Who Are the 15 Percent of Americans That Don't Use the Internet?

by Orion Jones

The Internet now plays such a large role in daily life, it's difficult to imagine many people getting by without it. This is especially true in advanced economies where banking, shopping, communicating, and viewing culture and entertainment are all facilitated with a connection to the Web.

Yet 15 percent of Americans still do not use the Internet, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center. That's the same level as three years ago despite government and community efforts encouraging people to get online.

Perhaps it's more surprising, however, how much Internet use has grown in American in the last fifteen years. In the year 2000, says Pew, an astounding 48 percent of Americans still were not using the Internet. Today, rates of non-Internet use have fallen by one-half and two-thirds among the elderly and those without a high school diploma, respectively.

The increase in Internet use is due in large part to the proliferation of smartphones, which have become the primary means for many people in disadvantaged populations to go online. But that access isn't sufficient and limits the amount a single user can achieve online.

Yet the elderly and the poor, as well as people living in rural areas, are the least likely to be using the Internet today.

• About four-in-ten adults ages 65 and older (39%) do not use the internet, compared with only 3% of 18- to 29-year-olds. 
• A third of adults with less than a high school education do not use the internet, but that share falls as the level of educational attainment increases. 
• Adults from households earning less than $30,000 a year are roughly eight times more likely than the most affluent adults to not use the internet.
• Rural Americans are about twice as likely as those who live in urban or suburban settings to never use the internet.

That a digital divide exists along lines of age, income, and education is real cause for concern precisely because Internet access has become so commonplace and is so easily taken for granted. Those without easy Internet access risk being forgotten as new technology charges forward that the rest of the population is eager to adopt.

The extent to which people cannot benefit from the services the Internet provides is certainly an argument in favor of the FCC's recent decision to legally treat online connectivity as public utility. No word yet, however, on when will protect your Internet bill from getting shut off.

Stock photo © rudisill

Why We Drift Away From Our Middle School Friends

by Natalie Shoemaker

Anyone who has ever been a teenager knows that most middle school friendships don't last to the senior year of high school. You and your buddies drift apart and you make new friends, but why?

Amy C. Hartl of Florida Atlantic University led a study, which tracked 410 seventh graders, checking in with them each year up to their last year in high school. The researchers found that friendships formed in the seventh grade would rarely last—there was around a one percent chance of maintaining such a friendship.

The researchers concentrated on some key points that could drive a wedge in these friendships, such as sex, peer acceptance (popularity), physical aggression, and school competence. They found that friendships were almost guaranteed to end if you had a pal of another sex, differences in physical aggression was next, followed by academic performance, and last was popular versus unpopular.

“Dissimilarity disrupts relationship bonds," explained Brett Laursen, from FAU's Department of Psychology.

Still, any loss of friendship at this age can be painful during, even debilitating, said Hartl, “because they are going through cognitive and emotional changes at the same time that they are establishing independence from their parents."

It's an interesting study, which sheds some light on why the friends some of us had in elementary school suddenly drifted away. The researchers say in sixth grade alone, friendships are considered “highly unstable, because primary school friendship groups are transformed across the first year of middle school." If it takes you till the eighth grade to find new friends that bond may become broken as well, as researchers say these friendships are usually too unstable to survive the transition to high school.

So, if you still have your buddy from middle school, consider yourselves the lucky ones.

Read more at Science Daily.

Photo Credit: Rick Diamond / Getty Staff

Economics Needs "Inclusive Fitness"

by Jag Bhalla

This is diablog 6 between David Sloan Wilson (DSW, head of The Evolution Institute and author of Does Altruism Exist?) and me (JB).

1. JB: You’ve called teamwork humanity’s “signature adaptation.” But you’ve also that in evolution “selfishness beats altruism within groups.” Let’s examine those statements alongside Christopher Boehm’s work on egalitarian paleo-economics.

2. DSW: Christopher Boehm is a major architect of the new evolutionary synthesis that my work also represents. He posits a shift in the balance of power whereby would-be subordinates can suppress wannabe dominants (“reverse dominance”). Once it becomes difficult to succeed at the expense of teammates, succeeding as a group (teamwork) becomes the only option.

3. DSW: In multilevel selection terms, disruptive within-group selection is suppressed so that between-group selection becomes the primary evolutionary force. But the motivations that evolve from such a process need not look altruistic. A person can view teamwork as a form of selfishness, caring only about his or her share of team gains or the public good that is created . Mapping altruism defined in terms of motivations onto altruism defined in terms of action is complex (see Does Altruism Exist? Chapter 5 Psychological Altruism).

4. DSW: The conditions for the genetic evolution of human teamwork still shape teamwork in modern-day groups. In other words, if a balance of power doesn’t exist, then at least some group members are likely to adopt disruptive self-serving behaviors. Teamwork requires social control, for us no less than for our distant ancestors.

5. JB: Yes, a balance of powers, or balance of interests, is key. It means certain kinds of selfishness don’t win in human groups (if they’re to be sustainable). It’s useful to distinguish selfishness that’s group harming from selfishness that’s not (see Two Kinds of Success).

6. JB: Either group-disrupting selfishness is suppressed (policed, punished), or the group weakens itself. And groups that don’t prevent “parasitic” self-maximization perish sooner.

7. JB: You’ve called human cooperativeness the latest major evolutionary transition. We’ve evolved to be uniquely dependent on non-kin cooperation in teams, and that complicates simple “selfishness vs. altruism” thinking. Benefitting the team whose survival is necessary to your own can have both selfish and altruistic aspects. And group-harming self-maximization can be self-undermining.

8. JB: Our interests often aren’t easily disentangled from the interests of others. It’s a common error to see concern about the interests of others as “niceness.” But collective survival requires teams with “ruthlessly cooperative” rule enforcement (see Golden Punishment Rule).

9. JB: Evolutionists understand how genetic relationships complicate selfishness. For example, “kin selection” and “inclusive fitness,” explain altruism towards genetic relatives. Perhaps our innate need for teamwork creates a non-genetic equivalent, a kind of economic inclusive fitness. Division of labor needs viable others to collaborate with, so our interests logically include the interests of those significant others.

Inclusive economics is in our nature. But economists often—unnaturally—exclude its logic.

Earlier diablogs covered: (1) evolution’s score keeping (relative fitness), (2) its built-in team aspects, (3) its self-destructive competitions, (4) its blind logic, (5) and how division of labor complications.

 

Illustration by Julia Suits, The New Yorker Cartoonist & author of The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions.

 

People Change Their Walk When Texting

by Natalie Shoemaker

The act of texting and walking don't mix well in a crowded city where everyone is trying to get somewhere (expect for the guy that's leisurely walking and staring at his phone). Walk a day in any major city and you'll understand why.

A new study led by Dr. Conrad Earnest of Texas A&M University have observed how we change our gait and step in order avoid obstacles when we're distracted and texting.

The study comprised 30 participants (18 to 50 years old), all randomly put into one of three groups: “(1) normal walking (control), (2) texting and walking, and (3) texting and walking whilst being cognitively distraction via a standard mathematical test performed while negotiating the obstacle course.”

The researchers took data analyzing the participants' gait while they walked with a 3-dimensional motion analysis system. The scientists also took note of the time it took them to complete the course and whether or not they bumped into obstacles.

Unsurprisingly, the authors found participants “took significantly longer … to complete the course while texting” and being cognitively distracted, compared to just walking. Researchers noted the texting and distracted groups' steps were shortened and slow. When it came to navigating stairs, the participants in the distracted and texting groups didn't trip or fall, because they adopted a more defensive approach, increasing the lift in their foot to assure they cleared the step.

These findings led researchers to suggest in their paper “that those who walk and text adopt a 'protective' gait pattern alteration in order to minimize the risk of potential accidents.” While a cautious gait is a good one to adopt to prevent injury, it does tend to lead to street-rage as pedestrians trying to get somewhere pile-up behind you.

