Curt Doolittle

Theme: Measurement

  • Is It Possible To Quantify Work Experience?

    In reality, no.  (We have been doing it for ten years.) 
    (a) skills are perishable
    (b) experience is not indicative of performance – perhaps error reduction, but not competitive performance.
    (c) rate of career advancement, educational institution (a filter), IQ and physical appearance are the best individual measures.

    We have used stack ranking and peer review and it is surprisingly effective.  Management is almost always wrong. Peers are the best determinant of value.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-quantify-work-experience

  • Measurable Planetary Boundary for the Biosphere Steven W. Running Forty years ag

    http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6101/1458.summaryA Measurable Planetary Boundary for the Biosphere

    Steven W. Running

    Forty years ago, Meadows et al. published a landmark first analysis of global limits to human activity (1). Based on a primitive computer model of the Earth system, they concluded that by the early decades of the 21st century, tangible limits to key global resources would begin to emerge. A reanalysis of the original results in 2008 found that the original global resource depletion projections were remarkably accurate (2). Since then, Rockström et al. (3) have defined a new term—planetary boundaries—to describe nine variables of high importance to habitability of Earth, including climate change, ocean acidification, land-use change, and biodiversity loss. These metrics are compelling conceptually, but many are not easily measured globally; explicitly defining a critical boundary is even more challenging. I suggest a new planetary boundary, terrestrial net primary (plant) production (NPP), that may be as compelling conceptually, integrates many of the currently defined variables, and is supported by an existing global data set for defining boundaries.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-04-21 13:34:00 UTC

  • IS SOCIOLOGY LEFTIST PROPAGANDA MASQUERADING AS SCIENCE? (I love answering quest

    IS SOCIOLOGY LEFTIST PROPAGANDA MASQUERADING AS SCIENCE?

    (I love answering questions like this.)

    Others have described the phenomenon imprecisely. I will have to try do better until someone does better than I:

    1) Sociology relies on surveys which are almost always false, because of natural properties innate in human psychology and cognitive processes. Sociology relies upon experiments, the conditions of which have greater affect on the answers provided than the natural environment in which teh behavior would be demonstrated. So in effect, ANY TEST that you issue will bias towards collectivist results, even if people will ACT upon individual incentives in the actual circumstance. This is pretty obvious really.

    2) Economics instead, relies upon demonstrated actions independent of tests. This is why economics has become the primary social science: we measure demonstrated actions rather than what people state they would do.

    3) Behavioral psychology tries to reduce the problem of sociological testing by proving the indvalidity of social surveys and tests. The only valuable survey information appears to be voting records, which if detailed enough, like economic data, demonstrate what people actually do rather than what they say they will do in any given circumstance.

    4) Sociology seems to attract people who are disproportionately subject to various collectivist biases, and the related cognitive biases. (Google ‘Common economic errors’, ‘Common Cognitive Biases’, “Common Social Cognitive Biases’.) We must remember, that the farther down the IQ scale you are, the more you must rely on the opinions, thoughts, and interpretations of otherse for your information. Every 15 points of IQ is about one standard deviation. That means people cannot really talk to each other easily across 15 points of difference and cannot even grasp each other’s world views or contexts, or implied causal relations at 30 points. THe predominance of science is improving this by repeated exposure

    5) The output of these surveys and experiments produces biased and therefore false information and conclusions, but the people who conduct them have both a subconscious bias, a preferential interest, and a career interest, and a political interest in believing and promoting the false outputs. There is a market for this false information available in public intellectuals, politicians and organizers. This false information is used for political purposes, under the pretense of academic neutrality, and empirically supported truth – none of which are true either.

    The public cannot understand this, the teachers use it because teachers are from the bottom 15% of graduating classes in intelligence, self select for the nurture bias, which is the source of left wing moral specialization, and must try to form homogeneity of interests among pupils with diverse backgrounds, and require justification for their actions. This is conversely why they cannot teach history or art history any longer, because this would require value judgements that distributed status signals to different members of a group that they seek to treat as homogenous family in order to control the room.

