Monthly Archives: November 2010

Comparing stories and statistics

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A mathematician thinks about the differences between stories and statistics and the people who prefer one side over another:

Despite the naturalness of these notions, however, there is a tension between stories and statistics, and one under-appreciated contrast between them is simply the mindset with which we approach them. In listening to stories we tend to suspend disbelief in order to be entertained, whereas in evaluating statistics we generally have an opposite inclination to suspend belief in order not to be beguiled. A drily named distinction from formal statistics is relevant: we’re said to commit a Type I error when we observe something that is not really there and a Type II error when we fail to observe something that is there. There is no way to always avoid both types, and we have different error thresholds in different endeavors, but the type of error people feel more comfortable may be telling. It gives some indication of their intellectual personality type, on which side of the two cultures (or maybe two coutures) divide they’re most comfortable. I’ll close with perhaps the most fundamental tension between stories and statistics. The focus of stories is on individual people rather than averages, on motives rather than movements, on point of view rather than the view from nowhere, context rather than raw data. Moreover, stories are open-ended and metaphorical rather than determinate and literal…

I’ll close with perhaps the most fundamental tension between stories and statistics. The focus of stories is on individual people rather than averages, on motives rather than movements, on point of view rather than the view from nowhere, context rather than raw data. Moreover, stories are open-ended and metaphorical rather than determinate and literal.

This is a good discussion and one that I think about often while teaching statistics or research methods. Stories are often easy for students to grab unto, particularly if told from an interesting point of view. In the end, these stories (particularly the “classics”) have the ability to illuminate the human condition or interesting concerns but don’t have the same ability to offer more concrete overviews of the typical or common experience. Statistics do offer a different lens for viewing the world, one where individual experiences are muted in favor of data about larger groups. Both can miss important features of the reality around us but offer different angles for tackling similar concerns.

Both have their place and I would suggest both are necessary.

Obesity as “social contagion”

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Findings in recent years that certain medical conditions, such as obesity, are strongly influenced by social networks have seemed to shake up thinking about how such conditions spread. A new model that explores obesity as a “social contagion” suggests obesity will eventually “spread” to at least 42% of the US population:

The social contagion hypothesis garnered widespread attention in 2007 when researchers from UC San Diego, documented that obesity can spread through a social network — just like viruses spread — because people “infect” each other with their perceptions of weight. That study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and subsequent research has confirmed the validity of the social contagion theory.

In a paper published Thursday in the journal PLoS Computational Biology, Harvard scientists applied a mathematical model of social contagion to 40 years of data from the Framingham Heart Study, a study that has followed more than 5,000 adult residents of Framingham, Mass., since 1948 to assess their heart health. Among the participants of that study, obesity increased from 14% in the 1970s to 30% in 2000 and continues to increase. Based on that data, the rapid upswing in obesity rates is due largely to social-network influence, said the authors of the new study. But, they noted, any subsequent rise in obesity rates will be slower than it has in the past. It may take another 40 years to reach that 42% obesity mark.

Interesting findings and I bet it is a complicated (but interesting) method by which such models are constructed.

If similar models were applied to other conditions or diseases, what are the results? In addition to obesity, what conditions are strongly influenced by social networks? Additionally, how can social networks be changed or altered so that an issue like obesity is combated?

Exploring the messages embedded in “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”

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Political scientist Dominic Tierney explores the cultural and religious meanings and values behind the familiar American song “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Some of his thoughts on the song:

But most of all, the “Battle Hymn” is a warrior’s cry and a call to arms. Its vivid portrait of sacred violence captures how Americans fight wars, from the minié balls of the Civil War to the shock and awe of Iraq. Based on ideas from my new book, How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War, we can see how the nation’s experience is intimately connected to this crusader’s cry…

The totemic poem has guided the United States through many military trials. The “Battle Hymn” epitomizes the strengths of this nation: its optimism, and its moral courage. It’s a song of agency, of action, a call to sacrifice together for the cause. The soldiers who march to the “Battle Hymn” have helped to liberate millions.

But there is a dark side to the “Battle Hymn” and the American way of war. The righteous zeal of America’s war effort can excuse almost any sins—like killing hundreds of thousands of enemy civilians. When Americans loose the fateful lightning, they have no moral guilt, for they are the tools of God.

This is a fascinating topic, particularly considering that the song came out of the Northern side of the Civil War but seems to have later been adopted by a majority of Americans. A song like this does reflect the American narrative, the story that we tell about ourselves over the years and also helps interpret our current situation.

And yet, I feel like I have rarely heard this song in recent years – the more common American hymn is “America, the Beautiful” which seems to adopt a very different tone, particularly in its first verse which opens with images of nature though its later verses pick up on some of the same themes. What explains a shift away from “The Battle Hymn,” if this has indeed happened? What happens or changes when “The Battle Hymn” is used in settings that have less to do with war – would other songs be preferred then or are there causes today that could or would utilize this song and its messages?

