Dr. Tae on Teaching and Learning

Summary
Dr. Tae is a physicist advocates for cultural changes to the way that schools operate to make them useful for learning.

(Video: Vimeo)

Commentary
I found myself vigorously agreeing with Dr. Tae's presentation. I was particularly surprised by the comment by Lawrence Krauss (emphasis added):

According to a presentation Krauss delivered to the Canadian Association of Physicists' Congress Tuesday, 90 per cent of U.S. middle school science teachers have no post-secondary education in science themselves.

Of course, a lack of qualifications is irrelevant when all you need are certifications.

The humanities are sidelined as well (via Robert):

I know one of your arguments is that not every place should try to do everything. Let other institutions have great programs in classics or theater arts, you say; we will focus on preparing students for jobs in the real world. Well, I hope I've just shown you that the real world is pretty fickle about what it wants. The best way for people to be prepared for the inevitable shock of change is to be as broadly educated as possible, because today's backwater is often tomorrow's hot field.

In the course of my discussions, some people have raised the following objections to Dr. Tae's approach. Here are some of the more common reactions:

How did Dr. Tae grade the students from his "workshop" class?

I don't know, but I can ask him.

I should point out that his experiment was geared at demonstrating a new model of education--one in which grades are not emphasized because competence and mastery are the goals. Nonetheless, the question is valid, because we do not have many institutions that support his proposed model of education (although compare his model to the Yeshiva system).

Isn't Dr. Tae's model of education very expensive?

Perhaps the "workshop" aspect, but definitely not the "distributed teaching" aspect. The latter might reduce the former if "real" teaching and learning were sufficiently commonplace.

Don't some subjects have to be taught in a lecture format?

I'm not sure why this would be the case. People learn an amazing variety of information and skills "outside" of the classroom. I say "outside" to highlight the artificial nature of the boundary of where teaching / learning occurs.

Meta
I'm going to contact Dr. Tae in the next few days, so feel free to post questions for him in the comments below (deadline: Friday, 2010-12-10). I'll write a separate post if Dr. Tae responds.

See Also

• Lawrence Krauss Discussion with Richard Dawkins at YouTube for the complete discussion quoted in Dr. Tae's presentation.
  
  
• A Faustian bargain at GenomeBiology for the full text of the open letter to the President of SUNY Albany.
  
  
• An Integrated Vision of Jewish Education at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah for a Talmudic story that exemplifies a teaching and learning culture (in the utmost).

Pi v. Tau

Summary
Pi is considered one of the most important mathematical constants. However, there is a growing movement that suggests that a different constant may be easier to use and easier to teach.

We've already computed trillions of digits of pi. Don't make me restart.
(Photo: Chris Blakeley on Flickr)

Commentary
The value of pi is a constant that relates the circumference of a circle (length around the circle) to its diameter (length through the center). In 2000, Bob Palis wrote a short article called Pi is Wrong! where he outlined arguments for a different circle constant: one that relates the circumference to the radius (length from the center to any point on the circle). In June 2010, Michael Hartl published Palis' arguments as The Tau Manifesto where he suggested that the new circle constant be represented by the Greek letter tau.

The main arguments are as follows:

1. While pi appears in many equations, it most frequently appears as 2pi. All instances of 2pi can be replaced by tau.
   
   
2. Measuring angles in radians is much more straightforward because there are tau radians in a circle (rather than 2pi radians).
   
   
3. The relationship between the trigonometric functions and the unit circle is easier to grasp.
   
   
4. Euler's identity ends up sounding even more powerful: e^it = 1 (A rotation by one turn in the complex plane is 1.)
   
   
5. The area of a circle is in quadratic form similar to many other physical phenomena where two values are proportional to each other. Examples:
   • Falling in a uniform gravitational field (velocity is proportional to time)
   • Potential energy in a linear spring (force is proportional to distance)
   • Energy of motion (force is proportional to acceleration)
   So now we can add: Area of a circle (area is proportional to radius).
   

The arguments are persuasive and merit thought, especially for the pedagogical benefits tau provides. I suspect it will be some time before anyone adopts this constant as a matter of course, but I have no problem writing "tau = 2pi" and moving on from there.

See Also

• Pi is Wrong! by Bob Palis for the original paper.
• The Tau Manifesto by Michael Hartl for why tau ought to be the new circle constant.
• Turn at Wikipedia for a historical discussion of using a turn as a unit of rotation.

Reader Question: How do geological layers work?

This post is a response to a reader question. Please submit suggestions for posts to metaist.blog@gmail.com. Not all questions will be answered.

Question
Reader Matthew Garland asks:

Where do geological layers come from? If remains of civilizations and eras are buried, where did the material for the top layers come from? There can't be more material now than five thousand or million years ago.

The answer to this reader question comes from Richard Lupia.

Summary
The formation of geological layers is a continuous process based on the settling of sediment and shifts in tectonic plates.

A geologic deli roll.
(Photo: Crinity at Flickr)

Explanation
Geological layers, also called beds or strata, which contain buried civilizations are composed for the most part of fragments of rocks that form when bigger rocks are broken down by water, wind, or even organisms like plants. Once broken down, the fragments, called sediment, are transported by flowing water or blowing wind. Eventually, water stops flowing or wind stops blowing and the sediment settles, be it on the river bed or on the ocean bottom, or on floodplains alongside rivers when they flood. The fossil record is primarily a record of what lived in the oceans and in and along rivers.

