September 11th, 2001 was certainly the most horrific disaster to happen in a country I was living in, and it is hard to forget the memories from that day as you watched footage of people crying, hearing stories of people having to make choices between being engulfed in flames or jumping out the window of a high office floor in the world trade center, or a stewardess on a plane saying goodbye to a loved one over the phone before the plane went down. And we remember the strength of all those people who responded not only that day, but in the clean up afterwards. A strength that not many of us perhaps have. Not even knowing how their health would be impacted years later.
I see many people posting “never forget”, but the truth is people will forget. Perhaps not those who lived through it, but human civilization will go on…
The fact that the universe is complex shouldn’t surprise anyone yet one of the things I find surprising how vehemently people try to argue that it’s not. I have already written a blog post about correlation vs. causation, but I’d like to talk about something a little broader than that. Correlations try to demonstrate the relationship between one variable and another. It would be a sensible decision to try and correlate the amount of gun ownership with gun deaths. I don’t think anybody would argue that it might be a relationship. And even if we do find a correlation what does it mean? What is a good correlation, or a bad correlation?
So what can we expect out of a correlation? First we might ask, “Can any two things to ever be perfectly correlated, even if we have a mathematical relationship?” The answer is no. Quite simply for data to be perfectly correlated it would require perfect measurements. Since every measurement always has some error there will always be a less than perfect correlation. The more difficult the measurement the less likely we are to get a good correlation at all. In social sciences measurements may depend on a survey, qualitative and/or subjective observations, and complex sampling techniques. This will all impact the correlation we calculate. Correlations range from 0 (no correlation) to 1 (perfect correlation) and it depends on the quality of the data and the nature of the problem to really determine what correlation is high enough for us to be positive of a relationship, but generally anything about 0.5 is significant. Correlations can also be negative as well. A negative correlation actually implies that as one variable increases, the other decreases, and those are important relationships as well.
Now, what happens when we try to correlate things that have no relationship to each other? It turns out we can get all sorts of results. The often cited graphic to the right is often used to show the difference between correlation and causation. Two variables may appear to be correlated but have no relationship at all even if the results are repeatable. Correlations turn out to be even a little trickier than that. Some types of data show natural variability that is higher and lower than the average. A couple of examples would be the amount of blood sugar or atmospheric pressure. Now let’s say we correlated those two things. Let’s say I have two years of daily air pressure values. And let’s say I have sampled the amount of blood sugar in my blood every for 30 straight days. The smart thing to do is select the atmospheric pressure values that correspond to the days that I took the sample and correlate them. But what might I find. Well it could be that in those 30 days, a slow moving high pressure system moved in as we approached the end of the period meaning that in general pressure increased. And then perhaps my diet was not so good, or I ate infrequently, irregularly, or had a few big meals one day and then light snacking the next, blood sugar will fluctuate. I might find that there is a negative correlation between pressure and blood sugar. But what would happen if I did the experiment for another 30 day period. Depending on the specific conditions I might find a positive correlation. But what I’d find, that over time, after doing many of these repeated tests is that I would have no correlation. The average of all the correlation calculations I perform will be essentially zero. This speaks to the importance of having a larger sample size and whether or not results are repeatable for the same experiment. Had I taken two years worth of pressure data and 2 years worth of blood sugar data, I would have found zero correlation. Furthermore even if I did find some correlation, my results would not be repeatable over many studies. The media often exaggerates findings from experiments that try to say link certain foods or cell phones to cancer. Variables that naturally fluctuate may randomly show a correlation, but further experiments reveal no correlation. But the media usually just picks up on the one study that found a correlation.
To further illustrate this point, take a look at the following two images. The one on the left is a large sample of raw data trying to correlate to variables. If these two variables were correlated we would see the data points approximate a line. Maybe a straight one, maybe a curved one, but definitely some sort of trend would be apparent. You are right if you think that whatever these two variables are they have no relationship two each other. Next to it is the same data set except that some of the data points are missing. Now it looks like there might be a correlation between these two variables. Sure I have selectively chosen in this case which ones to eliminate, but it is possible that a random selection of some of the data points could be these same data points on the left. Thus it is possible that we might think we’ve found a correlation when we didn’t. Once again the more data we take and the more we try to repeat the experiment we would show no correlation.
In the next part we will investigate how we hypothesize about correlations, and how complex most relationships are.
I have joined a blog with a few colleagues. It is themed towards weather and climate issues, but I thought I’d post links to my writings on it here. Check it out if you are interested!
