Innumeracy

"One death is a tragedy. One million deaths is a statistic." --Stalin

Imagine you read about a study of a new cancer prevention regime. Doctors conclude that this regime cuts the odds of cancer in half. Would you do it?

Bear in mind, the 50% risk reduction could mean that two groups of 1,000 people were studied. One group underwent the treatment, the other (the control group) did not. In the control group, ten people eventually received cancer diagnoses, compared with five in the experimental group. Statistically significant? Probably. Extremely meaningful? Who knows?

Obviously, your answer to the original question--would you adopt the regime?--depends on a variety of factors. How onerous is the treatment? If relatively simple (drink a glass of orange juice every day), you do it. If relatively heinous (eat a brussel sprout), you don't. But either way, numbers lacking context--or clarifying information--serve a limited purpose.

As we follow the news about the continuing investigations into the BP oil spill, we think about statistics without context. Today we read that, last September, an audit found that the oil rig needed some 390 repairs, many of which remained uncompleted at the time of the disaster. 390 sounds like a large number, but is it? How does it compare to the average number of safety violations at other drilling platforms?

We imagine that, if OSHA came to look at the Solipsist's office, a roughly 100-square foot room occupied by one employee, they would find safety violations: papers everywhere, questionable ventilation, clutter--to say nothing of the gophers. How many more violations occur on a massive oil rig with over 100 employees and 18 gazillion moving parts?

Indeed, the sheer number of violations is less important than what the violations are. The news today spoke of an alarm system on the Deepwater Horizon that was frequently "inhibited" by the crew and thus not functioning at full capacity on the day of the explosion. This diminished capacity may have played a role in the deaths of eleven crew members, but the newspaper article also noted that workers were, indeed, allowed to inhibit the alarm system because they "didn't want people woke up at 3 a.m. from false alarms." In other words, this was a "permissible" violation--or, not a violation at all. (If anything, it screams for the need to improve the alarm mechanism so that it's not so prone to false alarms that it necessitates crew members shutting down the whole system.)

This is not meant as an apologia for Transocean or BP. Obviously, they did something wrong, and, even if they did everything right, their response systems have proven hopelessly inadequate. We write this simply as a request for the media to provide full context when presenting spectacular statistics.

(Image from The New York Times)

Well Begun and All Done; Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

The Book: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Opening: "Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians."

Closing: "They kissed once. Then he turned upon his heel and disappeared into the Darkness."

Imagine Charles Dickens lived in the late-twentieth century and took in a performance of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus. Imagine further that, in describing the play to a friend, he misspeaks and says that it tells the story of two dueling magicians. After chuckling good-naturedly over his malapropism, Dickens decides that the idea has merit. He sits down to write an epic tale of two rivalrous magicians in Napoleonic era England. Finally, imagine his shock and dismay when he brings the finished manuscript to Chapman and Hall Publishers, only to be told that he shouldn't have bothered writing his Dickensian masterpiece: Susanna Clarke had already done it.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell tells (at Pickwickian length) the story of the two eponymous characters, each of whom embody different approaches to the study and practice of the magical arts. Norrell is a scholar, who believes that magic must be learned from books and that one must master all aspects of magical theory before attempting magical practice, lest the results prove disastrous. So convinced is he of the dangers of reckless dilettantes dabbling in sorcery, though, he has basically cornered the market on books of magic, thus making it impossible for anyone else to master magic in the way he recommends. Along comes Jonathan Strange, though, a likable aristocrat with an apparently innate talent for magic. Deprived of the ability to learn from Norrell's literary hoard, he simply begins practicing magic intuitively. When he finally does come to Norrell to more formally pursue his studies, he soon begins improvising around the classic spells to create new magical possibilities.

Strange and Norrell at first work together to bring magic back to England. They put themselves at the disposal of the British government, and, indeed, Strange comes into his own as a magician when he becomes an indispensable adviser and assistant to the Duke of Wellington in his campaigns against Napoleon. Eventually, the two magicians have a falling out, and devotees of English magic find themselves dividing into camps of "Norrellites" and "Strangites." In the end, though, they find themselves, as one might expect, rejoining forces to combat a grave threat to the sceptered isle.

