A Clear Voice

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March 31, 2005

Sample Questions from the NY Teacher Certification Examination

Everyone's been talking about this New York middle school teacher who paid a homeless guy $2 to take his certification test for him because he had failed it so many times he was in danger of getting fired.

Let's take a look at some sample questions from this difficult test.

Math

The next time you see lightning and hear the accompanying thunder, you can easily estimate the distance between yourself and the lightning by using the following method.

When you see a lightning bolt, start counting the seconds until you hear the thunder. Divide the total number of seconds by five. The result is the approximate distance to the lightning. Thus if you counted 10 seconds between the flash of lightning and the sound of the thunder, the lightning struck about two miles away.

How does the method work? It’s simple. The speed of sound in air is about 1,125 feet—approximately one-fifth of a mile per second. The speed of light is approximately 186,000 miles per second. The light and sound created by the lightning bolt originate at the same time, but because the speed of light is much greater than the speed of sound, we see the flash of the lightning before we hear the rumble of the thunder.

When you count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder and divide the total by five, you are in fact estimating the distance in miles—one mile per five seconds—that the sound traveled since the lightning flash.

Which of the following is a fundamental assumption of this method of estimating the distance between an observer and a bolt of lightning?

A. The wavelength of light is much shorter than the wavelength of sound.
B. The speed at which light travels is so great that the time required for the light waves to reach the observer is essentially zero.
C. Sound waves are more strongly affected by atmospheric conditions than are light waves.
D. The speed at which sound and light travel varies proportionately with the distance they travel.

Science.

Many systems in the living and physical worlds have mechanisms that use feedback to help maintain equilibrium—that is, help to keep the overall conditions of the system relatively constant over time. Which of the following processes is the best example of a mechanism that uses feedback to maintain equilibrium in the human body system?

A. the increase in breathing rate while exercising
B. the detection of temperature by a finger touching a cool surface.
C. the continual growth of hair and nails.
D. the loss of blood at the site of a cut.

Social Studies.

Which of the following would be considered primary sources in researching the factors influencing U.S. involvement in Vietnam in the 1960’s?
I. the official correspondence of Lyndon B. Johnson from 1963 to 1968, the years of his presidency.
II. a journal article, published in 1975, about Robert S. McNamara, secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968.
III. a biography, published in 1969, of John F. Kennedy, president from 1961 to 1963.
IV. an interview, taped in 1976, with Dean Rusk, secretary of state from 1961 to 1969.

A. I and II only
B. I and IV only
C. II and III only
D. III and IV only

English.

In Spring when all the flowers are in bloom,
The evening river appears smooth and motionless.
Suddenly the tidewater comes with the reflection of flittering stars;
The ebbing waves carry away the image of the moon.

This poem most closely reflects which of the following tenets of Asian belief systems?

A. the Taoist emphasis on simplicity and contemplation of the effortless processes of nature.
B. the Confucian emphasis on ethical precepts for the proper management of the social order.
C. the Shintoist emphasis on the supernatural and the power of the divine forces of nature
D. the Buddhist emphasis on enlightenment and renunciation of worldly cravings and attachments.

Did you get B, A, B, A? Congragulations. You could be a teacher in New York.

Apparently the ridiculously easy test, which has a pass rate of 95%, is typically required to be passed before one can teach in New York. However, the city of New York has a "temporary waiver" because it has been unable to find enough qualified teachers. How sad is that? It's been suggested that the reason why they can't find teachers is because they underpay them. But surely for 59,000 they could get somebody who could summarize a four line poem. (I know the cost of living is greater in New York, but come on!) Perhaps barely adequate teachers who could get jobs elsewhere just don't want to teach at terrible schools. If this is a case, bravo to New York City for changing that situation by hiring teachers who can't even understand simple scientific concepts. That's sure to improve the school system.

(Note: The sample questions listed here were choosen from 22 sample questions based on length, ie, how long it took me to type them.)

Posted by illuminaria at 12:46 PM | Comments (3)

March 28, 2005

Happy Belated Easter

I hope everyone had a good Easter/spring break. I know I did. My little brother came over to our house for a few days, and then we spent Easter with my parents. I got lots of extra sleep, which is very good.

I’ll be back to regular posting today.

Posted by illuminaria at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)

March 22, 2005

Changes in Mormon Attitudes Towards Evolution

Yesterday an article by razib on Gene Expression discussed Mormons and their changing views towards evolution. Being a former Mormon myself, I found it quite interesting.

Ronald L. Numbers in The Creationists recounts that 'In 1935 only 36 percent of the students at the Mormon's Brighman Young University denied that humans have been "created in a process of evolution from lower forms." By 1973 the figure had risen sharply to 81....' The results at BYU might be due to decreased sample biasing as the student body increased in size, but, I think there is a real sociological process going on here: between 1930 and 1970 Mormons became, more or less, part of the American mainstream.1 And, to some extent they identified sociologically with conservative Protestants, who have been at the forefront of the "War against Evolution" since the rise of Darwinism in the United States.

This brings up an interesting point. Mormons may now identify sociologically with conservative Protestants, but this was not always the case. At the beginning, Mormonism was very different from Christianity and proud of the fact. It had kind of a “frontier” feel, and was all about adopting doctrines that made more sense to the spirit of American individuality. (For instance, the doctrine that gods were once men and men can become gods, the rejection of the classical concept of the Trinity as “not making sense,” etc.) Over the years Mormonism has become more of a mainstream religion in order to get along with the world. This might explain why Mormons were once more accepting of evolution than they are now, wheras the attitudes of other Christians has not changed much over the years.

I think the attitude toward evolution among the Mormon laity is a reflection of sociological forces buffetting them in the sea of American culture in which their peculiar beliefs have no great impact. Many of my classmates in high school were Mormon, and when I discussed evolutionary theory with them I would generally encounter less hostility than from my evangelical peers, but overall they were "unbelievers." But, when I pressed them for theological or doctrinal justification for their position they could not produce anything, in contrast with evangelicals who often encountered Creationists literature at their church and so were ready with prefab talking points intelligible in their literalist worldview. My Mormon friends often ended up somewhat confused as to why they rejected evolutionary theory in the context of their religion, but I think the reality that my inquiries were exposing was that the Latter Day Saints are far more affected by the zeitgeist than they themselves are aware of.

This is I think part of a greater process of the canalization of various religious sects and denominations into a few broad rivers of practice and outlook in the United States. Because most Mormons have placed themselves within the "religious conservative" camp they have absorbed some talking points reflexively without further reflection as to whether it is truly in keeping with their explicitly stated religious beliefs. Over time I would not be surprised if the Creationist bent of the some of the laity percolates upward toward the Church Hierarchy (generally drawn from successful businessmen)

I do think, however, that the author shows some misunderstanding of these points.

In my experience many Mormons seem to live with the contradictory opinions that they are really Christians and people who claim that they aren’t don’t really understand that the differences between Mormons and the rest of Christianity are not all that great; but on the other hand believe that they are the only ones who really even come close to understanding the truth. Obviously the latter opinion is not at all unique among religious people, but combined with the former it creates this sort of a “I’m not going to let you into my club, but you’re mean for not letting me into your club” attitude. There certainly are more liberal-minded Mormons (in the classical sense of the word) who apply critical thinking and consideration to ideas outside of their religion (my family was like that.) However, I think while your typical Mormon may seem to the outside world to be similar to other Christians, they are not jumping on the cultural bandwagon because they simply see their ideas as superior. The fact that his Mormon friends couldn't come up with much justification of their opinions reflects this unwillingness to consider anything beyond what they are told at church.

In fact, typically I think changes come from the top down, as the church leadership tries to make itself more acceptable to the mainstream culture in order to attract members. The rejection of polygamy and inclusion of blacks in the priesthood reflect this. It’s true that there were plenty “regular” Mormons were in favor of these changes, but the main source of change came from the top. Observe, for instance, that typical Mormons view themselves as being quite set apart from the rest of the Christian world in doctrine (and indeed are), but if you ever see any of those Mormon commercials, they are very much about appealing to the religious mainstream.

Of course this is all the opinion of someone who hasn’t been particularly connected to Mormonism for the past seven years. (I'm sure my brother or Dad will be emailing me.) As my family often tells me, I don’t “really know what’s going on” anymore, plus I was young when absorbing all this. On the other hand, some distance from an issue provides some insight, and I do think that my youthful experiences are especially useful for absorbing the culture, which is what we’re really talking about here.

