Sunday roundup

Rest in peace, Elie Wiesel.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's latest foray into scientism backfired.

It's no accident that tech support sucks. 

Juicing is pointless and incredibly wasteful.

LA's museum of broken relationships. 

For all my mother's parental shortcomings, she never did anything like this. Twitter responded with #ifmyvaginawereasandwich.

That was world's worst mom; here's world's worst boss.

Dr. Nerdlove on pursuing without being a creep.

Exercise is so much about learning "how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable."

Sunday morning roundup

Village elders in Haryana State terrorize young women who deviate from medieval social codes.

Europe struggles with the Roma question.

Making better decisions starts with acknowledging feelings:

Anxiety, stress and fear — emotions that are part and parcel of serious illness — can distort our choices. Stress makes us prone to tunnel vision, less likely to take in the information we need. Anxiety makes us more risk-averse than we would be regularly and more deferential.

We need to know how we are feeling. Mindfully acknowledging our feelings serves as an “emotional thermostat” that recalibrates our decision making. It’s not that we can’t be anxious, it’s that we need to acknowledge to ourselves that we are.

Another key point in that article: experts make mistakes all the time. Don't be afraid to question them.

This first-semester grad student successfully challenged established research on happiness. The article touches on some of the "scientism" themes I've written about in the past:

Psychology has long been vexed by the question of the quantitative vs. the qualitative, resulting in a kind of shame known as “physics envy,” whereby researchers in so-called “softer” social sciences feel inadequate when compared to “harder” physical sciences. Friedman says he tries to take a balanced view on the subject. Seligman, on the other hand, he says, “claims that quantitative work is more rigorous than qualitative, and that’s something I dispute. Each can be rigorous in their own way, and each can be misused.”

The STEM issue comes up again, albeit tangentially, in the extremely offensive and absurd post discussed here. It could well be click bait, but I think this guy believes what he's saying, and most of the comments support him. The post (unsurprisingly) considers women solely in terms of what's attractive to men, rather than in their own right. And makes the case that that's how it has to be. The STEM issue comes up as part of that:

If anything, having a college degree is a strike against a girl—unless it’s in something real like a STEM discipline—as it shows that she’s a conformist who thinks that credentials are a substitute for knowledge and experience.

He continues:

The same goes for having a job. The vast majority of girls work useless fluff jobs: government bureaucrats, human resources and various other makework positions that exist to give them the illusion of independence. The jobs that keep the country running—tradesmen, miners, farmers, policemen, the military—are still overwhelmingly dominated by men. If every girl was fired from her job tomorrow, elementary schools would have to shut down for a couple days, but otherwise life would go on as usual.

Now you see why I'm not even going to bother, but I do want to point out just one more, key thing, this time in response to the "most girls have done nothing to deserve self-esteem" statement.

In the world of men, respect—and by extension self-esteem—is based on actually achieving something of worth or having some kind of skill or talent. Are you a bodybuilder or jacked?

He goes on:

Women claim they want equal rights as men, but they don’t want equal responsibilities. As such, they demand respect not based on their merit as people, but for merely continuing to breathe.

And that, precisely, goes against the definition of self-esteem: self-esteem for men and women alike is not a function of achievements. Like basic respect, it's something you do get just for breathing. See my earlier discussion here or jump directly to the Scientific American article here, even though I'll save you the trouble and re-excerpt the key part here:

The hunt for self-esteem through a focus on achievement makes us emotionally vulnerable to life's inevitable travails and disappointments. It also causes us to engage in behaviors that can actually harm our chances of success, our competence and our personal relationships. A far better way to bolster your sense of self-worth is, ironically, to think about yourself less. Compassion toward others and yourself, along with a less self-centered perspective on your situation, can motivate you to achieve your goals while helping you weather bad news, learn from your mistakes and fortify your friendships.

Selfies are as old as photography, and they're more about social connection than vanity.

Speaking of photography, check out some science photos. The snacking black hole is particularly striking.

Monday roundup and roundup and response to comments

Ecuador's nasty oil spill will hit Brazil.

These women at the forefront of Turkey's protests bring up an interesting question: why are women so angry? Why can't we just smile and look pretty? That "Everyday Sexism" project is giving women the deranged idea that they don't have to put up with what they'd accepted as the status quo level of bull$hit that comes with being female in this world.