Building the “aerotropolis”

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An article in the Boston Globe discusses a recently-coined phenomenon: the aerotropolis. This refers to the conglomeration of businesses and other uses that now tend to gather around important international airports:

Dulles is no longer an airport but an aerotropolis, a term coined by a University of North Carolina business professor. An aerotropolis is a city of the 21st century, built around a runway in roughly the same way that historic cities grew up around water or rail lines, with a close-in network of businesses, an outer loop of service industries, and suburbs full of homes.

Aerotropolises have emerged in places like the former no man’s zone between Dallas and Fort Worth, in suburban Atlanta, and around Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, near Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague. They provide what John D. Kasarda, the UNC professor, calls “connectivity” to the global marketplace. International companies want to locate where their executives can step out their doors and be on another continent eight hours later. Firms producing the highest-value goods want to ship them to markets around the world. (“The Web won’t move a box,” Kasarda declares. “High-end products move by air.”) And businesses with tentacles around the globe want a place where all their people can fly in easily for meetings.

The story goes on to discuss how this did not come about around Logan Airport in Boston, primarily because of space issues. If space is indeed an important concern, this may be tricky to navigate – a city wants an airport relatively close to businesses and travelers can easily get downtown but at the same time, perhaps airports should be located further out as airports themselves require a good amount of land and if the aerotropolis is the goal, this takes up even more space.

This new term also suggests that airports are more than just pieces of infrastructure or places where tourists come and go but rather are important nodes in urban business networks. But some other information might be helpful to better understand the aerotropolis: does the aerotropolis provide more or less benefits than businesses that gather around other modes of transportation (highways, rail lines, seaports)? How does the business generated around airports today compare to the business generated 20 years ago? Which industries in particular benefit from the aerotropolis? How much money do municipalities gain from the aerotropolis versus other land uses?

Translating this into some other terms in use, is this simply an edge city with an airport at its center?

h/t The Infrastructurist

Why rent when you can own?

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Chris Suellentrop of Wired makes a case for more renting and less owning:

Everything, everywhere, all the time. That’s the dream of the Rentership Society. And we’re almost there. If you want to be able to possess some things, in some places, some of the time, well, keep on buying. But I vote for infinite abundance, on demand. Doesn’t that sound like the new century’s American dream?

This vision seems to revolve around a world of never-ending Internet access that gives people the ability to read, listen to, and watch whatever they want, whenever they want.

But this is also a reminder that American ideas about the defects of renters, particularly when it comes to housing, is a cultural construct:

In the American mind, renters are regarded as an unsavory lot, willful dissidents from the American dream. They do things like put cars up on cinder blocks in their front yard or, worse, live in your basement. The vision of an Ownership Society was about more than just houses, but the promotion of homeownership was, for a time at least, its most successful element.

These ideas about renters could change if we do move as a society away from ownership.

Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman influencing British politics

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The Guardian offers some insights into how sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has continued to influence British politics and thought:

Despite officially retiring in 1990 as professor of sociology at Leeds University, the 84-year-old has remained remarkably productive – churning out a book a year from his home in a leafy Yorkshire suburb. His latest, entitled 44 Letters from the Liquid Modern World, is a collection of columns written for Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper featuring pithy potshots at Twitter, swine flu hysteria and the cultural elite.

Such is his star power that when Leeds opened the Bauman Institute for sociology in September, more than 200 foreign delegates flew in to listen to the octogenerian thinker. Despite the plaudits, Bauman appears to be a prophet everywhere except in Britain. This may be because until now he had proved unwilling to provide politicians with grand overarching theories to explain what they were doing and why – unlike Lord (Anthony) Giddens, the sociologist whose “third way” political approach was embraced by Tony Blair’s New Labour.

That has all changed with the arrival of Ed Miliband as Labour party leader and his Baumanesque analysis that the party had lost its humanity by embracing the market. The sociologist says he was encouraged by Miliband’s first speech as leader to the Labour party conference, saying that it offered a chance to “resurrect” the left on a moral basis.

Several thoughts come to mind:

1. It is interesting that Britain has sociologists who are influencing politicians and policies. Does any sociologist in the United States play a similar role?

2. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen Bauman called a major thinker. And yet, how many Americans (or even American sociologists) have heard of him? I think I once read a piece by him regarding modernity but other than that, haven’t really encountered his work.

3. This all is a reminder that there is a role for the public intellectual in Britain and Europe that doesn’t really exist in the United States.

Additionally, Bauman comments on the ability of sociology to help solve the major problems in society:

Despite such interrogative success, Bauman today is sanguine about his own discipline’s ability to find answers for such problems. He warns that sociology, with its falling student rolls and insular outlook, is caught between number crunchers and philosophers. “The task for sociology is to come to the help of the individual. We have to be in service of freedom. It is something we have lost sight of,” he says.