Posted by illuminaria at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)

Ward Speaks Out

When I saw this AP article on CNN entitled “Embattled professor won't back down,” I thought “hmmm, what could this be about.”

Why it’s about everyone’s favorite abused professor whose rights are being trampled on, Ward Churchill. Let’s go over some of my favorite quotes from the article.

In one message, liberal scholar Noam Chomsky calls Churchill's achievements of inestimable value.

Ha! Way to go, Noam.

[Churchill] acknowledged the uproar now dominates his life and makes it difficult to focus on his job as a tenured professor of ethnic studies.

"I'm struggling desperately to be able to deliver to my students what they signed up for," Churchill said. …“Every day there's a new idiocy.”

Ain’t that the truth. (Okay, I’ll admit it, I shamelessly deleted sections of the excerpt to make it appear to say something that it actually doesn’t, merely for the value of humor. That was very wrong of me.)

The latest charges are that Churchill plagiarized others' work and threatened physical violence against critics. He denies both claims.

Yes, there’s absolutely no truth to those claims.

Churchill said his critics have mangled the facts in their rush to condemn him.

He said the inquiry is not merely an investigation of his work but a pretext for a broader campaign to discourage critical thinking and reduce higher education to "an advanced vo-tech" where students are taught skills useful to corporations.

Churchill, on the other hand, teaches students skills that are of absolutely no use at all, unless you want to fabricate stuff. Plus he's a paragon of critical thinking. See this next quote.

"That's why I'm so in-your-face. You will not ignore this, purport to innocence while applauding genocide. You may not be directly culpable, but you're not innocent," he said.

Gee, that sounds familiar.

Update: Via Michelle Malkin, see this story about Ward striking a blow for academic freedom by banning recording devices at a speech "in the spirit of creating an open forum for debate and discussion."

Posted by illuminaria at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)

Baby Mix-Up

Check out this story.

Donna Johnson was in North Suburban Medical Center after having a baby. The day after the birth, a nurse brought her the baby to nurse. She thought it was odd that the baby wouldn’t nurse, as she had successfully nursed it the day before. She took off the baby’s cap and realized it was not her baby. She freaked out, the nurse who brought the baby freaked out, and then they brought her the right baby. Since the incident she has remained unsure whether or not the baby was really hers, even though DNA testing was done to confirm that it was.

What is Johnson doing now? Why she’s suing, of course. Note that the wrong baby never actually nursed, so there was never any chance of a disease being passed around. Many people would just let it go. Mistakes in the medical world happen all the time, no matter how many policies are in place to prevent them. Why sue if nothing actually came of the mistake? However her lawsuit claims that she suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and is now “obsessed by the possibility that she may lose her baby.” The suit also claims loss of earnings, because she has not been able to return to work, and loss of consortium, because her husband has been “deprived of marital intimacy with his wife”– probably because his wife is acting kind of crazy.

The article also says that she and her husband had been trying to conceive for 10 years. I know from experience that under those circumstances women often get pretty upset and obsessive over conceiving, and sometimes those feelings don’t go away after the baby is born. Something tells me she may very well have had many of the same problems if this incident had not happened. Also, many women who plan to return to work after birth never actually do, especially if it is their first baby. As for the loss of consortium claim - uh, welcome to parenthood, people.

Of course the hospital will probably settle. Given that they already have identification bands that must be checked every time the baby is moved, I doubt that they will be able to really change their policies much to ensure that it never happens again. If you ask me, this is a great reason to house newborns and their mothers in the same hospital room.

Posted by illuminaria at 12:16 PM | Comments (1)

March 21, 2005

Judge James Whittemore

I haven’t written anything on the Terri Schiavo case because so many others have been doing it so well; I haven’t felt I can add anything to the discussion. I do, however, feel that not enough evidence has been shown to prove that having her feeding tube removed is what she would have wanted, and in the case of starving someone to death, we should definitely err on the side of caution.

Many judges have made rulings on this case, but the only judge who has ruled on that particular question is Judge Greer. I’m glad that another judge will have the opportunity to rule on that. Part of the appeal of the judicial system is someone has the right to appeal any ruling, and this one shouldn’t be any different. While judges do their best to apply only judicial rules to the questions set before them, there is no question that bias can come into it.

U.S. District Judge James Whittemore is the judge who will be hearing this case now. He is a 1999 Clinton appointee. I’m interested to know more about him, especially since it has seemed that Judge Greer has shown so much bias and unwillingness to reconsider his opinions in the past. This article from a Florida news station has more on Judge Whittemore.

Longtime colleagues describe Whittemore, 52, as thoughtful, fair and down-to-earth, not the least flamboyant.

"He is a highly, highly regarded judge," said Tampa lawyer John Fitzgibbons. "He is highly intelligent and has just an excellent judicious temperament. He will allow all sides to state their position, to have their say."

Whittemore, appointed to the federal bench by President Clinton in 1999, is not known to display any political leanings.

Fitzgibbons said those who have criticized previous rulings in the case will not have an easy time accusing Whittemore of bias.

"He will call it as he sees it. You could not ask for a better or fairer referee," the lawyer said. "Everyone will be treated very fairly. It's almost a shame that there are not cameras allowed in federal courts. It would be such an incredibly fair proceeding it would be good for
the country to see."

I'm very glad to know that he is considered to be fair. According to the article, these are some of his best-known decisions:

One of Whittemore's biggest cases was the trial of elders from Greater Ministries, a Tampa church whose leaders were accused of bilking nearly $450 million from the faithful in a sophisticated Ponzi scheme.

Whittemore also presided over the trial of Outlaws motorcycle gang leader James Lee "Frank" Wheeler and the prosecution of a group of corrupt Manatee County sheriff's deputies.

In the civil arena, Whittemore ruled against the unsuccessful 2001 bid by Cuban pitcher Rolando Viera to rewrite the rules of being a free agent.

In 2002, he sided with the Polk County School District's efforts to adopt a dress code that a group of parents had argued violated their rights to raise their children as they saw fit.

I'm following Wizbang for news and discussion. Tonight I will be looking around to see if I can find anymore interesting information on the Judge.

Updates in the "read more" section.

Here is Judge Whittemore's information sheet at the United States Courts website.

Here is an article in the St. Petersburg Times involves a case in which a whistleblower made an agreement with the federal government that she would not be prosecuted, then was “charged with making false statements, conspiracy and fraud.” Whittemore’s order said "Accordingly, I conclude that the government unilaterally breached that agreement."

Here is an article about the end of the Greater Ministries trial.

Betty Payne, 61, is in good health and appeared headed for judicial leniency until her words prompted the judge to add 16 months behind bars.

Whittemore had just reduced her sentencing guideline based upon his finding that her role was minor compared to the other defendants. Then she read a statement, verbatim to what her husband read minutes earlier, claiming their constitutional rights were violated and their actions, all guided by the Holy Spirit, broke no laws.

The Paynes and their fellow defendants argued that a church program enjoyed First Amendment protections. Many of the program's followers harbor antigovernment beliefs and blame its collapse on government conspiracies.

``We are innocent of all charges,'' both Paynes said. The only difference in their statements came at the end. ``Glory be to God,'' she said. Smith later said he had tried to dissuade the Paynes from making such statements. ``They both feel that God will intercede,'' he said. ``And I told them both not to count on it.''

Attorney Anne Borghetti tried to minimize the harm, telling the judge that Betty Payne was under the control of other people: ``That's not her statement that she just read. She was given that by other people.'' ``That was my statement,'' her client insisted. Whittemore appeared surprised by the resistance.

``It's one thing to have blind faith,'' he told Betty Payne. ``It's quite another to cast yourself as a martyr for no apparent good. I just deliberated a matter that you could serve 33 months less. What you've just done is throw that right back in my face.''
...
The Bible also contains passages pertaining to people who abuse God's words, Whittemore told Gerald Payne. ``You're going to have time to study those passages.''

This article regards a suit brought by four white police officers claiming they got harsher punishments than a black officer for the same defense. Judge Whittemore dismissed the case saying, "The plaintiffs have failed to introduce evidence that racial discrimination, as opposed to some other race-neutral factor, including personal animus, was the controlling factor in the discipline decisions."

This story is about the conviction of three officers accused of planting drugs on innocent people. They were given the maximum sentence by Whittemore.