This retrospective on European history as it pertains to the EU is interesting but I'm not convinced of its conclusions.

Sigh. Why must a common-sense issue like prison reform be made partisan?

Know your farm programs and pork producers. And stay the f* away from Krispy Kreme Sloppy Joes. The good news is, you'll have healthier options at national parks.

@vegan was on a roll today:

RT @bongoshoes if you had a list of 5 [vegan] essentials what would they be? >> fruit, veggies, grains, beans, CHOCOLATE ;)
— Vegan (@vegan) June 9, 2013

A big shout out to every 3rd rate writer who spent more energy trashing their vegan experience than figuring out how to make it work.
— Vegan (@vegan) June 10, 2013

All I can say to you if you're confused about sunscreen is that you're kind of f*ed either way. And for f*'s sake, you're an idiot if you buy designer water.

So much wisdom about life in general in Carolyn's advice to an expecting mom.

Why haven't we borrowed more from Chinese?

I love gargoyles and shapely asses, but there's something to be said for taste.

This time last year (well, tomorrow by date but it was a Monday night) I was on my way to Budapest. I'm glad that was last year and not this year.

Metro SUCKS.

Mark O'Connell beautifully articulates what I've been trying to say. First of all, really, people?

When Richard Dawkins was named the world’s “Top Thinker” in a poll recently published by Prospect magazine, it was hard to avoid the suspicion that the world—or at least that part of it that votes in such polls—must have an impoverished sense of what constitutes a vital or transformative intellectual figure. Any list of “thinkers” that doesn’t feature one woman in its top 10 (Arundhati Roy opened the scoring for the gals at No. 15) probably shouldn’t be taken completely seriously anyway, but the fact that it was the result of public voting does offer an insight into the kinds of ideas contemporary Anglo-American culture values most highly.

More to the point,

White is a nonbeliever, but like a lot of nonbelievers—me included—he’s frustrated with the so-called New Atheism’s refusal to engage with anything but the narrowest and most reductive understanding of religious experience, and its insistence on the scientific method as the only legitimate approach to truth.

and

You don’t have to devalue empiricism to believe that there are kinds of understanding that can’t be accessed in a controlled, peer-reviewed experiment. The problem, obviously, isn’t science; it’s the arrogance with which many scientists, and popularizers of science, dismiss the value of other ways of thinking about questions of meaning, about the world and our place in it.

and, so beautifully stated:

Scientism is essentially the belief, the faith, that all problems and questions are potentially soluble by empirical investigation (and that if they’re not, they’re somehow not real questions, not real problems). But there are large areas of human experience for which science has no convincing or compelling means of accounting. I am, I suppose, more or less an atheist, but when I read the Book of Genesis, I find that there is something profoundly true about the picture of human nature in those verses—a picture of our perversity and self-alienation that neuroscience, for instance, has no way of getting at or talking about. Schopenhauer, Freud, and Heidegger all give us comparable forms of truth—truths that aren’t verifiable or measurable in the same way as those of science, but that are no less valuable. The most important truths are often untranslatable into the language of fact.

I really feel that this is what turned me off of science (and onto literature) as early as college.

***
I didn't like "Black Swan." I see so much theater that close-ups strike me as overreach: who does the director think he/she is to tell me where to focus my attention? I did like that you couldn't tell what was real and what she was hallucinating; that was the best part, or the only thing that made the movie worthwhile: how those who want to destroy us can only do it if we let them in.


***
I think I will keep the speakers (in case they come in handy) and toss the CD. I really don't care about those photos anymore. It's funny--that was a relationship that dragged on three times as long as I was actually happy in it, and the bf's photographic skill and artistry was a factor in my convincing myself to stay in, even when it should have been clear that it was a dead-end. That (doomed) relationship influenced my dating behavior for years to come: it was a lesson in de-emphasizing shared interests (the man loved to hike, bike, and travel--what else could one want? A soul, for starters). In a way, the relationship that ended a year ago was a reversal of the overcorrection brought on by the former relationship: yes, it's okay to want to date someone who likes hiking and traveling. It does matter. It's not the only thing that matters, but it matters. I'm not compatible with someone who doesn't like that stuff, and he's not compatible with me. It hit me not too long ago how wrong I was to think I was the one doing the bulk of the "settling"--not in a binary way, but in consenting to a life without adventure--but it's so clear now that the same reasons that the (more recent) ex didn't care for camping were the same reasons he'd never be quite comfortable with me in general. He was obsessed with order; I valued the natural disorder that you let in because it's worth it. I'm not comfortable with sterility--with hospital-white walls, plastic decor, etc.; I prefer the warmth of outdoorsy things, even when they come with some mess.


