Some light on the debt ceiling

With President Obama's speech on the debt ceiling tonight, I thought I'd round up some the best information. I also want to shed light on an issue that was confusing me, in case others had the same problem.

Who's to blame for deep debt?
A while ago, Politifact reviewed a Mitt Romney claim that Obama's first term added more debt than the first 43 presidents. They rated it "Mostly True" because the calculations relied on where you started his term. So depending on where you start and stop counting, Obama has increased the debt to between 170 and 205 percent of what it was when he took office.*

But then, I saw this New York Times infographic on the right (accompanying editoral), which lays the blame at Bush's feet.

The chart's numbers largely check out, although the number for the Bush tax cuts are high because they represent the total impact, including years in which he's not in office. Even if you cut away those years, Bush's added expenditures outnumber Obama's.

But how can Bush be responsible for more new spending and Obama be responsible for more debt? The reason: continuation. Look at the programs Bush started at the left. Which of the ongoing ones (i.e., not TARP or 2008 stimulus) did Obama cut?

As far as I know, not one. The Iraq war may be on the wane**, but the Afghanistan war is basically as costly as ever and the Bush tax cuts have been left untouched.

So while Obama is responsible for starting new ongoing expenditures, he hasn't stopped many, hence his budget's responsibility for a good chunk of our debt.***

Debt Ceiling Crisis 101
The United States has never yet defaulted on its debt. (Edit: see bottom for details) The government shutdowns you may recall from the past were results of failing to pass a budget and debt payments continued on even if other things didn't. Mostly because of this, America enjoys a AAA rating, meaning investors can trust they will be highly likely to be repaid. But if the federal government were to stop repaying investors they would lose their trust in the government's ability to do so.

The effects would likely ripple out beyond U.S. treasury bond investors, and hurt the global economy, especially the United States's.

At this point I turn it over to more capable hands. (I do not want to describe the messy politics behind the debt ceiling negotiations.) So here are some helpful links:

• The Washington Post's excellent take, all the way back from April. (Ignore the part about hitting the limit in May.)
• PBS Newshour's video and transcript on the subject, from May. (This explains why we haven't hit the limit yet, among other things.)
• Ratings agencies considering downgrading U.S. credit. 
• The Washington Post again, but more recently. (Not exactly the same info as April article.)
• The New York Times on why negotiations failed. 

The links are in chronological order. You can probably skip the top two, but I'd read the bottom three if possible. If you can only read one, though, read the second-to-last Washington Post article. That'll bring you up to speed the quickest.

I'd like to do a post like this again; it really helps me get to figure out what's going on myself. Feedback as always is welcome!

*I calculated the percentages from the numbers given in the Politifact article (linked to above), which in turn come from the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office.

**This does not seem to account for the tiny black box in the upper corner representing $126 billion in cuts. That mostly came through miscellaneous savings.

***Since the president cannot, constitutionally speaking, set a budget without congressional approval, it technically is not entirely his responsibility. However, it is something of a bipartisan convention to assign all the blame/praise to the president and quicker to write.

Edit(7/29/11): Phil Rosenthal recently wrote in the Chicago Tribune that the default is not unprecedented, in contrast to what many articles and commentators are saying. In 1979, the United States defaulted on a small number of payments because of an unexpected surge in demand. The dates given for default are always approximate and in that case caused a small but significant problem. His column has more details.


The '79 mini-default notwithstanding, the United States has never had a full-scale default, which could still happen if congress doesn't raise the ceiling.

Summer Slump

I have been busy with other projects and so I haven't done any writing for here, let alone publishing or debunking* anything. I can't say how long this will last, but I do feel that my enthusiasm for debunking has been rekindled recently and I have a few new post ideas in the works. (In addition to all my no-longer-new post ideas that are in progress...) I also have a book review or two to post. When will these come? I cannot say. Before the end of June would be nice, but I can't see my projects lightening much so I can't promise anything.

*Debunking, it must be said, can be a draining activity, certainly more so than spouting bunk.

$50 Lightbulbs?

This is actually something I meant to post much, much earlier but only got to doing now.

Wesley J. Smith, as part of his coverage of environmental news he calls "Global Warming Hysteria" recently discussed a $ 50 LED light bulb. I commented on the article, saying that he didn't mention that CFLs were much cheaper than the one he described and that that the improved energy efficiency made up for much of the cost. The article and some of the comments made me want to see for myself how much savings CFL bulbs represent.