I’ve been very caught up in the idea of forgiveness lately as a result of the Boston bombing. As everybody knows I am an atheist so when I see the many “prayers” go out to victims and their families I try to simply see it as people wishing good things for people.
What one never sees however is prayers for the person who committed the horrific act. In many ways you can sympathize with this. As human we feel anger, outrage, hurt. There are many reasons not to forgive. However, what’s interesting to me is that if you believe in the power of prayer, then the perpetrator is just as worthy of prayer as any of the victims if not more so. The victims likely have support of friends and loved ones, whereas the perpetrator is likely quite alone. Again, I’m not saying that perhaps we can be morally okay…
Every time a new set of migrants moves into Australia, every time the gay and lesbian community makes a statement, and every time a religion figure says something idiotic, the same phrase gets trotted out again and again.
I’m entitled to my opinion.
Whenever there is a clash of values, this seems to be the standard defense. These are my opinions and I’m entitled to them, regardless of what you might think of them. Just because they are different to yours doesn’t mean they’re any better or worse.
So what if that guy disagrees with climate change? Everyone’s entitled to their opinion! Who are you to say your beliefs are any more valid than someone else’s? If a Muslim woman wants to wear a hijab, then that is her right and you can keep your arguments to yourself.
Or as a certain, highly influential entity once said: Thou shalt…
Topics are building up in my head faster than I have time to write them, and so despite the fact that I swore I was going to write about numerous other topics, particularly in the area of psychology a Facebook conversation has led me down a different path.
The conversation was about a McDonalds worker who wanted her $8/hr salary to go up to
From money.cnn.com
the living wage of $15/hr. Which is still not a terribly high wage. The conversation that ensued went as you’d expect. Most people (who are in good jobs and living comfortably) saying that working at McDonalds requires no skill and thus should be paid accordingly. Or criticizing the person for not doing more with their life and thus have no one but themselves to blame. One person did make the argument that no wage has kept pace with inflation, which is true, but minimum wage has gone up at an even slower rate.
I made numerous arguments in response, most importantly challenging the assumption that the person had all these choices in their life. Most of the people reading this blog live in a position of privilege. And it’s not your fault. Your parents probably pushed you, help educate you, made you aware of different options for your life, encouraged you to do well in school. You probably grew up in relatively safe neighborhoods. You had friends that were similar to you. You had good schools to go to, with a lot of skilled teachers. But not all neighborhoods are safe. Not all parents care enough to encourage your education.
From blog.volunteerspot.com
Not all schools are equal in the quality of education they provide. Some environments make it easier to fall into a bad crowd. Not everyone has the freedom to go for further training after they get out of high school. Maybe they have to work to take care of a sick parent who has massive bills because they couldn’t afford health insurance. There are a million scenarios that could limit the opportunities one has.
I also made the argument that I did not choose my career path as a meteorology professor because of the money. It is because I loved it. I am glad it pays well enough for me to live comfortably. But should all of a sudden a McDonalds job become available that pays more. I am not going to jump ship and say, “Yay more money, flipping burgers all day is going to be awesome!”.
An argument was made by someone that garbage men get paid a good wage so they
From nypost.com
could do that instead of working at McDonalds. Okay true. But we can’t all be sanitation workers let alone teachers, lawyers and doctors. It’s also important to remember that at one time sanitation workers didn’t get paid very much. Thanks to unions though they could organize, strike, and refuse to pick up garbage until they made a decent wage to live by. Because picking up the trash and removing waste from our streets is actually an important and necessary part of our society.
I think education and teachers are extremely important. But do I think that makes a job that doesn’t require as much knowledge and skill less important? Of course not. There is nothing inherently more valuable about my role in society than someone who picks up the garbage. In fact someone could argue that picking up the trash is perhaps more important. When trash was in the streets, things like the bubonic plague happened. Hygiene and sanitation are extremely important. So let’s go a step further. Is there anything more inherently valuable about my job than a restaurant worker? Arguably we can have a world without restaurants and everybody cooks their own food. Might not be a bad world, but that’s not ultimately our world. People like to go out to eat. There will always be restaurants. So restaurants are just as much part of the fabric of society as anything else. So should the required skill level in any job be what determines the wage. The sanitation worker, from a skill level is just as demanding as a burger flipper and yet makes more. Is that right? I would further argue that an employee earning a living wage at any job has more loyalty to the company and stays longer thus becoming better at their job. If you’ve had bad service at a McDonalds, maybe it’s because they are constantly having to train new people since the pay is so bad that people leave after a short time. The money isn’t probably worth the level of abuse they get from customers.