A blurb on this page (about halfway down) is about Judge Whittemore granting a request by the prosecution to exceed normal sentencing guidelines for a 48 year old HIV-positive man who had sex with a 15 year old girl he met in a chat room.

Another blurb is about the prosecution of two men who cut down a clearly visible eagle’s nest. Judge Whittemore fined one $10,000 and the other $90,000.

Update 2:: Some people have been saying that the fact that Judge Whittemore has not yet ordered on the injection yet, and said during the hearing, "I think you'd be hard-pressed to convince me that you have a substantial likelihood of the parents' lawsuit succeeding" is evidence that the judge already has his mind made up, and that there's no hope of success.

However, I will point out that the actual pertinant text of the bill recently passed is, "After a determination of the merits of a suit brought under this Act, the District Court shall issue such declaratory and injunctive relief as may be necessary to protect the rights of Theresa Marie Schiavo under the Constitution and laws of the United States relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life." The usual precedent of an ordering an injunction also requires that the judge think the case being brought is likely to succeed.

Therefore, Judge Whittemore's comment is not out of line and does not necessarily indicate that he is hopelessly biased. Only time will tell.

Update 3: Judge Whittemore's decision can be found here. As expected, the rejection of the temporary restraining order was based on the failure of the plaintiffs to show that it is reasonably likely that they might win. Unfortunately the appeal was based on the question of whether or not Terri's due process rights have been violated in previous trials, not whether or not Judge Greer's decisions were correct or not. The chances of the next appeal succeeding are not very great.

Posted by illuminaria at 06:36 PM | Comments (12)

March 18, 2005

Manipulative Marijuana Opponents

There have been some interesting things going on in the last 6 months in my town, Columbia, Missouri.

In November city voters overwhelmingly approved a medical marijuana ordinance (69% voted yes), and an ordinance that limits the punishment for possessing less than 35 grams to a $250 fine in municipal court (61% voted yes.) The second ordinance means that no one will have a criminal record for this offense unless it was committed along with another crime. It also means that college students, which comprise a lot of Columbia, will not lose educational funding for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

In January, there was an incident in which a man, Rick Evans, shot a police officer, Molly Bowden during a traffic stop. The next day when the police were closing in, he shot another officer, Curtis Brown, and then fatally shot himself. Brown was moderately wounded with one shot in the arm. Bowden was seriously wounded with three shots in the neck and shoulder and died a month later. When the police later searched Evan’s car and house they found marijuana and scales. The amount of marijuana was above 35 grams. Evans had previously been convicted on misdemeanor charges of marijuana possession and was on unsupervised probation. It’s been speculated that his motive for shooting was to prevent the officer from finding drugs and sending him back to jail. No one knows if he was impaired at the time of the shooting.

In February Officer Sterling Infield, president of the Columbia Police Officers Association wrote a letter to Assistant City Manager Paula Hertwig Hopkins asking the city to help them “squash this tainted ordinance.” (Referring to the second ordinance, not the medical marijuana ordinance.) In that letter he stated, "I am asking for your help, and Mr. Beck’s. Mr. Beck went to Officer Curtis Brown during his ordeal and" asked "him if there is anything he could do to help. There is. Please allow the law department to allow the city prosecutor or the chief to file a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office to squash this tainted ordinance." The letter has been oft criticized for that excerpt. Infield also said that he feared that people on parole for violent crimes would not have their parole revoked and instead be treated as first-time criminals. However Missouri Department of Corrections rules state that possession of any amount of drugs is a violation of parole, subjecting the parolee to jail time, regardless of whether a charge or conviction is obtained.

This month Missouri State Senator Chuck Gross introduced a bill that would ban high school tournaments in cities with certain marijuana policies, like those in Columbia.
Earlier this week police launched a petition to reverse the ordinance. If they gather the signatures required, the petition would be presented to the City Council, which would then be able to overturn the ordinance.

Personally I’m in favor of marijuana decriminalization. I once saw a poster from early last century that listed recreational drugs from least to most harmful. Marijuana was at the very top, before both alcohol and tobacco. The government has been lying to us about its effects for years. There was an incident ten years or so ago where they put out a public service commercial purporting to show a brain scan from a normal kid, and a kid on dope. It came out that the second brain scan was actually from a brain-damaged patient. If we made marijuana legal and subject to the same restrictions that alcohol and/or tobacco are restricted to, (impaired driving, age limits, etc.) we’d clear out many people from our prisons. Marijuana would become as much of a “gateway” drug as is any other legal drug. The reason it’s a “gateway” drug now is because it’s illegal and thus a gateway into the world of crime, not because it’s terribly harmful or a gateway into addiction. We’d essentially put a huge number of dealers out of business with the resultant drop in price, and the government would be making money off marijuana taxes rather than spending billions of dollars fighting it.

However, even if I weren’t in favor of decriminalization, the antics of people in this region to get this ordinance overturned would still blow my mind. First we have a group attempting to overturn the will of the voters by sneaking things through the City Council. Then we have a member of that group using a terrible tragedy to support the group’s actions. (Note that if you read the excerpt of the letter, it’s never actually claimed that Officer Brown asked for anyone to help overturn the ordinance, but it’s cleverly worded to give that impression. That’s just great, let’s put words in the mouth of a wounded officer to achieve our goals.) That member also hangs the threat of rapists and murderers walking the streets to scare Columbia voters and City Council members into submission. Finally we have a state senator holding student athletics hostage in order to achieve his goals. All schools have strict drug policies and many require drug testing to play sports, but apparently the mere presence of an ordinance reducing the punishment given to misdemeanor marijuana possession is sending the message “hey kids, smoke all you want.”

Politicians can be such manipulative idiots sometimes.

Posted by illuminaria at 03:54 PM | Comments (3)

March 17, 2005

Genetic Influences on Religiousness

Today Michael Williams had an entry about an article regarding a twin study that found that genes are responsible for about 40% of the variability in the religiousness of a person in adulthood, but are less important in childhood. I was interested to see what scale they were using in measuring religiousness. Obviously this could mean many things. They could be asking about belief in God or how much people go to church or whether they think they are spiritual, however that is defined, and so on. I went and looked the study up on my university’s electronic database (sorry, I can’t link to it) and it seems that the study asked nine questions of the subjects:

The first assessed external aspects of religiousness (the four items of attending religious services, discussing religious teachings, observing religious holidays, and membership in youth/study groups) that might be most susceptible to environmental influence; the second reflected internal aspects of religiousness (the five items of seeking help through prayer, reading scripture, deciding moral actions, having a friend with similar beliefs, and importance of faith) that may be most susceptible to heritable influence.

Obviously then, we are measuring certain aspects of religiousness, but these aren’t addressing particular religions or particular points that some religions would see as more important than these questions. For instance, I would be interested to see an analysis like this that compares different genetic and environmental effects among Christians and Muslims. The study admits that this is only one way to measure religiousness.

The concept of religiousness as defined in this study also deserves comment, as religiousness can be defined in many ways. While our measure formed one coherent scale, we lack the means to make the distinction between the different types of religiousness seen in the literature (e.g. intrinsic, extrinsic, quest), except for the rational parsing of items into internal and external aspects of religiousness.

I was interested to see that the study did a separate analysis on the internal and external questions.

Also, the analysis split up the influencing factors into genetic, shared environmental influences (which would include experiences with family, church, school, most influences in the womb, etc.), and non-shared environmental influences (which would include experiences not shared by twins, like different friends, along with everything else, like non-genetic personality traits and free-will, as well as error). Subjects answered the questions both with respect to themselves currently, and how they felt they were in childhood.

They also say

The assumption underlying twin models is that MZ twins share 100% of their genes while DZ twins share only 50%.

This means that the actual percentage of genetic material shared by the DZ twins introduces some error.

The paper makes some other conclusions that are interesting.

In fact, the heritability and shared environmental estimates for internal religiousness could be equated across the two ratings [retrospective and current] without significant loss in model fit, but they could not be equated for external ratings. These findings suggest that the increase in heritability in overall religiousness may reflect the increasing importance of individual dispositional factors and the decreasing importance of external forces.

This conclusion is pretty intuitive. Part of growing up is internalizing your values and opinions, such that it’s really you making your decisions rather than your family or culture.

