Seemingly nice stuff at the website of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the Max Planck Institute.

Robert thinks behavioral psychology experiments, and the papers they spawn, can tend toward the gobbledygook. But they do make fun discussion around the dinner table and they often give Robert ammunition he uses to tease his wife. Last night’s teasing was based around the Linda the Bank Teller problem invented by the “famous” Tversky and Kahneman  1983 paper discussing the so-called “conjunction fallacy.”  Robert is not smart enough to not be skeptical of the papers in this category.

These papers all seem to take the same approach.  First, find some math skills problem that people are generally bad at solving (while someone in a white coat watches on). Then come up with a name for that particular shortcoming that includes the word “fallacy” or “error” so that it then be discussed as some sort of core aspect of human nature.

But the experiments are fun stuff and are enough to get Robert thinking. Plus, it’s fun to read articles by smart guys.  Which Tversky and Kahneman surely are.

The core question in the paper can, perhaps, be described as follows.

Why do most people answer the following two questions differently?

QUESTION 1

Linda is a 31-year-old woman.

Which of the following is more probable?

A. Linda is a bank teller.

B. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

QUESTION 2

Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Which of the following is more probable?

A. Linda is a bank teller.

B. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

The answer to both questions is A.  But lots of people, almost irrespective of the number of years of their schooling, answer A in Question 1 but wrongly answer B in Question 2. We can say that more than 80% of people not trained in statistics do this.

Gobbledygook Alert: The answer cannot be B.  The reason? B is a “conjunction,” and therefore cannot be more probable than one of its constituents. And, in case you didn’t notice, answer A is one of its constituents.  In other words, answer B includes more conditions (or, stated yet another way, is more limiting than) answer A. B is an extension of A.

Note: There are some other very smart psychologists/economists/statisticians who believe the answer CAN be B, but I’m going to ignore them because I understand them less than the inventors of the Linda problem.

Anyway, Robert is usually no better at these damn problems that the rest of the world, but he has bragging rights with this one. Thirty years ago he spent about 4 months studying for the LSAT, which is a four-hour test asking dozens and dozens of questions like these.  Which means he can tease Mira a little more when she gets it wrong.

The fun part is talking about WHY everyone gets it wrong.  That’s the mystery. Of course, on one level, it is obvious that all the stuff about Linda’s education and college life in the preamble to Question 2 leads people to give the wrong answer. But what, exactly, causes the confusion? What are people thinking when they give the wrong answer? In the words of the authors, “Why do intelligent and reasonably well-educated people fail to recognize the applicability of the conjunction rule in transparent problems?” Note, the word “transparent” is pretty loaded.

But Robert’s favorite part of the paper is when the authors talk about the post-experimental interviews and discussions with college undergraduate (i.e., naive) and trained graduate (i.e., sophisticated) students.

The authors say that naive as well as sophisticated subjects generally noticed the nesting of conditions in the test, but the naive, unlike the sophisticated, did not appreciate its significance for probability assessment.  On the other hand, most naive subjects did not attempt to defend their responses.  As one subject said after acknowledging the validity of the conjunction rule, “I thought you only asked for my opinion.”

According to the authors:

“The interviews and the results of the direct transparent tests indicate that naive subjects do not spontaneously treat the conjunction rule as decisive.  Their attitude is reminiscent of children’s responses in Piagetian experiment.  The child in the preconservation state is not altogether blind to arguments based on conservation of volume and typically expects quantity to be conserved (Bruner, 1966). What the child fails to see is that the conservation argument is decisive and should overrule the perceptual impression that the tall container holds more water than the short one. Similarly, naive subjects generally endorse the conjunction rule in the abstract, but their application of this rule to the Linda problem is blocked by the compelling impression that Teller-plus-Feminist is more representative of her than Teller is.  In this context, the adult subjects reason as if they had not reached the stage of formal operations.  A full understanding of a principle of physics, logic, or statistics requires knowledge of the conditions under which it prevails over conflicting arguments, such as the height of the liquid in a container or the representativeness of an outcome.  The recognition of the decisive nature of rules distinguishes different developmental stages in studies of conservation; it also distinguishes different levels of statistical sophistication.”