Sources for Starting Numbers

From an October 2010 Consumer Reports article*, I discovered a 60-watt incandescent bulb is equivalent to a 16-watt CFL or 12-watt LED. Incadescents have an average life expectancy of 1,000 hours and CFL's 8,000.

From the Department of Energy's statistics, I found the average cost per kilowatt hour is 9.62 cents.

By skimming various online sites, I chose 60 cents as a reasonable average cost for an incandescent and 5 dollars for the CFL.

I estimated that an average bulb is probably lit for about 5 hours daily. I didn't try to find specific statistics because a) this affects all the bulbs equally and b) it would probably be difficult to find.

Results

From this data,  I determined the average cost to power a single incandescent bulb to be $11.62 over a year, compared with $ 3.94 for a CFL.

For the sake of argument, I also compared the best-case scenario for incandescents with the worst-case for fluorescent bulbs. To do this, I basically cherry-picked the numbers most favorable to incandescents and those least favorable to CFLs. Even still, the CFLs won, $ 5.90 beating out $ 9.63.

People interested in looking at my math can examine the spreadsheet I used, complete with the formulas. You will note I ran the numbers for LEDs, but since I was less confident of the numbers I plugged in, I didn't put the results in this post.

Cross-checking

How accurate was my estimate? I found three other cost comparisons. The first is a U.S. News and World Report article.  It claims changing 30 fixtures results in savings of $ 440 to 1,500 over 5 years. I show an $ 8.05 savings over one year for one bulb. Multiplying that by 150 gives $1207.50, meaning my result was perhaps a bit on the high end.

Next, I found GE Lighting's savings calculator. It too suggested my estimate was high: it gave a one-year savings of $ 5.91.

According to Energystar.gov, CFLs save $ 40 over the bulb's lifetime. If they last five years, that puts savings at $ 8, close to my estimate.

From all this, I think we can be reasonably confident fluorescents save money.

More Information

As it happens, both Factcheck.org and Politifact looked at closely related claims. Factcheck responded to the question: "Will energy efficient light bulbs cost $ 50 each next year?" with the following:

Some light emitting diode bulbs may cost that much, but some halogen incandescent bulbs and compact fluorescent bulbs go for about $1.50 to $3 each.

Politifact did a slew of articles on the subject. Here they are:

• Whether or not fluorescents are safe & environmentally friendly
• On the cost of non-incandescent bulbs—alegedly six times more expensive
• What exactly the government is mandating.
• And more...

 *Full, official citation:

Lightbulbs. (2010). Consumer Reports, 75(10), 26.

First Two Reviews

As I mentioned before, I have several reviews to share with you. I actually read and reviewed these a while ago, but only just got around to polishing them.

A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense
Normand Baillargeon takes the whole "self-defense" metaphor pretty seriously. Take this for example: "Your brain is territory that an enemy wants to occupy by persuading you of certain things." The writing has a tendency to go to such extremes occasionally, but it is a very good book.

In particular, his chapter "Thirty-one Strategies for Fostering a Critical Approach to the Media," near the end has an excellent list of tips. They are very practical, which is something I like in books on this subject. They are rather involved--one suggests reading the past fifty articles by a given author when analyzing a given op-ed.

Another bias that shows through clearly is his love of Noam Chomsky: the front cover even says "release your inner Chomsky." He quotes Chomsky once or twice within, but generally it doesn't seem to unbalance the work unduly. The exception is in the aforementioned chapter of 31 strategies which includes, as number 25, "Read Chomsky." A list of recommended authors wouldn't have been remiss, but giving Chomsky his own point? A bit much.

I don't know very much of Chomsky; indeed, what I do know mostly comes from cursory research after reading this very book and some unrelated research I did on his work on mass media*. Since he seems an advocate of critical thinking, I suppose his inclusion is somewhat appropriate. I still think it's a bit extreme—perhaps the book ought to have been titled "A Chomskean Approach to Critical Thinking."

Anyway, don't let the author's politics dissuade you from reading this useful text. It is a practical introduction to critical thinking and recommended to any student of critical thinking.


The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
This book is more of a case for science and against psuedoscience, rather than a "how-to" book on critical thinking. Nonetheless, it has excellent parts and can be read as a manifesto in favor of rigorous checking of claims. Carl Sagan is an engaging writer and comes across as very human and sincere, important in a book on a subject that could easily be cold and dull.