Read more at Plos One.

Photo Credit: AFP / Stringer/ Getty

Websites Want to Save You From the Revenge Porn that No Law Will Stop

by Cole Seidner

It has only been a few months since a verdict was reached in a landmark case for internet safety. Kevin Bollaert was the first person ever to be prosecuted, arrested, and sent to prison (for eighteen years) for publishing "revenge porn." 

Bollaert was really imprisoned for extortion. If he hadn't made the victims pay hundreds of dollars to have their pictures taken down, he might not have been prosecuted at all. The United States has no clear federal law on revenge porn - publishing or sharing photos an ex has sent you, in order to humiliate them. And fewer than half of US states have passed laws dealing with the issue. 

In America, passing such laws isn't straighforward. First, many claim that first amendment rights to free speech allow them to post whatever they want, including pictures sent to them by their exes, without anyone's permission. Second, many still blame the victim, arguing that if the pictures, however private, hadn't been taken in the first place, they wouldn't have been posted. Even though seventy percent of young adults send this type of content to one another, expecting it to be treated as private, the public at large treats this behavior as taboo and shameful.

The laws are still struggling to catch up with technology. In the meantime, companies  are scrambling to protect their users. Facebook monitors harassing behavior, whether it's revenge porn or not. Microsoft is starting a new practice that will delete all links to harassing content, and prevent the poster from linking to it again. Meanwhile, Google is allowing victims to report websites, and then removing the sites from searches. Reddit is jumping on board, with new policies that prohibit "involuntary pornography." Twitter now locks users out of their accounts, and hides reported content, in accordance with its new terms and conditions to protect users.

Google's new terms were met with a huge backlash concerning censorship. Many users argued that this was an infringement on their right to express themselves, and Google risked losing many users. For now, the company has decided to keep its old terms, but crack down on making sure everyone follows them.

The internet is slowly getting safer. But until laws change that allow people to have sites like that of Kevin Bollaert taken down, and the posters arrested, people must still be careful. Microsoft and Google remind users that they can not delete the content, only make it harder to share and harder to find. 

Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain explains other changes coming to the Internet which are not necessarily for the better. We should act to make sure current norms such as web surfing remain unfettered as the Internet evolves, he says. If not, we'll be allowing Internet powerbrokers to control how and through which means we access online information.

Thumbnail Image Credit

Facebook Ready to Test Solar-Powered Drone that Delivers Internet

by Orion Jones

Facebook has released information on the first full-scale drones designed to deliver Internet services to underserved populations across the globe that lack developed infrastructure.

The solar-powered craft was designed by a UK firm and will be tested in the US as soon as guidelines are created to help it fly safely, though no regulatory barriers are currently on the books.

With a wingspan of a Boeing 747, the drones will fly higher than commercial airlines at a height of between 60,000 and 90,000 feet, making them immune to weather. The Guardian published this video online:

 

Since they have no wheels to land or significant engine for lift, the drones will be carried into the atmosphere by a weather balloon, then stay airborne for months at a time, using solar energy to control their glide.

The technology is part of Facebook's Internet.org initiative that aims to bring new technology to ISPs and, perhaps eventually, will blanket the globe in a Wi-Fi signal.

The project is not without detractors, however, including the original creator of the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee. Internet.org aims to deliver online services to two-thirds of the globe, but access is limited to a "walled-garden version" of the Internet.

Berners-Lee thinks platforms that don't offer open web access represent a step backwards from the democratizing power of the Internet. He told The Guardian:

In the particular case of somebody who’s offering … something which is branded internet, it’s not internet, then you just say no. No it isn’t free, no it isn’t in the public domain, there are other ways of reducing the price of internet connectivity and giving something … [only] giving people data connectivity to part of the network deliberately, I think is a step backwards.

Read more at the BBC and The Guardian.

Photo credit: Facebook

 

The Trouble With Last Week's Three-Question Rationality Quiz

by Steven Mazie

If you're one of the 85,000 readers who took the three-question quiz I posted last week, chances are you answered some items incorrectly. Like some of my smart, accomplished friends and family members who took the challenge, you might even have scored a big fat zero. And like them, you might be troubled by your performance. 

Buck up: you are far from alone. Like most people, I got some of them wrong, too, when I encountered similar questions years ago in a course in graduate school. The questions and answers reveal interesting patterns in the way we think, but I don’t believe that getting them wrong is very persuasive evidence of human irrationality. In short, much of the work of cognitive scientists—even fascinating Nobel Prize-winning research by Daniel Kahneman—leaves me edified but not alarmed. The human capacity for reason may be fragile and partial but it is not belied by studies in which large percentages of subjects answer a few tricky questions incorrectly.

Rethinking Genevieve

 I’ll focus here on my question about Genevieve, more popularly known as the Linda problem. (If you haven’t taken the quiz yet, you might want to test yourself before reading on.) Here, again, is the question:

At a dinner party this weekend, a friend introduces you to a woman named Genevieve. He tells you that Genevieve recently graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a B.A. in philosophy, where she was an active volunteer in an advocacy group for women's health and edited a literary magazine. You’re interested in talking to Genevieve about [Georg] Hegel, the subject of her senior thesis, but your friend jumps in and asks you to rank the following statements about Genevieve in order of their probability:

(1) Genevieve is a feminist.

(2) Genevieve is looking for a job as a sanitation worker.

(3) Genevieve is a feminist who is looking for a job as a sanitation worker.

Given what you know about Genevieve, rank the statements from most likely to least likely.  

This question is meant to test how well you evaluate probabilities. If you botch the task by ranking (3) before (2), you commit what Kahneman and Tversky call the “conjunction fallacy”: seeing the concurrent existence of two states of affairs as more likely than than the existence of only one. As Kahneman points out in Thinking, Fast and Slow, we are not always inclined to make this mistake. Try this question, for example (from p. 160):

Which alternative is more probable?

(a) Jane is a teacher.

(b) Jane is a teacher who walks to work.

Everyone will immediately see that (a) is more probable than (b), since Jane could commute to school by bike, car, subway or Segway. We answer this question correctly yet mishandle the logically identical Genevieve problem because the latter primes us to develop a particular view of Genevieve. Not only is she a woman, but she is a liberal activist, a philosophy major and a graduate of an elite women’s college. Her fancy French name gilds the lily. How often have you witnessed such a creature driving a sanitation truck?

The background information about Linda/Genevieve is designed to tempt you toward a response that is illogical. It’s bait, pure and simple. When we take the bait, we are giving in to our intuitive sense that sanitation workers are by and large male and less highly educated than Genevieve. Kahneman apparently thinks that the deceit at the heart of the question is justified because it shows how a story can dull our reasoning ability. In his words, System 2 (our deliberate, slow-thinking rational capacity) “is not impressively alert.” We jump to conclusions when the conclusion seems obvious: “The laziness of System 2 is an important fact of life,” he writes (p. 164). But there is another interpretation of this purported error that Kahneman dismisses too quickly. Consider the way he reacts to students who dare to challenge his interpretation of the Linda problem:

Remarkably, the sinners seemed to have no shame. When I asked my large undergraduate class in some indignation, ‘Do you realize that you have violated an elementary logical rule?’ someone in the back row shouted, ‘So what?’ and a graduate student who made the same error explained herself by saying, ‘I thought you just asked for my opinion.’  (Thinking, Fast and Slow, p. 158)

Rather than explore his students’ points of view and open his experiment to critical inquiry, Kahneman dismisses their responses out of hand. A logic error is a logic error; “opinions” have no place in a discussion of probability. But as Ralph Hertwig and Gert Gigerenzer argue in their 1999 article criticizing Tvesky and Kahneman’s conclusions, this all depends on what “probability” means in the minds of the test-takers (my adaptations to the Genevieve example follow in brackets):

It is evident that most of the candidate meanings of ‘probability’ and ‘probable’ cannot be reduced to mathematical probability. For instance, if one interprets ‘probability’ and ‘probable’ in the [Genevieve] problem as ‘something which, judged by present evidence, is likely to happen,’ ‘plausible,’ or ‘a credible story,’ then one might easily judge [‘Genevieve being a feminist sanitation worker’] to be more probable than [‘Genevieve being a sanitation worker’] because the information about [Genevieve] was deliberately selected to provide no evidence for the hypothesis [that she is a sanitation worker alone]. Under these interpretations it is pointless to compare participants’ judgments with a norm from mathematical probability theory, because the inferred meanings have nothing to do with mathematical probability.