Any summary of this novel leaves out immensities. The book is sprawling (nearly 800 pages), but it charms nonetheless. The first part of the book focuses on Norrell, the decidedly less-likable of the two title characters, but once Strange comes into the picture, the story picks up considerably. Clarke writes in an unabashedly Dickensian tone, even going so far as to adopt archaic spellings and idiosyncratic capitalization--a somewhat annoying affectation, but one gets used to it. She also intersperses her fictional text with equally fictional footnotes explaining the finer points of English magical history.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is a truly immersive experience, great for a long (very long) plane ride or a cold rainy day by a fire. If you like Dickens--or, perhaps more appropriately, Neil Gaiman (who blurbed Clarke's book)--check it out.

Going in Style?

In the 1979 movie "Going in Style" (1979) George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg play elderly buddies who decide to rob banks.

(Digression: These guys were elderly in 1979, when the Solipsist wasn't even a teenager. Were they ever young? Was Burgess Meredith ever young? Bea Arthur? Just wondering. EOD)

As the presence of Burns and Carney would suggest, the movie was a comedy.

Police in New York and elsewhere didn't laugh, though, when 63-year-old career criminal Arthur Williams, armed with a Saturday Night Special and an oxygen tank (seriously), left his dialysis session and embarked on one last multi-state crime spree. He robbed a loan company in Alabama, an upscale boutique in Manhattan, and two motels in Maryland before engaging in a high-speed chase with police. At the end of the chase, Williams' Cadillac flipped over, throwing him from the car. He died from head trauma.

The moral of the story: Senescent criminal masterminds are hysterically adorable, until someone loses an eye (or, in this case, flips a Caddy).

(Image from imdb.com)

Haggling

Old joke: A beautiful young woman in a bikini walks along a beach. An elderly man approaches. "Pardon me, young lady." he says, "I hope you'll excuse me, but I just wanted to say that I think you are incredibly beautiful."

"Why, thank you."

"Miss, I know that this is an inappropriate request, and, again, I hope you'll forgive me, but, as you can see, I'm an old man, and I wanted to ask if you would be willing to show me your breasts."

"What?"

"I know, I know, but, please understand: I just want to look. I'm not going to touch you or do anything rude. Also, I am actually a fairly wealthy man. I would be willing to pay you $1,000 just to show me your breasts."

"Really? A thousand dollars?"

"Yes." The old man takes out his wallet and shows the young lady that it does, in fact, contain a wad of bills, including several hundreds. "What do you say?"

"Well. . . . A thousand dollars? I guess I will. " She reaches for her bikini strings.

"Wait," the old man says, "would you be willing to do this for five dollars?"

The young lady stops. "FIVE dollars?!? What kind of a woman do you think I am?!?"

"Well," says the old man, "we've already established what kind of woman you are. Now we're just haggling over price."

We thought of this when we read today about many states that are prepared to adopt national education standards in exchange for federal financial support. The Race to the Top program offers states the opportunity to apply for grants to improve education. In order to be considered for awards from the $3.4 billion pool, however, states must be willing to adopt education standards developed by the federal government.

We think national education standards are a great idea, by the way: No logical reason exists why children from different parts of the country should not learn the same things. True, kids in Texas will be exposed to the dangerous ideas of Thomas Jefferson, and principals in Kansas will need to arrange for post-traumatic stress counseling ("We come from monkeys?!? ACK!"). Overall, though, we think it good that children in Mississippi learn as much as children in Massachusetts. And, in contrast to unfunded mandates focusing on punitive measures (e.g., No Child Left Behind), the Race to the Top concept sounds solid: A carrot rather than a stick.

Still, consider the rank hypocrisy of state legislators: "No federal mandates! Education is a local concern! If Obama is allowed to so much as address schoolchildren on the importance of staying in school, we will soon find ourselves on the road to gulags and forced collectivization! Keep Washington out of-- What? Oh, we can have money?!? Well, let me just untie my bikini top. . . ."

Huh?

Overheard on TV, a promo for a travel show: "Up next, the world's ten-best Mexican beaches!"

