Bonferroni Alert!

Reading about p-values makes me want to start a blog about them (how does such a blog not already exist?!). A good subtitle could be "where one in every twenty posts will be significant by chance alone."

Andy McKenzie, "P-Value Polemics"

Noam Chomsky against Affirmative Action

As to social importance, a correlation between race and mean I.Q. (were this shown to exist) entails no social consequences except in a racist society in which each individual is assigned to a racial category and dealt with not as an individual in his own right, but as a representative of this category … In a non-racist society, the category of race would be of no greater significance [than height]. The mean I.Q. of individuals of a certain racial background is irrelevant to the situation of a particular individual, who is what he is.

Noam Chomsky, "I.Q. Tests: Building Blocks for the New Class System." Rampart: 24–30 (excerpted here)

As Good a Time to Be Clear-Headed as Any

In America it's been suggested by some religious types that [Christopher Hitchens's cancer] could prompt a revision of his atheism. It's not a hypothesis to which he grants much respect.

"So now I know that there's another life in my body that can't outlive me but can kill me, it's the perfect moment to gratefully acknowledge that I'm a product of a cosmic design? Who thinks up these arguments? Actually it's an insulting question: 'I hear you're dying. Well wouldn't it be a good time to get rid of your beliefs?' Try it on them and see how they would like it. 'Christian, right? Cancer of the tits?' 'Well, yes, since you ask.' 'Well, can I suggest you now drop all that tripe?'"

Andrew Anthony, "Christopher Hitchens: 'You have to choose your future regrets'" (via)

The Public Choice Lesson: Let's Give up Altogether

If public choice says we need to change the incentives to change political outcomes, why would we expect those who profit by current arrangements not to fight against such changes?

Eric Crampton, "Folk Activism"

The Utopian Vision

[T]he liberal model is, like the economist on the desert island with a can of beans, “Assume we have a population of cooperative, intelligent, empathetic individuals” and when that turns out not to be the case, to move to a more expensive and exclusive neighborhood.

Steve Sailer, comment on "Two Types of People" by Robin Hanson

Ah, Those Little Things Again

A little sympathy is the difference between an effective satirist and a strident bore

Matthew Dessem, "#102: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"

Spoiler

In the dawn days of science fiction, alien invaders would occasionally kidnap a girl in a torn dress and carry her off for intended ravishing, as lovingly depicted on many ancient magazine covers. Oddly enough, the aliens never go after men in torn shirts. Would a non-humanoid alien, with a different evolutionary history and evolutionary psychology, sexually desire a human female? It seems rather unlikely.

Elizer Yudkowsky, "Mind Projection Fallacy"

Awareness Campaign? Forget about It!

A woman often marries a man for his potential. If women married men for who they actually were, there would be far fewer marriages.

Jay Carter, interviewed by Michelle Burford (via)