Exactly. If you ranked (3) before (2) on the quiz, you were seeking the most plausible, commonsensical answer, not trying to parse a logic game on the LSAT. Your rationality wasn’t dozing. System 2 was absorbing and responding to evidence provided by the questioner—evidence you had every reason to believe was relevant to the question. 

The Selection Task and the Good Bet

 Questions 2 and 3 on my quiz are meant to test deductive logic and instrumental rationality, respectively, but neither tells a complete story about how well an individual reasons in real life. Wason’s selection task experiments show that performance improves markedly when real-world examples, rather than letters and numbers, are tested. Since social situations like this confront us much more often than test items like this, we should take our tendency to bungle the latter with a grain of salt. And since question 3 is a measure of risk tolerance whose answer depends on a number of contingencies, you can’t be condemned by the Rationality Police for passing up even an excellent bet. It may indeed be useful to be aware of an unusually strong loss aversion in your psyche so you can work on changing your behavior, but there is no evidence that individuals who gamble more freely necessarily live better lives. 

So Why the Quiz?

Why did I quiz you using questions and answers I believe to be less meaningful than their originators thought them to be? For two reasons: (1) to draw your attention to the types of data that inform the new science of irrationality and, I hope, to open up some of these questions and conclusions to popular critical engagement; and (2) to conduct a non-scientific experiment of my own about individuals’ emotional investment in their sense of themselves as rational. My hypothesis is that while we love reading about humanity’s tendency toward the irrational, we take offense when light is thrown on our own individual incompetencies. 

If you were upset about performing poorly on the quiz, your trauma was compounded when you read comments from other readers who reported how "obvious" the answers were and how easily they aced it. Here Kahneman has some useful advice for you: be wary of the “availability fallacy,” the tendency to generalize from an easily accessed but skewed data set. The majority of commenters on Facebook reported answering at least two of the questions correctly. This doesn’t mean that DSN readers are necessarily more rational than the general population. The vast majority of the individuals who have read the post did not comment at all, and the vast majority of this silent majority likely did poorly on the quiz. The comments represent nothing but a single-digit swath of the quiz-takers. Most of your fellow readers probably performed exactly the way you did.

So relax, people. We might not all be perfect reasoners, but we’re all in this together. 

Follow @stevenmazie

Image credit: Shutterstock

Note to readers: This post is a truncated and slightly revised version of post I published several years ago. Next week Praxis returns with all-new material.  

 

Joyce Carol Oates: Only Cynics Believe in Luck

by DSN Editors

Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938) is an American author who has, since her first publishing in 1963, written over 40 novels. Couple that with her many volumes of poetry and short fiction, and you're looking at one of the most prolific authors still writing today. Oates has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize five times, but never won, which makes her sort of like the Leonardo DiCaprio of excellent American fiction. Maybe Leo is just the Joyce Carol Oates of acting. It's debatable.

Oates' works include them, Black Water, and Blonde. She is well-known for her exceptional productivity, writing seven to eight hours per day in longhand. Oates has taught at Princeton since 1978.

Below: Words of wisdom from Joyce Carol Oates.

"The worst cynicism: a belief in luck."

It would appear Oates' opinion stems from a steadfast belief that hard work is the avenue to success. To attribute good things (or bad things) to luck is to assume human effort plays only some part in getting people where they want to be. 

But how does the world really work? Aren't there plenty of examples of people who worked themselves to the bone yet ended up with nothing to show for it? It's much easier to cross home plate if you were born on third base. Isn't that the result of fortune rather than endeavor?

What do you think?

Genetics Play a Role in Intelligence and Longevity

by Natalie Shoemaker

Researchers have noticed that "higher intelligence predicts longer lifespan." A new study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, shows this link between intelligence and lifespan has mostly to do with genes.

Researcher Rosalind Arden, explained in a press release:

"We know that children who score higher in IQ-type tests are prone to living longer. Also, people at the top of an employment hierarchy, such as senior civil servants, tend to be long-lived. But, in both cases, we have not understood why.”

The researchers analyzed data from a number of same-sex twins, both fraternal (non-identical) and genetically identical from Sweden, the United States, and Denmark. Where fraternal twins only share half of their sibling's genes, identical twins share all of their DNA. Within these pairs the brighter of the two twins tended to live longer, and this condition was more pronounced in fraternal than identical twins.

The researchers found that the results supported a genetic link between smarts and longevity 95 percent of the time.

Arden said:

"Our research shows that the link between intelligence and longer life is mostly genetic. So, to the extent that being smarter plays a role in doing a top job, the association between top jobs and longer lifespans is more a result of genes than having a big desk.”

Though, Arden adds that “it's important to emphasize that the association between intelligence and lifespan is small.” So, those don't start loading up on cheeseburgers and ice cream just because you have a high IQ.

Arden did speculate that perhaps the genes that help us with our smarts also help in our health. “Or intelligence and lifespan may both be sensitive to overall mutations, with people with fewer genetic mutations being more intelligent and living longer.” More research is necessary to look deeper into this connection.

Read more at Science Daily.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Are You Hiding Your Identity at Work?

by Victoria Rachel Montgomery Brown

DSN Edge is a video-driven platform that catalyzes happiness and performance in professional environments by cultivating leadership, creativity, and self-knowledge. Learn more about DSN Edge.

To what extent are you "yourself" at work? Kenji Yoshino, the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at the NYU School of Law, studies the phenomenon of "covering". Coined in 1963 by the sociologist Erving Goffman, "covering" describes the different ways and reasons we hide aspects of our identities when we're functioning within groups. 

Yoshino argues that covering is a powerful barrier to diversity and inclusion in companies, and advocates for "uncovering" instead. He cites the example of Barack Obama, who was advised before his presidential run that he'd never win the presidency with two "foreign sounding" names, and that he should go with "Barry Obama" instead. Obama refused, and when he was sworn in, "tripled-down" on his uncovering by choosing to state his full name: Barack Hussein Obama. 

When NYU Law School offered him a chair named for Chief Justice Earl Warren, Yoshino was faced with a difficult "uncovering" moment of his own. As District Attorney, Earl Warren had interned (imprisoned) Japanese Americans during World War II. Of Japanese descent himself, Yoshino couldn't in good conscience accept the position, a great honor in the eyes of the school and its board of directors. Refusal was awkward to say the least, but Yoshino explained his position.

The school's response may surprise you. It surprised Yoshino, and completely shifted his perspective without forcing him to compromise his position. 

 

 

Kenji Yoshino's Masterclass on Reeinvisioning Inclusion is available exclusively to subscribers to DSN Edge. 

New Media is the New Home of Vigilante Justice

by Robert Montenegro

Bill Cosby is almost certainly a rapist. It's unlikely he'll ever be convicted of that crime -- statutes of limitations and all -- but if the man's status is neutral in the eyes of the law, he's dead guilty when caught in the gaze of social media and public opinion. His career is in tatters, his reputation is subzero. The destalination process has already begun. It's not traditional justice, but it's something not too dissimilar.