This is something that parents really have to consider in regards to their children. They can teach them their religion and values, but ultimately the child is going to make a choice on their own. So many times people make the mistake of thinking that the behavior of a teenager or adult is completely dependant on how they were raised, but this isn't the case.

Twins were also asked to rate their parents religiousness.

The presence of a high correlation between parents for religiousness was consistent with the presence of high assortative mating for the trait.

Basically, then, people are more likely to be married to those who are similarly religious, which isn't a suprise.

There are some other interesting conclusions that can be drawn from looking at the internal vs. external data.

In adulthood, external religiousness is more affected by genetics than internal religiousness. This seems to fit with the theory that certain personality traits that are expressed more externally, such as the ability to get along with others, are what are accounting for the genetic factor in religiousness. In childhood, external religiousness is more affected by the shared environment than internal religiousness, whereas the effect is reversed in adulthood. This seems to fit with the theory that family environment is somewhat better at shaping behaviors than thoughts in a child, but will have more effect on the grown child’s thoughts than their behaviors (although the effect will be lessened overall). The effects of the un-shared environment remain pretty stable across childhood and adulthood and between internal and external religiousness.

There’s lots of good future work that could be done with sort of analysis. The subjects involved were all men from the same region who were the same age. Comparing people of different gender, religion, age, and culture would be a good idea. Age would be a particularly interesting variable to study. It may be that genetics is more important in your 30's, but it's effects lessen somewhat by age. I also wonder if there would be any difference in the effects of genetics and environment among a very religious group and a group that is not religious. Perhaps genetics pays a larger role in determining how religious a person is, but environment or other factors is more important in determining if a person is religious at all.

I find this study, and the one I talked about a few days ago on the issue of genetic effects on sexuality to be quite fascinating. As a Christian I believe that ultimately decisions are based on free will. I think this is a belief many people share. Every decision, though, is going to be influenced by some combination of genetic and environmental factors and it’s helpful to learn more about what they are. For instance, alcoholism has some strong genetic connections and knowing about them enables people who are predisposed to alcoholism to make decisions to lessen that risk. For instance, if I have no alcoholism in my family, I might choose to drink socially, but if I do, I might choose to not drink at all.

Future Pundit, who has a very interesting site by the way, also has an entry up on this. Uncorrelated does too, which is another site I ran across today. The blogosphere is cool like that.

Update: Gene Expression has more.

Posted by illuminaria at 03:16 PM | Comments (1)

March 16, 2005

Those Poor Misunderstood Accountants

An article on Fox News today discusses the reaction of Ahmed Younis, national director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, to the television series “24.”

Younis said the show does present problems for Muslims, especially those living in the United States.

"We are simply worried about what this means to the American social fabric," he said. "We as a nation have not shown historically in modern history that we are able to deal with situations in which there is an enemy that has representation in some form or another within our country.

He continued, "We believe that at its most extreme, this is no different than signs in the South that say 'no niggers,' 'no Jews,' 'no dogs.' This is no different than during World War II, cartoons that depicted Japanese-Americans as having buck teeth and big glasses."

Um, yes, it is different.

If you’re not familiar with the show, (I just started watching it myself last week and it is, indeed, very compelling) the current plotline involves a Turkish family living in the US that carries out a terrorist act.

This reminds me of a SNL skit, “Anti-Arab,” that aired in 1993. In it John Goodman keeps bursting into the same Arab owned store every time the US is having some conflict with [insert Middle Eastern country name here] and shouts, “You dirty [insert Middle Eastern country name here]-ian, I’m going to bust up your store.” The shop owner protests, “But I’m not from [insert Middle Eastern country name here].” John Goodman says, “Oh, sorry,” and leaves, until the last time when we find that the US is actually having a conflict with the country the shop owner is from.

The implication is that Americans are simply too stupid to realize that Arabs are all from different countries and all have different political views, and even the ones who share countries and political views with terrorists aren’t going to blow us all up. However Younis, unlike SNL, isn’t very funny.

Obviously there are racist people out there who are too stupid to realize all that, or just don’t care. Somehow, though, I really don’t think their minds are going to be changed by an episode of “24.”

An article on the group’s website reveals that they had a meeting with Fox officials in January to discuss their complaints. Fox agreed to air a public service announcement, the text of which follows:

I'm Kiefer Sutherland. I play counter-terrorist Jack Bauer on Fox's 24. While terrorism is obviously one of the most critical challenges facing our nation and the world, it's important to recognize that the American Muslim community stands firmly beside their fellow Americans in denouncing and resisting terrorism in every form.

The problem with this, however, is that while some members of the American Muslim community denounce and resist terrorism, it’s certainly not clear that they all do. In fact, it seems as though there are plenty of American Muslims who don’t denounce or resist terrorism in any form and actually encourage it. See this for example. And goodness knows in the worldwide Muslim community there are many people who are all for terrorism. Remember those people dancing in the streets on 9-11?

The only time I ever hear about Muslims denouncing terrorism is while they are also complaining about their treatment in the media or claiming that hate crimes against them are running rampant. (There may very well be hate crimes against Arabs going on, but I’ve never actually seen any figures to suggest this is a widespread problem.)
Of course the public service announcement was not enough. MPAC says:
While it sends the message that the American Muslim population is an equal partner in fighting terrorism and protecting our country, a PSA with that message is far less powerful than a story line that underscores that reality.

The problem with news and entertainment is that it never accurately represents reality because that’s not what people are interested in hearing about. They already experience reality every day; they want something more interesting. That’s why during prime time TV you see, say, ten murders and zero people burping the baby, even though millions more incidents of baby-burping occur in a day than murders.

What’s next, Irish American communities complaining because the news about and depictions of Irish people tend to emphasize the IRA more than the regular people out there feeding their cows? Are accountants going to complain that their portrayal in entertainment and news focuses too much on embezzling, and not on some guy adding up numbers and reading tax law?

Posted by illuminaria at 02:25 PM | Comments (1)

Get Off My Lawn, Whippersnappers

Here’s a really cute AP story I saw on CNN today.

Third-grader commutes to school by mule

Saje Beard's half-hour commute to class is the envy of her four classmates at a one-room schoolhouse just south of here.

Most mornings, the third-grader makes the trek on Ruth the mule.
…
Saje, 9, is an old hand at maneuvering mules. She's been doing it since she was in first grade.
…
Saje would ride Ruth every morning, but her dad won't let her if the temperature is below zero -- "even if she insists."

Saje proved just how much she's willing to endure on a recent trek to school in below-freezing temperatures and strong winds.

"My cheeks are burning," she said, "but that's OK."

Saje gets up at sunup to prepare for school. She brushes Ruth and feeds her grain, then hoists an old saddle that weighs nearly as much as she does over the chubby mule.

Not only is it cute, but I always like hearing about kids who are still required to be age-appropriately self-sufficient and responsible. In today’s world it always seems that a lot of kids are being too coddled by their parents. Even ten years ago when I was a kid, this was often the case. Throughout my school years I almost always walked or biked to school, work, and friends’ houses if they were within a certain radius. My parents were never ones to shuttle me around, so I never really expected it. In fact, I usually enjoyed the walk.

One morning when I was about 15, I was walking to school,which was less than a half mile away, in the snow. (No, it was not uphill both ways.) A woman stopped to give me a ride and was simply horrified that my parents wouldn’t drive me to school. When I was working in a fast-food restaurant that was about a quarter mile away, my friends were horrified that I walked to work. I thought they were all nuts.

Obviously children who live on busy streets or in bad neighborhoods can’t do this, but for the most part I think providing your own transportation after a certain age is a great thing. It teaches children to trust their own abilities, gives them time to think, and it’s a good way to make ‘em exercise; all things that seem to be missing in kids’ lives these days.

I realize I sound like an old fogey here, but I promise I’m only 25!

Posted by illuminaria at 12:54 PM | Comments (1)

March 15, 2005

Discrimination Against Fetuses?

I read today about a bill introduced in Maine that is being supported by The Pro-life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians. (Thanks to Ravenwood’s Universe.) Apparently the bill is intended to prohibit the abortion of homosexual babies. There are lots of interesting points to discuss in regards to this.

Jackie Malone, executive vice president of PLAGAL said, “We recognize that at this time the gay gene has not been isolated, but with all the advances of genetics, we believe that it may just be a matter of time before a test for the predisposition of homosexuality will be developed.”

