Newt - A typical Hufflepuff

I've seen Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them a couple of times. It was not quite what I expected, but I see exactly what J. K. Rowling was doing with the characters, and I enjoyed it.

Education & Politics

Analysis is going around, concluding that it was education, not income, that predicted who would vote for Trump. This conclusion fits well with research that shows that people become more liberal as their educational level increases.

Why does education make people more liberal?  

In saying this, I am talking about people's foundational beliefs, not simply their political orientation.  But it all fits together.  It is not very common to find a Unitarian Republican.

When a person does not know much about a subject, it is natural to think about it in simple terms.  The more is known about the subject, the more complex and nuanced it appears.  This understanding is domain-specific.  A farmer will have complex understanding of a combine, whereas a concert violinist would likely perceive the combine as a mystery that either works or does not.

But in college, we learn that knowledge is complex and changing, requiring extended work to master.  Someone with less education is likely to see knowledge as simple and fixed, and gained quickly or not at all.

But these are also the deep down world views of liberalism versus conservatism.

The differences are even more pronounced in people with graduate degrees.  When you have to write hundreds of pages and tens of thousands of words on one topic for a doctoral dissertation, there is no way you can understand it in simple, black-and-white terms.

There are many other factors that also affect your liberal versus conservative world view, including your personal experiences and how you were raised.

For the record.....

Around 40% of Americans have a college degree. Another 22% have attended some college but not graduated.  About 12% of Americans have an advanced degree beyond a bachelors.  A little over 3% hold doctorates. In 2016/2017, women are projected to earn 64.2% of associate degrees, 59.9% of bachelor's degrees, 62.9% of master's degrees, and 55.5% of doctorates.

Trump Cups - Bletch

This USA Today story illustrates the self-contradictory campaign of Donald Trump supporters to spend money with Starbucks, but get the baristas to shout the name "Trump" when the order is ready.

In my opinion, fast food restaurants should be shouting out the order number, not somebodies name or food items ordered.

Please, protect the privacy of all of your customers!

The Counter-intuitive Truth: A warmer planet can mean colder weather

We have had our first winter storm where I live in North America.  No doubt it will result in jokes about "we just got three inches of global warming."

But when the Polar Vortex brings colder weather and more snow to northern North America, it really IS the result of a warming planet.  Here's how it works:

Warmer water in the arctic warms the air above it more than in years past.  The North Pole is currently 36 degrees warmer than usual.  The warm air rises, and it is more humid than in years past because of the warmer water.  

When it gets up high, the warmer water moves southward.  As it cools off, and gets even colder than it started because it is up to high.  Being cold, it drops down closer to the planet again, bringing colder air to the surface, where it is pulled back up north to replace the rising air.  This causes cold, humid wind to be felt farther and farther south as warmer and warmer air rises over the North Pole.

But because the planet rotates, the wind doesn't go straight south to north. It rotates around the North Pole, west to east, or counter-clockwise as you look down from above.    

This is exactly what happens with a hurricane, except that it is not at the North Pole.  Warm air rises in the middle (the Eye) and air rushes in from the sides to replace it, rotating around the eye counter-clockwise.  The way the Earth rotates, and the tidal currents, make hurricanes move.  The rotation of the Earth keeps the Polar Vortex in place, centered on the North Pole.

And THAT is how a warming planet can cause colder, snowier winters in parts of North America.  

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Bonus note:  People who really and truly think "it's cold where I am today so the planet can't be warming" are engaging in inductive reasoning, i.e. making broad generalizations based on limited specific observations. This is a logical fallacy.   

Proper deductive reasoning requires a large number of observations (data points) to be merged into a model or framework (theory) that can be used to predict future specific observations within acceptable error.  

How to Talk to the Other Side of the Asile

This Slideshare PPT, from 2015, contains a nice analysis of how Conservatives and Liberals think.

Your brain on politics the cognitive neuroscience of liberals and conservatives

Therefore, it contains ideas to keep in mind when we are communicating with people who think differently than we do.

Distorted News

There has been a lot of talk recently about fake news in social media.  There is some, deliberately intended to deceive, but the much bigger problem is advocacy cloaked as journalism, that distorts the story in order to advocate a particular political or social agenda.

Here are some examples of recent headlines that are probably NOT news:

       It's worse than you think

       The electoral system was rigged — for Donald Trump

       Trump releases seven-point health care reform plan . . . and it's excellent

The secret is understanding whether the source has an editorial bias.  MUCH of what we see coming down our news feeds is actually advocacy for one side or the other.

How do you tell?  It's really not hard.  If the headline or story contains a value judgement or opinion that is NOT attributed to someone, it is advocacy, not journalism (even if it resembles a news story).

The only things that do not need to be attributed in journalistic writing are facts that are "widely known or easily verifiable."  But in promotional writing using journalistic style can stretch this "widely known" criteria to the breaking point, making for the subtle implication that "everybody else knows this but you."