The Cosby case, as well as countless other instances of trial-by-media, raises an intriguing question: Does the brand of justice dished out by new media improve upon or subvert the rule of law?

(For a crash course on "new media," the Wikipedia article is a good place to start, but think of it as the ugly Frankenstein monster of traditional media plus social media.)

Let's begin with Cosby to explore that thought.

Earlier this week, NY Mag published a striking feature on the nearly three dozen women who have come forward to accuse the actor and comedian of some very un-Huxtable acts. This, coupled with the release of a 10 year-old deposition in which Cosby admitted to drugging women for sex, all but closes the case as far as public opinion goes: 

"In Cosby’s deposition for the Constand case, revealed to the public just last week, the comedian admitted pursuing sex with young women with the aid of Quaaludes, which can render a person functionally immobile. 'I used them,' he said, 'the same as a person would say, ‘Have a drink.’ ' He asked a modeling agent to connect him with young women who were new in town and 'financially not doing well.'"

Woof.

The NY Mag piece explores Cosby's long history of preying on women. It also examines the social and legal mechanisms that kept most of his victims silent for as long as they were. This last part is important; many spectators have questioned that silence. Why have all these women waited until now to speak? The reasons are plenty: fear, shame, powerlessness, etc.

"As Cosby allegedly told some of his victims: No one would believe you. So why speak up?"

Noreen Malone, who authored the NY Mag article, tracks the evolution of society's perception and prioritization of sexual assault. There was a time once when drugging a woman for sex fell outside the public's definition of rape. There was a time once when victims interpreted their experience with shame or compliance rather than victimhood. There was a time once when women were almost universally afraid of entering the vicious arena of the U.S. justice system.

That time is in the past now. 

Malone credits social media and recent activism (think the "rape culture" movement) with shifting cultural opinions. As women continue to empower themselves in society, issues important to them like campus sexual assault receive more airplay. Millennials as well treat the topic with much more seriousness than other age demographics. Young women across the country are using social media to change -- and, at other points, dictate -- the ways society interprets rape. They're also using it as a weapon to fight back against rapists.

"These younger women have given something to Cosby’s accusers as well: a model for how to speak up, and a megaphone in the form of social media."

The Cosby saga can be dissected any which way but it's at its most fascinating when observed as a form of vigilante justice. It's not quite the plot to Unforgiven but there's a similar thread. A group of women who have been wronged are now taking advantage of cultural shifts to employ new media to hold Cosby accountable. His punishment is not going to be life in prison like many rapists, but it's something. As mentioned, Cosby likely won't ever stand accused in a courtroom. But in the court of public opinion -- in which Twitter and CNN are judge, jury, and executioner -- he's already guilty.

Cosby's not alone here; we see this phenomenon everywhere now. Public shaming. Embarrassing exposés. Look at what's happened to the dentist who killed Cecil the Lion. What he did was lousy and maybe illegal, but maybe illegal doesn't matter much in the court of public opinion. He's being held accountable for what he did because the media has become able to disseminate this kind of story to unprecedented amounts of people.

Let's return to the question posed at the outset: Is this new media power of shaming people to oblivion (and in some cases shutting the door on a case before it goes to trial) a good or a bad thing?

In many cases, new media's angry mob will go after someone like Cosby whose deplorable actions won't be punished by the law. It's hard to argue Cosby shouldn't be held accountable somehow. The megaphone, as Malone called it, allows the public to do just that. You could therefore contend that it represents an improvement to our current justice system. The court of public opinion catches all the crimes that fall between the cracks.

But what's important to remember is that the justice system is designed to be meticulously thorough in its investigating. It's also designed to protect the accused. The court of public opinion offers neither as a guarantee.

Let's look at what happens when the situation is much more opaque. For example, the media crucified police officer Darren Wilson last year after he shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Wilson became the face of police brutality; Pundits and talking heads branded him murder-cop incarnate. Granted, Ferguson was about way more than just Wilson and Brown, but new media had already foreclosed on the case well before public inquiries could be made to determine if Wilson really was at fault. Which he wasn't.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Justice Department acquitted Wilson of all wrongdoing. Months after new media had called him guilty of murder, Wilson was declared innocent via a report that actually knew what it was talking about. Considering how little coverage the Justice Department report received upon its release in March (Ferguson was already old news by then), I imagine much of America still unfairly views him as "the cop who murdered Michael Brown." Say what you will about the undeniable racism in Ferguson and throughout America; Wilson was still treated unjustly by a bull-in-a-china-shop media. Wilson wasn't the first and won't be the last.

The American media has never held more power than it does right now. We as a society are so plugged into the internet we've basically inserted a funnel into our brains for major media companies to capitalize on. It's refreshing when we see a great piece of journalism make a major difference in the world, or when we are able to see justice play out in front of our eyes. It's appalling when an outlet like Gawker abuses the new media privilege by publishing unethical outings of private citizens for page views. 

This extends beyond just the internet. Remember "A Rape on Campus?" How about the Duke lacrosse case? In the days following the 2014 Boston Marathon bombings, members of Reddit (with assists from various media outlets) twice identified the wrong person as the perpetrator. Each of these journalistic screwups was only exacerbated by the rapid spread of information via the internet and social media. If new media gives us the ability to do more good, it simultaneously augments the consequences of the bad.

This is the obvious counterpoint to the argument that new media has a positive influence on justice in America: For every story of social media coming through in the clutch there are at least as many examples of misinformation and untruths spreading through Twitter like an ignorance contagion. And while it's important that people like Bill Cosby get figuratively tarred and feathered, it's troubling that the practice of media shaming, since it generates so many clicks, is almost certainly here to stay.

The current state of the American media is amorphous and strange. The line that separates media activism from dangerous sensationalism is paper thin. New media in particular offers a bevy of incredible opportunities for advocacy, activism, and -- sure -- even justice. But as Uncle Ben would tell you, there's a lot of responsibility coupled with that power. If the media is cool to hold Bill Cosby accountable (and it is), then someone else needs to hold the media accountable. And since new media strives to be democratic, America itself must be up to the task.

Our media is only going to continue to be a reflection of us. That's kind of inspiring. It's also horrifying.

Read more at New York Mag

Photo credit: JIM WATSON / Getty; Stock illustration © creativenv

Below, David Westin (Former President of ABC News) talks media credibility and the Brian Williams scandal from earlier this year.

Hawking, Musk Draft a Letter, Warning of the Coming AI Arms Race

by Natalie Shoemaker

Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have made their mistrust of artificial intelligence well-known. The two along with a group of equally concerned scientists and engineers have released an open letter calling for the prevention of an autonomous robotic army, warning of the disastrous consequences for humanity and future advancements.

Their fears are well-founded, as they write:

“If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable, and the endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow.”

The letter likens AI weaponry to chemical and biological warfare, but with far more ethical concerns and consequences. Once nations start building AI weaponry there will be an arms race, they write, and it will only be a matter of time until this technology gets into the “hands of terrorists, dictators wishing to better control their populace, warlords wishing to perpetrate ethnic cleansing, etc.” Robots could be programmed to target only select groups of people without mercy or consciousness. It is for these reasons that they “believe that a military AI arms race would not be beneficial for humanity.”

The construction of such weapons would do a disservice to the huge benefits AI could provide humans in the years to come.Building them would only further humanity's mistrust in such technology, the authors write.

“In summary, we believe that AI has great potential to benefit humanity in many ways, and that the goal of the field should be to do so. Starting a military AI arms race is a bad idea, and should be prevented by a ban on offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control.”

Theoretical Physicist Lawrence Krauss does not share in their concerns, though, he understands them. He believes AI, as complex as what's being described in this letter is still a long way off. “I guess I find the opportunities to be far more exciting than the dangers,” he said. “The unknown is always dangerous, but ultimately machines and computational machines are improving our lives in many ways.”

