NC Media Watch

Conservative Advantage: Numeracy and scientific logic in the climate debate!

Russ Steele

AGW Warmer Chris Mooney writes about a scenario that has been playing out in Nevada County for years, as conservative and liberals debate global warming and the human contributions to that warming.  Mooney references a study by Dan Kahan and his colleagues at Yale, and elsewhere, who found that knowing more about science, and being better at mathematical reasoning has resulted in more climate science skepticism directed at the unproven theory of anthropogenic global warming.

Chris Mooney:
"The surprise—for some out there, anyway—lay in how the ingredients of this stew mix together. For citizens as a whole, more literacy and numeracy were correlated with somewhat more, rather than somewhat less, dismissal of the risk of global warming. When you drilled down into the cultural groups, meanwhile, it turned out that among the hierarchical-individualists (aka, conservatives), the relationship between greater math and science knowledge and dismissal of climate risks was even stronger. (The opposite relationship occurred among egalitarian communitarians—aka liberals)."

This is bad, bad news for anyone who thinks that better math and science education will help us solve our problems on climate change. But it’s also something else. To me, it provides a kind of uber-explanation for climate skeptic and denier behavior in the public arena, and especially on the blogs."

It certainly has played out on our local blogs. The more science and math oriented blogs have relied on real world data for their assessments, rather than unproven computer models and blind faith in UN IPCC Reports for their assessments. 

Two of my favorite science and math related blogs are Anthony Watts', What Up With That and Steve Mc Intyre's Climate Audit Mooney had this to say about both:

". . . if you go to blogs like WattsUpWithThat or Climate Audit, you certainly don’t find scientific and mathematical illiterates doubting climate change. Rather, you find scientific and mathematical sophisticates itching to blow holes in each new study."

I rather think that NC Media Watch and Rebane’s Ruminations have blown some holes in the local liberal's AGW religious fervor. 

H/T to Tom Nelson

Turning education on it's head one student at a time

 Russ Steele

Ever since my friend George Rebane introduced me to the Khan Academy, I have been telling friends and family, especially the grandkds, about this marvelous educational tool develped by Sal Khan on YouTube. I have even used it to sharpen my long lost math skills.

The Cal Political News has a story by Lance Secretan at the World Future Society about the Khan Academy and this radical educational experiment

"In some cases, radical experiments, such as turning over the school to the students, has resulted in remarkable outcomes. If students are not inspired to learn, and are not inspiring themselves to do so and to play a bigger game in life, then a continual erosion of academic standards is inevitable. And this raises the subject of how we teach.

Sal Khan is providing us with an insight to the future. Realizing that making millions as a hedge-fund manager would not lead to a fulfilling life, he began tutoring his 7th-grade cousin, Nadia, with remote tutoring math sessions. She moved from struggling with math to advancing several grade levels in ability, and this led to other friends and family calling for help. He began recording the lectures online and this led to the creation of the Khan Academy whose video lectures on YouTube are now viewed by tens of thousands of teachers and students every day. This pattern is spreading"

Lance Secretan thinks the future of teaching will looks like this:

  1. Physical schools may become less necessary and the purpose of school buildings will change dramatically.

   2. A streamed video lecture by a world-class professional expert will often be of superior quality than an in-person lecture by a local teacher.

   3. The lectures will be completed in the evening so that tutoring can take place during the day, giving teachers the opportunity to spend more of their time offering personal guidance to each student.

   4. Graduation will not be a criteria – having a full grasp of each subject will be.

   5. Tomorrow’s teachers (and those of today who wish to excel) will learn how to become inspired again as teachers, and how to inspire their students to learn – and therefore make a difference in the world.

I highly recommend watch the Khan Academy video and make up your own mind if this would be a valuable tool in your home or children's school.  Let's change the world one student at a time!

Carter Redo: Obama Economy now worce than Carter Economy

Russ Steele

I do not know about you, but we lived through the Jimmy Carter economy and it was scarry, high interest rates, soaring fuel and energy prices and rapidly declining buying power.  We were starting to think about our Air Force retirement and building a home in Nevada County. We initially designed a highly fuel efficient thermal envelope home, but out contractor talked us out of building it, noting that while we would be snug in winter we would be frying in summer.  I redesigned a compromise that works.  We traded in our Travelall for a more fuel efficient VW Bus that could carry four children and two adults. My point, living through the Carter economy and impacted our quality of life and our future planning.

Can we compare the Carter economy with the Obama economy?  The current economy feels like the Carter economy with food and fuel prices soaring, but the governement claims it is nothing like the Carter Economy. One reason is that the governement does not calculate the inflation and unemplpyment numbers that same way they did in the 1970s.

However John Williams at Shadow Stats compiles economic data for inflation and unemployment the way it used to be calculated pre-1990.

Based on that data, the CPI inflation rate is over 10%, and the unemployment rate is over 15%. The Misery Index is the sum of the current inflation rate and the unemployment rate. If it were to be calculated using the older methods, the Index would now be over 25, a record high. It surpasses the old index high of 21.98, which occurred in June 1980, when Jimmy Carter was president.

Numbers, numbers numbers and sheeple do not get it

Russ Steele

President Obama and our daffy Senator Boxer want to punish big oil for our higher gas prices by taking away oil company subsides, which were create by the governement to encourge exploritory drilling in the first place.  Government gives $4 Billion in tax credits, government can take way $4 Billion in tax credits.  But, that is not the real issue.

Being good progressives Obama and Boxer are just trying the change the subject. They want to divert the sheeples attention from their failure to draft and pass an energy policy,  to focusing on the oil companies profits.  But, that is what oil companies are suppose to do, make profits for their investors.  When these nut jobs say "Big Oil" you train your brain to translate that in to "Big Oil Investors."  