This book does belabor points. Lee Dambert, in his Los Angles Times review, writes that eight chapters of UFOs "seems a bit excessive."Since the points are made well and illustrated with copious examples the book is saved from becoming a rant; Dambert himself considers this issue "a minor quibble."

Some people have found this book to be anti-religion or partisan. The book ends with two chapters Sagan wrote with a co-author that deal with politics. However, the main thrust of the book is basically non-political and as a whole can't be described as partisan. (Sagan himself considered the last two chapters non-critical.) The anti-religion claim is a bit harder to shake. Certain religious practices and beliefs would easily fall under Sagan's definition of "baloney." Examples would include faith healing, astrology, and probably miracles in general.

While Sagan was an agnostic, it's harder to make a case that this book is an attack on religion generally. He doesn't group religious belief explicitly with belief in psuedoscience or try to replace it with science. Certainly the skepticism he discusses in The Demon Haunted World is popular among atheists, but certainly critical thinking is compatible with religious faith, even if "skepticism" is.

Probably the closest he gets to condemning religion is the chapter "The Dragon in my Garage." Sagan informs us that he has a bona fide dragon in his garage. However, he tells us that the dragon has the power of invisibility and so we'll just have to take his word for it. He argues that such is the nature of many allegedly true supernatural phenomena: any non-appearance of the supposed effect is explained away, so it can never be disproved. This is a similar to popular lines of reasoning employed against the existence of a god, and so it could be taken as a justification of agnosticism. That may be the case, but I think Sagan was more concerned with psuedoscience than religion and I think most religious readers will get plenty out of it anyway.

One of the best-known parts is the baloney detection kit. (In fact, Normand Baillargeon includes a summary of it in his book.) Even if you find the main text tedious, before returning it (or selling it) skip to chapter 12, where the kit is. It consists of nine warning signs that something is, well, baloney.

So there you have it: two good starting texts on critical thinking. Look for more in the coming weeks: I just finished two books and am writing up reviews now.

* Specifically, his work with Edward Herman on "Manufacturing Consent." In it, they lay out a theory of mass media called the Propaganda Model.

The Partisan Fact-checkers

This is a follow-up to my earlier piece, Enter the Fact-checkers and Debunkers.

If, when reading the title, you thought it was a contradiction in terms, you'll see why I am uneasy relying on sites like Media Matters and News Busters. To me, they walk a thin line between reporting for the sake of truth and reporting for the sake of making 'the other guy' look bad.

Their focus on the mistakes means they start painting their opponent as lacking credibility when people on their own side are just as inaccurate. They seldom verify true claims, just the false ones.

I think there is some value in these sites. I've noticed their take downs can be very extensive, and I would not hesitate to link to one I found well done—as long as it is correct. I wouldn't advise subscribing to one without subscribing to an equivalent site that's politically opposite.

There is a group of agencies that work similarly. Organizations like GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) that advocate fairer representation for their members I consider separate from the partisan groups. They differ in that they report insensitive treatment rather than inaccurate information and they focus on entertainment more than news.

My view is that with reputable and high-quality sites like the ones in the original post, why bother with partisan fact-checkers? Even if the ones I recommended don't carry it, you can always, you know, do the research yourself. It's good practice and the kind citizens of a democracy need.

Here It Goes Again: Wesley J. Smith and Climate Change

This is mainly a response to Wesley J. Smith's article, Global Warming Hysteria: Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry and the article he quotes.

Wesley Smith in his blog Secondhand Smoke wrote that we have no reason to trust "global warming alarmists" because they have been wrong so often in the past. His argument comes from a Forbes op-ed written by a senior from the Heartland Institute, a libertarian think-tank.

There are five claims from the Forbes article Mr. Smith quotes and those will be the ones I focus on. My focus will be on the validity of these claims and to a lesser extent, his larger thesis. I won't be arguing against it per se, rather seeing whether his argument is valid. (That is, confirming that the premises are true and the conclusion follows logically.)

Heavy Snowfall: expected or not?

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report was…straightforward… “Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms,” IPCC reported.  That was in 2001. Now, however, with an unprecedented number of major winter snowstorms hitting the northeastern U.S. during the past two winters, the alarmists are clamming up and changing their tune…

Mr. Taylor's claim is a relatively popular one and requires a trip to the Third Assessment Report in order to verify the context; you will note no timescale is reported.