What kind of freedom is Bauman talking about? Freedom from repressive dictators? Freedom from traditional metanarratives? Freedom from restrictive social structures?

Politicians not necessarily crazy; just tend to be extroverted and narcissitic

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It is common for pundits and citizens to try to psychoanalyze politicians. Interestingly, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) doesn’t allow its members to speculate about politicians “unless they’ve personally conducted an examination and have been granted authorization to speak about it.” So there is no real way to determine whether most politicians are crazy, unfit for office, or not.

But Newsweek talked to a few “professional profilers” who suggest politicians tend to share two traits: “What we do know about these people, says Dietz, is that they may often display two general qualities: extroversion and narcissism.”

This analysis seems to have face validity. But it does appear that we have an uptick in conversations about whether political opponents are “crazy” or some variation on that. Can we get a moratorium on political candidates and their supporters speculating about the mental status of their opponents?

Homeownership rates back to 1999 levels

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With the economic and housing troubles of the last few years, the homeownership rate in the United States is now down to 66.9%, the lowest level seen since 1999:

The percentage of households that owned their homes was unchanged at 66.9 percent in the July-September quarter, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. That’s the same as the April-June quarter.

The last time the rate was lower was in 1999, when the rate was 66.7 percent.

The nation’s homeownership rate was around 64 percent from 1985 through 1995. It then rose dramatically during the Clinton and Bush administrations, hitting a peak of more than 69 percent in 2004 at the height of the housing boom.

The economic boom played a large role but both Clinton and Bush pushed homeownership across the board as an unmitigated good for America and its citizens. How will current politicians respond regarding homeownership? We received a number of pieces of campaign literature in the mail this election season where both Republicans and Democrats talked about helping to save homes. Will owning a home be seen as something that helps uphold the American dream or will the rhetoric change?

Claim: “Facebook knows when you’ll break up”

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There is an interesting chart going around that is based on Facebook data and claims to show when people are more prone to break-up. Here is a quick description of the chart:

British journalist and graphic designer David McCandless, who specializes in showcasing data in visual ways, compiled the chart. He showed off the graphic at a TED conference last July in Oxford, England.

In the talk, McCandless said he and a colleague scraped 10,000 Facebook status updates for the phrases “breakup” and “broken up.”

They found two big spikes on the calendar for breakups. The first was after Valentine’s Day — that holiday has a way of defining relationships, for better or worse — and in the weeks leading up to spring break. Maybe spring fever makes people restless, or maybe college students just don’t want to be tied down when they’re partying in Cancun.

Potentially interesting findings and it is an interesting way to present this data. But when you consider how the data was collected, perhaps it isn’t so great. A few thoughts on the subject:

1. The best way to figure this out would be to convince Facebook to let you have the data for relationship status changes.

2. Searching for the word “breakup” and “broken up” might catch some, or perhaps even many ended relationships, but not all. Does everyone include these words when talking about ending a relationship?

3. Are 10,000 status updates a representative sample of all Facebook statuses?

4. Is there a lag time involved in reporting these changes? Monday, for example is the most popular day for announcing break-ups, not necessarily for break-ups occurring on that day. Do people immediately run to Facebook to tell the world that they have ended a relationship?

5. Does everyone initially “register” and then “unregister” a relationship on Facebook anyway?

The more I think about it, it is a big claim to make that “Facebook knows when you are going to break up” based on this data mining exercise.

Fighting over suburban character: Show-Me’s in Naperville

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One long-lasting idea about suburbs is that they are family-friendly places. So when a business comes to town that may not fit that image, some residents can become angered. Such is the case with a new restaurant that wants to move into Naperville:

Naperville residents will get a chance this week to formally voice their opinions about a controversial plan to open a restaurant called Show-Me’s, which opponents say will feature scantily clad waitresses who do not fit the city’s “family-friendly” image.

An open forum will be held during a Naperville Liquor Commission meeting Thursday.

But a group of about 30 people let their feelings be known during a demonstration Friday. Standing in front of the proposed site, they loudly chanted “Stop the show!” to passing cars.

The protesters have suggested this restaurant does not fit with the character of the community. The community’s mayor is on the record suggesting that he “thought it was a regular restaurant as far as I was concerned” and the clothing of the waitresses was “tastefully done.”

While this seems like just a small group of protesters, the question they raise is an interesting one: what exactly is a suburban community supposed to look like? What businesses and residents fit its image? As the mayor suggested, the proposed restaurant is not breaking any laws or rules so it would hard to reject their liquor license proposal. But necessarily following the rules or laws is not the concern of many suburbanites who have ideas about their ideal community. Local politicians have to account for (or at least acknowledge) these feelings and images even if the proposed business breaks no rules and brings in tax dollars.

(Additionally, it always interesting to read comments on stories about Naperville – it tends to bring out people who both intensely dislike and like the city.)