All of this made me think about how everyone I've seriously dated has taught me how I am who I am by choice. I tend to go into the relationship thinking, "this person has figured out something I haven't," and I always leave thinking, "no, I've got that right." A few years ago I dated this hipster social worker--at the time, I was wondering whether I'd sold-out, career-wise, and I really admired that he hadn't--but after a few weeks, I saw how simplistic and pathetic he was. [Note: that conclusion is not to be extrapolated to all hipster social workers; I stayed with a lovely one in Prague last year (he was gay).] But this one was just a prick with a worldview unchallenged by interactions with anyone different.


None of these dudes was a waste of my time, even though they were all spectacularly wrong for me. I learned a lot from all of them; each of them--or at least my reaction and eventual rejection of each of them--is a part of who I am, for the better--and not just in ways that inform whom I would want to date. Although, arguably, anything that makes you who you are, informs who you want to date. But they've also taught me a lot about dating--particularly, to heed Maya Angelou's advice about believing you when someone shows you who they are. About not making excuses for them, or idealizing them. And about hanging back and letting the guy do the work early on in the relationship, because that really weeds out those who are either not into you or not into any work. So, that's what I've learned. As my boss would say, "onward."

Thursday roundup

Lawmakers agree that the prevalence of sexual assault is not okay.

 

What Snowden might have asked Putin.

 

This former mayor didn't even think his comments were anti-semitic.

This is pretty pathetic social science, but you still shouldn't idealize your partner.

Either babies are more scheming than you think, or evolutionary biology is a load of crap.

I finally got to watching "Cosmos," starting with the last episode (on lead), which is fascinating and infuriating. Never doubt industry's willingness to poison you while convincing you that their products are just fine. That's why it's important to understand the mistrust out there. But that mistrust shouldn't translate into anti-scientism. On that note, Bruni calls out Jenny McCarthy for chutzpah.

It is true that there's much misinformation flying around about every way of eating. The bottom line is, nutrition is complicated and no diet is a panacea. Veganism is one healthy option; there are compelling environmental and animal-welfare reasons for it; and it's doable. Even this woman who felt the need to say even vegetarians should have no trouble getting enough protein, acknowledges that "even" vegetarians should have no trouble getting enough protein.

I did not know that oranges were not original.

Speaking of NDGT, this piece (in its rush to defend Larry Summers) misrepresents his comments, in which his point is, start with all of those societal factors before you start attributing things to "innate" factors. I'd add that if you're going to talk about innate differences, look at other countries where the ratios for women in science are different.

Lots of take-downs of the Confidence Gap book. Rosa Brooks considers the consequences of overconfidence. Jessica Valenti points out that the world isn't quite safe for women to claim the confidence that reflects our real worth.

Until more men grow the f* up, it's advantageous for many women to parent solo.

 

Housing is expensive and minimum wage doesn't cover it.

I've been thinking about this a lot: there's so much to appreciate about my job, and there's quite a bit about it that also sucks. These are not mutually exclusive phenomena.

Things that are actually mutually exclusive: love and control.

   

I totally have a different personality in every language.

This creepy spoon reminds me of the bone church in Kutna Hora.

Naming your company? For maximum marketing value, go for the gutter.

Sunday morning roundup

India's woman problem.

John Grisham shares a Gitmo story.

Two pipeline spill stories.

Bots are expanding their grip on social media.

Tipping is a flawed system.

Is Sean Carroll an exception?

...most experts in any one academic field don’t know very much about many other fields. This ignorance manifests itself in a couple of ways. First, a lot of scientists are quite comfortable with simplistic philosophy of science. This usually doesn’t matter, but there are cases where good philosophy has something to offer, and scientists rarely put in the work necessary to understand what that good philosophy has to say. Second, scientists tend to think of philosophy as a service discipline – what good does it do for my practice of science? The answer is almost always “no good at all,” which they then translate into thinking that philosophy has no real purpose. The truth is that almost all scientific work can proceed quite happily without philosophy – you can be very good at driving a car without knowing how an engine works. But when it’s important, philosophy very important indeed...