Inasmuch as humans are dependent on water for sustenance, irrigation, etc., the bric-a-brac of human civilizations is ideally located to be buried by sediment when the rivers flood, which many do seasonally. It is worth noting that floods add new sediment that maintains the fertility of the floodplains for agriculture which also keeps humans near rivers.

The Earth does not run out of sediment because mountains constantly form and grow (slowly) as the plates--the 14 or so massively large blocks Earth's outer "shell" made of continents and ocean floor--shuffle around and collide. As mountains go up, there is always more rock to break down.

And although adding layer upon layer of sediment does indeed produce an increasingly thick pile of rock, it need not get higher and higher. There are two main reasons. First, as old sediment is buried by new sediment, water and air are squeezed out from the spaces between the sediment, and the old layer becomes thinner. For example, 10 feet of mud will on average yield a layer of rock about 1 foot thick. Second, the colliding of plates I mentioned above warps the ground over a very large area often bending it down to form a basin which lowers the Earth's surface.

Finally, I briefly add that sediment, and the oceanic part of the plates, are eventually recycled by sinking back into the deeper layers of the Earth. Where plates sink are called 'subduction zones' and are often apparent on maps as oceanic trenches (e.g., Mariana Trench, the deepest place on the surface of the Earth). The sinking of plates at subduction zones initiates the formation and growth of another type of mountain: volcanos. The ash and debris associated with volcanic eruptions blanket the surface and frequently bury human structures. The burial of Pompeii and Herculaneum by ash from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE is one famous example.

Richard Lupia is an Associate Professor in the School of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Oklahoma.

Explanation text licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Additional editing by The Metaist.

Reader Post: Spicy Food

This post was submitted by reader Josh Vogel. Please submit ideas for posts to metaist.blog@gmail.com.

Commentary
Many of us enjoy spicy food. At the same time, many of us really don't like spicy food. According to an article in The New York Times, there may be more of a personality trait to this than one might have originally thought. Additionally, the fact that any human being likes spicy food might say a lot about the evolution of our species.

Not to be confused with the spice.
(Photo: Will Clayton at Flickr)

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say that our enjoyment (or non-enjoyment) of spicy food might have to with the unique human capability of getting pleasure out of painful experiences: "Humans and only humans get to enjoy events that are innately negative, that produce emotions or feelings that we are programmed to avoid when we come to realize that they are actually not threats," said Dr. Paul Rozin of University of Pennsylvania, who calls this trait "benign masochism". After all, we are the only animal that likes spicy food, as evidenced by the inclusion of Capsaicin (the chemical compound that makes chilies spicy) in many animal repellents.

What this might say about people who do and do not like spicy food is not covered by the article, but it doesn't take too much thinking to see if people who like spicy foods are also ones who have a high tolerance for pain.

Josh Vogel is a Candidate for the Master of Public Health at Boston University School of Public Health.

See Also

• A Perk of Our Evolution: Pleasure in Pain of Chilies at The New York Times for the article.
• Food for Thought: Paul Rozin's Research and Teaching at Penn for a lengthy interview with Paul Rozin from 1997 where he discusses many of the aspects of his research.

Commentary text licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Additional editing by The Metaist.

Nobody Likes a Goody Two-Shoes

Summary
The term goody two-shoes is based on a children's story in which a poor orphan girl (Margery Meanwell) goes through life with only one shoe, but is eventually rewarded with a pair of shoes earning her the nickname Goody Two-Shoes. The phrase "goody two-shoes" refers to an excessively or annoyingly virtuous person, but has now come to include a connotation of insincerity (Wikipedia).

Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll go barefoot.
(Photo: Northsky71 at Flickr)

Commentary
A recent set of studies at Washington State University showed that not only are people who abuse a public good excluded from the group, but so are people who give too much toward the group, but use very little of that good. The fourth study in the set suggests that such behavior "is seen by some as establishing an undesirable behavior standard and by others as a rule breaker" (Parks & Stone, 2010). Regardless of the perception, people wanted this unselfish person removed from the group.

I'm assuming that "establishing an undesirable behavior standard" means something like "setting the bar too high" or "making me look bad." Alternatively, people might assume mixed motives and become wary of such behavior.

Meta
Do you remember a situation in which you felt someone was being too unselfish? How did you react? Have you ever noticed you were being excluded after you behaved unselfishly? What could you do differently?

See Also

• Goody Two-Shoes at Project Gutenberg for the full text of the 1766 edition of the classic children's tale.
• The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes at Wikipedia
• Do-Gooders Get Voted Off Island First at ScienceDaily for a longer discussion.
• Parks, C. D., & Stone, A. B. (2010). The desire to expel unselfish members from the group. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(2), 303-310.

Dry Water

Summary
Dry water is the result of coating small water droplets in silica. It is a powdery substance like sugar and is composed of 95% water.

Dehydrated water crystals. Just add water!
(Photo: Taran Rampersad at Flickr)

Commentary
Jokes about dehydrated water crystals aside, this is a pretty impressive technique for collecting and containing water which has been around since 1968. In 2006, it was rediscovered as a potential way to absorb carbon gases and a host of other applications.