Four years ago Peter Warren Singer, Senior Fellow and Director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, spoke to DSN about the potential for a robot apocalypse. Well, Singer interviewed a number of scientists about this and found many of them thought it wasn't possible or a silly idea. However, Singer recalls what one Pentagon scientists said to him, he said “'You know, I’m probably working on something that’s either going to kill or enslave my grandkids, but, you know, it’s really cool stuff, so why stop.'”

In the pursuit of growth, the architects of these designs need to stop and think about the repercussions of their actions. I believe the exchange between Dr. Ian Malcolm and John Hammond from the movie Jurassic Park says it best:

John Hammond: I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before...

Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.

Read the full letter at Future of Life.

Photo Credit: JACK GUEZ / Getty Staff

Welcome to Candy County

by Frank Jacobs

Some maps need to be savored instead of analyzed; digested, not discussed. Like this delicious map of Candy County, by Minneapolis artist and printmaker Faye Passow. It's crammed with the delightful nomenclature of confectionery (from Lemonheads to Pixy Stix), rich in wordplay (Easter Egg Island, the Candy Bar) and sure to tickle the fancy of anyone with a sweet tooth. It would look great as a poster in the dentist's waiting room.

 

More on Ms. Passow and her work here and here.

_________________

Strange Maps #726

Got a strange map? Send it to strangemaps@gmail.com.

Should Androids Have the Right to Reproduce?

by Natalie Shoemaker

There's been a shift in the narrative of the humans versus robot story in science fiction, according to a new study from Ingvil Hellstrand. As artificial intelligence advancements have been made, contemporary science fiction has caught up to reflect this new technology and its surrounding issues. The storylines have become less about the battle against robots, but rather act as more of hypothetical ethical scenarios that scientists are battling with today.

Hellstrand gives a great example from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Data, an android who is constantly seeking out ways to become more human, decides to have a daughter. This fictional example bleeds into a debate we're having within our own society, Hellstrand says:

"Data argues for parenthood as a practice and not merely as a purely genetic identity. This feeds right into the debate that has been going on in Norway since the end of the 2000s. Norwegian biotechnology legislation was revised and opened access to assisted reproduction for all co-habiting women in either heterosexual or homosexual relationships."

This leads to an interesting "question regarding who should have the right to assisted reproduction is a debate that changes with our understanding of what it means to be human and the norms relating to identity and belonging, especially parenthood. These are big questions that we, as a society, are struggling with."

The traditional family been challenged and our ideas about what it means have become redefined. The advancements in AI technology may redefine it once more.

However, in order to get to the point where we have this debate, artificial intelligence has to get to a point where it's self-aware. Biologist E.O. Wilson believes that the study and perfection of artificial intelligence is an exciting avenue of research. He thinks that in “using robots as avatars and creating robots that are by design an imitation of what we know about the brain,” will help in our quest to find out what the meaning of humanity is.

Read more about the study at Science Daily.

Photo Credit: Syfy / Getty

How a Pink Poison Could Save the Rhinoceros From Extinction

by Cole Seidner

Rhinos are getting a makeover, and it may save them from extinction.

People have been poaching the animal for centuries. In some traditional Chinese medicines the rhinoceros horn is used for a multitude of cures from nausea to snakebites. Some of these recipes date back two thousand years. Many in Vietnam say that rhino horns can be used to cure both hangovers and cancer. Once the horn is ground into a powder, many ingest it to use it as a medicine. They are also used in several kinds of jewelry, the “ivory” horn considered beautiful and rare.  

Despite the fact that poaching of rhinos is illegal, poaching is driving the rhino toward extinction. A rhino horn can be worth up to $30,000 per pound on the black market. Many poachers see it as a risk well worth taking. With the value of the rhino horn on the rise, poachers are often heavily armed (and sometimes protected by armed gangs), making them dangerous to approach. So rhino conservationists needed to find a more wily way to save the animal.

What they've come up with is called "Pink Poison," a dye that's injected into the horn. The name is alarming, but the technique doesn’t actually hurt the rhinoceros. In fact, it is only dangerous to humans, as it is "eco-friendly, biodegradable, and vulture safe." Veterinarians approach a rhino, and then tranquilize it. Once asleep, they drill a hole into the horn, and inject the "pink poison" dye, which discolors the inside of the horn.

This initiative has been accompanied by an ad campaign warning poachers that the dye makes the horn indigestible. To add an extra kick of irony, symptoms include the very ones the rhino horn is supposed to cure, including nausea and diarrhea. It renders the rhino horn useless as a medicine, and discourages any poacher from trying to sell the horn.

The point is to lower the value of the rhino horn. Currently, they’re near equal in worth to gold and cocaine, making even pet rhinos almost impossible to insure. The dye only lasts four years, but it is one of the first real plans to stop poaching.  Rhino Rescue Project reports "losses of treated rhinos (to poaching or otherwise) total less than 2% of all animals treated." It's an unlikely solution, but now there is a way to help save the rhino. 

While poisoning the rhino horn greatly reduces "medical" poaching, it hasn't had the same impact on the jewelry trade. The rhino horn, often thought to be ivory, is often carved into jewelry or sculpture. As the pink can be bleached out, it hasn't lowered those sales. But while opportunities for innovation remain, the Rhino Rescue Project is still very happy with the positive results they've received so far. 

Thumbnail Image Credit

The Real Miracle of Acupuncture: That Anyone Still Believes In It

by Simon Oxenham

Unlike plenty of other mystic beliefs, the practical nature of acupuncture has the benefit of making it readily falsifiable through the form of a sham study. In a sham study we can compare genuine acupuncture, in which real acupuncturists provide treatment, to sham acupuncture in which researchers go through the motions, randomly poking or randomly pretending to poke their patients with needles. More research has been done into acupuncture than practically any other kind of alternative medicine, yet the evidence from thousands of studies points conclusively to the fact that acupuncture at worst is completely ineffective and at best, is no more effective than a placebo. Astoundingly, the benefit of acupuncture is so poor that in plenty of studies, even compared to no treatment, the benefits of acupuncture are practically impossible to notice.

In 2013 David Colquhoun wrote a fascinating and damning review of the evidence against acupuncture in the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia. It is often alleged that acupuncture is an ancient medical practice that has been refined and revered for thousands of years. In reality acupuncture is indeed an ancient medical practice but it has in fact been in decline for thousands of years. In 1822 it was actually banned from the Imperial Medical Academy by Emperor Dao Guang. It wasn’t until 1966 that it was revived by Chairman Mao Zedong, but even he didn’t actually believe in it. Mao stated: “Even though I believe we should promote Chinese medicine, I personally do not believe in it.” Yet despite all these obstacles, acupuncture has resurrected itself in the 21^st Century, in a western world that has (arguably rightly) become fearful and suspicious of mainstream medicine.

“There is now unanimity between acupuncturists and nonacupuncturists that any benefits that may exist are too small to provide any noticeable benefit to patients. That being the case, it is hard to see why acupuncture is still used. Certainly, such an accumulation of negative results would result in the withdrawal of any conventional treatment.” - David Colquhoun

At this point in the conversation, plenty of otherwise perfectly rational people will often say something along the lines of: “yes, it is clear that any effect is completely due to the placebo effect… but so what? Surely, the benefits of the placebo effect are better than doing nothing at all.” Indeed, as we are only now beginning to understand, the placebo effect is so powerful that it still works even when you are fully aware that that an intervention is only a placebo.

Here’s a tip for arguing with people that aren’t entirely rational, if they use the word “surely”, you can be pretty damn sure that whatever they say next is likely to present you with a massive hole in their argument. The simple answer is that all medicines involve a placebo effect. Acupuncture and other alternative medicines are not somehow unique providers of the placebo effect’s wondrous power. This is why for a genuine medicine to be approved, it must not just be better than nothing, it must be shown in a placebo controlled trial to be more effective than a placebo. This principle is the very foundation of modern medicine. Indeed, any randomized controlled trial worth its salt will not just test against a placebo, it will test against the next best alternative treatment (but that’s a subject for another post).