I applaud Jackie Malone’s use of the phrase “predisposition of homosexuality” rather than something like the “gay gene.” Ms. Malone seems to understand that no study has ever produced evidence for any gene that controls sexuality.

For instance, today I looked up an interesting study that came out in 2000 called Genetic and Environmental Influences on Sexual Orientation and Its Correlates in an Australian Twin Sample. It’s quite good for several reasons.

Many studies on this subject in the past have used samples that are very self-selected. For instance, they advertise for twin subjects in magazines oriented to homosexuals. Since it is easy for subjects to discern the probable subject matter of such a study, they are more likely to volunteer if both are homosexual. Such studies have found that if one twin is homosexual, the other is up to 80% likely to be homosexual as well. Other more reasonable values have ranged from 30-60%.

This study, however, contacted twins in the Australian Twin Registry that were already being used for another study and asked them if they would be willing to fill out a questionnaire regarding sex. There was some indication that there was a modest selection bias as people who returned the questionnaire and consent form had slightly more liberal attitudes towards sex, but the difference was small.

Sexual orientation was measured on the Kinsey scale, which measures homosexuality in a more continuous fashion, with scores ranging from 0-6, 0 being completely heterosexual and 6 being completely homosexual. 92% of the subjects scored 0; 94% of the males and 97% of the females scored 0-1, putting aside once again the myth that homosexuals comprise 10% of the population.

Their results were that if one twin was homosexual or bisexual, the other twin was homosexual or bisexual 20% of the time for men and 24% of the time for women. It must be noted that each of these sets of twins were reared together, so those values are based on both genetic and environmental factors.

Interestingly enough, the study also asked questions about childhood gender nonconformity (being a tomboy or a sissy, for example) and found it was much more likely to be experienced by both twins than by only one, but even then the value is nowhere near high enough to suggest that the trait is controlled highly by genetics, or even by environment.

Therefore, not only is it quite hard to pin down one or two simple reasons why people become homosexual, but it’s pretty unlikely that we’re going to come up with a test that will measure a child’s predisposition towards homosexuality before birth.

But even if we did, it’s pretty hard to say that abortion is completely ok in every case, depending completely on the whim of the mother, unless her choice is affected by the child’s possible sexual orientation, or gender, or ethnicity, or whether or not it has Down’s Syndrome for that matter. If abortion is wrong, then it’s wrong no matter why the choice is made. If abortion is OK, then it’s always OK. If we’re just discarding a ball of cells that isn’t a life yet, then who cares if the ball of cells is gay or female or black?

If we’re making it illegal to make discriminatory reproductive decisions after conception, when that zygote or fetus isn’t “really a life,” then what is the real moral difference between that and timing sexual intercourse so that you’re more likely to have a boy, or a white woman only using protection when sleeping with a black man, etc. Are we going to make those things illegal too?

Now I realize that this group is actually pro-life, but they should think seriously about the impact a bill like this might have. All of a sudden the government goes from outlawing certain acts, to outlawing certain acts in the presences of certain thoughts. Having certain thoughts or motivations may be morally wrong, but the sort of society that legalizes those issues is not one I want to live in. Does anyone, pro-life or pro-choice, actually want to head in that direction? I think the group’s efforts might be better spent on protecting all unborn children, rather than just ones that might turn out to be homosexuals. They are all worthy of protection for the same reasons – because they are human.

For people who are pro-choice, but would be for a bill that protects only homosexuals or females or minorities from being aborted, ask yourself how morally logical that is? And while you’re at it, consider the fact that abortion already disproportionately affects minorities, just by being what it is.

Finally, let’s look at the actual text of the bill:

Maine LD 908 An abortion may not be performed when the basis for the procedure is the projected sexual orientation of the fetus after birth, based on analysis of genetic materials of the fetus in which sexual orientation is identified through the presence or absence of a so-called "homosexual gene."

How exactly are we to determine what the basis for the procedure is? Is an abortion automatically determined to be because of sexual orientation if an analysis of genetic material is done and then an abortion is performed? What if the genetic analysis also determined that the fetus was likely to get a disease, or that it was female when the mother wanted a male? Will the government start keeping records on abortions and medical tests and investigating the links between the two? Will they go around interviewing women and their friends and family to find out why they had the abortion? Quite frankly, this seems much more invasive than the government controlling abortions in the first place. Again, does anyone want to give the government control over not just certain things that we do, but also certain things that we think?

Posted by illuminaria at 01:25 PM | Comments (33)

March 14, 2005

Police Training NOT Equal for Men and Women

I was watching La Shawn Barber on MSNBC this afternoon talking about the subject of female police officers. There was an official from the New York Police there who kept repeating that female officers had to go through the same training as male officers.

I decided to look into that a little more carefully. After some web searching, it appears that potential police officers in the state of New York must pass physical tests whose limits are defined by the New York State Municipal Police Training Council. So far, I haven’t been able to find a direct source for these requirements, but on a website for Suffolk County, they have their requirements. (They are at the very end of the page.) I was not surprised to see that the requirements are different for male and female officers. For instance, males 20-29 are required to run a 12:51 minute mile, whereas females are required to run a 15:26 mile.

While looking around, I also came across a reference to a case, Pietras v. Board of Fire Commissioners that seems to bear on this situation. The New York Law Journal is quoted as saying:

"Until Judge Hurley's ruling in 1998, the Farmingville Fire District required that all probationary volunteer firefighters pass a physical agility test that included dragging a 280-pound water-filled fire hose over a distance of 150 feet in under four minutes.

"The four-minute maximum for the so-called "charged hose drag" was determined by trials conducted by some 44 members of the volunteer department, including Ms. Pietras, who logged a time of five minutes, 21 seconds.

"When the official test was given, 63 of 66 male probationers passed the test, for a passage rate of 95 percent. Of the seven women who took the test, four dragged the hose in under four minutes and two failed to complete the test. The seventh was Ms. Pietras, who failed the test not once but twice. She was subsequently fired from the department.

"During a bench trial before Judge Hurley, an expert exercise physiologist, Dr. Robert Otto, testified as to both the disparate impact of the "charged hose drag" test and its lack of relation to the job.

"Under the rule, if the pass rate for women is less than 80 percent of the pass rate for men, then the court can draw an inference of disparate impact."

I'm sure this case applies to the police as well. Thus it seems that political correctness, rather than safety and realism, are setting requirements for females working in the public safety domain in New York.

If a woman is actually able to pass the same physical tests as a man does, then I have no problem with them becoming police officers or firemen. (Firepeople just sounds stupid.) However, there's no reason to put the public or the women in question in harm's way simply so we can be "fair."

Update: I've found the actual state wide standards here. They are slightly different from the Suffolk County ones, but the disparity between male and female requirements is pretty much the same.

Update: After watching the video, I see that the woman was First Department Chief Jewel Williams from the Department of Public Safety, New York State Courts. Thanks to Political Teen for making the video avaliable.

Posted by illuminaria at 04:29 PM | Comments (7)

This is Reporting? More like Plagiarism

Take a look at this AP article that was on Wizbang today. Then go read this press release from the World Wide Fund for Nature. Notice any similarities? That’s because out of 8 paragraphs in the AP “article,” 7 are copied nearly verbatim from the press release. The other paragraph is the summary at the beginning of the article. I read both carefully, and noted that the only changes were punctuation, the rewording of a few sentences to make them simpler, and the substitutions of spellings, scientific units, and a few word to make them more understandable to American audiences. In fact, the only really substantive difference is the change of “the report shows” to “the report says.” Even then, it’s hard to tell if the “reporter” is really trying to point out the difference between what is just said and what is really shown.

Have another careful read of the AP article. Notice anything else? The article never mentions a single thing about a press release. I have no problem with news organizations reprinting press releases, but they need to SAY that they are press releases. The fact that this “article” is missing that little detail implies that the reporter actually read the report or interviewed someone that had.

And while we’re on the subject, I simply can not believe that reporters who report on these sorts of things can’t have just a little bit of training in the fallacies of statistics and logic, read the reports themselves, and then report on what they actually say. I can do that, it’s not hard; all it takes is a little time and a sharp open mind. Or they could at least consult someone who can do this. This is why people turn to the blogosphere. Wizbang points out that they only tend to provide critical reporting when the report supports conservative ideals.

As we saw last week, what someone says a study says is often very different from what it actually says.