I've got to think back to other 8^th grade jokes to see what future technology will bring.


See Also

• “Dry water” could make a big splash commercially at the American Chemical Society where the announcement of this announcement was made at the 240^th meeting in Boston.
• Scientists Create 'Dry' Water Droplets at Scientific American
• Scientists create 'dry water' at The Telegraph
  

Indigo Children

This post is based on a submission by reader Matthew Garland. Please submit suggestions for posts to metaist.blog@gmail.com.

Summary
Indigo Children are children with special traits, although the specifics of those traits ranges from "empathetic", "confident" to "mind reader".

It's almost the color of the Blue Man Group.
(Photo: kenpower at Flickr)

Commentary
According to Lee Carol, co-author of "The Indigo Children", the term was never supposed to denote anything paranormal. Rather, Nancy Ann Tappe, who coined the term, had synesthesia and associated these children with the color indigo.

Nonetheless, there is definitely an underlying argument that is completely unsubstantiated: that these children "represent a higher state of human evolution". Of course, if we take evolutionary psychology to its extreme, the children do in fact represent a higher state of human evolution (just not that much higher; probably not what the indigo folks mean).

Meta
Matthew suggests that perhaps a belief in indigo children may be related to the Forer effect and confirmation bias. What do you think?

See Also

• Indigo children at Wikipedia for more information.
• Wikipedia Warning! at the Indigo Children for a response to the Wikipedia article from Lee Carol.

Forer Effect

Summary
The Forer Effect refers to the tendency of individuals to believe that generic personality descriptions are highly accurate when being told that the descriptions are tailor-made.

Sorry, I have a schedule conflict. Could we do next sometime?
(Photo: partiallyblind at Flickr)

Commentary
Forer famously gave a group of students a personality test. Then he provided them with an individual "analysis" which the students were supposed to rank from 0 to 5 (poor to excellent). The analysis read thusly (Thanks Wikipedia!):

You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is one of your major goals in life.

The average score was 4.26. It was then that Forer revealed that they all got the same text.

See Also

• Forer Effect at Wikipedia. Specifically, see Variables influencing the effect for additional criteria.
• Derren Brown - Cold Reading at YouTube for a video of Derren Brown acting strangely, but demonstrating the basics of the Forer Effect.

Prisoner's Dilemma

Definition
In game theory, the prisoner's dilemma refers to a situation in which two parties can:

1. cooperate (each gains a moderate amount),
2. defect (each looses a moderate amount), or
3. one defects (gains a large amount), the other cooperates (looses a large amount).

Cat got your tongue? If you cooperate, we can get you off on a smaller charge.
(Photo: phphoto2010 at Flickr)

Summary
I recently had an interesting experience in which I had to play 9 rounds of an iterated prisoner's dilemma as part of a large group. The process by which my group decided to behave was both enlightening and disturbing.

Background
During the summer I took a course on negotiating. On the last day of class, the professor announced we would be doing a large-scale group negotiation. He split the class into two large groups of 12 people each and provided everyone with the following information:

Each group represents a store in a town where commerce is forbidden on Sunday. For various reasons, the two stores are now considering being open on Sundays with the following ramifications:

• If both stores are closed, each makes $20,000 during the week.
• If both stores are open, the town will fine each store $20,000 for that week.
• If only one store is open, that store will make $40,000 during the week and will actually take business away from the other store for a week, so the the closed store looses $40,000 for that week.

For those of you playing along at home, here is the payoff matrix:

(You, Them)	They're Closed	They're Open
You're Open	(+$40k, -$40k)	(-$20k, -$20k)
You're Closed	(+$20k, +$20k)	(-$40k, +$40k)

The two group convene in separate classrooms where for each of the next 12 "weeks" a new representative must exit the room with a sign that says "Open" or "Closed." The two representatives have the option of negotiating for up to one minute except after weeks 4 and 8 when they must negotiate. This is because on weeks 4, 8, and 12, the profits and losses double, triple, and quadruple, respectively.

Game Play
As the twelve members of my group finished reading the assignment I pointed out that this was, indeed, the classic prisoner's dilemma game in which we can maximize our gains by cooperating, although there are short-term gains in defecting.

A fellow classmate (let's call him Bob) responded saying he did not care; he just wanted to win. I pointed out that there are a few ways of defining win in this particular circumstance. Did he mean that we should try to make as much money as we could? No. He wanted to make sure we made more money than the other team. Okay, I said, but let's focus on the short-term goal here on figuring out whether or not we should be open for week 1.

Eventually, we came to a consensus that we should be open week 1 as a precaution. As the first representative to go out, I displayed our "Open" sign to the amazement of the other team representative. I made a deal, offering to be closed for the remaining 11 weeks (as my team had proposed), and the other representative agreed-- provided that they were allowed to open the following week while we remained closed. Deal.

When I returned, the discussion picked up on a theme that might be described as "When Should We Screw Them?" Several people agreed that "we have to screw them sometime," but I was at a loss to explain my position that we should not screw them. In the meantime, we were being pressed to send out representatives for the following weeks, and we continued to abide by the agreement laid out in the first week.