The complicating factor is that you can't just base your evaluation on the publication or website.   Many legitimate news sources also carry editorials, guest columns, and other opinion pieces.

You have to make an article-by-article evaluation!

Super Moon, ya, sure.

Not going out to see the imperceptibly larger than average (7%) so-called "super Moon" tonight?

This is probably my best Moon photo, from a couple of years ago.

Not Very "Super" Moon

Note that the largest the Moon ever appears in the sky is not much bigger than the smallest it ever appears.  The largest is only 14% larger than the smallest.  Average is in the middle.

Hardly anyone would notice a  "Super Moon" if not for social media.

Let's Make People Smart Again.

Image Credit & Copyright: Catalin Paduraru

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap161113.html

Social Media is not about Advocacy

I've seen all kinds of chatter this week, second guessing the presidential election and blaming whoever they can think of for the outcome, including a hefty dose of blaming social media.  But most of this social media blaming is from people who do not understand social media.

Social media is about relationships, not about persuasion.

Social media is about relationships, not about advocacy.

Let me say it again -- social media is about relationships, which is why you are much more likely to see posts that agree with your social, political, and religious orientation.

Not quite seeing the difference?  Let's take a step back.

In the 1990s, visionaries were learning that the Internet was not simply about moving data from place to place.  It was about social relationships. Look at these two Prodigy commercials:  In 1990, it was all about stuff, but by 1995, it was about people.

Facebook and Twitter were created for the express purpose of connecting together people who already knew each other, and people who shared common interests.

When social media evolved to also be about marketing and selling you things, it drew on the fundamental principals of marketing communications, which are giving people information to which they are most likely to be receptive, and minimizing content to which people will react negatively.

This is why the Facebook newsfeed algorithm sends you news about things it believes are your interests.  In politics, this means content (news and advertising) that aligns with your political views.  Note that such advertising usually has a line at the top listing a couple of your friends who also supposedly "like" this content.

See?  Facebook is not only sending you content it thinks you favor, but it is emphasizing your relationships, in effect using your friends to make endorsements.  If you are not sure about a product or service, you are more likely to consider the product or service because people you know appear to like and endorse it.

It is your social relationships that they depend on to persuade you to consider the advertising.

Jack Wagner has pointed out that, because of the way social media works, many people who favored Trump did not really even see the opposition to him.  Many who favored Clinton never saw the opposition to her.

But even more important, they probably saw it, but did not feel any social connection to people espousing it, so discounted it.

Jim Wright observed that neither party is good at reaching out to the other side.

If progressives want to counter all of their feared Trump policy initiatives, they need to find new ways to communicate -- new ways of making contact with people who do not think the way they do, and new ways of explaining their positions in ways people who think differently can relate to.

But the real lesson here is that memes and fake news stories do not persuade people. Peer groups persuade people.  In real life and in social media.

What's next?

I was disappointed by the election results, but I could care less about second-guessing who should have done what differently.

I could care less what MIGHT happen under Trump.  All that speculation is just a distraction.

What I DO care about (as a registered independent) is whether Progressives figure out that the way they have been telling their story hasn't worked.

I DO care about whether Progressives are able to retool their system and tell their story more persuasively to people who do NOT think the way they do.

I DO care about whether Progressives are able to organize in a way they never have before to stymie policy initiatives they don't like.

Business as usual will not cut it.

Technology Assisted Language Learning

One of my scholarly journal articles has just been cited in a paper entitled "Technology Assisted Language Learning is a silver bullet for enhancing Language competence and performance: A Case Study."

The specific citation is:

"Wu, Yen and Marek (2011) explored in their studies the unprecented impact of technology in increasing learners’ motivation for listening to online audio and video resources in order to improve their listening skills. They also found that while listening to online audio and video resources, the ESL learners were found to ward off their hesitation and shyness and try to speak English."

International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature

Jobs & China

China isn't somehow stealing jobs.

The government isn't somehow sending jobs to China.

American business people are deciding that they can make more money to having products made in China and shipped tot he US than making theme here.

The only way to change that formula is to tax or penalize businesses that contract for overseas manufacturing (and call centers).  Make it too expensive for them.

So, bringing all those jobs back to America means reducing the profit margin for American businesses.

How is reduced profits for business a Republican thing to do?

Educational Technology

One of my academic papers was cited in a conference paper from the 2016 International Symposium on Educational Technology, held 19-21 July in Beijing.

Collaborative Online International Learning: A Case Study between USA and Thailand

What's REALLY going on with NoDAPL

Why are state and local government officials in North Dakota freaking out about peaceful protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline?  It's because the protesters are challenging economic development amidst a tanking state economy, plain and simple.

North Dakota “has been the economic envy of every state in America for most of the past decade” according to Bloomberg. North Dakota had the lowest jobless rate, the highest increase in personal income, and the fastest-growing population, added Bloomberg, the result of the fracked tar sands oil boom that made North Dakota second only to Texas in domestic oil production.