Now there are even more good arguments to be made about a McDonalds worker making a living wage. They would need less social programs saving the taxpayer money, they can perhaps afford to move to send their kids to a better school to break the cycle of poverty, not to mention they may now have more free time to better themselves or spend with their kids, which also helps break the cycle. However what concerns me the most is the attitude towards the poor. One commenter on this thread said that “it serves them right making a low wage for their self-inflicted wounds”. I was like wow. As I’ve just argued it is extremely judgmental to assume the wounds are self-inflicted, but basically this person is saying:
“Hey poor person, sucks about the mistakes you made in the past. You deserve now to suffer the rest of your life because of that”.
How callous is that? I wonder if that person has ever had somebody so unforgiving to their mistakes. And how should the poor person respond?
” Thank a lot Captain Hindsight. Now that I realize my mistakes I’ll go back in time and fix it.”
Furthermore we can see how materialistic our society is by people who would look down on poor people in such a way. Because where is the condemnation to the rich owner of
From socialmarketbuzz.com
McDonalds or any corporation? Why don’t we judge him just as harshly? Because he has money of course. And obviously he must be working really really hard in order to make all that money. This is of course nonsense. A single mother working two jobs to support her family is most definitely working harder than the CEO of McDonalds. And I doubt that mother is having fancy lunches on an expensive account and playing a round of golf out in the sun with business associates. But even if they were equal, why is that CEO more valuable than the person working at minimum wage jobs? The corporation itself made almost $30 billion last year in revenues. And the CEO’s take home pay is $9 million a year. Is that CEO that much more valuable than one of his employees? Is he/she that much more skilled?
And if workers should get a living wage, many argue about how much everything will cost. But there is a second option. The company could make less money. The CEO could make less money. Is that likely? Perhaps not, but in the free market there is always somebody who is going to take an advantage of an opportunity and will undercut the competition and take home only 2 million a year instead. That CEO is still living a better life than 99.99% of the people in this world. If we want to equate a monetary value to skill, a CEO still makes far beyond what his or her skill warrants.
The Great Pyramids, one of the 7 wonders of the world, was built on the backs of slave labor to entomb the rich and powerful. When I look at the vast wealth of a few, at the expense of countless millions who can barely meet their daily nutritional needs for themselves and their families, I wonder how much things have really changed. What’s clear is that by dehumanizing the poor as many do in this country it allows a system to continue that allows the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. So it saddens and sickens me when I hear people idolize wealth and abhor the poor. If the income gap continues to widen in this country I can tell you that statistically speaking one is more likely to find themselves in a poor man’s shoes. Perhaps only then will people learn.
One day I met this amazing person in the blogosphere named Robyn. We decided to have a conversation.
Hi Robyn,
I think it’s a veg-out-to-music kind of evening. This is the only downside to cyber friends…we can’t veg out together. I mean I could stare at this e-mail and then pretend you were staring at your e-mail, but I feel like it wouldn’t quite be the same. lol I am sorry I can’t provide you with much stimulation today. I did come up with an interesting thought yesterday about racism though. I have recently been very interested in the way in which the nature of racism can change in a society from the blatant to the more subtle. I am not sure if I can decide which one is worse. I’m glad people in white sheets aren’t going around anymore and hanging black people from trees and burning churches, but that tends to be the easier thing to stand up to…the obvious thing that you can point to and say…”Hey that action is wrong”.
But racism is more than those things.
Comforts of privilege often go unnoticed and cause a lot of damage to those being oppressed. It’s easy to prove the racism when there are bruises and cuts, but when you make a person believe that they are less than they actually are and that this is just normal in society, a true change towards equality becomes more difficult. When institutions like criminal justice, education, health care, have inherent racism built in, maybe it’s a greater crime. It’s harder in these situations to point a finger of blame and harder to know exactly who the victim is. I don’t know, I think I have to develop it in my mind a bit more.
I even sort of came up with this analogy of racism in times past being fought by the foot soldiers who were obvious and easier to spot, but that the real problem was their generals who were the strategists who made entire institutions in society racist and these people are hidden. They are the ones who don’t fight, who don’t take up arms, but prey on weak and desperate minds to do the dirty work for them. They no longer can incite men into action because it is no longer acceptable, but their institutions of racism are still well maintained…always watching and waiting. I know sounds a bit too sinister. I’m not sure I fully believe in sinister, but I’m just trying to wrap my head around it all. I think in some ways it’s the same in regards to gender oppression as well.
Cloak Unfurled 