Both teams remained closed for weeks 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Our group became more passionate. We tried to define what our interests were. While we could not agree what the expression "maximize your profits" (as written in the instructions) meant, we did agree on the following two principles:

1. We want to have a positive balance at the end of the game.
   
2. We want to make more money than the other team.

At this point, I raised the issue that I had a very specific interest in remaining honest. To illustrate my point, I suggested that on week 11 we tell the other team to be open week 12. I had forgotten that the losses would quadruple, for my intent was to prevent anyone from cheating on week 12 (when there would be a strong desire to cheat). This idea did not go over well ("You're willing to loose money to be honest!?"). I tried to backtrack. Okay, but now-- it's only week 8-- why should we screw them now? Let's continue to abide by our agreement. They've been abiding by the agreement so far-- let's just keep going-- we're making money, people!

Honesty or Profits
Someone calculated that if we screwed them now (week 8), and subsequently stayed open the remaining weeks (since we assume that they would stay open as well), we would still be in the black at the end of week 12, while the other team would be in the red.

We had been summoned to send a representative out for week 8 (our team was consistently late in sending someone out as our deliberations slowed us down). At this point our debate reached a fever pitch. Bob of the "I want to win" camp asked for a vote; should we choose honesty or profits (his words).

So I asked each person: "Honesty or profits?"
Profits. Profits. Profits. Profits. Profits. Profits. Honesty. Profits. Honesty. Profits. Profits. My vote was well known at this point, so I didn't even bother announcing my position. Moments later, one of the votes for "honesty" changed her mind and agreed that week 8 was an opportune time to screw the other team.

I decided that since Bob was so in favor of screwing the team "at some point, and it might as well be now" he should be the representative to go and announce that we were open. As he was walking out the door, I said "This is a stupid move; you're firing nukes on Russia-- how do you think this is going to end?" My other classmates asked me "But what if they're open?"
"If they're open," I replied, "then I'm an idiot and I was wrong. But watch, they are going to abide by the agreement, and from now on, it will just be us nuking each other." (I choose the Cold War analogy because we had all watched Thirteen Days as part of a previous assignment.)

The other team was closed and they were upset. Since negotiations had to occur, Bob tried to present the situation as "nothing personal"; that our group was "chaotic" and that it was "impossible to say how things would proceed".

On Week 9, both teams came out "Open", although the other team's sign also depicted a middle finger. Both representatives made it clear that they would remain open the remaining weeks, so the professor aborted the game and we convened for a post-session discussion.

Post-mortem
During the discussion, it became clear that the other team had plans to screw us on Week 11 (on the assumption that we would screw them on Week 12). Unlike our team, they had chosen to make liberal use of the blackboard (we used the computer screen). Their board clearly showed their train of thought: "Ethics", "Honesty Is the Best Policy" were followed up by a large "SCREW THEM!" It was pointed out that despite being told "it's just business, nothing personal" every single person on their team took it very personally.

I raised the issue of how quickly people choose "profits" over "honesty", but my fellow teammates objected on the grounds that "they were operating within the game." My professor tried to make the point that "in real-life" people tend to weigh in the consequences more and that they might be less likely to defect.

Needless to say, I did not find this reassuring.

Final Score
Despite my feeling that we had "lost" as we broke our agreement (and, in retrospect, we lost $140k in potential profits), we did satisfy the two criteria pinpointed by the group: we were in the black, and we made more money than the other team. Here is the final score:

	Us	Them
Week 1	+$40k (Open)	-$40k (Closed)
Week 2	-$40k (Closed)	+$40k (Open)
Week 3	+$20k (Closed)	+$20k (Closed)
Week 4 (double)	+$40k (Closed)	+$40k (Closed)
Week 5	+$20k (Closed)	+$20k (Closed)
Week 6	+$20k (Closed)	+$20k (Closed)
Week 7	+$20k (Closed)	+$20k (Closed)
Week 8 (triple)	+$60k (Open)	-$60k (Closed)
Week 9 (game ends)	-$20k (Open)	-$20k (Open)
Week 10	-$20k (Open)	-$20k (Open)
Week 11	-$20k (Open)	-$20k (Open)
Week 12 (quadruple)	-$80k (Open)	-$80k (Open)
Totals	+$160k	-$160k

See Also

• Prisoner's Dilemma at Wikipedia.
• Pareto Efficiency for the game-theoretic concept of optimizing gains.

Effective Apologies

Summary
An apology is an expression of regret. Effective apologies involve the apologizer taking full responsibility and pledging to prevent repeat offences.

Sorry, Frankenapple. At least you're alive.
(Photo: 1happysnapper at Flickr)

Commentary
When we hear a child say "I'm sorry" when prompted, the insincerity is often palatable. Similar apologies by politicians and CEOs of recent have illicit similar reactions. What makes an apology effective?

Effective apologies should address:

1. which norm (personal, social) was violated,
2. acceptance of responsibility by the violator, and
3. how the violations will be prevented in the future.

If these ideas sound familiar, it may be because that's what we tell our children.

Meta
What apologies have you found to be the most effective?

See Also

• The Role of Apology in Negotiation for a discussion about apologies and their implications.
• Why Is It So Hard to Apologize Well? at The New York Times Magazine for a longer discussion.

Meanness & Executive Pay

This post is based on a submission by reader Phillip Vedol. Please submit suggestions for posts to metaist.blog@gmail.com.

Summary
According to a recently published paper increases in compensation lead to increases in meanness among corporate leaders.

