The Quantitative Peace

The Danger of Online Articles

I listen to several podcasts each work during my daily commute to and from the office.  One podcast, the Skeptics Guide to the Universe (SGU), has several segments each week, with a few discussing scientific findings.  My favorite is a game for the panel where three scientific research findings are offered and the panelists guess which one is false. That is, a finding is made up by the host; often, it is in the opposite direction of a recent study. The other two findings are "science;" a result that has been published in a recent journal.

Two episodes ago (#330, 11/12/2011), the podcasters were sent an email from a listener that linked to a peer-reviewed study that offered the following result:

Remote, retroactive intercessory prayer said for a group is associated with a shorter stay in hospital and shorter duration of fever in patients with a bloodstream infection and should be considered for use in clinical practice.

That is, the BMJ study had people, in the year 2000, pray for patients with bloodstream infections during the years 1990-1996.  The study shows a statistically significant reduction in both the duration and level of the fevers the patients had. Naturally, this confounded both the guests and the panelists, which lead to a lengthy discussion about the obvious flaws of the study.  

Within a week of that podcast airing, a listener informed the hosts that the BMJ's December issue tends to contain whimsical studies for the sake of humor.  That is, the study should not be taken seriously or touted as coming from a peer-reviewed source.  In the printed version of the journal, these articles would be grouped together and the farcical nature of the study would be obvious.  For example, the 2010 issue contains the following studies:

• Effect on gastric function and symptoms of drinking wine, black tea, or schnapps with a Swiss cheese fondue: randomised controlled crossover trial
• Testing the validity of the Danish urban myth that alcohol can be absorbed through feet: open labelled self experimental study
• Beauty sleep: experimental study on the perceived health and attractiveness of sleep deprived people
• Can he fix it? Yes, he can!-- A case of a woman wearing Bob the Builder goggles to correct her idiopathic ocular neuromyotonia. 

The lesson learned, of course, is that the context of an article can mean everything.  Taking any of the above articles as serious, peer-reviewed work would be erroneous. While we in political science have special issues that can contextualize studies, I have not come across anything that demanded the context of the journal for an article to be interpretted correctly.  I am amused by the prospect of having our own fake studies.  This, perhaps, could be the proper forum for an article on the daily temperature high in Washington D.C. and Senate votes on force (with forecasting for global warming).

Music and Academia: The Role of Colons in Titles

This post is written by Ben Farrer whose account is currently down.

I’m starting to strongly dislike academic titles that take the form: “Metaphor For x: Actual Description Of x”, or similar, and am venting my frustration with a game.

As an example of the type I dislike, one of my own undergraduate essays was entitled: “Holding out for a Hero? The Roles of Lincoln and of Slaves in Emancipation”. A poor effort on my part, but you get the picture.

I’ve been guilty of using this template regularly myself, but I’m beginning to believe that it falls down on two counts.

Firstly it’s maybe a bit patronizing? It assumes the reader needs to be ‘hooked’ with some sly pop-culture reference before they’ll be interested in reading any further. Second, it absolves authors of the responsibility to find one phrase that both communicates what the piece is about and encourage the reader to continue. Ideally I don’t think there has to be a separation of what’s ‘interesting’ about an article from its bare-bones description.

However, in my mind the most glaring argument against these titles is that nobody else uses this template.

And perhaps with good reason. Below are some examples from the world of music as it could be after imposing this template. Regardless of how you feel about this title structure, I think it’s possible to have fun coming up with these, so feel free to add your own examples in the comments.

“Can’t Get No Satisfaction”: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Masculinity, with Evidence From Contemporary Advertising Media. Jagger, Mick, et al 196x.

“Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag”: Intersections of Conspicuous Consumption and the Weberian View of Work Ethics. Brown, James. 197x. Journal of Getting Down With Your Bad Self.

“Waterloo”: An Oral History of Relationship Violence From The 19^th Century Onwards. Lyngstad, Anni-Frid ‘Frida’, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog, (henceforth ABBA). 19xx.

“Imagine”: Preference Homogeneity and a Proposed Reconciliation Between Populism and Ethical Philosophy. Lennon, John. 19xx.

“It’s Oh So Quiet”: The Role of Emotional Imbalance in Sonic Perception in Human Subjects. Bjork, 19xx.

“Five Years Time”: Risk Aversion and the Shadow of the Future. Noah and the Whale, 20xx.

“Over and Over”: Replication and Popperian Science with Applications to Dance-Floors. Hot Chip, 20xx.

“Common People”: Participant Observation and Moral Quandaries in Class-Based Ethnography. Cocker, Jarvis, et al 199x.

“You Give Love A Bad Name”: Reputation Effects In The Field of Cardiac Trauma Jovi,Jon Bon, et al. 19xx. The American Epic Hair Review, Special Issue: 80^th Anniversary of the Perm.

I may add any more that I feel are particularly good ones, as they occur to me. But, I hope to do a lot better with my own titles in the future.

 

Quick Link: The Top 10 Worst Graphs in Science

Karl Bowman offers a list of the top 10 worst graphs in the scientific literature. Bowman not only critiques each graph, but also offers suggestions to improve the graph in the future.

For this list, the social sciences were not included. I imagine that we have some relatively uninformative displays in our articles, but I have not seen a comparable list for our discipline---perhaps due to the obvious disincentives that exist for compiling such a list together. 

 

 

Free Access to Early 20th century and 19th century articles via JSTOR

Estranged academics, individuals in the private sector, and the public at large can rejoice (a bit) as JSTOR has officially announced that it will make American articles and journals published before 1923 publicly available. Journals published prior to 1870 in other countries will also be made available.

