Oreo Quotes of the Day

As part of an Oreo advertising campaign in China:

Others organized Oreo-themed basketball games to reinforce the idea of dunking cookies in milk.

Chinese people got hops.

Meanwhile in the United Kingdom:

Kraft [...] partnered with McDonald's to bring the Oreo McFlurry (already on sale in many countries) to a few McDonald's locations during its yearly Great Tastes of America promotions. 

Yup, traditional home cookin' like the Oreo.

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Philosophy Problem Sets?

I don't teach philosophy classes and I probably never will. But if I did I would make one big change: add problem sets.

The basic idea is that I'd lay out some arguments and ask student to reduce them to premises, or ask students, given some premises, to draw conclusions using the theories presented in class. Most of these would be trivial, but that's ok because most philosophy classes already require a trivial amount of philosophy and a non-trivial about of composition.

The rationale is that philosophy, like math or economics or computer science, could and should teach people problem-solving methods. If you have an ethical dilemma you can use the theory of utilitarianism, and your priors, to figure out the right thing to do. (Or you could use evidence rather than priors, but that takes you into the realm of science.) In some ways this paradigm only really applies to ethics, but I think problem sets could be developed for epistemology that would be esp. relevant for science majors.

Here are some examples:

1. Jeff Sachs says that donating $100 billion in aid to Africa is the right thing to do because it will lead to economic growth. Assume he's a utilitarian and diagram his argument:

Answer: Donating $100 billion to Africa will increase African incomes. Increasing African incomes raises utility. (Hard part: There is no better use of the $100 billion than donating to Africa.) Therefore, we should donate $100 billion to Africa.

2. (Mathematical problem) There is an island with 3 people. They agree to be utilitarians but can't agree on which utility function is better: U1 = x + y + z or U2 = xyz where x, y, and z are the individual utilities of the three people. Calculate the utility for each (x,y,z) below and discuss which system is more egalitarian. (Does either function help reconcile utilitarianism and Rawlsian conception of justice?)

Answer: U2 is more egalitarian. Graph them, it's interesting!

3. Prof. White decides to write a paper on the causes of war expounding democratic peace theory. He then makes a table of all the wars fought in the past 100 years and categorized them into wars between democracies and others. He says the data show (don't worry about how) democracies are less likely to fight wars. What is a major problem with his research plan?

Answer: He came to his conclusion before seeing the evidence. When he categorized the data he may have been tempted to categorize countries as "democracies" and "not" in such a way as to make his hypothesis hold.

4. Ann believes in virtue ethics. She wants to cultivate the virtue of charity. A local beggar asks for $5 to buy booze. A local businessman asks for $5 for research on a new vaccine. Who should Ann give the money to? Who would a utilitarian give the money to (assume the new vaccine will save many lives)? Does virtue ethics make any sense to any rational person? (Hint: The answer to the last question is no.)

Answer: Ann should give the money to the beggar, that is charity. Investing in a business is not charitable. A utilitarian would give the money to the businessman, who would use it to make products that satisfy needs (e.g. demand for health care) because it will make the world happier.

Offensive and Defensive Rebounds

Some statisticians treat offensive and defensive rebounds as equally valuable when evaluating NBA players. I don't see the logic. If I'm a player and I fail to get a defensive rebound, odds are (something like 70% chance) that someone else on my team will rebound the ball so the value of the rebound was 0.3 possessions. If I get an offensive rebound, then I created a possession that would have only been created about 30% of the time, so it's worth about 0.7 possessions. Theory says offensive rebounds are a lot more important. (One caveat: the kind of player who is available to get a lot of offensive rebounds may set few picks, create few of his own shots, and take few shots and thus draw fewer defenders. So offensive rebounds might be correlated with other bad, but unmeasurable attributes.)

Defense of the equivalence base it on regressions. The theory is, I guess, that the regressions are showing an implicit correlation between offensive rebounding and negative attributes (discussed above). Another theory, which is my guess (without looking closely at the data) is that defensive rebounds are overvalued because they are correlated with good defense (low opponent FG%), which is also unmeasured. If that is the case defensive rebounds are overvalued and that's why the equivalence shows up in the regressions.

One more time . . .

This is the best essay even written, hands down.

If you haven't read it five times, then you haven't read it enough.

Politics and the English Language by George Orwell

Read it once for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week. Then read it again.

This is satire

While pensively pondering recent applications of the neo-constructivist gender studies literature to Title 9, it dawned on me that the racial dynamics theorized by Post-Colonial Oppression theory explain the popularity of American football in the United States.

In American football there is one position, the quarterback, that leads and others that follow. The quarterback is prescribed, by the traditional institutional framework of the game, to be white. The other (black) players are commanded by the white who barks orders in codes, reminiscent of the supposedly by-gone era of slavery. Is there any doubt that American football evolved as it did as a replacement for the latent desires of bigotted Southern rogues to oppress the "negro species?"

Note: Someone who read this pointed out that football was developed and became popular in the New England, not the South and that in the South blacks were not allowed to play football with whites until the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and 70s. In other words, my theory doesn't make a lot of sense in light of the evidence. Fortunately, I'm an English professor so evidence is not in my lexicon.

Dark Knight Rises Female Leads

I don't think I wrote this on the blog, but it's my strong suspicion that the studio forced Christopher Nolan and co. to name the next Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises." It's a terrible name, but the inclusion of "Dark Knight" in the title clearly identifies it as a sequel. That's what execs want. I hope one day they retcon the name to The Caped Crusader.

Rumors are spreading that Nolan is looking to cast two female leads, one as (presumably) Catwoman and the other as a replacement for Rachel Dawes. My picks at Anne Hatahway to replace Rachel and Naomi Watts to replace Catwoman. I think Tom Hardy is best fit as either Black Mask or Harvey Bullock. I'd like to see DiCaprio as Black Mask and Hardy as Bullock but I think there will only be one villan besides Catwoman . . .

Peyton Maning - is the sun setting?

Peyton Manning is hands down the best player in NFL history. He is set to break every important record in the history books--career passer rating, consecutive starts, touchdowns, adjusted yards per attempt, even adjusting for the era he plays in. But Manning shines more on subjective indicators than objective. His dedication to the game--to film study, perfection in practice, and to strategy are what make Manning a legend. I love sports. I love the way players like John Elway can played with reckless abandon.* I love the way players like Cal Ripken show up, prime every day.** I love the way competitors like Tim Tebow push themselves and their teammates to play better.*** But there is nothing I love more than the Colts no-huddle offense and Manning's pre-snap routine.

That said, the sun may be setting on Manning's storied career. Younger passers with better targets and more mobility and starting to usurp his throne. No one throws the deep ball like Philip Rivers and the Chargers. Running quarterbacks (Young and Vick) are finally starting to make progress. Drew Brees is setting a new standard for accuracy that, perhaps, even Manning can't match. Manning is left to throw to a depleted receiving corps plagued by injuries and butterfingers. Manning makes them look good, but he has limits. Did we see the last MVP season from Manning last year?

I don't think so. I think he'll win the MVP this year. If the Colts beat the Patriots in a week and if the Colts win the AFC South then Manning will take home his 5th trophy. But the sun is starting to set and it's time to look back and appreciate what a great run it was. The showdown on 11/21 may be the 10th and last meaningful Brady-Manning showdown.

* - Manning is willing to lay it on the line when necessary, or at least was in his earlier days. The first touchdown he scored in the playoffs was a scramble.
** - It goes without saying that Manning is the Iron Horse of football.
*** - But no one pushes his teammates harder than Manning.