Category: Social Sciences

PR Watch delivers Spin of the Day (found thanks to Laura Trippi).

The average American consumes 530 calories more per day now than he or she did in 1970. Time Magazine article about Nutrition.

Thomas Friedman on the void in Arab intellectualism:

There are just 18 computers per 1,000 people in the Arab region today, compared with the global average of 78.3 per 1,000, and only 1.6 percent of the Arab population has Internet access. In 1995-96 alone, 25 percent of all graduates from Arab universities with B.A. degrees emigrated, while 15,000 medical doctors left the Arab world from 1998 to 2000.

Great piece on Crooked Timber about Economic Arguments. This is a response to Arnold Kling’s distinction between arguments of consequence and arguments of motives and why arguments about consequences matter more than arguments about motives. Two random thoughts: 1)typical Marxist thought has ascribed importance to a person’s inner motivations (which usually are determined by economic situation). 2)In typical argumentation, we tend to depersonalize arguments by prohibiting ad hominem attacks. Even polite arguments are supposed not to include analysis of a person’s political motives. On a related matter, intellectuals usually argue as outsiders about an argument. I may feel that George W. Bush was wrong to invade Iraq, but I am not in the military or have a responsibility for a sound fiscal policy. Does that put me in a better or worse position to have an opinion about the matter?

Steven Landsburg on how the gender of a child affects probability of divorce. Apparently when parents have a boy, they are less likely to get divorced. This is one of those counterintuitive things (girls cause less problems, are better students, live longer) that makes me think other things are at work. But What?