You talkin' to me?
(Photo: patrick_q at Flickr)

Commentary
The study's posits that "higher income inequality between executives and ordinary workers" leads to a perception of power that ultimately results in maltreatment of "rank and file workers" (p. 1). This follows the research on the relationship between power and lying and reinforces the image of powerful managers who abuse their position (e.g., Emmett Milbarage in Chuck).

Meta
Have you experienced this sort of behavior? What about the opposite (magnanimous over-paid managers)?

See Also

• When Executives Rake in Millions: Meanness in Organizations for the original paper.
• Executive Compensation: The More Leaders Make, the Meaner They Get at the Harvard Business Review Research Blog for a longer discussion.

Babies & Morality

This post is based on a submission by reader Professor Daniel Bitran via Professor Martin Patt. Please submit suggestions for posts to metaist.blog@gmail.com.

Summary
Researchers at the Infant Cognition Center at Yale are conducting studies to try and assess the capabilities of infants to understand the world around them.

(Video: YouTube)

Commentary
While I'm hesitant to label this as "bunk", there appear to be at least two deficiencies in the research methods used (based on five minutes of film and not much else).

The first, pointed out to me by Professor Bitran, is that the caregivers always hold the children and may unconsciously influence the result (as in facilitated communication).

Second, the videos seem to show that the researchers who present the option know which one is the "good" one. The babies may be responding to the researcher rather than the choice (similar to Clever Hans). Nonetheless, the results of better controlled studies might show that a basic understanding of cooperation.

See Also

• Infant Cognition Center at Yale for their website.
• Can Babies Tell Right from Wrong? at The New York Times for the article related to the video.

Facilitated Communication

This post is based on a discussion with reader Professor Daniel Bitran. Please submit suggestions for posts to metaist.blog@gmail.com.

Definition
Facilitated communication (FC) is a process by which a facilitator supports the hand or arm of a communicatively impaired individual while using a keyboard or other devices with the aim of helping the individual to develop pointing skills and to communicate.
(Source: Wikipedia)

(Video: YouTube)

Commentary
Facilitated communication may be related to the Ideomotor Effect or the Clever Hans Effect. This would go a long way to explaining the facilitator's denial of interference as well as the subject's inability to answer questions to which the facilitator does not know the answer (among other anomalies in this form of communication).

See Also

• Prisoners of Silence at Google Video for an hour-long Frontline documentary highlighting issues with facilitated communication.
• Facilitated communication and Rom Houben at Digital Bits Skeptic for a more recent story.
• Facilitated communication at Wikipedia.

Ideomotor Effect

Summary
The ideomotor effect is a phenomenon in which people make unconscious movements.

Most Ouija boards don't move by themselves.
(Photo: scriptingnews at Flickr)

Commentary
The ideomotor effect is the result of unconscious processing of external stimuli. While much of the brain's functioning is unconscious, these reactions manifest themselves physically (typically in movement).

This is how Ouija boards work. Participants touch a planchette and their brain, expecting a response (from the dead, aliens, or Parker Brothers), forces small (unconscious!) movements until the piece moves.

More on this later.

See Also

• Ideomotor at Wikipedia for more information.
• The ideomotor effect at Digital Bits Skeptic for a longer discussion.
  

Take The Metaist 2010 Survey! [Closed]

Note: This post contains an embedded survey which may not appear in your RSS reader. Click here to view the full post.

Request(Updated 2010-06-11)
In the past The Metaist had Feedback Friday as a routine way to get feedback from you (dear reader). Over time (7 months), this became less of way to solicit for ideas and more of a way to fill space without providing content, so it was abandoned.

Nonetheless, getting feedback from the readership is important and following a suggestion by reader Jeff Klein, I'm providing a small (4 question) survey to assess our status. It should take less than 3 minutes to complete and will be open until June 4th, 2010.

Please take this anonymous survey at your earliest convenience.

Thanks,
The Metaist

Update 2010-06-11:
The survey is now closed. Thank you for your participation.

Reader Story: Circular Learning Management System

This post is based on a submission by reader Jeff Klein. Please submit suggestions for posts to metaist.blog@gmail.com.

Summary
A learning management system is a system for organizing electronic delivery of courses. Some are so complicated you need a special course to learn how to use them.

It's about 750 pages of dense single-spaced 12pt text. Reading is so easy!
(Image: Created using txt2pic)

Story
Imagine you are told you have to use a new internal learning management system to complete your workplace training. Sounds simple enough. Yet, what if the system was so complicated and hard to use that you needed to take a course to learn how to use the system? Moreover, what happens when the course that teaches you how to use the system is managed by the very same system? A logical implosion.

Meta
Circular reasoning works because circular reasoning works. What experiences have you had with trying to explain the issues with circular reasoning?

Story text written by The Metaist with permission and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Reader Question: How is yogurt made?

This post is a response to a reader question. Please submit suggestions for posts to metaist.blog@gmail.com. Not all questions will be answered.

Question
An anonymous six-year-old child of a reader asks: How is yogurt made?

If you look carefully, you can see an ear, nose, and beard in the Rorschach ink blot.
(Photo: Wikimedia)

Summary (for an average six-year-old)
(Based on: Peanut Butter and Jelly)
First you take the milk and you heat it. (You heat it.)
Then you take the milk and you cool it. (You cool it.)
Then you take the bacteria and you add it. (You add it.)
Then it gets fermented. (Fermented.)
For your yogurt... white yogurt... and berries.