Despite the wealth of evidence debunking acupuncture we continue to see poorly conducted trial after poorly conducted trial popping up, with credulous claims from journalists in otherwise sane publications.

“Almost all trials of alternative medicines seem to end up with the conclusion that more research is needed. After more than 3000 trials, that is dubious.... Since it has proved impossible to find consistent evidence after more than 3000 trials, it is time to give up.” - David Colquhoun

Recently, plenty of newspapers fell hook, line, and sinker for an extraordinarily laughable acupuncture study on, wait for it... rats. After I’d finished chortling at the idiocy of trying to test acupuncture’s effect on pain on anything other than a human, I downloaded the paper, which the Guardian breathlessly described as: “the strongest evidence yet that the ancient Chinese therapy has more than a placebo effect when used to treat chronic stress”, almost as if more evidence than no evidence is somehow a claim that deserves some kind of medal.

Before we launch into a full frontal takedown of this paper (don’t worry, it won’t take long), let’s first consider the fact that any surrogate outcome study designed to support particular claims made by acupuncturists, is pretty much entirely pointless before acupuncture can be shown to be effective, i.e. actually reduce symptoms. The fact that the study was conducted on rats takes the study out of the realms of the foolish and into the realms of the downright ludicrous.

The study consisted of bathing rats in ice baths for an hour per day for fourteen days and running current through the rats’ with electrified needles, as if this is bears any relation to what happens in your high street acupuncture clinic. Surgeon and author of the outstanding Respectul Insolence blog, David Gorski examined the study in admirable detail before suggesting an alternate explanation for the results:

“having a needle stuck in the leg and having current run through it hurts less than having a needle stuck in the back and having current run through it. There’s no way of knowing because we can’t ask the rat.”

I don’t have much time for critics of animal trials for life saving treatments, but this is a trial that animal rights activists might want to take a serious look at. It is inconceivable that bathing rats in ice baths and jabbing them with electrified needles for the purposes of justifying a Chinese medical practice debunked hundreds of years ago, could have any possible productive outcome. It certainly doesn’t tell us anything useful about acupuncture, except maybe that certain acupuncture scientists have even less of a clue what they are doing than we ever gave them credit for.

 

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Placebo Found to Relieve Pain, Even When Participants Knew the Treatment wasn't Real

by Natalie Shoemaker

The placebo effect has been well documented. Studies exploring how a pain pill that has nothing but sugar in it can change our perceptions of pain, even the words we use to describe foods can change our perceptions of taste. However, researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder have taken on an experiment testing whether a placebo can still be effective even after informing patients that it's a placebo.

Scott Schafer works in the University's Department of Psychology and Neuroscience as an Associate Professor. He found in his recent study that a placebo can still be an effective treatment for pain, even when the patients find out that the pill they're taking has no medical value. However, there is a catch: the patients in the study needed ample time in order to become conditioned to the placebo's effects before being informed that the medication they were taking was a placebo.

In the case of this study, the researchers applied a heat of 117.5 degrees Fahrenheit to participants forearms. The researchers then applied, what was made to seem like analgesic gel to the affected skin—it was really just Vaseline with blue food coloring. To make the effect seem real, they turned down the heat of the pad to medium.

"They believed the treatment was effective in relieving pain," Schafer said. "After this process, they had acquired the placebo effect. We tested them with and without the treatment on medium intensity. They reported less pain with the placebo."

Participants that were told after four treatment sessions that they had been applying Vaseline this whole time continued to reap the benefits of the placebo effect, reporting that their pain was eased. However, those patients that were told after the first treatment session did not feel the same.

Schafer explained in a press release:

"We're still learning a lot about the critical ingredients of placebo effects. What we think now is that they require both belief in the power of the treatment and experiences that are consistent with those beliefs. Those experiences make the brain learn to respond to the treatment as a real event. After the learning has occurred, your brain can still respond to the placebo even if you no longer believe in it."

Read more at Science Daily.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

A Stranger Has a Better Sense of What You Look Like Than You Do

by Natalie Shoemaker

We're bad at picking out pictures of ourselves that represent our true likeness, according to a new study. So, next time you're picking out a picture for your dating profile, it may be better to get someone else to do it for you.

Researcher David White and his team from the UNSW Australia have found we have a distorted view of what we look like. They came to these conclusion through a series of overlapping tests. The study began with 130 undergraduate students. The volunteers' first task was to download 10 photos of themselves from Facebook and rank which ones they thought bore the closest resemblance to their appearance. The participants were then asked to sit in front of a webcam where two photos were snapped of them: one where they were smiling and another where they had a neutral expression.

Unknown to them, an additional 16 students were watching them—these strangers sitting in front of a webcam for a minute. The 16 onlookers were tasked with objectively ranking a series of photos of these strangers based on which ones represented their likenesses from best to worst. The researchers even had yet another 73 online participants complete a face matching test based on the original 130 participants' photos.

All these tests and the researchers found that the self-selected images were matched seven percent less, compared to images selected by strangers. Also, photos selected by strangers tended to lead to better performance on the face matching test.

White was surprised by the results, saying that “[i]t seems counter-intuitive that strangers who saw the photo of someone’s face for less than a minute were more reliable at judging likeness. However, although we live with our own face day-to-day, it appears that knowledge of one’s own appearance comes at a cost. Existing memory representations interfere with our ability to choose images that are good representations or faithfully depict our current appearance.”

Read more at Science Daily.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock; Courtesy of David Whitem, CC BY SA

What Happens When Someone Sees Color for the First Time?

by Cole Seidner

Ethan Zachary Scott is colorblind. The world he sees is a bit duller than most people’s. But for Ethan's birthday, he received a new pair of glasses that corrects his vision, letting him see in full color for the first time in his life—and the friend who gave Ethan the glasses captured the reaction on video.

The glasses are called EnChroma, and they come in several styles, with several types of glass for each different diagnosis of color blindness. They have a range of prices, from $329.95 up to $409.95 including a custom design, but most say it’s worth it.

According to ColorVisionTesting.com, most people who are color blind, meaning that their ability to see colors is impaired, may be placed under two classifications. They are either "red-weak," or "green-weak." Someone who is 'red-weak' has more trouble seeing the color red, the shades surrounding it seeming more watered down, weak, and much more green. Similarly, green-weak vision has trouble seeing shades of green, resulting in colors seeming more red. 

EnChroma glasses are a new design that allows the colorblind to see more colors than they could before. What may have been bland shades of tan and gray will become their “real” colors, more saturated and vibrant. Don McPherson, with a PhD in glass science, accidentally began the design while making protective wear for laser eye surgery. He had used several new lens formulas on the protective wear, and when he tried them on, he was floored. Colors were more brilliant and bright, more saturated, and easier to distinguish one from another. Continuing McPherson’s work, EnChroma used several programs to design new optical filters. These filters were then fitted to the glass, helping to re-align misaligned cones in the eye. They make shades of green and red intersect, forcing the cones of the eye to better identify them.  

Years of further research and development led to EnChroma Glasses. This innovation is an enormous leap forward in optical materials development and in aiding the color blind to see the world. The final ‘goal’ of EnChroma is to create a diverse range of glasses to correct all forms of color blindness, and even to enhance color vision in non color blind people. They plan to help the world see color clearer.

Right now, EnChroma Glasses appear to be a pair of normal tinted shades, which is how at first Scott was fooled into thinking they were just a nice pair of sunglasses. It wasn’t until he was encouraged to look around that he began to see the changes, including a fantastically bright container of purple sanitary wipes that he had passed every day in the office without realizing they were purple.

