified.

Another flawed way of arguing is not fallacious, strictly speaking, but rather, devious. Humbug, is deceptive or false talk or behaviour (ODE). I tend to call all the types of humbug I spot fallacies, however, technically some are not fallacies, but deceptive techniques used to win arguments. Moving the Goalposts is a good example. If a commentator is arguing a particular point or position, they might start to avoid discussing it further, by subtly changing the topic of conversation. Hence, the goalposts have been moved. Often this is done when they realise the topic they began with is a little too challenging. (Politicians are the exemplars.) When a commentator does this we are safe in assuming they are not genuinely interested in getting at the 'truth' of a matter. They are interested in 'winning'. They have not advanced a fallacious argument in order to win - instead they have been devious - knowingly avoiding an argument or topic that might be troubling, to something a little more advantageous.

Humbug becomes easier to spot with practice, but a few clues should set off the alarm bells. In all cases, the key criterion for humbug - a fallacy or devious deception - is that it is advanced in the form of an argument. The argument is flawed if the reason advanced in support of it is irrelevant, insufficient, unjustifiable, simplistic, misleading or deceptive. So 'arm up' and get hunting.
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*I'm not a fan of any greater specificity in taxonomical descriptions of fallacies - too much 'pigeon holing' tends to confuse rather than clarify. I think these three broad categories are sufficient and serve a useful purpose.

Technorati Tagged - Fallacy, Skepticism.

Pearson, Greer, Bryson and the Burden of Solution

Given my last few posts have discussed the Burden of Solution, especially with reference to the PM's plan for indigenous communities and LAME Germaine, I thought I'd post extract from an article Jef and I wrote for the skeptic. It extended our entries on The Burden of Proof and the Burden of Solution in Humbug! From The Skeptic. Volume 24, No. 3. Spring, pp, 30-35.

Here's a section of the article on the Burden of Solution written by Jef:

Three Disparate Responses to a Recognised Social Problem:

Alcohol and Violence in Indigenous Communities

a. Noel Pearson

The following extract is from the web-based ATSIC NEWS, Summer 2002. The article comments on a report by Tony Fitzgerald, on “the causes, nature and extent both of breaches of the law and of alcohol and substance abuse… in Cape York Indigenous Communities”. Fitzgerald’s brief was also to suggest approaches and to recommend strategies to address the problem:

In March, Noel Pearson, whose advocacy can be said to have initiated the current focus on the Cape, was named Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Australia/New Zealand Social Entrepreneurs Network for his work on Cape York Partnerships. Pearson’s speech on that occasion welcomed the Fitzgerald report for focusing attention on the ‘grog problem’, but criticised its author for reflecting ‘traditional thinking about substance abuse strategies’. Fitzgerald emphasises four action areas: controlling supply; prevention; harm reduction; and treatment and rehabilitation.

Pearson said his own analysis of substance abuse as a self-sustaining epidemic, suggests six areas of action, based on building an active intolerance of abuse, and including assistance to communities in managing time and money. In many other areas, however, Fitzgerald’s thinking overlaps with Pearson’s — or perhaps reflects the influence of people like Pearson. Pearson also underlined the need for social entrepreneurs, not welfare bureaucrats; was dismissive of what was implied in the government language of ‘consultation’, and criticised the approach of State Government agencies to Cape York Partnerships.

According to Pearson, they interpret partnerships as ‘a continuation of existing government programs and service delivery with an emphasis on ‘whole of government’ ‘coordination’’. Social entrepreneurship meant seizing opportunities, energising individuals, not providing welfare. Prevailing Indigenous policies are, Pearson said, based on needs and deficiencies, not assets and opportunities. Policies catering to material needs have crushed Indigenous social strengths and are premised ‘upon a conscious or unconscious lack of belief in our capacity as a people’.