The section is from the second part of the report, the one that focuses on the impacts of climate change. It was hard to find more information to say over what time period they've expected snow. Keep in mind that many of the predictions are averages and pertain to the long-term global trend rather than a short-term regional trend.

Kilimanjaro and Himalayan Glaciers

The alarmists used to claim global warming was causing the retreat of Kilimanjaro’s mountain snowcap, but scientists now understand that local deforestation is the culprit. IPCC claimed in its 2007 assessment that global warming would likely melt the Himalayan glaciers by 2035, but IPCC now admits there is no scientific basis for such an assertion. 

The glacier incident Mr. Taylor reports is true. We should be careful to avoid assuming the entire report is as errant as the chapter or section the error appeared in, but certainly this is a red flag that the entire report needs more scrutiny.

On the other hand, there is actually a debate on the cause of Kilimanjaro's melting, with some scientists arguing it is at least partially caused by global warming and others saying its caused by something peculiar to the region. So it isn't a resolved area. Also, I haven't found anyone claiming it was due to global warming prior to when research suggested that was actually a reasonable idea—just a number of articles reassuring people it wasn't due to global warming.

Increased Temperatures

IPCC claimed in its 1990 assessment that global temperatures should rise 0.6 degrees Celsius between 1990 and 2010, yet NASA satellite data show global temperatures warmed by merely half that amount, at most.

Mr. Taylor says this is an example of claimed "settled science" but the report doesn't report it too confidently, because it cites a margin of error for per decade warming, 0.2-0.5 and notes other scenarios which show more modest warming. It is true the IPCC claimed that and were wrong, but their claim was not given in complete confidence, and indeed the organization writes that a number of factors are "partially understood." So it is correct to say the IPCC's projection is wrong, but incorrect to say they considered it 'settled science.'

The Score

In a sense, the premises are mostly right: Himalyan Glaciers are really not going to melt that quickly and the IPCC projections were too high. Let's give him the Kilimanjaro one too, since scientists are on the fence. The problem is that Mr. Taylor is not only claiming scientists were wrong, but that these were claimed by 'alarmists' to be areas of 'settled science.'

There is a certain ambiguity here: who exactly is a 'global warming alarmist'? Are all scientists who support human-caused global warming alarmists? The people at the IPCC? Environmentalists? Politicians who favor stricter carbon emissions controls? Science journalists?

The ambiguity leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Taylor in danger of equivocation (changing the meaning of a word as you argue) and makes it hard to figure out who they're claiming once made assurances that the science was settled in the cases where turned out to not be settled at all. Looking at the scientists who originated the research, few (if any) seem to be as confident as Mr. Smith and Mr. Taylor say they were. Also, the Himalayan mistake came from the IPCC and not the scientists the report typically draws from.

The Argument's Logic

It seems as though there's dubious logic here regardless of how the argument is interpreted. I see there being two cases how it could be interpreted:

1. Scientists were the ones claiming these facts were 'settled.' This follows logically, but isn't true.
2. Non-scientists were the ones claiming these facts were 'settled.' This is true, but logically invalid: wrong statements from non-scientists don't invalidate science. 

(The 'settled' point is important because it doesn't make sense to criticize a wrong prediction when it's labeled 'uncertain'.)

There is another interpretation. Mr. Smith and Mr. Taylor are merely saying popular advocates for the theory of climate change are wrong in the extent of some of their predictions. This is logical, but their quotes from scientists themselves suggest Mr. Smith and Mr. Taylor feel the scientists are wrong as well (or want to make that implication). Also, it seems like they feel they've weakened theories of climate change implicating humans, a rather dubious proposition.

Unless I'm missing something significant, the argument fails to deliver. It is good to note here that when you post someone else's op-ed, make sure it's a good argument and not just one you agree with. I have no intent of proving it either way, only advancing the argument by eliminating weak arguments.

Oh, feel free to submit other claims for me to verify—I want to look at claims you find dubious.

Useful Extensions

Now, your web browser can't think, write, or research for you, so none of these extensions can help you with those things. At least not directly. I consider these useful extensions for the "frequent commenter"–some one who posts frequently and maybe does some research (imagine that!). I've limited these to extensions I use personally so browser rss readers or blogging extensions are out because I don't use those (I use a standalone program for feeds and Blogger's built-in post composer). Enough of all that. Here are the utilities:

Lazarus
I just found out about this, and it's definitely promising. I'm sure we've all hit 'back' by mistake when we were composing  a post and have lost what they were writing. Lazarus solves this problem by saving everything* entered into textboxes and allows you to recover them later. Available for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.

