The Wisdom of Crowds - Jersey Cow Edition

March 11, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston

James Surowiecki begins The Wisdom of Crowds* with the true fable of Francis Galton and the ox.  Galton was at a country fair where an ox was on display, and the locals could submit guesses as to what the weight of the ox would be when it was slaughtered and dressed.  Galton, a statistician and a bit of a eugenics fan, figured that the guesses of the less savvy would dilute the accuracy of the smart money guesses.  So he kept track of the roughly 800 entries. 

No individual guess had the exact weight – 1198 pounds.  But when Galton caculated the mean of all guesses, it turned out to be 1197 pounds, much closer than the best individual guess.  That was in 1906, and while Surowiecki presents other examples of successful crowd-sourcing, I’m not sure if there has been an exact repeat of the Galton-ox scenario. 
We’re many months away from county fair season in New Jersey, so we have no oxen to be weight-guessed.   But The New Republic has come close to replication: crowd sourcing the weight of the governor.**

(The ox is on the left.  For a larger view, click on the image.)

Unfortunately, TNR closed the contest with only 19 entries, a far cry from Galton’s 800.  But for what it’s worth, the mean was 334 pounds. 

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* The SocioBlog has had several posts on this topic. See this one for an example and for links to others.

** I didn’t know whether I should  put the photo of the Governor behind an NSFW gate.  I even hesitated to use it, but then, Galton’s fairgoers too had to guess the weight of the ox before it was dressed.  (I found the photo here.  That site credits Wonkette.)

Freud Is Dead (Long Live Freud)

March 9, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston

I had thought that Freud had pretty much disappeared into the fading intellectual mists of the twentieth century. 

But on “Live With Kelly”* this is “Spring Cleaning Week.”  Viewers send in their tips.  Some of these make for good on-air demonstrations – like using Tang to clean your toilet bowl or vodka in a spray bottle to wash windows. Others can only be read. This morning, guest host Martin Short read this one. 

Marry someone who’s very anal about housecleaning.

I remember a time when you would never hear the word anal on morning network TV.  I also remember a time when college students might have been taught the theoretical reason for linking anality and neatness.  They would have known about the anal stage in childhood psycho-sexual development à la Freud, with its attendant concerns of order and neatness. It’s spring break, so I can’t ask my students,** but if I could, I doubt that even the psych majors would know.
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* Did you really think I watched only “Downton Abbey”?

** I probably wouldn’t ask anyway, for fear of getting the obvious response, “Because housecleaning is for assholes.”

The Kindness of Strangers

March 8, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston

A philosophy professor at Brown, Felicia Nimue Ackerman,  has come out against random acts of kindness. Her op-ed, originally in the Providence  Journal, appeared in a New Jersey paper today (here). No Blanche du Bois she, Prof. Ackerman begins:

Suppose you stop for coffee on your way to work. When you try to pay, the cashier smilingly informs you this won't be necessary. “Someone has paid for 20 coffees and you are number 8,” she says.
How would you feel?

If you said you'd feel a bit more cheerful and that you might be inspired to do something similar, not so fast. Prof. Ackerman has a better idea.

If you want to make your thought count, why not direct it at a loved one? The money that you spend on 20 cups of coffee could buy a gift for your friend, spouse, parent or child, who would cherish it as a symbol of personal affection that — let’s face it — means a lot more than a cup of coffee from a stranger.

That’s the great thing about being a philosopher rather than a social scientist, I guess. You can make statements about what people would do or how they would feel and not have to worry about evidence. Me, I’m not so sure.  Assume a cup of coffee costs $1.50, so we’re talking about $30.  Also, economists tell us that it’s better to give cash rather than a gift.  It avoids “deadweight loss.”

Imagine a friend handing you $30?  “Here take it.”

“What’s that for?”

"‘Because I want you to have it. I want to give it to you.”

“Really?  But why?” And so on. 

None of this questioning of motives occurs with the explanation for the anonymous gift of a $1.50 cup of coffee. 

Which does more to increase the total amount of happiness in the world  – the 20 cups of coffee to 20 strangers or the single gift of  $30 in cash or merchandise to one friend? That is an empirical question, and not an easy one to settle. The two relationships (stranger vs. friend) are different.  More important, so are the outcomes Ackerman mentions (cheerfulness vs. strengthening of the relationship).  If I give my $30 to Dunkin’ Donuts, the last thing I’m looking for is to strengthen my relationship to the next twenty people who walk in.

Surely there must be some empirical evidence on both these kinds of gift.  For example, is there a variation of the Ultimatum game where the subject of the experiment is offered more than half and in the next round becomes the one who makes the offer?

Shut Up and Move On

March 6, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston

If there’s a lesson in the recent Rush Limbaugh flap it’s this: when you make a mistake, apologize – simply and, as nearly as you can, sincerely.  Then STFU about it.  Don’t complain, don’t make excuses, and don’t try to shift the blame, especially if you play for the team that claims to be all for personal responsibility.*

That’s not what Limbaugh is doing.  His apology was lame, and now he’s making it worse.  He’s still insisting that the only thing he did wrong was to use “those two words,” when what offended most people was the idea behind those words.  After all, in his original attack Limbaugh carefully explained why those “slut” and “prostitute” were les mots justes.  He just does not get it.**

Then, he blames the left.  If it weren’t for those nasty lefties, he would never have “descended to their level.” 

That was my error. I became like them, and I feel very badly about that. I've always tried to maintain a very high degree of integrity and independence on this program. Nevertheless, those two words were inappropriate.

One of Limbaugh’s backers, James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal , goes even further in blaming the left.  He says that the whole thing was a cleverly designed snare, long in the planning, that the Democrats engineered to trap the Republicans and pull a fast one on the public.

The kerfuffle was no fluke but a left-liberal set piece.

If only.

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* This post is mostly speculation.  I don’t know of any evidence on the effect of the various statements made in recent days.

** “Getting it” is a concept coined by the 1960s feminists, or as Limbaugh calls them Feminazis, a term he applies freely and without apology to women who disagree with him, from Sandra Fluke to the woman who is now the US Secretary of State.