It is our view that Noel Pearson is an impressive and positive contributor to public debate on this issue, and has made significant contributions to the development of social policy and programs. He has had a long-standing commitment to addressing the problem of alcohol-related violence in indigenous communities. He analyses the problem, embraces reality, and while at times he may be very critical of others, he suggests possible solutions. His suggestions are ambitious, but they are concrete and reasonable. They could be implemented and trialled, and subjected to evaluation and refinement. He is active, involved and engages in extensive consultation. He is focused on the problem, and he has taken upon himself the burden of solution. So his public statements are credible, and he is worth listening to.

b. Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer is also a contributor to public life in Australia. She also comments on the issue of alcohol abuse in indigenous communities. She is also critical of others, and proposes her own solutions. However her commentaries on the issue of alcohol and violence in indigenous communities are LAME. LAME is an acronym coined by Jef to characterise the variant of the burden of solution fallacy exhibited by needy exhibitionists like Greer. The letters in the acronym correspond to the phrase Look At Me Everybody — a phrase which seems to capture her primary motive for writing about and speaking on contentious social issues in her declining years. Here is an extract from the transcript of an interview of Greer by way of illustration:

Voice over: Australia’s most famous feminist and activist for a myriad of causes, Germaine Greer has taken up the cudgels for Aboriginal Australians in an essay to be published tomorrow. It’s called Whitefella Jump Up: the Shortest Way to Nationhood, and makes the controversial suggestion that we become an Aboriginal republic, perhaps known as the Aboriginal Republic of Australia, so that we will all become Aborigines. And living up to her outrageous reputation in this exclusive interview, Germaine Greer also talks to Jana Wendt about her love of good-looking young boys.

Greer: I live in an Aboriginal country, I was born in an Aboriginal country, I’m third generation born in an Aboriginal country. If I was saying that about France, it would be understood that I was French. If I say it about Australia, could it be understood that I’m Aboriginal? That Australian means something like Aboriginal. It doesn’t mean European, certainly doesn’t mean white Anglo-Saxon Protestant anymore. Perhaps it means that and if it meant that, what would that mean? What can I do with that idea?

Wendt: OK, but in clear terms, to get a grip on what you’re proposing, you are proposing that we consider ourselves to be part of an Aboriginal country, declare ourselves an Aboriginal Republic?

Greer: It would be ridiculous in one sense because Aboriginal is a funny word. It means “there from the beginning”. And so it’s not like saying you’re French or Indian or something. But it seems to me the best word. I mean, there is no reason why you shouldn’t reinvent a word. We could see ourselves as identifying with hunter-gatherer peoples. It would be an amazing thing to do.

Wendt: It’s an amazing proposition, and you know as well as I do, that people listening to you now saying that will say ‘she’s bonkers’.

Perhaps not bonkers, but certainly risible. Some might argue that the articulation of such a bizarre stance is a calculated strategy to garner publicity — the long-standing modus operandi of a LAME commentator seeking to boost sales of her latest book. Whether Greer is bonkers or not, or self-serving or not; she is certainly indulging in a particular variant of the burden of solution fallacy. While she might appear to be “offering a solution” of her own to alcohol and violence, her suggestion is self-evidently irrational and impractical. In our view she is burdening others with the genuine solution — those people who are actually prepared to get involved and to expend real time and energy in taking productive action.

c. Bill Bryson

Many people of compassion and goodwill are deeply concerned about alcohol and violence in indigenous communities, but the vast majority of concerned people do not have the time, ability or opportunity to take concrete steps to address the problem. It is not unreasonable when such people express the view that more needs to be done to address the problem. Nor is it unreasonable when such people admit that they do not themselves have a solution for the problem. Consider the following comment on the issue of alcohol and violence in indigenous communities offered by Bill Bryson, in his book Down Under:

As I sat now on the Todd Street Mall with my coffee and watched the mixed crowds — happy white shoppers with Saturday smiles and a spring in their step, shadowy aborigines with their curious bandages and slow, swaying, knocked-about gait — I realized that I didn’t have the faintest idea what the solution to all this was, what was required to spread the fruits of general Australian prosperity to those who seemed so signally unable to find their way to it. If I were contracted to the Commonwealth of Australia to advise on Aboriginal issues all I could write would be: ‘Do more. Try harder. Start Now.’

So without an original or helpful thought in my head, I just sat for some minutes and watched these poor disconnected people shuffle past. Then I did what most white Australians do. I read my newspaper and drank my coffee and didn’t see them any more. Pp 283,284.

Bryson’s frank bewilderment and mea culpa is a refreshing contrast with the shallow posturing of Greer. His statement is sincere and it represents a respectable position to take on such matters. While he is ‘technically’ burdening Australia and Australians as a whole with the solution to this problem, he is not sanctimonious. He does not engage in pretense or make light of the complexity of the issue. On the evidence of this statement, and the weight of such statements in the rest of his book, we would claim that he is not employing the burden of solution fallacy.