    Statistically speaking, in any university department sociologists will have the lowest IQ distribution of any of the major disciplines, economists, mathematicians and medical doctors the highest distribution. (Michigan study).

    For these reasons, the discipline of sociology is in fact, an unscientific tool of propaganda created, maintained, and used by the lowest IQ distribution in academia as a means of attepting to justify the failed communist, socialist, and now postmodernist ideology that seeks to compete against the natural sorting of people opportuntiy, income and political power behind those groups, families, and individuals with demonstrated meritocratic superiority in the market for goods, services, and military defense.

    Harsh words.

    True words.

    The conservatives are correct.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-04-12 05:27:00 UTC

  • Is Sociology Leftist Propaganda Masquerading As Science?

    THIS IS THE CORRECT ANSWER

    Others have described the phenomenon imprecisely. I will have to try do better until someone does better than I:

    1) Sociology relies on surveys which are almost always false, because of natural properties  innate in human psychology and cognitive processes.   Sociology relies upon experiments, the conditions of which have greater affect on the answers provided than the natural environment in which teh behavior would be demonstrated. So in effect, ANY TEST that you issue will bias towards collectivist results, even if people will ACT upon individual incentives in the actual circumstance. This is pretty obvious really. 

    2) Economics instead, relies upon demonstrated actions independent of tests. This is why economics has become the primary social science: we measure demonstrated actions rather than what people state they would do.

    3) Behavioral psychology tries to reduce the problem of sociological testing by proving the indvalidity of social surveys and tests.  The only valuable survey information appears to be voting records, which if detailed enough, like economic data, demonstrate what people actually do rather than what they say they will do in any given circumstance.

    4) Sociology seems to attract people who are disproportionately subject to various collectivist biases, and the related cognitive biases. (Google ‘Common economic errors’, ‘Common Cognitive Biases’, “Common Social Cognitive Biases’.)   We must remember, that the farther down the IQ scale you are, the more you must rely on the opinions, thoughts, and interpretations of otherse for your information.  Every 15 points of IQ is about one standard deviation.  That means people cannot really talk to each other easily across 15 points of difference and cannot even grasp each other’s world views or contexts, or implied causal relations at 30 points. THe predominance of science is improving this by repeated exposure

    5)  The output of these surveys and experiments produces biased and therefore false information and conclusions, but the people who conduct them have both a subconscious bias, a preferential interest, and a career interest, and a political interest in believing and promoting the false outputs.  There is a market for this false information available in public intellectuals, politicians and organizers. This false information is used for political purposes, under the pretense of academic neutrality, and empirically supported truth – none of which are true either.

    The public cannot understand this, the teachers use it because teachers are from the bottom 15% of graduating classes in intelligence, self select for the nurture bias, which is the source of left wing moral specialization, and must try to form homogeneity of interests among pupils with diverse backgrounds, and require justification for their actions. This is conversely why they cannot teach history or art history any longer, because this would require value judgements that distributed status signals to different members of a group that they seek to treat as  homogenous family in order to control the room.

    Statistically speaking, in any university department sociologists will have the lowest IQ distribution of any of the major disciplines, economists, mathematicians and medical doctors the highest distribution.  (Michigan study).

    For these reasons, the discipline of sociology is in fact, an unscientific tool of propaganda created, maintained, and  used by the lowest IQ distribution in academia as a means of attepting to justify the failed communist, socialist, and now postmodernist ideology that seeks to compete against the natural sorting of people opportuntiy, income and political power behind those groups, families, and individuals with demonstrated meritocratic superiority in the market for goods, services, and military defense.


    Harsh words.
    True words.
    The conservatives are correct.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-sociology-leftist-propaganda-masquerading-as-science

  • ECONOMIC FALLACY #3 : CORRELATION VS CAUSATION Correlation does not mean causati

    ECONOMIC FALLACY #3 : CORRELATION VS CAUSATION

    Correlation does not mean causation.