There argument is that if the oil companies are profitable, they do not need $4 billion is subsidies.   So, they want to remove the $4 billion to punish the oil companies for being profitable.  But, does that really have the impact they think it will, other some PR for lame steam press.  Let's look a the numbers. Michael J. Economides writes in the Energy Tribune:

What are we really talking about? The “subsidies” amount to just $4 billion per year. It may sound a lot of money but here is a quick calculation. The United States is using about 400 million gallons of gasoline per day. At $4 per gallon this translates to $1.6 billion per day, which means that the yearly subsidies to the dreaded oil companies account for less than three days of just the US gasoline bill. The US total oil bill at today’s prices is about $2.3 billion per day. Using a modest multiplier in economic activity, that would make the US oil industry, not counting natural gas, a $10 billion per day economic activity. The “subsidies” trumpeted by the government headlines amount to a few hours of the industry’s size.

Hell yes, let take away those miscule subsides and then the sheeple will want to know were is the real energy policy? After the nut jobs have punished the evil oil companies, what's next?  The problem is there is no next. We have no visible oil policy, only the hidden agenda to drive up enegy cost, so all that wacko alternative energy crap starts of look feasible, and worthy of more subsidies. 

People, do not be sheeple, recognize your are being played by the enviromental wackos that want us to stop using oil by driving up the price. To do that they have shut down drilling, which they have off shore. The on shore drilling is the next target, with a ban on fracking. Trust me, it is coming, I have seen the talking points.

During the Bush administration the price of oil spiked. The week after Bush removed the moritorium on off shore drilling the price dropped like a rock thrown into a pond.  We just need to shut down the EPA, so we can start drilling in the US again, and the price of oil will drop like a rock once more.

Local Republican recovery?

Russ Steele

A local blogger keeps suggesting that Democrats are about to take over the County from what has been a Republican strong hold in the past. While the County did vote for Obama and Brown in the last election, the political sand seem to be shifting under the Democrats according a recent Rasmussen Report.

For the first time in recent years, voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on all 10 key electoral issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports. The GOP holds double-digit advantages on five of them.

Republicans have nearly doubled their lead over Democrats on economic issues to 49% to 35%, after leading by eight points in September.

The GOP also holds a 54% to 31% advantage on national security issues and a 50% to 31% lead on the handling of the war in Iraq.

But voters are less sure which party they trust more to handle government ethics and corruption, an issue that passed the economy in voter importance last month. Thirty-three percent (33%) trust Republicans more while 29% have more confidence in Democrats. Another 38% are undecided. Last month, the parties were virtually tied on the issue.

As the Clinton re-election team declared back in the 90, "It is the Economy Stupid"  If that is the case again, then we can skip the other nine issues and just note the Republicans lead 49-35 on the economy.

We have more than average upper-income voters in Nevada County, and I suspect many may be quite liberal and appeared to have voted for Obama and Brown.  I am not sure what they thinking then, but I think the prospect of steeply higher taxes will dissipate of some their warm feelings for the Democrats come November 2010.

Fighting innumeracy with nuggets

Russ Steele

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:  Numeracy is a contraction (or portmanteau word) of "numerical literacy", and refers to an ability to handle numbers and other mathematical concepts.. Innumeracy is the absence of numeracy.

The Sierra Environmential Studies Foundation has undertaken a program to fight innaumercy. Starting today, SESF is offering a new series on critical thinking tools, which they call Numeracy Nuggets. George Rebane, the SESF Director of Research, plans to contribute fresh Numeracy Nuggets every three to four weeks on the SESF web site.  His first Nugget was posted today. If you would like to contribute your own Numeracy Nugget, please e-mail George at: [email protected].

The median is not the average

Russ Steele

In a story on February, Union  staff reporter Trina Kleist writes about median-prices homes.

What a home can cost, February 2, 2006

What does it take to buy the median-priced home in Nevada County?

The median price of a single-family house in 2005 rose to $460,000, up nearly 19.5 percent from the year before. For single-family house sales in the month of December, the median hit $475,000, according to information gathered by the national research company DataQuick Information Systems, based in San Diego.

In a follow up story she writes again about median-priced homes. Only this time she explains what median means. Bravo!

Median house price be. February 7, 2006

The median wage in 2005 for all jobs in northeastern California is $17.36, or about $36,100 yearly before taxes, based on a 40-hour work week, according to state figures.

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The median is not the average. Rather, it is the exact middle, where half of everything measured is higher and half is lower. It is the number preferred by statisticians tracking wages, housing costs and most other statistics in the state.

I wish she had taken the time in her first story to provide this explanation.   Many Union readers do not have the math skills to know the difference between, average, mean, and median.

With an election, community surveys, and economic studies on the horizion, I decided it was time for me to re-sharpen my statistical skills. We are going to be barraged with statistics in 2006.  I am half way through Even You Can Learn Statistics, A guide for Everyone Who has Ever Been Afraid of Statistics, by David M. Levine. This is an excellent book, with easy to understand step-by step explanations of statistics, including interactive samples in Excel and TI-83/84 Calculators.  The Excel examples are down loaded from the publishers web site.  You can play with the numbers in Excel and as see the results, a great interactive learning tool.

We all need to sharpen our analytical skills, so we can understand what we read in the Union, hear on TV, and read in those political flyers appearing in our mail boxs any day now. Be prepared!

In the coming months, in this category, we will be providing more information, and some advice on how to sharpen your analytical and numeracy skills.