Explanation (for a smarter six-year-old)
Yogurt is based on the Turkish words for knead and thick although in some regions (e.g., Bulgaria) it is more like sour milk (which ambiguously refers to both milk that has soured and buttermilk).

The bacteria used in the fermentation process are Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus salivarius subsp. thermophilus which convert the lactose into lactic acid (which is what builds up on your muscles when you exercise, but doesn't degrade performance as previously thought).

Aside from the that the first summary captures the essence of the process.

See Also

• Yogurt at Wikipedia for more information.
• On Yogurt and Jiu-Jitsu at Hulu for a discussion of the relationship between yogurt and spying.

Cold War Continues in North Korea

Note: This post contains embedded video which may not appear in your RSS reader. Click here to view the full post.

Summary
North Korea is an interesting country that is largely (socially) isolated from the rest of the world. VBS Co-Founder Shane Smith managed to get into the country during their increased allowance for tourists to watch the Mass Games (the latest one was called "Arirang").

The videos are long, but fascinating.
Enjoy.

Part 1

(Video: VBS)

Part 2

(Video: VBS)

Part 3

(Video: VBS)

Reader Review: The Checklist Manifesto

This review was submitted by reader Josh Vogel. Please submit book reviews to metaist.blog@gmail.com.

(Image: Amazon)

Review
The Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande, is a manager's guide to making the professionals under his charge play at the top of their game. Throughout the book, Gawande stresses that checklists have a place in every business sector, from aviation, to finance, and, his main emphasis, in the operating room of a hospital. He goes to great lengths to show the successes checklist implementation has accomplished in often short periods of time.

Perhaps the most appealing part of this book is the points Gawande makes about how a checklist is for everyone at every stage of their career. The need for checklists, Gawande says, is especially true for those who have excelled in their positions and feel that they are infallible and do not need to rely on such checks during their normal work routines. The book further stress the point that checklists are an inexpensive tool to implement that can result in large rewards both physical and financial. Gawande also does an excellent job of detailing how to correctly implement a checklist in a corporate/hospital setting, promoting top-down support of the project and placing the responsibility for its use in the hands of those least involved, (i.e. nurses, etc).

Towards the end of the book, Gawande does become a little redundant in his message. While he does cover it somewhat, more time could have been spent reviewing the need for checklists in today's world, bringing more evidence for failures that occur as a direct result of not having a checklist in place. Nevertheless, Gawandes writing style is easy to read and eloquent, wasting no words and making his points clear. Gawande is on to something and using his ideas can produce dramatic results with little cost involved.

Josh Vogel is a Candidate for the Master of Public Health at Boston University School of Public Health.

Review text licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Additional editing by The Metaist.

Google Chrome is Fast

Summary
Google has a nice video demonstrating the speed of the Google Chrome web browser.

Enjoy.

(Video: YouTube)

And here's how they made that commercial...

(Video: YouTube)

Origin: Drink From a Fire Hose

Summary
In 1991, a group of MIT students attached a fire hose to a water fountain thus fulfilling former MIT President Jerome Wiesner's notion that getting an education from MIT was comparable to getting a drink from a fire hose.

"Getting an education from MIT is like trying to get a drink from a firehose [sic]."
(Photo: MIT Hacks)

See Also

• Fire Hose Drinking Fountain at MIT's Interesting Hacks To Fascinate People Gallery for more details.
• Firehose at YouTube for a famous scene in the 1989 film UHF during which Michael Richards provides a drink from a fire hose as a prize on a television show.
• Fire hose at Wikipedia for a description of the history and types of fire hoses.

Synthetic Happiness

Note: This post contains embedded video which may not appear in your RSS reader. Click here to view the full post.

Correction (2010-07-04): The idea for this post was incorrectly attributed;it was actually from a post "Reader Survey: Which Personal-Finance Books Should I Review?" at GetRichSlowly. The Metaist apologizes for the error.

Summary
Dan Gilbert has an interesting discussion about ways in which our "experience simulator" (aka prefrontal cortex) makes mistakes-- particularly in judging our future happiness.

(Video: TED)

Commentary
Gilbert highlights the notion of Impact Bias: "tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of future feeling states." Example: both lottery winners and paraplegics feel about the same level of happiness after a year.

Why? Here are some reasons & insights:

• There is a sort of psychological immune system that allows us to synthesize happiness.
  
  
• Despite our feeling that "natural happiness" (when we get what we want) is somehow superior to "synthetic happiness" (when we don't get what we want) they are both about the same in quality.
  
  
• Synthetic happiness actually changes your intrinsic preferences and outlook.
  
  
• Irreversible conditions promote synthetic happiness. However, people think they would prefer reversible decisions.

Meta
Ever catch yourself synthesizing happiness?

Seedless Fruit

This post is based on a comment by reader Matthew Garland. Suggestions for posts can also be sent to metaist.blog@gmail.com.

Fun Fact
The term "seedless fruit" is a botanical contradiction in terms because "fruit" are typically defined as having seeds.

(Photo: calliope1 at Flickr)

Commentary
According to Wikipedia, seedless fruit are the result of either:

1. fruit that develops unfertilized (parthenocarpy), or
2. aborted ovules or embryos that didn't produce mature seeds (stenospermocarpy).

