When linking to my review of Duncan Watts’s book in a recent post, I came across some fun bits that I’d like to share (for those of you who didn’t just click through and read the whole thing):
On business books:
I’m not so interested in the business angle but I suppose that’s how you sell books these days. The business part of the book was ok—I’m not saying it was filler—it’s just that I’m not particularly interested in which format of videocassette wins, or whether Cisco Systems is a well-run company. I realize that a lot of people care about this sort of things nowadays, but I’d rather talk about sports or politics.
On dodgy science writer John Gribbin:
Sure, people write all sorts of silly things but usually they have some sort of political or religious excuse for why it’s ok to believe them. Truth is not the only important value in life, there are also other concerns such as political convictions, religious beliefs, and the simple desire to avoid offending people. Thus, I could understand someone falsifying data in order to support a political conclusion–it’s not something I would imagine doing except in extreme cases, but I can see the moral rationale for it—or even for the purpose of public health. (Recall the Linus Pauling conspiracy theory, under which the great chemist made knowingly wrong claims about the health benefits of Vitamin C in order to give millions of people the benefit of the placebo effect.)
On not letting killers off the hook:
Duncan describes the story of a person who killed some people while driving a car under the influence of alcohol and points out the difficult in imposing punishment. On one hand, the driver presumably didn’t intend to kill that family, thus maybe the punishment shouldn’t be so harsh. On the other hand, there would seem to be no political will for generally imposing harsh penalties on dangerous driving in the vast majority of cases where nobody gets hurt.
In thinking about this sort of example, I would separate two concerns:
1. Is the killing intentional or not? The law already distinguishes between different varieties of murder and homicide, so it doesn’t seem so relevant to me that the weapon in this case is a car.
2. Discouraging dangerous driving. I recall seeing some statistics that a small percentage of drivers are doing most of the crimes, so I’d think it would be possible to get these repeat offenders off the road.
Duncan writes, “it seems grossly disproportionate to treat every otherwise, decent honest person who has ever had a few too many drinks and driven home as a criminal and a killer. Yet, aside from the trembling hand of fate, there is no difference between these two instances.”
I disagree. First, who’s to say that the driver in question is an “otherwise decent, honest person”? I don’t know the guy, but not everyone out there is decent. And, even if you’re driving drunk, it’s possible to account for that to some extent. I was once in a taxi in Chicago where the driver reeked of alcohol. I was too lazy to get out of the cab so I went all the way to the airport. I’ll say this about the cabbie: he drove really, really carefully. I don’t think it’s too much to ask of an otherwise decent, honest person that, if he does drive drunk, that he recognize he might be impaired, that he stop at every stop sign and every yellow and red light, and that he drives below the speed limit.
After all, it’s not like this dude hadn’t driven drunk before (see point 2 above).
On local dictatorships:
Yahoo is a mini-dictatorship, that is, a “firm.” Here’s another example: the head of a casino company says, “There are two ways to get fired from Harrah’s: stealing from the company, or failing to include a proper control group in your business experiment.”
Duncan used to work at Columbia University (I know him from having occasionally coming to his amazing Friday afternoon seminars). Can you imagine the president of Columbia saying, “There are two ways to get fired from Columbia: molesting a student, or failing to include a proper control group in your teaching experiment.”
No, I didn’t think so. But the funny thing is, I’m pretty sure Columbia would be a better university if we were required to continually work on improving our teaching and if we were required to take careful measurements and use control groups and clearly-defined treatments. Columbia is a pretty free place, though, so the administration can’t make us formally experiment in our teaching (even in the unlikely event that they wanted us to). Paradoxically, the freedom at Columbia makes it more difficult for us to learn in the sort of bottom-up way associated with Zara, Yahoo, and Harrah’s.
On punctuation:
What would have happened if Duncan had written Yahoo instead of Yahoo! at various places in the book? I’m just curious. If I had to always write that I worked at Columbia! university, I think it would bother me after awhile. But maybe not, maybe I’d just get used to it.
Hi Andrew — thanks for reviewing my book, and for re-posting the highlights. Seeing as you call out your remarks about “letting killers off the hook,” however, I really should point out for your readers that I didn’t actually advocate any such thing. My actual argument in Chapter 9 is subtly but critically different from how you portray it. Among other things, I anticipate exactly your reaction (in the section beginning “OK, so I know what you’re thinking…”) and respond to it. I am also very clear about *not* passing judgment on the verdict (as in “To be clear, I’m not drawing any conclusion about whether Joseph Gray got a fair trial, or whether he deserved to spend the next fifteen years of his life in prison…”). I was so surprised and puzzled by your review, in fact, that I went back and re-read that section several times to make sure that I had said what I thought I said. Having done that, I continue to think that my argument is extremely clear, and yet also clearly not what you think it is. I’m not sure where the confusion arose, but if your readers are interested in this topic, I would hope they would read my version of it before drawing any conclusions.