Now I don’t have time to read the 80 page report myself, though I did read the introduction, so I can’t say whether it is accurate or not. However, the introduction certainly seems to take a more sedate tone as to whether or not the climate changes it tracks are due to man-caused global warming or not. It even notes that:

Climatic changes and its impacts on the fluctuation of glaciers are a natural phenomenon that has been occurring in the Earth’s five billion-year-old history.

In comparison, here is this sentence from the WWF press release.

WWF calls on all governments to recognize that global average temperature must stay below 2°C (3.6°F) in comparison to pre-industrial levels.

This seems to show that the people who write press releases for their organizations don’t even read their own reports. If they did, they might realize that it is ridiculous to call for governments to attempt to hold the Earth’s temperature at a certain point, seeing as how global changes have been occurring for billions of years and, despite the claims of some people, it is impossible to determine how much humans, as opposed to natural causes, have affected recent climate changes.

Posted by illuminaria at 02:16 PM | Comments (0)

March 10, 2005

Pathetic Protestations from Le Moyne

David Limbaugh today pointed out a story about a graduate student dismissed from Le Moyne because he advocated corporal punishment. Scott McConnell wrote in a paper that he thought “corporal punishment has a place in the classroom.” He also had controversial opinions on what he called “anti-American multiculturalism” and said that he would not favor some students over others in the name of self-esteem. The subject of the paper was how the students would like to run their classroom. He got an A- on the paper and in fact he had a 3.78 GPA that semester and received an “excellent” evaluation for his time spent in an actual classroom, but administrators decided to revoke his conditional acceptance to the college. In their acceptance letter, however, the college said that his academic performance would be the determining factor as to whether he would be accepted permanently. The letter said nothing about personal beliefs, nor were any students ever told that they were required to hold certain personal beliefs.

Some of the quotes from various officials in the New York Times are quite interesting.

Le Moyne's provost, John Smarrelli, said the college had the right as a private institution to take action against Mr. McConnell because educators had grave concerns about his qualifications to teach under state law.

…

Because it has an accredited school of education, moreover, Le Moyne officials said that the college was required to pledge that its graduates will be effective and law-abiding teachers who will foster a healthy classroom environment.

"We have a responsibility to certify people who will be in accordance with New York State law and the rules of our accrediting agencies," Mr. Smarrelli said. In Mr. McConnell's case, he said, "We had evidence that led us to the contrary."

…

[Joseph P. Frey, the assistant commissioner for quality assurance in the New York State Education Department] said that graduate education schools might face a threat to their accreditation, or legal action by school districts, if they produce teachers who fall into trouble

This is simply laughable. Have you heard of a single story of teacher misconduct in which the college the teacher went to was even mentioned, let alone blamed? There certainly aren’t any that are popping in to my mind. This also assumes that McConnell would disobey any law against corporal punishment, and that he’d not move to one of the 22 states where corporal punishment is legal. It certainly seems that no one at the school actually talked to him about these issues; in fact the first McConnell heard about this was when he got his dismissal letter. Their protestations of protecting themselves are pathetic at best.

Futhermore, the implication that officials in New York might agree with this is somewhat chilling. Wouldn't this lead to the chilling of free speech?

FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) is on the case. Responding to a letter from FIRE, Smarrelli said, “the College does not believe it is appropriate to enter a public debate with your organization concerning the College’s admission decision regarding any particular student.” (Although I see he has no problem with talking to the New York Times.)

In conclusion, lets take a look at Le Moyne’s mission statement:

Le Moyne College is a diverse learning community that strives for academic excellence in the Catholic and Jesuit tradition through its comprehensive programs rooted in the liberal arts and sciences. Its emphasis is on education of the whole person and on the search for meaning and value as integral parts of the intellectual life. Le Moyne College seeks to prepare its members for leadership and service in their personal and professional lives to promote a more just society.

Yeah, right.

Posted by illuminaria at 04:15 PM | Comments (1)

March 09, 2005

Another Study that Measures What it Measures.

I read at Number 2 Pencil about a study that Bates College recently released about their optional SAT submission policy. It compares the SAT scores, graduate rates, etc. for submitters and non-submitters. Apparently everyone is automatically taking it to mean that the SAT is not an accurate predictor for college achievement. My first thought on reading this was, “how on earth are they comparing SAT scores if the non-submitters never submitted them.” Obviously there must have some sort of optional surveying that was done. When this is the case, the problem of self-selection comes up.

I went to the Bates website and tried to find the paper, but all I could find was a press release, a powerpoint presentation of figures, and the associated notes. From looking through the figures, though, I was able to calculate that the pool of people that they used for the study were people from the class of ’92 to the class on ’93. (This runs from the time period where all standardized testing, not just the SAT, was made optional to the last class that they would be able to get graduation rates on.) This class composes 3888 students. 2487 (63%) were submitters and 1471 (37%) were non-submitters. They seem to use this pool to compare graduate rates, admission rates, GPA, academic scoring, field of study, etc.

However, the pool of people they use to compare SAT scores with these other values is 3275 (84% of the possible subjects.) 91% of the submitters participated, but only 68% of the non-submitters participated. This leaves plenty of room for the effects of self-selection. Plus, I will point out that since they're comparing the SAT values for the self-selected group to the other values for the entire group, this makes their comparisons suspect. That sort of thing is only valid if the sample is actually random.

Self-selection could affect the results in many ways. Perhaps students were more likely to participate in the study if their SAT score was higher, or perhaps students were more likely to participate in the study if their college GPA was higher, or perhaps students in non-math and sciences were more likely to participate in the study because they care less about revealing their SAT score, etc. Who knows what the results of these things were, but I can’t believe that the study doesn’t even address this at all. For example, a comparison of fields of study or GPA’s of participants and non-participants in each group would be helpful.

Update: I did some more number crunching, and it is possible to calculate that the average GPA of submitting participants is 3.21 (compared to a GPA of 3.11 of all submitters) and the average GPA of the non-submitting participants is 3.10 (compared to a GPA of 3.06 of all non-submitters). Therefore all of the participants had better GPA's than the non-participants, which means a the difference is now .11 rather than .05, which is the number that SHOULD have been compared to the SAT gap of 160. Also, I realized that since the graduation rate for both groups is about 87%, it is likely that the majority of the submitters that didn't participate, also didn't graduate. So most likely they used the stats they had on submitters who stayed for a certain length of time, but the non-submitters are all self-selected. It's also revealing to note that they do a graph of SAT scores vs. GPA for each group, and there as the SAT score increases from the 1000's to the 1500's, the GPA increases by about .5 points for both groups. Thus, in fact, it seems pretty obvious that SAT score IS a good predictor for GPA.

I found some things said in the notes quite interesting.

In this and previous studies, we asked statistical experts at Bates to check and critique our work. Michael Murray, a renowned international economist at Bates who designs national economies and central banking systems for third world countries, said to me, "Bill, you shouldn't be comparing submitters and non-submitters!" I thought, "Oh no, into what statistical blind alley is Michael leading me." He went on, "You should be comparing the enrolled non-submitters with the students you would have had to admit if you didn't have 1500 non-submitter applicants from which to choose the very best." He is right, of course, and at Bates and most colleges, that would comprise the entire wait list and a decent slice of the refuse pool.

He then goes on to not discuss this issue’s affect on the study at all. Murray seems to have made an incredibly good point here.

From 1992 to the present, 129 (about 3% of the total enrolled students) SAT I Non-submitters submitted SAT IIs. We have significant volumes of AP's, A levels, and IB's, but most of them come in late in the senior year for placement and advanced credit use, so they are not part of this research.

I think it would be a great idea if they were a part of this research. No one that takes the SAT 5 times is going to get the same score each time. (For instance, I took the ACT twice within the same year and got a 34 and a 32.) That doesn’t mean that the SAT is not a good measure of intelligence, only that there are going to be variations in many things that will show up in the score. If you have a bunch of students with the same intelligence, knowledge, and test taking skills that each take the SAT one time, you’re going to have differences between the scores, even if there’s no differences between the students. Quite often there are students who do better on the ACT than the SAT, and so submit that score, and vice versa. If we compared the scores of SAT submitters and non-submitters on other tests, we might be able to detect this effect.

Also, comparing high school GPA of submitters and non-submitters would be of interest. All of this stuff could have been done with a few more questions on the survey.

But something important should be pointed out here. Optional testing is often assumed to be a device for an affirmative action policy, to open the admissions process from a narrow statistical review to a more complex and subtle reading. And it does that. But white students using the policy outnumber the students of color by about five to one.