*With certain limitations on Chrome (see their FAQ).

Resurrect Pages (aka Arantius)
Gives you the option, when faced with a "this page cannot be displayed" message, to 'resurrect' a page. That is, grab a page from a cache. Lets you select from seven caching or mirroring services, but I find Google and the Internet Archive are the only ones you need. If they don't have it, then, typically, none of them will. Available for Firefox only, unfortunately.

Readability
Distracted by ads, sidebars, and other peripheral 'content'? Readability is the solution. A click turns the page you're viewing into a reading-centric experience. The creators turned to turn their simple extension into a fuller experience that allows readers to compensate content creators, but it requires a subscription fee. The basic extension is still available for free here. Safari users have the 'reader' function built-in that does much the same thing.

These extensions are all polished and functional, so I suggest checking out their creator's other offerings. And if you find them particularly useful—donate!

Enter the Fact-checkers and Debunkers

I debunk/fact-check claims here, but of course I am one of many such sites. In another post (or series of  posts, most likely) I will shed some light on the sources I use to check/debunk claims.

General

One of the best known is Snopes, which focuses primarily on the myriad claims that are forwarded from inbox to inbox. Most of the claims tend toward the ridiculous/trivial (as you might expect, given the ridiculous trash that people forward), but some appear in serious conversation. One disadvantage is that Snopes doesn't detail how they determined a claim's truthfulness, but that is a minor problem.

Politics

Focusing around individual claims, Politifact, provides the necessary context to verify claims made by pundits, politicians, and the public. Features the memorable 'Truth-o-meter,' which ranges from 'true' to 'pants on fire' (complete with animated flames). The site also looks at President Obama's promises at the Obamameter and the GOP's promises at the GOP Pledge-O-Meter. A Pulitzer prize winner in 2009.

One of my favorites is FactCheck.org, which offers a well-written and thorough analysis of claims made re politics. It doesn't have anything as easily remembered as the 'Truth-o-meter,' perhaps, but is very reliable and thoroughly non-partisan.

Pseudoscience

For debunking medical myths and snake-oil salesmen, look no further than Quackwatch.org. Written by a medical doctor, the site has won several awards and has been recognized by the American Cancer Society and the National Institutes of Health. Along with (sourced!) take-downs of unscientific "medicine," the site features information on how to find legitimate healthcare.

When compared to medicine, astronomy may not seem to have much pseudoscience, but you'd be surprised. From astrology to 2012 "planetary alignment" myths, Phil Plait has his work cut out for him. You can see his ongoing efforts at Bad Astronomy. The site includes an index of claims and his blog.

A quick note on 'non-partisan'

All the sites above, as far as I can tell, are non-partisan and aren't out to push propaganda for either side. Also, they typically 'show their work,' so you can read the same studies and reports that they looked at to make their determination. None of the allegations of bias I've seen hold up to scrutiny.

All of these sites come as highly recommended from me, but I suggest that you look at them with a critical eye, holding them accountable even as they hold others accountable.

Why I haven't posted in a while

I haven't posted a lot recently. In fact, I haven't posted anything since Jan. 17, a regrettably long time. Part of this comes from the fact I've  temporarily halted my fact-checking posts. I've found myself less inclined to debunk and I'm not sure the way I've been doing it has been good netiquette.

Usually I do some research, write it up, and re-read the article to make sure I've addressed the claim fairly. Then I revise my post, publish it, and summarize my post as a comment with a link to the specific post on my blog. Almost all of those steps I'm good with. The last part of the last step, I'm not sure about. Posting on other people's blogs with a link to your own blog is starting to strike me as tacky. Still, I still want to debunk in a full post (rather than a comment). It's a quandary and to resolve it I will look the general attitude towards this practice.

I do have a lot of content 'in the pipeline' as it is. I've been doing plenty of writing on critical thinking and critical thinking resources, so expect those to come your way soon. Part of the reason you haven't seen any of that is because my inner perfectionist has made an appearance and I don't want to publish them without editing them...again...and again. I'm breaking that tonight, with a post I think you'll find useful.

On Jenny McCarthy, Autism, and Dogma in Science

It is unfortunate that so many caring people with good intentions are terribly misinformed, and as a result are making bad decisions about their children's health. I'm speaking of course about the popular misconception that vaccines cause autism or other diseases.