Umm. . . . Are some of them in Algeria?

Musical Interlude

As tickled as the Tea Party's latest public relations snafu makes us, we just feel uninspired today. So, we thought we'd pass along a recommendation to those members of Solipsist Nation not yet in the know (we know that most of the Nation lives in "the know," but we also know some remain culturally deprived).

Damon Gough is a British singer-songwriter who performs under the stage name Badly Drawn Boy. Check him out, and enjoy.

Image from Damon's MySpace page)

Sunday Paper Recap

The good news is that this (by which we mean the toxic effects of BP's multi-million gallon oil spill) too shall pass: “Thoughts that this is going to kill the Gulf of Mexico are just wild overreactions,” said Jeffrey W. Short, a scientist who led some of the most important research after the Exxon Valdez spill and now works for an environmental advocacy group called Oceana. “It’s going to go away, the oil is. It’s not going to last forever.”

Of course, the bad news is that nobody knows how long it will take to "go away"--or even what "going away" really means. Apparently, toxic effects can linger long after the oil disappears, and the underlying ecology of a region can be irrevocably altered. Oil from a major spill in the Gulf of Mexico still shows up in local mangrove swamps, and fiddler crabs off the coast of New England wander about drunkenly in attempts to avoid oily sediment. And, frankly, if poisoned wetlands and contaminated coastlines are the price we pay for drunken crustaceans, we're OK with that.

In a move that surprises no one at Solipsist Central, big insurers and their corporate clientele may limit the number of doctors and hospitals from which policyholders may choose. Cost-cutting. At this moment, Glenn Beck has probably downed a few dozen Bud Lights, and Sarah Palin has gotten "toldja so" printed out on cue cards (complete with stage directions for when to wink): We have to admit, it does seem to fly in the face of President Obama's pledge that no one was going to have to change doctors when the new health law goes into effect.

Relax, people. Corporations and insurers can do what they will to cut costs--after all, that's part of the idea of all the healthcare reform in the first place. Participating insurers will still have to provide a fair number of options, and everybody will be able to get to see a doctor. Frankly, as someone who basically grew up under the auspices of managed care, we've never formed a deep, unbreakable bond with any medical provider. If we have, say, 25 doctors to choose from instead of 50, it's a reasonable proce to pay if it ensures that people will have access to care.

But what do we know? We're just a blogger. It's not like we've written a book about building schools in Afghanistan. And while that may not qualify one to comment on healthcare reform, it apparently is a solid resume component for strategic military planning. The US army has turned for advice to Greg Mortenson, the author of Three Cups of Tea, about his efforts to build girls' schools in the AfPak region. Not so ridiculous, really. If the US Army really does want to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan population, it makes sense to turn for inspiration to someone who has made something of a career out of reaching out to the region with education instead of bullets. Sure, it's not as innovative as warrior monkeys, but it could work.


The aforementioned Lady Palin has lots of opportunities to trot out her newest Obama laughlines. She's the big "get" for aspiring Republicans these days. Over one hundred Republican candidates running for everything from senator to governor to local dog catcher have found themselves on the receiving end of Palin endorsements. Candidates don't even necessarily know Palin is considering an endorsement until they receive word that it has come. In this, Palin has taken a page from the MacArthur Foundation, recipients of whose "Genius Grants" don't even know they are under consideration until they get the big call. We realize the use of the words "genius" and "Sarah Palin" in one paragraph may strike some as ludicrous. Then again, a week ago, people would have said that machine-gun toting baboons was a ludicrous idea as well.

All right, enough about Taliban monkeys.

Finally, we note that, when Sarah Palin gives her endorsements, they often first appear on her Facebook page. And while Facebook has no problem promulgating the cause of right-wing culture warriors--or, to be fair, left-wing culture warriors--it does have a problem with death. What is a social network with some half a billion users to do when one of its members dies? It's not as though the member can change his own status message: "THE SOLIPSIST is dead!" The problem arises when Facebook's automated notifications tell people that they should "get back in touch" with people who have passed over. Technology marches on, but it can't always get ahead of the ghosts in the machine.