The former gives us seedless cucumbers, the latter gives us seedless grapes and watermelon.

Meta
Does anyone know if Fruitarians are for or against the reproductive rights of fruit?

Feedback Friday: March 2010

Summary
The Metaist is having a hard time getting out of this slump. If you guys have any suggestions, now would be a good time to let me know so I can cook up some more posts. Otherwise, I think I'll just end up writing about a whole bunch of cognitive biases (which might be okay).

Looks like parts of California could use some moisturizer.
(Photo: arbyreed at Flickr)

Feedback
As always, your submissions & feedback are appreciated.

Review: Mint.com

Summary
Mint.com is a website for managing your bank accounts, loans, and retirement funds. For the deeply paranoid, it's a conspiracy to gather all of your banking information that is already available online in another place online.

It starts when you notice their cool green color and refreshing taste.
(Photo: stankuns at Flickr)

Review
Mint.com is relatively new (since 2006), yet amazingly popular.

As I see it the main benefits of Mint.com are:

• Transactions - All your transactions across all your accounts (almost; some banks aren't supported). This includes things like your checking, savings, CDs, credit cards, loans, and retirement accounts. It's nice to be able to see them all together and categorize them appropriately.
• Graphs - Being able to easily make visual representations of your spending or the trends of your retirement account is nice.
• Notifications - Mint can notify you about certain important financial moments. For example, they can notify you
  • if your spending seems anomalous (this takes a few months to adjust),
  • when a large purchase clears, or
  • when you are near your credit limit.

Some downsides:

• Small Banks - Even though many institutions are supported, some smaller (e.g., local banks) are not, and there's no way to manually import your data. (Although, they say it's coming "mid-march.")
• Privacy - Mint has a strong privacy policy and many implicitly trust its security model. Nonetheless, it's a little strange to trust one entity with all of your transaction history (*Cough* Google).

On balance, Mint helps people who are interested in their spending habits get a larger picture of their income & expenses.

See Also

• MintLife Blog for personal finance articles that occasionally feature high quality infographics.
• Mint.com at Wikipedia for some other information.
• Want Everyone To See Your Credit Card Transactions? at TechCrunch for a discussion about Blippy-- a twitter-like site that tells everyone what you're buying.

Disease Screening & Base Rate Fallacy

Definition
The base rate fallacy refers to the neglect of prior probability of the evidence that supports the conditional probability of a hypothesis.
(Based on Wikipedia)

(Photo: mayaevening at Flickr)

Commentary
A recent example is the controversy about breast cancer screenings.

Imagine that about 1% of women (1 in 100) have breast cancer. You have a diagnostic test that correctly detects cancer 85% of the time (i.e. if the test is given to 100 women with cancer, it catches 85, but misses 15 of them).

Also, the test sometimes incorrectly detects cancer (when none is present) about 10% of the time (i.e. if the test is given to 100 women without cancer, it accidentally tells 10 of them they have cancer, but correctly tells the other 90 they don't have cancer).

Now the tricky bit: Imagine we give the test to 1,000 women in the population. If the test says a women has cancer, what is the probability she actually has cancer?

This question is hard for many people (including doctors!) because it's hard to make the trade-offs in our head about whether or not the test is accurate for this particular woman. Here's how you would do the calculation correctly:

1. Based on the rate of cancer in the population (1%), how many of the 1,000 women tested do we expect to have cancer?
   Answer: About 10.
   
   
2. Of those 10 who have cancer, about 9 will be told they have cancer, and 1 will missed. (Recall, the test only catches 85% of cancers.)
   
   
3. Now of the remaining 990 women who don't have cancer, about 99 of them will be told they have cancer (10% false-alarm) while the rest (891) will be correctly told they don't have cancer.
   
   
4. So how many women are told they have cancer?
   Answer: 9 + 99 = 108.
   
   
5. How many of those women actually have cancer?
   Answer: Just the 9.
   
   
6. So if you're told you have cancer, what's the chance you actually have cancer?
   Answer: 9 / 108 = 8.3%

Pretty strange, right? What about the people who are told they don't have cancer? What's the probability you actually do have cancer?

1. How many women are told they don't have cancer?
   Answer: 1 + 891 = 892.
   
   
2. How many of those actually have cancer?
   Answer: Just the 1.
   
   
3. So if you're told you don't have cancer, what's the chance that you actually do have cancer?
   Answer: 1 / 892 = 0.1%

That means that it's pretty unlikely for you to have cancer if the test says you don't.

The reason this occurs is because the number of women who have breast cancer to begin with is not that high (10 of 1,000). Therefore, the mistakes the test makes start to matter when applied to the entire population.

Naturally, this has policy implications: if you test more and more people, a large percentage of people will be told they have cancer when they don't-- leading to more invasive testing that has other real side-effects. The trick is either to try to test a high-risk subpopulation (where the prevalence rate is higher) or to improve the test by reducing its false-positive rate.

See Also

• Screening for disease and dishonesty at Understanding Uncertainty for an excellent interactive representation of base rates.
• Screening for Breast Cancer at the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force for a summary of its recommendations.
• The base rate fallacy reconsidered for a counter-argument about base rate neglect.