While it is possible that research has overlooked something, there is currently no evidence for a vaccine-autism link. Nonetheless, Jenny McCarthy continues to argue against the United States' vaccination program, in her article, "In the Vaccine-Autism Debate, What Can Parents Believe?" for the Huffington Post.

For some reason, parents aren't being told that this "new" information about Dr. Wakefield isn't a medical report, but merely the allegations of a single British journalist named Brian Deer. Why does one journalist's accusations against Dr. Wakefield now mean the vaccine-autism debate is over?

Ms. McCarthy would have us believe Brian Deer's accusations came out of the blue, tarnishing a respected scientist's research. However, co-authors were pulling out on the infamous paper as early as 2004, and almost a year ago, The Lancet retracted the paper altogether. It isn't only a single journalist is accusing Dr. Wakefield either: last year a panel found him guilty of 'acting unethically' and he has been removed from the medical register (in the UK,  this is tantamount to losing his license to practice medicine).

The 'debate' is over because no reliable evidence has ever been put forward for that side. The debate has been over since study after study* showed no autism-MMR link, autism rates continued going up despite the removal of Thermisol.

I know children regress after vaccination because it happened to my own son. Why aren't there any tests out there on the safety of how vaccines are administered in the real world, six at a time? Why have only 2 of the 36 shots our kids receive been looked at for their relationship to autism? Why hasn't anyone ever studied completely non-vaccinated children to understand their autism rate?

Sympathy for the plight of Ms. McCarthy's child notwithstanding, this anecdote is not evidence--regression could have many causes. Just because the shot preceded the regression doesn't mean it caused the regression--that would be the Post Hoc fallacy.

I admit, that last question was a bit trickier for me to answer, until I stumbled upon the answer in a meta-study:

No studies have compared the incidence of autism in vaccinated, unvaccinated, or alternatively vaccinated children (i.e., schedules that spread out vaccines, avoid combination vaccines, or include only select vaccines). These studies would be difficult to perform because of the likely differences among these 3 groups in health care seeking behavior and the ethics of experimentally studying children who have not received vaccines.

This comes from "Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses" in the peer-reviewed Clinical Infectious Diseases.** If you're interested in this debate, I highly recommend it, as it is understandable after a little background reading. It lays out a pretty thorough case against anti-vaccination claims. Anyway, back to Ms. McCarthy's article:

These missing safety studies are causing many parents to approach vaccines with moderation. Why do other first world countries give children so many fewer vaccines than we do? What if a parent used the vaccine schedule of Denmark, Norway, Japan or Finland -- countries that give one-third the shots we do (12 shots vs. 36 in the U.S.)? Vaccines save lives, but might be harming some children -- is moderation such a terrible idea?

The CDC has an excellent answer to this, in their list of misconceptions about vaccinations:

These studies have shown that the recommended vaccines are as effective in combination as they are individually, and that such combinations carry no greater risk for adverse side effects. Consequently, both the ACIP and AAP recommend simultaneous administration of all routine childhood vaccines when appropriate.

(Emphasis mine) Also note their "risk from disease vs. risk from vaccines." The larger number of vaccinations in America's schedule seems to be because other countries aren't vaccinating against as many illnesses as the United States is. Recent research indicates that autism is probably tied to factors that vary from region to region. In other words, not the vaccine schedule uniform across the country.

With regards to autism, there's no room for dogma: research is ongoing on the causes and risk factors. So while we must not cave in to unsupported assertions, we do have to realize, given our current state of knowledge, ideas about the condition are subject to change as science marches on.

* Here are the links to the studies themselves:
Lack of Association Between Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination and Autism in Children: A Case-Control Study (Polish study cited by Reuters) 
Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy: A Case-Control Study (Study covered by MSNBC)

**Stanley Plotkin, Jeffrey S. Gerber, and Paul A. Offit Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses Clinical Infectious Diseases 2009 48: 456-461.
Unfortunately, this article is not available without a subscription. I suggest checking your local library to see if they have an online subscription.

Addendum: 'The Importance of Critical Thinking'

Yes, another addendum. This one deals with my previous post, 'The Importance of Critical Thinking'. However, it doesn't deals with my remarks on healthcare reform, rather than the main point. (I am not retracting my belief that 'critical thinking' is important, in other words.) Here's the part I screwed up:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was instructed to tally up the costs for H.R. 3590, aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act aka Healthcare Reform. However, for political reasons, various healthcare reform-related bills were separate and not part of the CBO's tally. So it is both correct and incorrect to say that healthcare reform would increase the deficit: the primary bill won't, but various other bills probably will.