    I hesitate to include this one on the list because the phrase has become overused in some circles. It can be very easy to accuse someone of this and then not have to deal with their argument, even though there is good reason to believe causation exists. Inappropriately accusing people of this fallacy is especially easy when discussing economics. Economics is like a science in which you can’t account for all of the variables. Politicians can take credit, or blame others, for things without knowing the real cause.

    One example of this fallacy is David Johnston’s assessment of the Bush tax cuts. I have no problem when he says the Bush tax cuts didn’t lead to the prosperity Bush promised, although I don’t blame Bush for that, and nearly every politician exaggerates when they are trying to sell something. The main problem I have is when he says “the data show overwhelmingly that the Republican-sponsored tax cuts damaged our nation.” This is a case of the fallacy because most of his evidence that the nation has been damaged is a decrease in average income (his case that less revenue was collected is legitimate). It very well could be the case that the tax cuts made the average income higher than what it would have been.

    The average income could have decreased for reasons other than the Bush’s tax cuts. I lean toward that conclusion because there is no conceivable way that tax cuts can cause a decrease in average income. I would be more than happy to retract my statement if someone could please tell me how this happens.

    I first became aware of this fallacy while I was in college. I was discussing minimum wage with a sociology professor. There are better arguments for raising the minimum wage, but the one she was giving me was that raising it often decreased the unemployment rate. I was baffled that someone could say this because, again, there is no conceivable way that increasing minimum wage could cause a decrease in unemployment. She pointed to certain years when minimum wage increased, and unemployment decreased. It escaped her that minimum wage could have destroyed jobs in one place while a new business may have started up in another, showing a net increase in employment.

    With both the professor and Johnston, they claim that they are just looking at the facts, and those of us with even a little understanding of what causes what in economics are blindly following an ideology with no connection to reality. All this tells me is that they have no interest in how economics actually works. They have a political position they want to advance and they hope they can find “facts” to support it, even if it doesn’t make any sense.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-04-11 03:16:00 UTC

  • ECONOMIC FALLACY #2 : HIDDEN COSTS Not Accounting For Hidden Costs or HIdden Tra

    ECONOMIC FALLACY #2 : HIDDEN COSTS

    Not Accounting For Hidden Costs or HIdden Transfers.

    This is somewhat similar to “the broken window fallacy” introduced by Frédéric Bastiat. Bastiat tells a parable where a shopkeeper’s son breaks a window in the shop. As a condolence people say that at least the son has fueled a job for the man who will repair the window. While the son did circulate money, and boost one industry, the shopkeeper would have used his money to employ other labor if the window had not been broken.

    When the government spends money on something, part of the cost is not only the dollars spent, but the things that the money would have been spent on otherwise. Amazingly what the money would have been spent on otherwise is very often the same thing the government is trying to create. So politicians may have done nothing at all when all is said and done, we may even be worse off, but they can take credit for what was created.

    The current best example of this is the stimulus. Supporters of the stimulus can say that it created jobs, but because we can only speculate on what might have happened without the stimulus, the true costs remain hidden.

    Lawrence Lindsey argues convincingly that it was simply a waste of money. One of his best lines is “Since the beginning of the recession, the number of unemployed has increased by more than 8 million people. For $800 billion, we could have handed every one of these people a check for $100,000.” Not only is the cost over $800 billion, but it may very well be the case that more jobs would have been created if that money remained in the hands of the private sector. For those of us who think government is by nature horribly inefficient, that is a reasonable conclusion.

    Spending money for policies like the stimulus is usually a beneficial political move (although when you get up to $800 billion your chances get a lot worse). First and foremost, you can say you “did something about it.” That always counts for a lot in politics (this is another point made by Sowell). You don’t want to be caught sitting on your hands, not wasting money. Second, you can say that it would have been far worse if you didn’t do something, since all we can do is speculate about the alternative. Third, you can point to a concrete example of progress you have made. You were part of the effort that created hundreds of thousands of jobs. It doesn’t matter if its cost was so high, that it may have also erased hundreds of thousands of jobs.