But as you would expect from a boom-and-bust product, the market for North Dakota oil has tried up, the state's economy has collapsed, employment has plummeted, and the state has a $1 billion budget deficit.

Finding more markets for North Dakota oil would help reverse this free-fall. That's where the oil pipelines come in. DAPL says it would create 8,000 to 12,000 local jobs across its route during construction, plus lots of on-going local tax revenue.  It is not surprising that North Dakota officials eagerly want this revenue, and officials in all four states like the idea of income that does not result from taxes on voters.

THAT is why the local authorities are so vehemently on the side of the pipeline company.

As I have said before, I believe we need to get off fossil fuels as a primary energy source.  We need to do this because we are running out, because they cause global warming, and because renewable energy is simply a good idea.

Pollution of drinking water and tribal rights are important, but there is considerably more justification to NOT build new fossil fuels infrastructure.

Fall

Why we sometimes refer to Autumn as "Fall."

(We have two VERY large maple trees in our back yard.)

Russell's Teapot and Climate Change

In 1952, Bertrand Russell wrote that when a claim is made that is not supported by science, the person making the claim has the burden to prove it. Those denying the claim do not have the the burden disprove it.

Russell was writing in the context of religion, i.e. about people believing in God even though science can neither prove or disprove whether God exists, but I have been thinking recently about how this principle works in other settings, like climate change.

Russell said that if he asserts that a teapot orbits the sun between Earth and Mars, too small to observe by any telescope, we would NOT believe him, even though there is no way to disprove that it exists.

Russell held that just because a claim has NOT BEEN disproved does not mean that it IS factual. In fact, if there is no existing way to DISPROVE an assertion, then for all practical purposes, it is NOT true, or so goes Russell's argument.

We have LOTS deniers in America today. Because a scientific finding contradicts their world view, they struggle to undermine the science, in effect to disprove the scientific assertion. Often they use logical fallacies or inductive logic (reaching general conclusions from limited small amounts of data).  They contend that there is a controversy, when there really is not.  However, THEIR assertion that there is doubt is disproved by the preponderance of evidence.

The assertion on the other side of the question is that humans are emitting the greenhouse gases that are changing the climate. Every time the assertion has been tested by a fair scientific evaluation, it turns out to be correct (within small tolerances of error).  So the only avenue available to disprove the science...has not produced evidence of disproof.

The assertion that humans are causing climate change is proved.  The assertion that the science is invalid is disproved.

Ergo, according to Russell's framework we must ACCEPT the scientific conclusion that humans are affecting the climate, and that this affect is undesirable.

Could VALID disproof be discovered in the future?  Scientists are open to new evidence that changes our understanding, but it needs to be powerful to shake the broad and persuasive current evidence, not logical fallacies.

Red-Tailed Hawk

This little Red-tailed Hawk was perched on a power pole as I drove home the other day, down my rural Nebraska highways.

What do the election polls REALLY say?

If you are not watching this site:

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com

........you probably should be.

The editor in chief, statistician Nate Silver, successfully called the outcomes in 49 of the 50 states in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election and in 2012, correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Hawk

Autumn is a time when I often see hawks perched along the highway on my daily commute, particularly in the afternoon. This one posed nicely for me a while back. Nikon D5000, 300mm, F5.6, 1/1500th, 200 ISO.

Words that Persuade, and Words that Don't

I see very few words in my social media feeds that support Donald Trump. Some of this just reflects who my friends are, but I also think that many people planning to vote for Trump are reluctant to have it be known they will vote for him.

I have been a registered independent (not affiliated with a party) for almost all of my adult life.  My choice of candidates is based on who I think is best able to perform critical thinking, which is one of my own skills.  I find that candidates who are critical thinkers are likely to share my views on individual policies.

But there are a lot of political words out there that do not come from critical thinking. They are based on rampant logical fallacies or convenience.  "Doctrine", which people in a given party are told they must support, almost always has big logical gaps.

So right now, almost all am seeing are words of ridicule against Trump, which he well deserves.  I am also seeing quite a bit of negativity aimed at Clinton.  In her case, much of it is based on decades of attacks by conservatives, drawing on faulty logic.  In Trump's case, the liberal attacks are mostly based on facts.

So why aren't people planning to vote for Trump coming out and saying they support him?

Some have "drunk the Kool-aid" and insist on voting against Clinton.

But I have concluded that in many cases it is it is because every day, they are experiencing a sort of anonymous criticism because how they plan to vote contradicts the overwhelming majority of factual stories floating around about the candidates.

When we are bluntly criticized, we tend to clam up and get defensive.  We tend to insulate ourselves against such criticism, in this case by simply not talking about it.

Do you have someone in particular you want to persuade?  Do it in person, not via distance technology.  Avoid criticizing the current views of the person.  Begin with areas in which you know you agree and gently move into the grey policy areas between you.  Words have power, but they must be the right words, at the right time, delivered in the right way.