Yeah, it's a bit more complicated than that. Several of the examples given the video don't add up. Having looked into them, I'm not sure the 'doc fix' can legitimately be called a part of health care reform, since it's an artifact from a 1997 attempt to save money on medicare costs by slashing doctor compensation and arguably has nothing to do with the recent bill*.

What about double counting? This appears to be legitimate:

To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.

Accounting tricks! Oh my! Well, not quite. Note the bolded part**. So the CBO did not count Medicare savings twice. Ergo, to subtract the trust fund savings from the CBO's figures would be misleading. (However, to take people to task for describing the bill as both improving the solvency of Medicare and reducing the deficit would be correct.)

The evidence is rather messy and complicated. No, the CBO didn't engage in double-counting--but some of the bill's promoters probably did. Yes, the doc fix will add to the deficit--but arguably it was coming anyway.

 Let's look at the question the study asked to see how it relates to the study itself:

Is it your impression that among economists who have estimated the effect of the health reform law on the budget deficit over the next ten years...will not increase the deficit...views are equally divided...think it will increase the deficit. (pg. 8, sidebar)

 Since it uses the word law rather than laws, I submit that since the major healthcare reform bill is in fact predicted to reduce the deficit (despite the impact of other healthcare-related laws), the study authors were correct in choosing 'will not increase the deficit.' It is a somewhat confusing (not to mention partisan) issue, but I think I can objectively state the study authors did not screw this question up.

*More information on the doc fix: Paul Krugman (NYT; believes it shouldn't count) and Megan McArdle (The Atlantic; believes it should count).

**Note that the bolding is my own, and not in the original report.

Preliminary Resources for Critical Thinking

Even though I consider my personal study of critical thinking to only have just begun, I already have some useful resources. I do consider this list incomplete and I welcome suggestions, or even criticisms of these sources. Starred items are those I'm hoping to read (and review) in the (near) future.

Books

The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan. A convincing case for science and against a host of irrational beliefs, especially pseudoscience. Has the famous "baloney detection kit" (courtesy of Google Books), which you should definitely check out, even if you don't read the entire book. Update(5/01/11): Review.

A Rulebook for Arguments, Anthony Weston. Seems to focus on constructing good arguments, rather than identifying bad ones. Since that is very useful, I'm going to have to read this one. A recomendation from Kevin deLeplante (see below for his video series).

A Short course in Intellectual Self-defense, Normand Baillargeon. More specifically on critical thinking. The author cheerfully admits a bias towards the ideas of Noam Chomsky (The cover reads "unleash your inner Chomsky"), but useful nonetheless. Update(5/01/11): Review.

Videos

The Critical Thinker, Kevin deLeplante. An ongoing series on critical thinking. Covers topics ranging from logical fallacies to rhetoric. Also available as an audio podcast.

Critical Thinking, QualiaSoup. A quick introduction. Also see his videos 'The Problem with Anecdotes' and 'Open mindedness.'.

Websites

The Fallacy Files Probably one of the first sites I encountered. Comprehensive, but not always the most clear.

Humbug!, Jef and Theo Clark. Seems to have good explanations, but has a distracting watermark on each page. Also available as a physical book (with no watermarks).*

Badarguments.org Have not signed up for the email service (yet?), but the non-subscription part of the site is a helpful practical tool.*

In the near future, expect longer reviews of at least the books and maybe some of the websites and videos as well. In the meantime, enjoy!

Edited 5/01/11 to add links to reviews and change the italicized entries to starred ones.

The Importance of Critical Thinking

I debated about whether or not to post this study. It's a study on misinformation in the 2010 election, but you may have heard of it as the "Fox News Viewers most misinformed." The press release doesn't emphasize that angle however, and neither does the report(PDF). The reason is probably because misinformation was present among virtually every group polled--Fox News was merely the worst, not the only perpetrator.

I think looking at general misinformation is a better angle, because, to me, the levels of misconceptions are too high, regardless of the network/source. We can't let CNN or MSNBC off the hook because one study showed their viewers to be slightly less likely to believe a popular myth.