This is like taking a truckload of apples and a bag of oranges and saying “well, yeah, 50% more of the oranges are rotten, but the number of rotten apples outnumbers the number of rotten oranges by 50-1.” This is a person with a PhD in statistics? Either he’s outright stupid, or he’s one of those people blinded to any logic that contradicts his opinions on affirmative action. Either way, I’m not feeling real good about his study.

In California, that bell-weather state so often several years ahead of the rest of us. I refer you to Eugene Garcia's report of several years ago on Hispanic admission to the public institutions in California. The U-Cal public university admission rate for Hispanic students has been over the years less than 4%, and Hispanic students comprise 50% of the K-12 school cohort. Does this pass a common sense test of access to a public university system, to have a 4% admit rate for 50% of the school population? Does it pass a test of social ethics? I am not pointing a finger at California, but asking a common sense question about our country: are we getting the students the education they need to be competitive?

This statement kind of makes me think he’s an AA zealot. Does the guy realize that in California lots more of the kids are immigrants or children of immigrants who don’t speak English well or at all, not to mention being immersed in a culture where the dreams and aspirations of the population are very different from others.

On average, Submitters score about 90 points above the Non-Submitters in Verbal SAT, and 70 points above non-submitters in Math SAT, for a total SAT gap of 160 points. This TSAT gap has been amazingly stable for the entire history of the policy, and if there reasons for that, we cannot see them.

I’d be interested to see the Verbal and Math SAT statistics compared with the graduation rate, GPA etc. Perhaps we would find that the Verbal score is a good predictor, wheras the Math isn’t.

While testing seems to have some very basic correlation with GPAs, non-submitters seem to outperform submitters with the same SAT scores, but for both groups, the lines are pretty flat, because virtually everyone is succeeding.

This is kind of a problem. This study would be more effective at a school where there are a significant group of people who are not succeeding.

And here is the glaring exception. Bates alumni earn graduate degrees at quite high rates: about 70% of all Bates alumni will earn at least one graduate degree. At the Master's Degree level, the percentage of submitters and non-submitters are quite close. But in fields that require another standardized test for admission, there are big, visible gaps between submitters and non-submitters: MBAs, PhDs, MDs and JD's. I mean this as a honest and not a rhetorical question: are these the best, or just the best test-takers? Let that question go proxy for a lot of what we need to understand better than we do.

I like how here he posits the question of whether the people getting graduate degrees are the best, or just the takers; but in the press release, they say, “in fields where success does not depend on further standardized testing—including business executive officers and finance careers—submitters and non-submitters are equally represented.”

In conclusion, I’d like to point out that, like a standardized test, statistical studies only measure what they measure, which is not necessarily what the researcher wants them to measure.

Posted by illuminaria at 02:50 PM | Comments (1)

March 08, 2005

More Useless Condescending Claptrap

The Democracy Project today pointed out an op-ed by Ellen Weintraub, one of the members of the FEC who voted against appealing a decision last year that required the FEC to regulate the internet in order to comply with BCRA.

The op-ed begins with the sentence “Bloggers of America, chill” and continues:

Reports of a Federal Election Commission plot to "crack down" on blogging and e-mail are wildly exaggerated.

First of all, we're not the speech police. We don't tell private citizens what they can or cannot say, on the Internet or anywhere else. The FEC regulates campaign finance. There's got to be some money involved, or it's out of our jurisdiction.

BCRA is all about policing speech. And for pete’s sake, just because some reports may be exaggerated does not mean that they have no merit. People who did not even want campaign finance reform to begin with are obviously going to have issue with more regulations of that nature. You can’t just dismiss all of them as reactionary wackos.

And unlike what she asserts, money does not have to be involved for the FEC to be involved. The contribution merely has to have some monetary value. Bradley Smith said in his interview that, for instance, if someone were to spend some small amount of money sending out letters for a campaign, and those letters raise a large amount of money, that the FEC would consider the monetary value of the act to be equal to the amount of money raised. As I pointed out in my last post on this subject, with a little juggling of numbers, the value of a link on Instapundit to a candidate’s website could be well over $2000, even though it would probably only cost pennies in terms of time and bandwidth. As for email, if the FEC can value letters that are sent out, there’s no reason for it to not be able to value email.

Wizbang also points out that in 2004 when they donated the use of a BlogAd to a campaign, they were required to sign a disclosure stating that they were donating the value of that BlogAd to the campaign. Plus since the FEC already regulates paid ads on the internet, what else could new regulations be about but regulating unpaid ads and in-kind contributions.

I just can't wait to see the regulations these guys are going to come up with.

Update: Wizbang has more, including a link to the fisking of the statements of John McCain and Russ Feingold regarding this issue. La Shawn Barber has a round up of posts on the subject.

Posted by illuminaria at 04:15 PM | Comments (0)

John McCain: The Stuff of Regulatory Nightmares

Today I’ve been reading at Michelle Malkin, Captain’s Quarters, and the Democracy Project that Senator McCain, of the infamous BCRA, seems to be taking advantages of loopholes in his very own campaign finance reform bill.

Specifically the allegations are that his Reform Institute raises money to promote him; the institute pays a six figure “consulting fee” to one of McCain’s advisors; and the institute has received $200,000 from a company which McCain then began formally supporting politically. This was all very interesting, but what I found most interesting was the mention of McCain’s bill introduced in the Senate a few weeks ago entitled “Localism in Broadcasting Reform Act of 2005”

In McCain’s press release, he says that the reason for the act is that local broadcasting stations are not spending enough time on local elections. He seems to believe that this is responsible for recent increases in election related advertising. I’ll point out something to him that my father pointed out to me years ago: correlation does not mean causation. Just because local coverage decreases and advertising increases does not mean that the first caused the second. It could mean that the second caused the first, or that they were both caused by some third factor. Both of those options seem like plausible possibilities that should be explored. For instance, perhaps people are so sick of the advertising that they want to see less coverage, and the local stations are responding to this.

Furthermore, unlike what McCain seems to think, requiring local stations to provide more coverage of elections does not necessarily reduce the amount of money spent, even if you accept his premise that this would lead to less advertising. If campaigns are spending less money on advertising, then stations have to get that money from somewhere else. Either their advertising rates increase and other companies take on that burden, or the station makes less money, which means that the owners of and workers at the stations get less money. The last option seems far more likely, seeing as how stations tend to give viewers what they want and viewers don’t seem to want to see more candidates on the television, thus advertisers are less likely to buy advertising during those times and the station will be forced to charge less.

McCain says that his bill will “reduce the license term for broadcasters from eight years to three years, thereby requiring broadcasters to provide the FCC with information every three years on why their license should be renewed” and “would require the full Commission to review five percent of all license and renewal applications, and would command broadcasters to post on their Internet sites information detailing their commitment to local public affairs programming.”

Let’s take a look at that bill, as politicians always seem to leave out pertinent things in press releases.

Here is the full text of the bill. This is my summary.

Sections 1&8: Title and definitions.
Section 2: Reduces the term of broadcast licenses from 8 years to 3.
Section 3: Requires the full FCC Commission to review at least 5% of the license requests every year.
Section 4: “Require[s] every broadcaster to file, electronically, a copy of its public interest issues and programs list and its children's programming reports … within 10 days after the end of each calendar quarter.” Also requires broadcast stations with websites and the FCC to provide this information to the public.
Section 5: States that in order to get a renewal of their license, a licensee’s other stations must also be reviewed.
Section 6: It’s already in the law that “parties of interest” may file a petition with the FCC to deny a license. This act designates that to be a party of interest, all a person must do is be a listener or viewer of the station (which is not dependant on where they live) and “assert an interest in vindicating the general public interest.”
Section 7: Gives the FCC 9 months to do certain things such as consider standardized forms for submission of reports.

Sections 2,3,7, and part of 4 were included in the press release. But what about the rest of section 4, which requires each station to submit their public interest/children’s programming every three months. I admit I don’t know what the current requirement for this is, but this is still a pretty important part.

Section 5 also seems like a biggie. Unless an owner has the licenses of all of their stations come up at the same time, they would have to pull together all of the pertinent information on all of their stations more often than every three years, which is already quite a change from every eight years. How much more work will this create for stations, not to mention for the FCC, who is already going to have more to do because of sections 2 and 3. Every government regulation you add creates more taxpayer spending to enforce it. And let’s not forget the question of why it should be legal for the FCC to require all of your stations to be reviewed to get a license for one. That’s like requiring a review of all of my children’s educations in order for one child to get into college. Why not judge each station on its own merit?