My own default position is that respectable people in other academic fields probably have something interesting to say, even if I don’t immediately understand it. Not always true, of course – there are pockets of nonsense within every discipline. But the less I understand about the basics of some field, the less likely I am to start declaring it to be useless and antiquated.

 On scientism (though he doesn't use the word):

...I think it’s useful to think about the whole spectrum of pseudo-scientific ideas (creationism, climate denialism, the anti-vaccination movement) that stem from ultimately non-epistemic concerns, whether they be religion or politics or personal empowerment. No doubt, the experience of fighting against these ideas has inculcated a bad habit in some scientists and philosophers: to ask of a new idea not simply “Is this true?”, but also “How might this be used against us in the court of public opinion?” But when we get down to brass tacks, most scientists and philosophers care about what is true more than they care about anything else.

Halloween morning roundup

Good morning, all! I'm going to keep this short--will leave for work as soon as it's light enough to bike--but I wanted to throw more things out there to discuss later.

Can a trade agreement create the conditions for a more sustainable food system?

The road to peak garbage.

Do watch Jon Stewart's takedown of CNN (I'm opting to link to a story about it rather than embed the videos, at this point).

Alexandra Petri's issue here--how funny that someone who's complaining about the misuse of words is... misusing words--is not these words, per se, but their misuse. With the exception of "mansplaining," which she handled with wit: the word is bad, but the thing is worse.

I agree with the Hax rule but I would say that the argument can certainly be made for excluding certain types of people from one's life, or at least limiting their influence, and active addicts are the poster case for that.

Whatever; the seeds of cooking pumpkins are better, but those of carving pumpkins are still fine. Don't trust anyone who ruins pepitas by adding butter.

Alright, let's move on to that which I don't have time to discuss right now: the humanities. This is not the first time I've posted about it, or its conceptual counterpart--scientism--but I somehow missed the series of columns in the New Republic. It is with mixed feelings that I tell you that Steven Pinker's is the best written (Leon Wieseltier does himself no favors with his rambling, nor with his needless defensiveness).

I have yet to read Christina Paxson's (Brown's President), and, well, you know how I feel about Adam Gopnik, though he makes a few good points. Excerpts from each (or maybe not quite) later; for now, I have to run. 

Later, if I still care enough, I will bitch to you (again) about the people who think it's a good idea to bring small children to the ballet.

Saturday morning roundup

Not that much has changed in Russia in the way of rule of law since Stalin's day.

China tries cap and trade.

Poaching is evil regardless of the other evils it may fund.

Another excellent point about the humanities: they make you good at life as well as good at your career.

If you only click on one link, make it Tom Philpott's review of "Denialism," the author of which is apparently guilty of some really egregious scientism. It's as bad as telling someone who disagrees with you that he/she hates god, to tell someone who disagrees with you (about GMOs, for example) that they're anti-science.

The short answer is because it's just a big mindf*. Could someone who has his or her head around that mindf* explain to me how that second article distinguishes particles of matter from particles of radiation, because I thought the same thing becomes radiation when it radiates. But what the f* do I know, in spite of how much I have to read about this $hit for work.

Human males lack a baculum.

Actually, if you only read one thing, read about this crazy way to conceive (which I don't recommend).

The more I read about Austen-Twittergate, the more appalling information I come across. Then again, there's the "Slapping Hillary" game. Classy.

Is The Best not the best role model?

Woman tries, fails to intimidate nursing mom.

I never got what the big deal was supposed to be about wearing the same outfit as someone else.

Look, these cheetah cubs have Bitchy Resting Face and Gracie's doppelganger is a kori bustard chick.

Self-esteem means that when your spouse tells you he cheated because "you're not pretty enough," you realize you're beautiful just the way you are and that the actual issue is that your spouse is a douche-bag. So I suppose self-esteem could be an ego trap but the real issue is how Scientific American is defining (or failing to define, until late in the article, "self-esteem." Superficially-focused, achievement-driven self-worth is not what I'd call self-esteem. Self-esteem is valuing yourself and respecting yourself no matter what. The article says,

If you are wondering, “Do I have worth?” “Do I have value?” the answer is not yes, no or maybe. The answer is simpler: change the subject.