The burden of solution fallacy requires the sanctimonious criticism of the actions of others, along with an express statement (or an implication) that the critic knows what the solution is. In the face of any complex social issue, few of us can aspire to the level of contribution made by a Pearson. But at least we can all strive to be a Bryson. At all costs, we should avoid descent into the deluded fantasy-world of a LAME Greer.

The ultimate appeal to celebrity

The hypocrisy of Earth Live Aid, or whatever it is called, is going on right now. A couple of choice quotes:

Japanese singer Ayaka urged people to do what they could. "We can start helping by doing something small," she said.

"I started to carry my own eco-bag so I don't have to use plastic grocery bags, and use my own chopsticks instead of disposable ones."

Wow. The sacrifice. And just in case you thought Appealing to Celebrity didn't work:

...10,000 fans packed the main arena at Tokyo's Makuhari Messe complex to hear Linkin Park, R&B diva Rihanna and a multitude of Japanese artists.

...Some fans conceded, however, that they were more interested in the music than the message.

"I came here for Linkin Park and Linkin Park only," Masato Nakajima said.

"But I think this is a good event. If Linkin Park tells me to go eco-friendly, I will do it. Absolutely," he added.

Would he listen to the self-obsessed, god complex suffering Madonna? I mean, she'll be disappointed if he doesn't:

Madonna's carbon footprint is dwarfed only by her ego - she has vowed that she will 'speak to the planet' at Wembley.

Not all rock stars are so self-obsessed; some of them are seemingly intelligent:

Roger Daltrey, of the Who, said another concert would simply waste fuel; Bob Geldof, who helped to organise Live Aid and Live 8, said people were already aware of the greenhouse effect; while Matt Bellamy, front man of the rock band Muse, labelled it "private jets for climate change".

Building company constructs dodgy artifice

This brilliant example of an Argument by Artifice involves a company that made a labourer a director to avoid complying with a union workplace agreement:

Gary Forsyth was employed as a labourer by the company... Mr Forsyth told the Industrial Relations Commission the company's managing director, Robin Hancock, had met him and said he wanted to appoint him as a company director.

...Mr Forsyth said he had told Mr Hancock he would leave his then job if the company could match his $23.31 hourly rate of pay. According to Mr Forsyth, Mr Hancock said the company could match the rate, but told him the managing director "was not really union, and that he put everyone on as a director to get around the union and the enterprise agreement".

He worked for the company for several months before contacting the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union about his entitlements. After being sacked in February, Mr Forsyth lodged an application with the commission, claiming that his employment had been terminated unlawfully. But lawyers for the company moved to have the claim thrown out, arguing that Mr Forsyth was a director of the company and not an employee. However, the commission found Mr Forsyth was an employee, was supervised by a leading hand or foreman, was subject to the direction of his supervisor, and was paid a flat hourly rate from which the company deducted tax instalments. The commission said it was not satisfied Mr Forsyth was ever a director of the company, and that he was an employee from last October to February this year.

...up to seven other workers were employed as company directors.

The reasoning used in an Argument by Artifice may be specious, tendentious, flawed in logic and unjust in effect; the end goal is all that drives the argument. In this case the mendacious company (and their devious lawyers) attempted to use a self serving obfuscation to achieve their goal. In order to do this they have put forward an obviously contrived and unfounded assertion, that a labourer was actually a company director. Any fair-minded and objective observer would perceive this as artificially constructed. It's a good thing the Industrial Relations Commission seems to be one such observer.

Germaine Greer - early running for LAMEASS-OTM

I only just started LAMEASS-OTM and already the ever attention seeking Germaine Greer (prior to this the inspiration for LAME and a suppository ) is a real contender. Regarding the plan to deal with abuse in indigenous communities, she had this to say:

"The real importance of Howard's bizarre interpretation of the urgings to immediate action contained in the Little Children Are Sacred report is that it provides knee-jerk justification for massive erosion of Aboriginal title," she said.

And this:

Writing exclusively for The Bulletin, Greer, a UK-based feminist author and activist, accuses the Prime Minister of declaring war on Aboriginal communities and argues that he has interpreted the Little Children Are Sacred Report as justification for a "massive erosion of Aboriginal title''.

Howard has learned nothing from the Iraq experience, writes Greer, who argues that abuse of Aboriginal women and children has been known about for three decades.

"He is off on another crusade, this time to rescue Aboriginal children in distress,'' she says.

"When you're on a crusade, you ride roughshod over anything that lies in your path. A crusade can be guaranteed to turn a crisis into proliferating catastrophe.''

Typical Greer - Offering no solution,