This study does have some problems, though, that this video by How the World Works points out. For some of the misconceptions, the truth is somewhat more complicated than the questions posed by the survey suggest. For example, the question about the healthcare reform bill doesn't distinguish between the bill itself and related bills also necessary for healthcare reform. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was instructed to tally up the costs for H.R. 3590, aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act aka Healthcare Reform. However, for political reasons, various healthcare reform-related bills were separate and not part of the CBO's tally. So it is both correct and incorrect to say that healthcare reform would increase the deficit: the primary bill won't, but various other bills probably will. Actually, it's even more complicated than that, but given the question's wording, I think the study authors were actually correct to label the answer they did as correct. (For a full explanation, see my addendum.)

The video insists that the study is worthless for this and other reasons, but I think the validity of the majority of the questions means the study is still valid. Therefore, I suggest that you read or skim the study (or if you prefer, the generally hyperbolic news coverage of the study) and ponder the question I'm pondering: how do I (as a voter and citizen) avoid misinformation?


I cannot provide links to magical, error-free reporting or a web browser that marks untruths for you in purple underlining (green and red are taken, see). I do want to suggest a real-world alternative, and that is critical thinking. Critical thinking is basically thinking hard about your own beliefs and opinions and considering why you believe X and not, say, Y. I don't know a lot about critical thinking, though, and really anyone can always learn more.

Enter Critical Thinking

Fortunately, I found an excellent resource for critical thinking. It's a video and audio podcast series. You can get them on the author's website or on iTunes (video). The author, Kevin deLaplante, (aka PhilosophyFreak) has identified five key characteristics: Logic, Argumentation, Rhetoric, Background Knowledge, and Beliefs and Views. I am not an expert on Critical Thinking, but I find this to be a helpful way to look at it, especially after going through his videos.

Critical thinking is a fundamental part of fact-checking (i.e. what I do here), but I think it has a more personal aspect. Dr. deLaplante used the phrase "taking responsibility for your own beliefs" to describe this aspect of critical thinking. It is the idea that you understand not only your own position, but the alternatives. This isn't a cursory, "how-can-I-debunk-this" understanding, either. Dr. deLaplante says that critical thinking should let us be able to articulate our opponents' positions to their satisfaction. Thinking critically is about having solid reasons for your beliefs and understanding the alternatives.

This is an ongoing effort, obviously: new information is constantly coming in and we need to filter and make sense of it all. Naturally, a lot of that sense-making and filtering comes from within our existing worldview. Our beliefs, values, and ideas (i.e. our worldview(s)) are like "rules" for processing the information. Critical thinking brings not only incoming information, but also the 'rules' up for evaluation. Some 'rules' are more fundamental than others: ideas about human rights are more central than ideas about a particular politician, for example.

Of course, some of our ideas and beliefs are essentially transcendental: ideas about freedom, God, and our country aren't primarily informed by history, biology, or economics. Such beliefs are tied to our culture, family, and self and may be the product of tradition or personal experience. These may be the most fundamental and important, but are at least partially out of the realm of critical thinking.

A quick aside: a lot of my ideas here are works in progress. As I think, read, and discuss, these ideas may very well change. If you have any links, books, films, articles to recommend, comment! Even more importantly, if you have any of your own ideas, comment!

Bringing it back to the study

Unfortunately, most writing on critical thinking doesn't go too deeply into how it works in a world bombarded by information. Part of the reason I like the podcast above is that it seems to be a practical course. It doesn't cover a lot of the practical side. People, even curious people committed to understanding, can't walk around researching every claim they hear every day. We can infer that sometimes, claims will have to be ignored, but the series doesn't make explicit how to think critically when there's so much to think critically about.

Besides fact-checking, one of my hopes for this blog is to write about fact-checking and how we can implement it in our daily lives without spending all our time either verifying or guessing. This practical issue is why I felt like critical thinking may be an unsatisfactory solution to the problem pointed out by the study. Many of the people in the study do read the newspaper, watch the news, and think about things. They do their homework, in other words.

On the other hand, the study didn't cover exactly what people did beyond watching news. I assume some people went beyond a 30 minute nightly program and conversations with family and friends, but how many? I assume practices like checking multiple sources, reading background information, and evaluating claims based on existing knowledge (rather than accepting them at face value) help, but how much? As I read and write more about critical thinking, I hope to answer the practical question: what tactics are most effective, time- and understanding-wise?

This was accidentally published with the wrong date. I'm actually not positive about the precise date I posted the article originally, but I'm adjusting it to my best guess.