Social Intelligence

I found a book at the library by Daniel Goleman, the psychologist famous for studying emotional intelligence. The new book is about a related concept, social intelligence. But I don't like to commit to reading a book without reading some commentary first, so I did a search online.

I found this forum filled with comments criticizing the concept (and a test based on it). It turns out most of the posters had low scores, which seems to be the source of their gripes. Then I noticed the forum is for people autistic spectrum disorders, mostly Asperger's, which is characterized by:

Displaying unusual nonverbal communication, such as lack of eye contact, few facial expressions, or awkward body postures and gestures

Showing an intense obsession with one or two specific, narrow subjects, such as baseball statistics, train schedules, weather or snakes

Appearing not to understand, empathize with or be sensitive to others' feelings

Having a hard time "reading" other people or understanding humor

Engaging in one-sided, long-winded conversations, without noticing if the listener is listening or trying to change the subject

I've read a lot of stories about autism where people claim they are happy to be autistic, that is isn't really a disease, just a difference, at least in high-functioning variants. But Goleman's research suggests that these symptoms cause real harm by making it hard to bond with friends, a major determinant of happiness, and putting people at risk of depression.

I typed in all the reported scores (n = 81) and the average is 83.4, a little more than 1 standard deviation below the theoretical population average. The distribution is bi-modal (one around 78 and another near 100) but has the same standard deviation as the population. The comments are consistent with the possibility low scorers do tend to be unhappy. One person wrote that they scored low because "[b]ecause I'm depressed and am honest about my problems and limitations I am therefore [socially] retarded" and a number of others felt the test was a diagnostic for depression, seemingly acknowledging they have symptoms. On the whole, then, it seems probable that autism does make people unhappy, which should be the measure of whether any condition is a problem.

D-Day

It's been 66 years. I read in a couple places they had 5,000 boats in the channel that night. I wonder if it's true.

This movie was made for the 60th anniversary. I haven't watched it since, but I think it's great.

Charter Schools as a "Development Model"

I don't understand exactly what makes a social enterprise a social enterprise as opposed to just an NGO. I think it's one of those things where if the organization self-identifies as one then it is one. In my head they're all just NGOs, businesses, or confused foreigners.

I was reading the website of a new "social enterprise" that is split into two parts, the non-profit Manna Energy Foundation, and a for-profit, Manna Energy Ltd. As they share the same website, I think, for all intents and purposes, they run as one organization.

Their big idea is to install 400 water purification systems in Rwanda with government support. I'm not sure if the government is financing this or if donations are, or if they plan to charge people for the water. Over a longer time horizon, but I believe in the same communities, they are installing 300 biogas generators which will allow them to selling carbon credits to the U.N. The money will finance future projects (and make a profit for someone?).

It sounds like a good plan to me. I like "template" solutions for the developing world. There are a ton of great technologies that never scaled up. Some people argue the reason is that they can't be effectively implemented without a close and long-term collaboration with the community. Most of the technologies have to adapted with requires expertise, lots of travel, and a ton of money. Yet health technology, e.g. vaccines and bed nets, have been successfully scaled up, and it seems natural that infrastructure could and should be scaled and financed by the governments (it was in developed countries) . In a sense the "education technologies" of paper, pencils, schools, and educated instructors have been scaled in such a way, albeit the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

What I think is interesting about this project is that while it claims to be a social enterprise and is technically for-profit, it reminds me most of the charter school movement in the U.S. Manna is more of a pseudo-government agency than a business. They do work that the government is supposed to do, but with more expertise and energy, the same premise behind the KIPP schools and other charters modeled on KIPP. Both charters and Manna are funded by the government.

Perhaps the "charter model" should be a new buzzword and source of inspiration in development. Charters are certainly making headway in fixing U.S. education, despite a few lingering questions about scalability.

Worst Book Review of All Time

The worst book review I've ever read.

Ehrenreich drives me nuts. She thinks that, without having any background in a subject, she can do a little research and make novel insights that have someone escaped everyone else. In her new book, she takes on positive psychology despite knowing nothing about psychology.

