Natalie Solent |
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Politics, news, libertarianism, Science Fiction, religion, sewing.
You got a problem, bud? I like sewing.
E-mail: nataliesolent-at-aol-dot-com (I assume it's OK to quote senders by name.) Back to main blog RSS thingy 
Jane's Blogosphere: blogtrack for Natalie Solent. 
Links ( 'Nother Solent is this blog's good twin. Same words, searchable archives, RSS feed. Provided by a benefactor, to whom thanks. I also sometimes write for Samizdata and Biased BBC.) The Old Comrades:
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Wednesday, October 12, 2005
You probably won't hear from me until next week. Meanwhile, if you want a really wacky counterfactual, almost too weird for the human mind to encompass, go see what a commenter found for us at Biased BBC Other seeds fell elsewhere, but they fell on stony ground. Major post from Jim Bennett on Columbus and what he can and cannot be blamed for. The New World had been epidemiologically isolated from the Old for geologic eras, and thus was, epidemiologically speaking, a huge tinderbox waiting to be set alight. The first major contact from the Old World would set it alight. As it happened, this was Columbus -- but it could have been Chinese voyagers had the Ming treasure fleets not been cut back, or it could have been Japanese mariners cast adrift on the Japan Current and landing in the Pacific Northwest, or it could have been, as it nearly was, the Portuguese landing in Brazil as they did in 1500, not because they were trying to imitate Columbus, but because they had gone a bit wide turning around the bulge of Africa. Columbus was the agent of this contact, but he can hardly be charged with genocide for it, any more than the nameless Muslim trader from Central Asia who passed on, unwittingly, the bubonic plague to Italy and started the great Black Death epidemic in medieval Europe can be charged with Muslim genocide against Europe.That sense of the adventitiousness of history ties in with my disbelief in racism or national destiny. In one sense I believe that what the Albion's Seedling bloggers are calling the Exit (the take-off point in history when productivity started to pay more than predation) could only have started in England, with its particular history and geography. Other seeds fell elsewhere, but they fell on stony ground. In another sense... well, to look deep into the pool of "could have" is perilous and wonderful. Some see themselves reflected there, others quantum physics, others God. Events either happen or they do not. If they do happen they must happen in circumstances in which they could happen. If another seed had flourished, men of Africa might tell each other that it could all only have begun in Timbuktu. Tuesday, October 11, 2005
In which I devote 73 times more effort than it is worth into debunking an Independent Statistic of the Day. EU Rota is unimpressed by the World Wildlife Foundation family blood testing survey that gave birth to last Friday's Independent "statistic of the day." That was the statistic I got a bit strange about in this post here. Remember? The Independent said that 73 is the "average number of dangerous chemicals present in the blood of Europeans." It gave no indication of how dangerous a chemical has to be to be called "dangerous", whether "present" meant anything more than present in traces, and how it is demonstrated that these chemicals originated from computers, textiles and cosmetics rather than trees, organic food and wrestlers. The WWF survey did talk about these things, but for the Independent to omit the slightest mention of them converted that great big 73 into nothing more than a great big boo! to frighten the children. And then I noticed that the dear old Indy couldn't even get its own meaningless frightening statistic right. It said that 73 was the average number of dangerous blahs found blah blah. Yet according to page 20 of the WWF document, of the 107 chemicals analysed for, 73 were detected in the whole survey. The median number was 29. Back to EU Rota. He, she or they - it appears to be a group blog*, and the author of this post is known only as "GEA3" - took a look at the WWF survey and discovered the number of persons studied. What does the WWF base their far-reaching 'scientific' study upon? Ahh, page 16 of the report:That's thirty-nine as in three-nine as in one less than forty. I mean, I'm not saying that a careful study of thirty-nine people has no value to science, but it does seem a little skimpy as a basis from which to draw the rather large policy conclusions that Karl Wagner, the director of the WWF's DetoX campaign, does draw. He is quoted here as asking, "How much more evidence is needed before industry and European politicians accept that these hazardous chemicals cannot be adequately controlled?" Quite a lot more, Herr Wagner. Read the rest of EU Rota's post or I will boil your kidneys with 73 different hexes. Finally, what's with the WWF being a "Foundation" nowadays? A mere Fund was good enough for Sir Peter Scott. *GEA3 later emailed to say he's a he and there's only one of him. Warned me to stay away from the killer hand soap, too. A kindly thought. Monday, October 10, 2005
Just one problem, Minister. Last week, Bill Rammell, the Higher Education Minister, was telling the press that the current system of allocating places at university based on predicted A-Level grades was systematically unfair to poorer students. The Guardian on 4 October: He [Mr Rammell] told the Press Association that his critics were wrong. "It is a difference of view. I think we are absolutely right to be wanting to deal with what is an inherent unfairness in the current system." To back up his claim, Mr Rammell referred to research carried out by a team from Oxford University on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills. Just one problem. The research did not say what the Minister said it did. It said the opposite. In this report for the Times by Tony Halpin, "Minister accused of twisting facts on university admission" (8 October), one of the authors of the report is described as being mystified and annoyed by the way the DfES has presented his research. The Times report says: The DfES based “the case for change” on the fact that only 45 per cent of predicted A-level grades turn out to be accurate. They were most inaccurate for students “from the lower socio-economic groups and those from certain school or college backgrounds”. For the record, I am not a defender of the system of conditional offers based on predicted grades. Better to let the students find out their true grades before applying, as Mr Rammell seems to want. But his means of attempting to persuade us ought to get someone the sack. I'm guessing it won't be Mr Rammell himself. He's a sly one, he is, and is far from out of tricks. Read his reply to the Times. I have never sought to deliberately mislead anyone. One sentence in the original DfES press release is incorrect. This was a genuine mistake, which I regret and apologise for.[Here is said press release. It's dated 9 October so it ought to be the amended version. However it still contains the claim "The highest socio-economic groups are more likely to have their grades over-predicted, compared to the lowest socio-economic group, who are more likely to receive under-predicted grades." What is going on? I give up.] The Minister continues: It does not, however, invalidate the central argument made in the release and repeated in countless interviews since: only 45 per cent of predicted A-level grades are accurate.Inaccuracy per se was not his central argument then; systemic bias against poorer students was. This is of concern for students, whatever their background. However, the predicted grades are most inaccurate for students from lower socio- economic groups and these students are vastly underrepresented in higher education.Mmmmm, drink that last sentence in. Admire the masterly restraint with which the two quite separate ideas "predicted grades are most inaccurate for students from lower socio-economic groups" and "these students are vastly underrepresented in higher education" are linked by a simple, unadorned "and". He knows full well that the human love of a story will take that "and" and construct from it a chain of cause and effect. Only those readers who paid particular attention to the earlier story will see what is going on. The Minister wisely does not recap in his letter what the misleading claim he is accused of spreading actually was. Few will check back. In the rest of the letter Mr Rammell explains why both under- and over-predicted grades are a problem. All very true, but little to do with what he was saying last week. Last week the claim that deprived students were being underestimated was "crucial". His line then was, "Yes, this is social engineering and I'm proud of it." All this argument about over-predicted grades also being a problem for poor students has been dug up in the last few days. No Labour minister ever born would describe action to stop the poor being overestimated as bold social engineering. It's as if the star of the show died and an understudy had to be squeezed into the old star's costume whether it fitted or not. |