    Generally speaking the government is so inefficient that when it says it created something, most likely it destroyed far more in order to create it.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-04-11 03:08:00 UTC

  • ECONOMIC FALLACY #1 : THE FALLACY OF MEASUREMENT Fallacy Of Measurement The firs

    ECONOMIC FALLACY #1 : THE FALLACY OF MEASUREMENT

    Fallacy Of Measurement

    The first fact to understand about statistics surrounding economics is the different ways people can skew the results. People use whatever twisted statistics they think make their political point. If you want the economy to look bad then use household income rather than personal income. This is a convenient way to lie about the economy.

    This is a point Thomas Sowell makes: “household or family income can remain virtually unchanged for decades while per capita income is going up by very large amounts. The number of people per household and per family is declining.”

    Another tool for someone trying to make the situation look bad is to talk about the income gap. Saying that the gap between the rich and the poor is increasing makes it seem like the rich are getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer, or that the rich are taking from the poor. While that gap is increasing, it is mainly because it is so much easier for the wealthy to increase their incomes by large amounts. Yes, the rich are getting richer, but the poor are getting richer as well.

    This point is made brilliantly by Michael Medved in his book “The 5 Big Lies About American Business.” To paraphrase Medved, if one citizen who makes $200,000 per year shows an increase of 10 percent, he now makes $220,000. If another citizen who makes $20,000 per year has an increase of 20 percent he now makes $24,000 per year. The second person saw an increase twice as large as the first person yet the gap increased from $180,000 to $196,000. “The gap” is how you make a situation which was good for everyone look bad. There are more accurate ways to illustrate how the poor are doing.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-04-11 03:07:00 UTC

  • FACEBOOK AS SOCIAL SCIENCE I love Facebook. You can sort of ask man-on-the-stree

    FACEBOOK AS SOCIAL SCIENCE

    I love Facebook. You can sort of ask man-on-the-street questions of people who are (at least reasonably) self selected for topical literacy.

    It’s like having your own really large pool of first year grad students to ask willing questions of without having to offer ten dollars a head, and getting your prof’s to promote it to their students.

    I mean really. It’s awesome. You can sort of wander from club to club commenting and chatting with people in all these rooms, and there isn’t any cover charge, and the bouncers just use harsh language.

    I love Facebook. lol.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-04-09 07:56:00 UTC

  • RECORD AND IMPROVABILITY OF ECONOMIC FORECASTING “…economist Victor Zarnowitz

    http://m.nber.org/papers/w2099.pdfTHE RECORD AND IMPROVABILITY OF ECONOMIC FORECASTING

    http://m.nber.org//papers/w2099.pdf

    “…economist Victor Zarnowitz wrote in “The Record and Improvability of Economic Forecasting” that there was too much reliance on trends, and he also noted that predictive failure was also due to forecasters’ incentives. Zarnowitz wrote: “predicting a general downturn is always unpopular and predicting it prematurely—ahead of others—may prove quite costly to the forecaster and his customers”.

    Incentives motivate Wall Street economic forecasters to always be optimistic about the future (just like stock analysts). Of course, for the media and bloggers, there is an incentive to always be bearish, because bad news drives traffic (hence the prevalence of yellow journalism).

    In addition to paying attention to incentives, we also have to be careful not to rely “heavily on the persistence of trends”. One of the reasons I focus on residential investment (especially housing starts and new home sales) is residential investment is very cyclical and is frequently the best leading indicator for the economy. UCLA’s Ed Leamer went so far as to argue that: “Housing IS the Business Cycle”.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-20 15:48:00 UTC

  • WHATS WRONG WITH UKRAINE: “…financial reports are prepared for tax purposes ra

    WHATS WRONG WITH UKRAINE:

    “…financial reports are prepared for tax purposes rather than as a means of establishing their financial state.”

    You cannot trust any numbers here unless they are kept by a foreign national using western accounting standards. (GAAP).

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-15 12:56:00 UTC