Section 6 also seems like a big deal. This opens the window for all sorts of people to attempt to deny a station a license. Just how many times does a person have to listen or view a station to be counted as a “listener” or “viewer”? Since residence does not matter, does that mean listening to a radio station a few times over the internet would count? Would we get local special interest groups claiming that the local station does not work in the public interest because they don’t give any coverage to their group? Would I be able to complain about a station because I listen a syndicated show of theirs from the other side of the nation? And of course, this would enable McCain to give trouble to just about any station every three years. After all, we already know he has “an interest in vindicating the general public interest.”

All this for whatever the government deems to be in the general public interest. There’s no question, of course, if this is something the general public actually wants or needs.

Posted by illuminaria at 03:13 PM | Comments (0)

March 07, 2005

Russell Crowe: Cultural Stabilizer?

Michelle Malkin has a link up to a very weird story today. Apparently in 2001 the FBI warned Russell Crowe that al-Qaida was looking to kidnap him as part of a "cultural destabilisation plan."

I never realized that Russell Crowe was a cultural stabilizer. At the time he was nominated for an Academy Award, but still...it's not like he's a John Wayne or anything.

I can actually see why al-Qaida would want to kidnap a star. The incident would get a lot more press attention than some of the other kidnappings have.

This was before 9-11. Perhaps al-Qaida was planning to coordinate their Russell Crowe plan at the same time.

They should have kidnapped Barbara Streisand or Michael Moore. It would been a big time-saver. It wouldn't have been necessary to spend any time on torture, as Barbara and Mike would have been willing to say anti-American slogans at the beginning.

Check out Ace of Spades' take.

Posted by illuminaria at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)

How About Some Sexual Abuse Education?

I’ve been following the story on the “Milton Academy sex scandal” on Wizbang this past week. I’ve been rather disturbed by the tone of the discussion. Everyone seems to be assuming that this is a symptom of a morally degenerating society, or that this is an example of how teens don’t think oral sex is really sex ala Bill Clinton, or that this girl is just a slut and they’ve always been around, etc. etc… Only a few people have brought up the possibility of sexual abuse, and a lot of them were quite dismissive of the possibility.

What the hell? The allegations are that on at least four occasions within a very short time period she performed oral sex on several boys at a time while others watched. I understand that more teens are having sex and stuff, but this is not normal teenage sexual behavior. The only ones who think it is are NAMBLA and other perverts, people who watch too much porn, and idiots.

Kids who are abused start to sexualize everything. They see themselves as having no worth other than through sex. They are the sort of people who are servicing 13 boys in a week’s time, while others watch. And sexual abuse is very common, more common than many people think.

Normal human behavior for females, even in a sexually permissive society, looks nothing like this. Yes, these days there are many more young girls out there having sex with their boyfriends, but the “sluts” have most likely been abused, and that’s how it’s been over time immemorial. The only reason that it seems to be a new phenomenon now, is that it’s more socially acceptable to reveal it. You think in the 50’s there weren’t any girls who were giving multiple blow jobs? No, that stuff probably went on then as much as it does now, it’s just that there weren’t any Katie Couric specials about it.

I wasn’t very surprised today to read that this girl’s brother has also had sexual incidents at a young age, and that her father has been accused of indecent exposure and “improper touching.”

If you ask me, the schools should take some time out from teaching kids how to put condoms on bananas, and point out that if some girl wants to service you for no reason, then she’s probably been abused and you’d be a miserable bastard to take her up on it. I’m sure there are some boys out there who wouldn’t give a damn why she wanted to do it, but on the other hand I know for a fact that there are boys out there who just don’t realize the circumstances, and who never would have done anything if they had known. I’ve had friends who have gotten caught up in a bad situation because they did something with a girl that had been sexually abused, who never would have done it if they had realized. Teenage boys may think with their "other brain" too often, but that doesn't mean they want to hurt anyone.

And I wish people would stop and think for a minute, before calling this girl a “slut” and a “whore.” All they are doing is abusing her some more.

Number 2 Pencil's post on the subject really made me think too. Everyone is so concerned with liberating sexuality, that they totally miss the fact that abuse might be involved. This is just as bad as ignoring the possibility of abuse by just calling the girl a slut, or ignoring abuse because "we just don't think about those things," like we were 50 years ago.

Posted by illuminaria at 03:04 PM | Comments (6)

March 04, 2005

Extremely Easy for Blogs to Violate BCRA

I’ve been quite interested in this new development of the application of the McCain-Feingold Act and how it will apply to the Internet, but I couldn’t find a lot of details as to how this happened. So here it is:

On September 18th, 2004, the United States District Court released a decision written by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. The complaint in this case was brought by Christopher Shays and Martin Meehan, who are members of the House, against the FEC. Their complaints regarded the FEC’s regulations that implemented BCRA (the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act). The part of the decision that addresses the Internet runs from pages 48-57.

In BCRA, the regulations were defined to apply to “a communication by means of any broadcast, cable, or satellite communication, newspaper, magazine, outdoor advertising facility, mass mailing, or telephone bank to the general public, or any other form of general public political advertising.” The FEC’s regulations were then defined to apply to “a communication by means of any broadcast, cable or satellite communication, newspaper, magazine, outdoor advertising facility, mass mailing or telephone bank to the general public, or any other form of general public political advertising. The term public communication shall not include communications over the Internet.“ Basically it was the same language, but exempted the Internet.

The decision said: “Congress, by the plain terms of the statute, clearly intended for the term “public communication” to capture all forms of “general public political advertising” and the FEC has provided no legislative history that persuades the Court to ignore the plain meaning of the statute.” (Read the whole thing for details if you’re interested.)

According to this interview with Bradley Smith, who is a member of the six-member Federal Election Commission, he and the other two Republican commissioners wanted to appeal the decision, but the three Democrats did not want to. Now the FEC is in the process of modifying the regulations to apply to the Internet.

Part of the issue is that in 2004 people were able to purchase Internet advertising for a campaign and it was not counted as a contribution, which would not be the case for television or newspaper advertising, and therefore there were no limitations on it. I can certainly see how changing that would be consistent with BCRA (although I will say now that I think BCRA is unconstitutional in this regard.)

However, Bradley Smith says:

The real question is: Would a link to a candidate's page be a problem? If someone sets up a home page and links to their favorite politician, is that a contribution? This is a big deal, if someone has already contributed the legal maximum, or if they're at the disclosure threshold and additional expenditures have to be disclosed under federal law.

Certainly a lot of bloggers are very much out front. Do we give bloggers the press exemption? If we don't give bloggers the press exemption, we have the question of, do we extend this to online-only journals like CNET?
…
Corporations aren't allowed to donate to campaigns. Suppose a corporation devotes 20 minutes of a secretary's time and $30 in postage to sending out letters for an executive. As a result, the campaign raises $35,000. Do we value the violation on the amount of corporate resources actually spent, maybe $40, or the $35,000 actually raised? The commission has usually taken the view that we value it by the amount raised. It's still going to be difficult to value the link, but the value of the link will go up very quickly.

It seems, then, that this would be pretty easy to measure the value of a link on a blog, in fact. Let’s refer to Michelle Malkin’s recent article on site statistics, and assume that her numbers are right. Assume then, that Instapundit gets about 25,000 hits a day, equal to 175,000 a week. Let’s also assume that a link to a political campaign would generate 4,000 hits, and that on average Instapundit premium advertisers get about 2% of Instapundit's traffic. This would extrapolate to 3500 hits for advertising, and 4000 hits for a link in the content. A week of premium advertising costs $2000. That would mean that Instapundit linking to a political campaign would be worth about $2285. Watch out Instapundit, you’re already above the limit!

What can we do? Contact the FEC commission and ask them to appeal the decision and/or attempt to write the regulations to prevent any (more) trampling of the first amendment. Contact your representatives in Congress and ask them to exclude the Internet themselves. Above all, let’s talk about this more. The comments of some people that this would never happen are, unfortunately, not particularly reassuring.

For much much more, see Michelle Malkin, Wizbang, Captain's Quarters, Powerline, and, well, everyone.

Posted by illuminaria at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)