Seeing these dazzling new colors for the first time, Scott began to cry. He was giddy at the sight of pink and green sharpies, totally shocked by their intense shade. The experience was ‘trippy’ and overpowering. He was scared of this entirely new color ‘purple’ that he’d never had before, and explored his own office and the lawn outside with a brand new enthusiasm.

In some cases, like Scott’s, there are instant results. But according to EnChroma, it may take some time to adjust to the glasses themselves. The company suggests that one wears the glasses for a few hours a day, for a few weeks in case colors don’t immediately appear. Currently they are working on an indoor version of the glasses, and ones to wear while working on the computer.

The company is backed by over ten years of research in their field, and they are making strides every day.  This new innovation has already begun to change lives and will change even more as they come up with new designs to suit just about everyone.

Read more at EnChroma.com

Wikipedia Image credit

Getty Image Credit

Why We Can Get Lost in a Movie

by Natalie Shoemaker

When we watch a gripping tale in the theaters, are there moments when we lose ourselves to the story? A new study from Georgia Institute of Technology says, yes.

Psychologist and lead author of the study Matt Bezdek explained in a press release:

“Many people have a feeling that we get lost in the story while watching a good movie and that the theater disappears around us. Now we have brain evidence to support the idea that people are figuratively transported into the narrative."

Participant would lay in the MRI machine while they watched scenes from 10 suspenseful movies, which included Hitchcock's North by Northwest and The Man Who Knew Too Much, in addition to Alien and Misery. The movie scenes played in the center of a flashing checkerboard pattern.

You can see an example below:

The researchers noticed during moments of suspense, attention began to narrow and the checkered pattern fell away. Then during moments of little activity, participants' attention broadened to include their surroundings. Activity in the participants' brains began to shift away from processing general information to only critical pieces during those thrilling moments.

Eric Schumacher, an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology, explained in a press release:

"It's a neural signature of tunnel vision. During the most suspenseful moments, participants focused on the movie and subconsciously ignored the checker boards. The brain narrowed the participants' attention, steering them to the center of the screen and into the story."

Read more at EurekAlert!

Photo Credit: Spencer Platt / Getty Staff

Cell Phones and Radiation. Berkeley's Silly, And Harmful, Pandering to Fear.

by David Ropeik

             A recent decision by the Berkeley California city council offers some informative, and scary, lessons about how society struggles to intelligently regulate risk. The clearest and scariest message of all is…in the scream-fest that is democracy, government policy making sometimes reflects emotion more than objective analysis. Which doesn’t make for the most intelligent evidence-based decision making. Which means that the way the government tries to keep us safe may not be keeping us as safe as we would hope.

Berkeley required cell phone retailers to inform customers

If you carry or use your phone in a pants or shirt pocket or tucked into a bra when the phone is ON and connected to a wireless network, you may exceed the federal guidelines for exposure to RF radiation. This potential risk is greater for children.

Pretty bland stuff. No reference to cancer, which San Francisco tried to include in the label they mandated a few years ago, which was shot down in court when the cell phone industry sued. The Berkeley warning is the same language already in the fine print on the instructions that come with the phone…as required by federal law.

But that warning is buried in fine print few people read, which is insufficiently alarming for the advocates who campaign about the dangers of electromagnetic radiation from cell phones (as opposed to the ionizing kind the comes from nuclear sources)…despite overwhelming scientific evidence that this form of radiation, at such weak power levels, is not known to cause any human health harm at all. (Except - guys might not want to keep their phones in pockets too close to their testicles. It warms the sperm factory that works best at lower temperatures – that’s why testicles dangle dangerously outside the body in the first place - and lowers sperm count and quality.) The advocates want to sound a radio-phobia alarm that the evidence just doesn’t support.

The Berkeley City council heard all the evidence that cell phone radiation is not a risk. But advocates cited their own research claiming it does pose a risk, including the risk of cancer.

(This included the 2011 ruling by the International Agency for Research on Cancer – IARC – that evidence of a connection between cell phone use and brain cancer was “limited among users of wireless telephones for glioma and acoustic neuroma, (two types of brain cancer) and inadequate to draw conclusions for other types of cancers." IARC qualified their finding this way; "A positive association has been observed between exposure to the agent and cancer for which a causal interpretation is considered…to be credible, but chance, bias or confounding could not be ruled out with reasonable confidence.")

This is what happens with a lot of risk controversies. To attack the mass of evidence on one side, advocates build their case on the bits and pieces and hints that cast any doubt on that evidence, no matter how unreliable or thin or biased that evidence. Creationists do it. Climate change deniers do it. GMO opponents do it.  Vaccine opponents do it. Cast a glimmer of doubt. If doubt means there might be even the hint of danger, we’re off to the races of fear and precaution, and the bulk of the evidence be damned.

If all our governments behaved the way the Berkeley city council did, we’d have all sorts of caveats written into our curricula about evolution…just what creationists are trying to do. We’d have a wait-until-we-know-more approach to climate change, what the coal industry and arch conservatives would prefer. The use of biotechnology to improve agriculture would have to await years more research. Or at least we’d have to have labels on food warning about GM ingredients, or on vaccines warning about all sorts of phantom fears.

Labels – the public’s right to know – have intuitive appeal. But when they are unsupported by the bulk of the evidence they can perpetuate a blanket knee-jerk fear that results in all sorts of opposition to all sorts of things that could do us a lot of good. In this case the fear of radiation that flies in the face of hard facts perpetuates resistance to power lines that could carry energy to cities from solar and hydro and wind sources out in the country, opposition to cell phone towers on schools or churches that would benefit from renting the space, and fear of smart meters on homes that radio electricity demand back to generators who can adjust supply…which increases the efficiency of our energy system and helps combat climate change.

The problem with labels founded more on fear than evidence is the kind of government response to risk that it represents. Democratic, but not particularly intelligent. You and I are stuck with a subjective, emotion-based risk perception system that mostly works to keep us safe, but sometimes leads us to worry about some things too much (radiation, ‘chemicals’) and some things not enough (climate change, skin cancer from solar radiation). But you and I aren’t setting policy that impacts everyone’s lives. Government officials are. They have a profound responsibility to human and environmental health to do better.

 

Image; Getty Images

Complaining Won't Fix Your City's Budget. But This Online Tool Just Might.

by Teodora Zareva

In theory, all local governments want to engage their citizens in a meaningful dialogue and motivate them to discuss and give feedback on important issues. In practice, however, this is rarely realized. According to the National Research Center, three-quarters of Americans haven’t attended one local public meeting in the last year. And, as anyone who has watched Parks and Recreation knows, those who attend are usually the ones with already formed and rigid opinions.

Engaging the public is hard and expensive. New digital tools, capable of collecting and presenting real-time data in an unprecedented way, have the potential to boost online engagement and give the public awareness, knowledge and decision-making power like never before. 

Balancing Act is one such tool created by Denver-based public policy consulting firm Engaged Public. In an easy-to-use web interface and simple graphics, Balancing Act gives residents the ability to look at and tweak their city’s budget, as well as leave comments to defend their decisions. Participants can try balancing the budget by allocating funds, cutting the budget of different agencies, as well as making decisions about revenue sources - effectively expressing their priorities and preferences for the future of their community.

 

“Public knowledge is more than people’s preferences about various policy choices. It’s about the common values people hold, as well as the trade-offs they are willing to make when those values are in conflict. Engaging the public around budgeting is perhaps the best example of this, because our budget choices inherently reflect our values.” says Mike Wood from The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation. 

 

Hartford, CT was The first city to use Balancing Act as part of an annual initiative that invites residents to participate in the People’s Budget workshop. A report from the meeting featuring the online budget simulation program shows that citizens are not afraid to make some tough decisions, especially when their city is facing a $49 million deficit, which was reflected at the beginning of the simulation. The participants did not increase any expenditures, but made some tough cuts like $2.9 million from the Police budget and $5.9 million from the City’s Pensions & Benefits. They also chose to increase returns from licenses, permits and, surprisingly, Property Tax. 