The official announcement states:

I am writing to share exciting news:  today, we are making journal content on JSTOR published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere, freely available to the public for reading and downloading. This includes nearly 500,000 articles from more than 200 journals, representing approximately 6% of the total content on JSTOR. 

The journals and articles are available to anyone in the world that wishes to access them.  This seems to be a quite positive development given the recent attacks on the business of academic publishing (see here and here).   

Aid to Pakistan

Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy has a piece up regarding the changes to US-Pakistani relations that may be coming out of this week's events.  Rogin is specifically discussing the debate in Congress over cutting military assistance to Pakistan.  Clearly this discussion has a long way to go, and the article indicates that significant divisions are emerging in both houses of Congress over what the appropriate response is. 

More below...

Healthcare Incentives

I've apparently been sitting on this post for a while, so this might be (is quite literally) old news for many out there.  It's an op-ed piece from The New York Times from a few months back on the healthcare legislation (No, this it not about IR).   

What caught my eye was at the end of the article when he starts talking about the incentives created by mandating that people obtain health insurance.  The gist of it is that in spite of all of the cries about this legislation representing the onslaught of the communist hoards, this kind of legislation might actually help to promote the capitalist spirit.  Leonhardt (the author) argues that ensuring that everyone has access to decent healthcare and retirement will allow/encourage individuals to take greater risks than they otherwise would.  When individuals get healthcare primarily through their employer, and when individual premiums are generally through the roof, thereby leading many healthy people to not buy insurance if they don't already have it, people will be more reluctant to leave the safety of their cushy corporate or government job for the sake of starting up a business.  Leaving that job means having to provide yourself with insurance at a much higher cost, and this is something that those with a family may be especially reluctant to do.

I think this article has two particularly interesting points.  1) It challenges the typical narrative that surrounds the healthcare by offering a third view, asserting that this does not have to be a zero-sum game between fans of the free-market and fans of social welfare programs, and 2) offers a decent example of the potentially counterintuitive effects that some legislation might have.  

One problem that I have with this argument is that it assumes most individuals are generally worried about the provision of healthcare for their families, and seems to ignore that other important aspect that employment carries---money.  While ensuring your children's health coverage is certainly important, putting food on the table is also important.  If one parent's income can provide for the family so the other parent can give a crack at starting a new company, then that's great.  However, I suspect that many people would still be reluctant to leave their jobs knowing that this will potentially slice their family income in half.  Even if everyone is still covered by the spouse's workplace coverage, that's a pretty big gamble.  This does not mean that Leonhardt's argument is wrong per se, but that it may simply apply to a much smaller subsample of the population than he makes it sound.  I would imagine that this would also have some minor effect in increasing the unemployment rate, if we assume that of all the folks that do decide to take this gamble, the majority will not succeed in starting up a successful business.     

I think this is a generally incomplete picture, but fundamentally serves as a decent example of how the effects of legislation can be counterintuitive because they alter the basic incentive structures that people face.  Granted, it will take several years to find out if the legislation has ever had these sorts of effects.

 

Finally Choosing Sides, Huh?

This isn't terribly surprising, but it seems that some NATO states have finally made their preferences publicly known.  The UK is sending a small group of military advisors to Libya to...well, advise, and train Libyan rebels.  This is apparently part of a joint British and French operation.  

I don't think it was a secret that most of the states involved in the intervention in Libya wanted Ghadaffi gone---They have said as much.  However, I think most of these states expected that their objective could be achieved under the guise of acting on a UN mandate, whereas the prolonged fighting has now led these states to a point where they must become more directly involved to achieve their desired outcome.  What will be interesting to observe is how far they are willing to go---the rebels have seemed to be on a seesaw over the past few weeks, and their victory (whatever that looks like) is far from guaranteed. 

NATO has already been calling for additional jets, suggesting that their resources are fairly limited (apparently no other NATO partners are willing to pitch in any more).  Although, this may simply be the British and the French wishing for their gradual escalation of involvement in Libya to appear more multilateral than it really is.  Alternatively, it may be that the British and the French, having exposed their enthusiasm for removing Ghadaffi, have sent a signal to their partners regarding their willingness to carry the weight.  Hmm...Some guy wrote about this sort of thing once...  In any event, it seems that there are increasing costs to the British in the French in terms of manpower and material, or, possibly in terms of reputational costs. 

Mr. Y. is no Mr. X.

I've been meaning to say something about this for a while now, but happen to be a little late to the show.  A couple of weeks ago two Marine Corps officers, whom I presume are members of the joint staff, released an article under the pseudonym "Mr. Y.," harkening back to George Kennan's "X" article in Foreign Affairs.  In a nutshell, their article attempts to provide a broad conceptual framework through which America's role in global affairs can be viewed through the next century.  John Norris at FP has some comments on the piece for those who are interested.  I have a few thoughts of my own...

Chinese Military Capabilities

Interesting article from Defense News on US-Chinese relations.  The US CINC of Pacific Command has noted that Chinese naval forces have seemed less aggressive this year than they were last year, and offers a couple of explanations for why.  I have some thoughts on these explanations, but there is one other point that I also find particularly interesting:

Another Word on Libya

So, it appears that the issue of just who the rebels in Libya are is finally beginning to receive greater attention.  Good for the policymakers and the press!  Even before the question of arming the rebels came into question, this should have been front and center.  The presumption up until this point seems to have made is that the ouster if Ghadaffi is a good thing for regional stability.  A solo-act rebel takeover would leave us in fundamentally the same situation that a western-backed ouster would leave us in.  Specifically, we are left with the destruction of a regime, and little idea as to what sort of institutional arrangements would take its place, and who would occupy those institutions, which (in my mind) does not sound like a recipe for enhancing regional stability.