I second that. I recommend all interested parties read Duncan’s book! (I don’t have access to it now so I can’t comment on what I wrote on it earlier. But, as I recall, I was disagreeing with his implicit statement that this killer was an “otherwise, decent honest person.”
To put it another way, the fact that someone has multiple drunk driving incidents (and I believe it is common for some people to get into this trouble over and over) can perhaps be viewed as evidence in favor of a Bayesian inference that he or she is likely not to be so decent.
> it’s just that I’m not particularly interested in which format of videocassette wins
How superior of you not to be interested in obviously silly trivia (unlike, well, I suppose, some other people you have in mind). But is ANYONE in the whole planet interested in this? I expect the answer is no, and furthermore that if you could somehow control for the fact that we actually knew the videocassette winner well over 20 years ago, I still expect you are aligning yourself
with 99.999% of the worlds’ population in not caring, per se, about which format won. And if, against all reason, a book spends time on this question assuming people are indeed interested in this question, a good review should be slightly more gutsy and up-front: “they waste time answering X, which not only do I care about but which almost everyone else will find a silly exercise”. Instead of the passive aggressive approach: “well, _I_ didn’t find this [obviously silly] question interesting”.
You are also, of course, completely entitled to be uninterested in the _hows and whys_ whereby the winning format did indeed
win (which some people think is relevant to some really critical economic questions, and others
dispute). It’s almost unbelievable to me (but it I’m wrong, I apologize and should have to retract the aggressiveness of my criticism) that you don’t know the significance/controversy of the “why did VHS beta beat Beta?” question – amongst people who think much deeper issues may be at stake than what type of used VCR should one buy from Ebay.
If you want to deny that you have _this_ interest, i.e. in the hows and whys, this is obviously fine as well, but if so there are less condescending ways to state this different disinterest – in only as many words as you used and with equal clarity.
Bxg:
I wrote, “I’m not particularly interested in which format of videocassette wins, or whether Cisco Systems is a well-run company. I realize that a lot of people care about this sort of things nowadays, but I’d rather talk about sports or politics.”
Others (including you) might write, “I’m not particularly interested in who wins the World Series or a presidential election. I realize that a lot of people care about this sort of things nowadays, but I’d rather talk about business.”
Others could say something similar about, say, the Academy Awards or the latest wine vintages or new car technology or the mating habits of woodland fowl. All these topics can be fascinating for some but not for others.
Different people have different interests.
Yikes – that’s not my point at all. Surely you realize that simply know one cares what videocassette format wins (won) – except perhaps current employees of Sony or JVC – so are are distancing yourself (your personal interest) from an obviously stupid question. People might be interested in a different question, about the whys and hows, which you are not, which is fine but your characterization seems slanted and frankly a bit contemptuous for those interested in this less obviously ridiculous issue.
You mention “new car technology”, so let’s run with that. Imagine an article about the computerization of model year 2012 year automobiles, where this has come from and where it is going, with an underlying theme concerning future implications. You might not be interested. But to say, e.g., “I am not particularly interested in exactly how many CPUs a 2012 Ford Focus contains” (even if this point was directly addressed by the article) would surely be an intellectually dishonest distancing from those who find something worth thinking about in this hypothetical article? No one is deeply interested in the specific question about 2012 Ford Focus CPU count, per se! Would you disagree? Because I see some thing less blatant but analogous going on in your slip from the legitimately mentionalble lack of interest in “why VCR won the videocassette wars” to disavowing interest in: “which format won”.
Bxg:
I am very interested in Duncan’s work in general, I’m just not that interested in some of the applications he discusses. I get similar reactions from a colleague of mine who is very interested in hierarchical modeling but who doesn’t care to think hard about the sports examples I sometimes use. He might very well say that he doesn’t care who won the World Series, or that he doesn’t care what the World Series is, as a shorthand for saying that he’s not interested in sports examples.
So if you had what (you thought was) a substantial statistics paper, whose point you illustrated with World Series examples, you would be o.k. if someone disclaimed interest in public by saying “I’m sure some people find it valuable, but I myself just don’t care who won the World Series”. I think you’ve just answered yes, and if so I have to apologize since obviously you do see the basic point and it just doesn’t resonate at all with you. Forgive me. Moving on :-)
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