According to the team of Balancing Act, “The report paints a picture of a very informed, realistic populace that realizes the severity of the fiscal situation their city finds itself in, yet is also conscious that addressing it means making some difficult spending and revenue choices.”

Last month, San Antonio, the second largest city in Texas, became the latest municipality to launch its budget on Balancing Act. Even better, they did it in both English and Spanish.

“Balancing Act gives residents an opportunity to get hands-on experience on how to balance the city’s budget, and allows them to prioritize funding for the services and programs that matter the most to them,” said Bryan Layton, assistant director for innovation for the City of San Antonio. “This feedback is essential to developing a budget that is financially balanced and reflects the priorities of the community.”

Online engagement may not be a substitute for live meetings, but it surely makes it much cheaper and convenient for municipalities to gauge public opinion in real time and for residents to give their feedback even if they can’t attend traditional public meetings. Currently, Balancing Act supports municipal budgets. County, school district and state budget models will be added later in 2015.

Check out eight U.S. cities doing public engagement right.

 

World's Wealthiest Nations Fail to See Climate Change as a Threat

by Natalie Shoemaker

Climate change will affect us all in different ways. Yet, a new study has found that not everyone is as apathetic about climate change as some Americans--public opinion and attention to this very real issue varies widely from country to country. 

Researchers write in their paper, published in Nature Climate Change, that they surveyed people from 119 countries to “determine the relative influence of socio-demographic characteristics, geography, perceived well-being, and beliefs on public climate change awareness and risk perceptions at national scales.” They asked participants what they know about climate change and whether or not they consider it a threat.

The wealth of a nation was a good predictor of understanding what climate change is. The researchers reported that a majority of people in the US, UK, Australia, and most of Europe were aware of it (around 75 percent). However, while public awareness was high, in some cases, just over half of those polled from these same countries perceived climate change as a threat. Indicating an issue with how the message is being received.

To explain this hubris is Dr. Debbie Hopkins, a social scientist at the University of Otago, who explained in an interview with The Guardian:

“In many developed countries we have confidence in our adaptive capacity. We think we can adapt and cope, and in many ways we can do so more than developing economies.”

Gina McCarthy, the head of the nation's top environmental agency, has a different opinion. She says that some of the fault is on the media. We're giving climate change deniers the same airtime as scientists—this isn't a discussion of what's true, it's a discussion of what should be done.

Japan may be the one of the only wealthy nations that understands and feels threatened by climate change.

On the other side of this divide are countries in South America, as well as countries such as Mexico, India, and Tanzania—all of them share concern over climate change in a big way. Around 90 percent of those surveyed perceived it as a threat to their well-being. The researchers explain that education and perception of shifting temperatures both play a major role in deciding climate changes risk. They write:

“Worldwide, educational attainment is the single strongest predictor of climate change awareness. Understanding the anthropogenic cause of climate change is the strongest predictor of climate change risk perceptions, particularly in Latin America and Europe, whereas perception of local temperature change is the strongest predictor in many African and Asian countries.”

These results “highlight the need to develop tailored climate communication strategies for individual nations. The results suggest that improving basic education, climate literacy, and public understanding of the local dimensions of climate change are vital to public engagement and support for climate action.”

Researchers have been working on ways to make people understand the gravity of climate change. A recent study was successful in finding ways to frame the climate change issue to make people more accepting of environmental policies.

Read more at The Guardian or read the full study in Nature Climate Change.

Photo Credit:  Larry French / Stringer/ Getty

Religion is a Social Science. Should It Be Studied Like One?

by Derek Beres

While devotees of various faiths sometimes believe their religion was handed down whole cloth sometime during the Axial Age—or slightly earlier, as in Judaism, or later, as in Islam—we’d better be able to wrap our heads around religion if we treated it as a social science. At heart, that’s the function religion plays: a consensus of beliefs regarding that community’s relationship to its place and time.

Climate change, same-sex marriage, abortion—but a few modern issues being debated through the lens of antiquity. The reality, however, is that we’re really viewing the issues with current eyes, as much as some like to insert Jesus or Muhammad into the conversation. Magical thinking is part of our neural history: Despite Donald Trump’s recent banter about Mexicans, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, certain segments of social conservatives actually took the biggest issue with his commentary regarding divine forgiveness.

We know that religion plays a large role in the political process, especially on the right. While Trump is going to face issues regarding veterans, he may very well lose more traction by admitting that he doesn’t chat with God. And the lens to look into this issue with is not one of belief, but of the process behind creating such a belief in the first place—and only a society as hell-bent on belief as America would put that ahead of important issues like climate change and the role of the military. The culture creates the consensus.

Last week Vox published this article about the social sciences by investigating a recent study that claimed sitting down to talk with gays helps alleviate prejudice. Turns out the data were rushed before the cart; the lead authors were accused of being incentivized to produce the outcome they did.

This sort of meddling with results is not uncommon. Many corporations (Monsanto quick to mind; pharmaceutical companies often take the lead) are accused of this sort of dishonesty to speed their product to market. But the Vox article makes an important point: the fact that we’re catching more bunk research is a good thing, as it shows the strength of the peer review process. I agree, and feel that the blueprint the article lays out can be applied to religion as well.

Religion is the product of imagination combined with fragility. The first part is healthy; while we cannot study the particular visions in our head, thanks to our brain’s default network we can understand how we create visions and use metaphors in the first place. A healthy imagination plays an important part in problem solving and emotional processing. It is, essentially, what our brain does: it creates thoughts. And some of those thoughts are rather wild. This is a positive experience. 

Fragility, or the fear of the unknown/death, is also an unavoidable part of the human process. While we might not usually label such ‘positive,’ I wouldn’t call it negative either. We have to deal with mortality at some point; we have to recognize that we’re only here for a limited time. If the visions of the imagination help create the metaphors of religion, it is the fear of what’s to come that helps create the certainty that the religion you’ve chosen is the ‘right’ one. The imagination is expansive; the fundamentalism that follows, restrictive. This is our eternal dilemma.

My introduction to studying religion from a scientific lens occurred in 1993 when reading Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics, which inspired me to attain my degree in Religion. While my career has mostly focused on neuroscience, the possibility of looking at religion from a scientific standpoint has been denounced by those who do not want their Oz revealed—although, oddly, such people often promote research when it verifies what they already believe in.

That’s why treating religion as a social science makes more sense. As the Vox article states,

A rise in scientific retractions might indicate misconduct is on the rise—but it also might reflect how changing scientific norms have made scientific misconduct easier to detect and expose. 

The most common reason the religious feel that science should not be involved in their practice—the metaphysical one—should not be an obstacle. Many of the issues regarding other social sciences, such as psychology, geography, and anthropology, were once mysterious. Researchers advanced these fields by working together and peer reviewing the evidence. The same benefits could be attained by treating religion in the same manner.

Obviously the distance between theory and reality is vast, which is in fact why getting the religious to work together is challenging. They take their theory to be reality, which is the definitive part of the problem. Their distance is mainly between tolerance and acceptance; the first is possible, rarely the second. It would conflict too heavily with their worldview.

Still, the trend has been away from mysticism. It would require the growing population of agnostics and atheists to be open to metaphorical beauty of the imagination—strange that we understand mythologies as stories but treat religions as truths—while being open to the evidence. And the religious would have to come to terms with the testability of their convictions. Just as the Dalai Lama noted regarding Buddhism, if science were to render something in his practice false, Buddhism would need to adjust. More open-minded leaders like this would help transform our understanding of religion greatly. 

Image: Eric Thayer / Stringer