She, as the review notes, doesn't understand regressions or statistical significance. (She's doesn't understand what a categorical variable is either.) She does know how to ask asinine questions about dimensional analysis and note that the functional form might be misspecified. But she doesn't understand non-parametric regression, which makes her criticisms moot. Somehow, the reviewer takes all of this as the mark of genius.

The worst part, though, is the reviewer's conclusion, a collection of platitudes about how knowing the truth is more important than being happy. It makes his ignorance about positive psychology to obvious. Does he know "[s]tudies indicate that depressed individuals have more realistic views than non-depressed people?" Is he saying we should all become depressed, lest (to paraphrase) fantasy take precedence over reality?

What is wrong with Republicans?

Jonathan Haidt explains why you shouldn't believe all those bad things you are say the political opposition is true.

Some liberals use the fact that Democrats/liberals tend to be more educated than Republicans/Tea Party people as if it were proof liberals (at least in Cambridge) don't manipulate facts, ignore evidence, and, from time to time, make some pretty stupid statements. Some of my favorite examples of liberals being stupid are below:

In 2003, Barack Obama wasn't a member of congress, so he didn't vote against the war. In 2006, he was a senator, and voted against withdrawing the troops from Iraq. These are facts. In April 2008, I pointed these facts out to someone and said it made me wonder if he would actually have the troops out of Iraq in 16 months like he promised. She insisted I had no idea what I was talking about. Indeed, I must have been lying on purpose and a Republican stooge.

MIT, like most universities, has lower admissions standards for minorities. That is also a fact. (I think it's a rather blunt instrument, but it's better than nothing.) I've met a lot of people who think it's a good thing, but never once met a person who benefited from those lower standards. You can back out an estimate (by comparing MIT to a peer without affirmative action) that about 73% of URM students at MIT benefited from affirmative action so the odds are in 485,693 that I just happened to meet people who would have been qualified if they were White. When I made that comment to someone they said I must have done the math wrong.

My favorite example, though, of people being completely delusion is the Palin Test. Watch these two interviews, two of Palin and one of Biden, by Katie Couric. Somehow, probably because no one watched the interviews, people got the impression Couric asked them both hard hitting questions and Joe "Slave State-7-Eleven-Scholarship" Biden hit them out of the park while Palin stumbled.

Essays

I have 5,000 entires to sort through from my RSS feeds, and about 120 articles I opened but never read. I guess I should start posting about those some time soon. Also, I need to weight on this story. I think the Dartmouth data story is more complicated than the reaction on the liberal blogosphere suggests, but, at the same time, its obvious the story's authors are tools.

In the mean time I've been doing some research on the validity of this model and it brought me back to the best article I've read in the past 6 months, An Animal's Place.

Journalists don't make good points to often, but I think Michael Pollan has a worthwhile thesis. Or maybe he just looks good because his competition on this topic is academic philosophers.

My other favorite Times Magazine stories are Leonhardt's The Big Fix and Krugman's How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? for content and The Aria of Chris Matthews for entertainment value.

While I'm at it I'll link to my two favorite essays: Inside the Machine: Toward a New Development Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Politics and the English Language by George Orwell.

Historic Night in Baseball

Yesterday, Ken Griffey Jr. announced his retirement.

He was probably one of the most popular players in history, and easily one of the best. He hit 630 home runs, just one of just four players to do without the taint of steroids. Without being hampered by injuries late in his career he might have hit 750 or more.

My favorite Griffey moment was Griffey's winning run. Video here.

But yesterday will be best remembered for the biggest blown call in sports history.

Armando Galarraga threw a perfect game, but a bad call broke it up after 8 and 2/3rds innings. The two biggest stories this season, bad umpiring and perfect games, clashed last night for what might go down as the biggest story of the year.

I firmly believe Bud Selig will have the league officially change the call and give Galarraga his perfect game. It will be unprecedented, but appropriate, similar to the pine tar incident.

The call may also go down in history as a tipping point in the case for instant replay.

Update: Selig won't reverse the call. More evidence he will be remembered as the worst commissioner in baseball history.