Review: The Autonomy of Mathematical Knowledge

(Image: Amazon)
Review
Curtis Franks' (full disclosure: he's is a friend of mine) PhD-turned-book Autonomy of Mathematics: Hilbert's Program Revisited is an exciting new look at an overlooked aspect of early twentieth century mathematics. Franks' writing is crisp and engaging, as he paints the picture of a man and his philosophy that so many have spurned.

The face of a brilliant mathematician or of a sun-hat enthusiast.
(Photo: Wikimedia)

Commentary
In the 1920's, Hilbert launched a program that was ostensibly aimed at solving the foundational crisis of mathematics-- the issues of paradoxes (e.g., Russell's paradox). The traditional understanding is that Hilbert's program failed because Gödel's incompleteness theorems threw a monkey wrench into any sufficiently sophisticated system that tried to prove itself.

Franks' thesis is that this is a narrow understanding of Hilbert's goals. While Gödel's results did complicate certain endeavors, Franks' suggests that Hilbert was really trying to take back mathematics. That is, certain other endeavors were trying to resolve the foundational crisis by rooting mathematics in some other discipline (e.g., philosophy). Hilbert's goal was to keep mathematics strictly within the realm of mathematics-- a unique feature of the discipline.

The Autonomy of Mathematical Knowledge is admittedly not for everyone (perhaps not even for me)-- about 20% of the book involves theorems I faithfully assume describe what the surrounding text tells me they do. Yet, about 80% of the book is eminently accessible-- the historical context, the epistemic issues, and the attempt to reconstruct a neglected approach combine for a great read.

See Also

• Russell's paradox for our discussion of that issue.
• Computational Theory for Lawyers for our discussion of the issues of intensionality (discussed in the book; not to be confused with intentionality).

The Arnell Group & PepsiCo

Summary
The Arnell Group is a design company famous for its work with DKNY and Banana Republic (among many others). In the last several years, several of its high-profile projects with PepsiCo have met with derision and consumer outrage.

Blank paper does not count towards the page count of a report.
(Photo: jacqueline-w at Flickr)

Commentary
In 2008, an Arnell Group design document called "Breathtaking" was leaked to the public. The 27-page document was the point of much ridicule as its contents attempt to explain how the proposed Pepsi logo was the ultimate realization of thousands of years of good design. Gems include:

• conformance with the golden ratio (frequently used in the world of design) [p. 18] and detailed instructions on how to construct the logo using the golden ratio spiral [p. 19]
• comparison of the logo to the Earth's geodynamo and magnetic fields [p. 21]
• a 5000+ year timeline of all the "authentic Constitution of Design" (culminating with the Pepsi "Breathtaking" logo) [p. 6]

Apparently, the new logo fulfills the destiny of good design in addition to making Pepsi's logo look similar to other modern logos.

In 2009, the Arnell Group orchestrated the Tropicana orange juice package redesign. (Tropicana is owned by PepsiCo). The design met with amazing backlash from consumers (supposedly, there was a 20% drop in sales) and the existing iconic straw-in-orange design was reinstated.

Meta
What was your reaction when Pepsi changed its logo? What about Tropicana? Other companies?

See Also

• Breathtaking Design Strategy for the original 27-page design document.
• Pepsi's Nonsensical Logo Redesign Document: $1 Million for This? at BNET for a longer discussion about the Pepsi logo redesign.
• Tropicana's Marketing Folly at Harvard Business Review for a discussion of how focus groups fail to provide and understanding of advertising in context.

Reader Question: What does the furious brushing in curling accomplish?

This post is a response to a reader question. Please email your questions to metaist.blog@gmail.com. Not all questions will be answered.

Question
An anonymous reader asks: What does the furious brushing in curling accomplish?

From the little I've read, curling is a combination of darts and marbles. Sort of.
(Photo: andreassolberg on Flickr)

Summary
Curling is a 400+ year-old sport about which I know very little. Wikipedia saves the day again.

Explanation
Curling is played on level ice. However, droplets of water called pebbles are added which cause the stone (pictured above) to curl when it travels across the ice. According to Wikipedia, sweeping accomplishes two goals: to increase the distance the stone travels, and to change the amount of curl. The strategy of sweeping seems to involve figuring out when to sweep and how hard to sweep (apparently that has an effect on the amount of moisture created).

Overall, the point of sweeping seems to be to influence the curl of the stone by wearing down the pebbles.

Meta
Do you know more about curling than I do? If so, please post a comment so that I can update this post appropriately.

See Also

• Olympic Science: The Science of Curling at Fox News for a discussion of curling.
• Does sweeping in curling achieve anything? at Metafilter for a bunch of people talking about sweeping in curling.
• The Physics of Curling at the University of Toronto for an interactive description of how curling works.
• Curling at Wikipedia.

Shoes & Gait

Summary
A study in the journal The Foot showed that wearing shoes isn't that good for your feet.

(Video: YouTube)

Meta
Suppose you were shown the overwhelming evidence of the harm of shoes on gait-- how would you respond?

See Also

• Shod versus unshod: The emergence of forefoot pathology in modern humans? for the abstract or the author's personal version.
• Why Shoes Make "Normal" Gait Impossible in Podiatry Management for an older study.
• You Walk Wrong at New York Magazine for an article on the subject.
• Feet Hurt? Stop Wearing Shoes at NPR for another article.