Nice paragraph.

Here’s a fun video showing a child in a “preconservation state.” Robert believes it nicely demonstrates how children at this stage have general notions about the rules of physical conservation, but don’t bring that understanding to the forefront of their minds in a decisive way when called to do so.  They also do not resist when confronted with their violation of the rules. According to the authors, it’s the same for “naive” adults and statistics. It is not true for Mira, who is good at resisting.

The Pierces broke free of home for Memorial Day weekend and sat on the shores of Shasta Reservoir and Whiskeytown Lake, near Redding.

Camping at a “private” campground (something the Pierces do bi-annually in order to avoid being caught dumbfounded at Presidential election time), was, as always, a striking anthropological survey.

The highlight of the trip?  Other than getting a glimpse of Redding’s deco fire station and a treat at nearby Heavenly Donut, the crowd favorite was a river raft float down the Sacramento River.  Sundial Bridge to Anderson, and a 10 minute Uber drive back. The best $125 (including Uber) 4.5 hour family outing ever. Just grab a raft at Sundial Bridge from North Country Raft Rental and get on your way!

The flyfishing looks good too.  Lots of drift boats.

Click to read full paper.

They say Newton invented calculus during his quarantine. Cadie, Rory and Robert are extending the tradition. On that note, any helpful comments on the math used in the paper are welcome.  Like, what is the p of an r, anyway?

Previous work may be found here.

Robert heard that Butte County is open for business.  He’s considering a trip to Chico this weekend. Woo hoo!

He knows everyone involved in combating the virus is trying their best and he salutes them.

Even the guy who came up with this graphic for the City of Chico website.  In Chico, apparently, town leaders are combining the need for essential city services with the goals of protecting vulnerable populations, mitigating impact on business and protecting open spaces. The result?  A crap-colored semi-viscous fluid.  Success!

Robert plays Pinochle with his father online during the plague.

Play with friends

https://www.trickstercards.com/home/pinochle/

Play alone

http://pinochleclassic.com/

From Foreign Affairs.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sweden/2020-05-12/swedens-coronavirus-strategy-will-soon-be-worlds?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=twofa&utm_campaign=Only%20Saving%20Lives%20Will%20Save%20Livelihoods&utm_content=20200515&utm_term=FA%20This%20Week%20-%20112017

Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World’s

Herd Immunity Is the Only Realistic Option—the Question Is How to Get There Safely

China placed 50 million people under quarantine in Hubei Province in January. Since then, many liberal democracies have taken aggressive authoritarian measures of their own to fight the novel coronavirus. By mid-March, almost all Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries had implemented some combination of school, university, workplace, and public transportation closures; restrictions on public events; and limits on domestic and international travel. One country, however, stands out as an exception in the West.

Rather than declare a lockdown or a state of emergency, Sweden asked its citizens to practice social distancing on a mostly voluntary basis. Swedish authorities imposed some restrictions designed to flatten the curve: no public gatherings of more than 50 people, no bar service, distance learning in high schools and universities, and so on. But they eschewed harsh controls, fines, and policing. Swedes have changed their behavior, but not as profoundly as the citizens of other Western democracies. Many restaurants remain open, although they are lightly trafficked; young children are still in school. And in contrast to neighboring Norway (and some Asian countries), Sweden has not introduced location-tracing technologies or apps, thus avoiding threats to privacy and personal autonomy.

Much like North Korean leadership of today and Romanian authoritarians of the past, the Pierce Family leadership exerts control and influence through propaganda imagery.  They seem to be much less successful than the Kims.

Whoa.  A new journal.  Look at the editorial board.  Not some flaky thing, it seems.

https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/