The Really Inconvenient Blog

I wrote the following back in 2000, when I worked at STATS, but was unable to find an outlet for it.  Now that Jonah has mentioned something strongly related on The Corner, I thought it worth posting here.

Voodoo Research
June 01 2000
Iain Murray
Applying skepticism to the Skeptical Inquirer

Skepticism in scientific inquiry is a good thing. It protects the research from the twin evils of prejudice and equivocation and forms a bright light that can shine through all sorts of obfuscatory cloudings of the issue. Skeptical Inquirer, the journal of CSICOP (the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims Of the Paranormal), is therefore also a good thing. It calmly and rationally debunks all sorts of idiotic claims about aliens, ghosts, graphology and the Loch Ness Monster. But for all the motes in other people’s eyes, there is almost always a beam in one’s own. In the Skeptical Inquirer’s case, the problem is with religion, and skepticism seems to give way to prejudice.

The Inquirer’s January/ February issue confirms this. In a piece entitled “Two Paranormalisms or Two and a Half? An Empirical Exploration,” State University of New York sociology professor Erich Goode examines the proposition that those who believe in traditional religion are unlikely to give credence to paranormal claims and other “new age” beliefs. He suggests that there is a gray area where a “traditional Christian background lays the foundation for many paranormalisms.” In an effort to examine this suggestion, Professor Goode conducted an experiment, which he claims backs up his thesis.

Unfortunately, it is here that Professor Goode’s skepticism breaks down. He conducted his experiment by means of a survey of 484 undergraduate college students, spread over three courses. The first objection to the results being meaningful should be immediately apparent. Far from being a representative sample of the population at large, the sample, encompassing but three courses and not including graduates, fails even to be representative of students at the University. No opinion pollster would expect payment if he presented the results of a poll based on such an unrepresentative section of the American people. Such “quasi-experimental” surveys do have a value in helping to refine questions that need to be asked - they are like large focus groups in that respect - but to claim that they provide concrete evidence about the proposition is as unscientific as a belief in Bigfoot.

A second problem lies in the characteristics of the sample. The students at Stony Brook seem exceptionally credulous. A full 72% of the sample agree with, and a further 17% are “not sure” about, the statement “Some people have ESP.” Astonishingly, 60% of the sample believe that “Astrology is scientific” (perhaps there are grounds for the University of Oxford reinstating its medieval Chair in Astrology), and 43% of the sample agrees that “Some numbers are lucky.” The figures drop off considerably for the statements “Many UFOs are alien vehicles” and “King Tut’s curse killed people,” but they are bolstered by a hefty degree of “not sures” in both cases. By contrast, only 54% agreed with the statement “Heaven exists,” 43% with “Angels exist” and a mere 15% with “The Devil exists.”

These figures are illuminating, or, perhaps, they have made darkness visible. In this sample, at least, “new age” beliefs are prevalent. Perhaps that is not surprising; students are, by their very nature, open-minded people. Given that, and the proportion of those who believe in what used to be called “unconventional” beliefs, it should come as no surprise that there is a significant number that accepts both Christian and “new age” tenets. Any mathematician will tell you that there is a good possibility of significant overlap between two large subsets of a sample. Goode found a statistical likelihood that someone who believed Christian teachings was more likely to believe “new age” precepts as well. That should not have come as a surprise given the characteristics of the sample.

But even given this, Goode fails to distinguish between two categories of “new age” belief. The first category consists of beliefs which may be seen as somehow compatible with Christianity - lucky numbers (prominent in the Bible and Christian tradition), ESP (almost necessary for a belief in certain forms of miracles) and astrology (a prominent part of Christian belief until the Reformation, and now perhaps regarded as being part of the occult evil which opposes Christianity) - while the second consists of propositions to which the Christian church is either neutral or hostile - alien activity (perhaps contrary to a creationist view of humanity) and King Tut’s curse (predicated on neither God nor the Devil). There was a significant degree of overlap between Christian belief and the first category (78% of believers in heaven also believed in ESP), but a much smaller overlap between Christianity and the second (only 20% of believers in heaven believe many UFOs are alien vehicles).

Professor Goode and the editors of Skeptical Inquirer failed to apply to this research the skepticism they normally apply to other claims. They did not give sufficient caveats about the unrepresentiveness of the sample, they have failed to note the statistical likelihood of there being overlaps given the characteristics of the sample and they have failed to flag up an interesting dichotomy in the overlap. It is unfortunate, but from now on I have grounds to be skeptical about the Skeptical Inquirer.

From today’s Greenwire:

NEW YORK — The crisis roiling Wall Street is threatening to choke financing for green energy projects. Venture capitalists and private equity firms could fill the void as traditional financing options dry up. Indeed, private equity fund managers say the current turmoil could turn into a net positive for them: As debt markets turn their backs on green energy companies, many will look to venture capital and private equity to get backing for new projects or expansions. But the new, highly risk-averse environment will make it that much more difficult for companies to convince investors to put money behind renewables. While the sector is still very popular, the chief worry among money managers is protecting existing portfolios and guaranteeing that any new investments will net them strong, long-term returns.

Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.  In a threatening recession, with a looming energy crisis, the last thing we should be doing is wasting money on projects that are not economically viable and that will actually make energy more expensive, which is all that renewable energy projects have been able to do so far.  Now, I don’t mind venture capitalists doing it, or private investors putting up their own money because they believe it is important, but the mainstream funding sources must concentrate on what is viable and what will produce the affordable energy the economy needs.  The renewables industry has to get its act together, and stop leeching off the rest of the economy.  If it can do that, I’ll be only too happy to applaud its true maturation.

This article by Raymond C. Niles is about as close to my view of the necessary future for the electricity supply industry as I can imagine.  I’d like to write a version of this one day looking at the history of the British electricity industry.  And this should be required reading for anyone who thinks the reforms of the industry in the 80s and 90s were actually “deregulation.”

Read the whole thing, but here’s the central recommendation:

The recognition of property rights in the electric utility industry would enable utilities to compete with each other all the way to the power plug in a customer’s wall. All parts of the grid, from the generating plant to the transmission and distribution wires, would become open to the entrepreneurial energies of creative businessmen, scientists, and financiers. This would result in the rebirth of the entrepreneurial spirit of the industry’s early days, when Thomas Edison invented his central station generation, when George Westinghouse made it better by incorporating alternating current technology, and when Samuel Insull radically improved the economic efficiency of utilities by inventing new business methods that achieved undreamed-of economies of scale.

Absolutely.  British readers will find related thoughts in Dan Lewis’ excellent article on the dearth of entrepreneurialism in Britain today.  What is missing from Dan’s analysis is any examination of how property rights and entrepreneurialism are very much related.

The Academy of Lagado in Laputa was certainly ahead of its time, but its working methods should be recognizable:

The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin, were all of the same colour. He has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor’s gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers. I made him a small present, for my lord had furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to see them.”

- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

I have a post about the terrible energy bill currently before Congress at The Hill’s Congress Blog.

If you go to the web site of the Alliance for Climate Protection, the group that is sponsoring the $300 million “We Can Solve It” ad campaign, you’ll find the second name on the list of board members is very interesting:

Theodore Roosevelt IV
Managing Director, Lehman Brothers
Chair of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change

Theodore Roosevelt IV is Managing Director at Lehman Brothers and a member of the Firm’s senior client coverage group, which oversees the Firms client and customer relationships. Mr. Roosevelt is an active conservationist. He is Chair of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change, Vice Chair of the Wilderness Society, and a Trustee for the American Museum of Natural History, The World Resources Institute, the Institute for Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming, and a Trustee of Trout Unlimited.

That’s quite the environmentalist resume, isn’t it? We should also note that Lehman Bros issued a couple of reports on “The Business of Climate Change,” which are rent-seeker’s guides to making money off global warming regulation. If this sounds familiar, it’s the path down which Enron trod.

These reports were enthusiastically greeted by the environmental lobby. They were advised by James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies and chief scientific adviser to Al Gore.

Now, I am not saying that Lehman Bros fell because its MD was an enthusiastic environmentalist. It failed because of risky decisions made in the mortgage market. However, its failure - like Enron’s before it - demonstrates that attempting to trade in artificial assets that represent no real value is a supremely risky business. Carbon trading would be just such a risk, dependent as it is on fickle government action. Lehman Bros’ collapse should make Wall Street, utilities and investors equally wary of lobbying for such a market.

Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if Mr Roosevelt’s name disappears from the boards of the environmentalist organizations as quickly as Ken Lay’s did following the Enron collapse. Of course, Mr Roosevelt is not facing any criminal charges as far as I can make out and he does have a rather spiffy name (who says America has no aristocracy?) so it is quite possible that he will find a happy home heading up an environmental group. After all, his management skills would be just what they need.

Hat-tip: EU Referendum and Icecap

This is the single best simple explanation of why gas prices spike that I have ever read.

I have a post explaining why at Planet Gore.

This summer has made it quite clear that the US is suffering an energy crisis.  Not a great one yet, but definitely a harbinger of things to come.  And at least part of the crisis has been caused by historical legislative and administrative action that artificially constrained domestic energy supply or imposed undue regulation discouraging new generation.  Meanwhile, judicial and administrative action since Mass v EPA have stored up a significant problem for the future as coal power plants have now become more politically risky than even nuclear plants. Read the rest of this entry »

For Car-Free Day, CEI is launching a contest to find the best video promoting the virtues of automobility. See if you can spot the appearance from Rent-A-Hippy in the promo video below:

Go here to enter the contest.