Partly true. The answer is simpler: "of course I have value." And then change the subject. Of course we've all come across people like this:

People focused on boosting their own self-esteem tend to put their own needs before those of others. Because they are preoccupied with questions about their own value, their friends, family and acquaintances serve mainly as potential sources of validation or invalidation, making their interactions with others ultimately all about themselves.

But isn't the issue there that those people lack intrinsic self-esteem? But what I really have a hard time with is this:

High self-esteem seems to have at least one serious drawback: difficulty in seeing your own shortcomings. A great deal of research conducted for several decades shows that people with high self-esteem tend to have unrealistically positive views of themselves. They think they are more attractive, successful, likable, smart and moral than others do—and are unaware of their deficits or incompetence. When they get negative feedback, they tend to be defensive, blaming the test or the messenger, rather than owning up to a mistake or deficiency. In this way, high self-esteem can impede learning and growth and impair personal relationships.

The first person that comes to mind is RM, so yes, there are people like that. But this, again, is a different concept than the very basic idea of "I'm worthy of love and respect just because I'm here." Which can come with, "and oh, by the way, I want to be as good a human being as possible." This issue is not self esteem, but achievement-oriented self-worth:

The hunt for self-esteem through a focus on achievement makes us emotionally vulnerable to life's inevitable travails and disappointments. It also causes us to engage in behaviors that can actually harm our chances of success, our competence and our personal relationships. A far better way to bolster your sense of self-worth is, ironically, to think about yourself less. Compassion toward others and yourself, along with a less self-centered perspective on your situation, can motivate you to achieve your goals while helping you weather bad news, learn from your mistakes and fortify your friendships.

Friday morning roundup

The Turkish government turns on its judiciary.

There may not be a plethora of employment opportunities in Bulgaria, but it's not like much of Western Europe is brimming with hot jobs right now.

Ununoctium's sordid history.

David Brooks suggests we revisit the Pinker-Wieseltier debates on science and scientism. He also points to Caitrin Nicol's essay on the souls of elephants.

Thursday roundup

Chinese oil company f*s up Chad's forests even to the shock of the oil industry.

Germany vilifies working mothers, suffers the demographic consequences.

Is North Carolina dead to moderates?

How is this journalism? They didn't even report on the size and shape of their calves!

Was Jefferson overrated? Pauline Maier's obituary hardly answers the question so you'll have to read her book to find out.

Sleeping pills will f* you up.

Is it really that subversive for women to talk about what they find attractive?

Carolyn's tips for handling bossy in-laws.

Mike Huckabee and Tucker Carlson think childless lives are meaningless:

The most terrifying thing about the article, according to Huckabee was that it might send the (obviously wrong) message that it was actually possible for people who didn't have children to lead a fulfilling life. (Imagine the horror if childless women started to believe that their lives were still worthwhile.) As far as Huckabee is concerned, reproducing is "the highest particular calling that I think we can have as human beings" and anyone who rejects that calling must be in some way lacking. One of the co-hosts, Tucker Carlson, was even more direct in his criticism of the childfree:

Having children means less time for vacations and spin class, where the real meaning in life resides, right? I mean, have you ever seen anything more selfish, decadent and stupid?

Take that ye clever women who choose decadence over duty.

***
We've talked about this fascinating phenomenon of people's assuming that their limitations are just universal limitations. The other day I blogged about it with regard to language, and I think I also extended the analogy with regard to science (i.e., physicists arguing that psychology is not science) and humor (boorish dudes stating that women "cannot be" funny). What Elizabeth Spiers here dubs "Lazy Entrepreneur Solipsism" is a similar phenomenon:

It goes something like this:

I, entrepreneur, have never heard of a product like the one I am producing (largely because I did no research, which I don’t need to do, because if there were such a product, surely I would already know about it!), therefore said product must not exist. And I do not personally know anyone addressing this market, therefore this market must be new and fundamentally under-served!

It should be noted that Lazy Entrepreneur Solipsism is a close cousin to Venture Investor Market Viability Irrationality, which dictates that an investor make a funding decision based on whether his wife or kid likes the product. A sample size of one is fine as long as they’re related to me, and I will then extrapolate an entire market from that very special one-person sample. So I’m guessing someone’s wife or kid liked the idea of Bustle.

On the topic of laziness, Sean Carroll calls out people like me for using "scientism" (for example, to describe physicists who don't think psychology is science). I sort-of see his point, but we need to be able to talk about scientific narrow-mindedness.