The drugs don't work: a modern medical scandal | Ben Goldacre | Business | The Guardian:
"Drugs are tested by the people who manufacture them, in poorly designed trials, on hopelessly small numbers of weird, unrepresentative patients, and analysed using techniques that are flawed by design, in such a way that they exaggerate the benefits of treatments. Unsurprisingly, these trials tend to produce results that favour the manufacturer. When trials throw up results that companies don't like, they are perfectly entitled to hide them from doctors and patients, so we only ever see a distorted picture of any drug's true effects. Regulators see most of the trial data, but only from early on in a drug's life, and even then they don't give this data to doctors or patients, or even to other parts of government. This distorted evidence is then communicated and applied in a distorted fashion."
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Sunday, September 23, 2012
Friday, September 21, 2012
Goodreads | Eric_W Welch (Forreston, IL)'s review of Midnight Sin
Goodreads | Eric_W Welch (Forreston, IL)'s review of Midnight Sin:
A very interesting police procedural with some minor flaws that, for me, did not detract from my enjoyment of the book. It follows the experiences of Hollins, a rookie cop, in a mythical suburb of Kansas City. Hollings' first test involves a gas station holdup where Burkitt, a rather self-absorbed cop who wants nothing more than to be a detective, arrives first on the scene, followed by Hollings and Thompson, his training officer. What happens next is the subject of an IAD investigation but Hollins and Thompson are shot, not badly wounded, Thompson shoots the perp in the ass, Burkitt shoots out an exit sign, but all exit seemingly unscathed. Then a series of rapes occur, Hollings gets suckered into doing some things he shouldn't, and IA starts to look into several things. And watch out for the three Bees. "Yeah, that happens. But a young, smart kid like you won't be on patrol very long. Keep out of trouble and you'll move up the ranks real fast. Just watch out for those three B’s." "Three bees?” "Yeah, booze, broads and bucks. If you get into a bind in any one of those, you get all fucked up. Almost any time a cop's career got ruined, it was over one of those things." And especially Bullet Brenda.
Reminiscent of early Wambaugh, although I found the POV shifts from third to first person jarring. That and occasional missteps like the following: "face of innocence just wreaked [sic] of being a cop. " I also found the ending quite unsatisfactory, but if it's the first book in a possible series, excusable, I suppose.
Nevertheless, if you like gritty, authentic cop stories, this is a good one.
'via Blog this'
A very interesting police procedural with some minor flaws that, for me, did not detract from my enjoyment of the book. It follows the experiences of Hollins, a rookie cop, in a mythical suburb of Kansas City. Hollings' first test involves a gas station holdup where Burkitt, a rather self-absorbed cop who wants nothing more than to be a detective, arrives first on the scene, followed by Hollings and Thompson, his training officer. What happens next is the subject of an IAD investigation but Hollins and Thompson are shot, not badly wounded, Thompson shoots the perp in the ass, Burkitt shoots out an exit sign, but all exit seemingly unscathed. Then a series of rapes occur, Hollings gets suckered into doing some things he shouldn't, and IA starts to look into several things. And watch out for the three Bees. "Yeah, that happens. But a young, smart kid like you won't be on patrol very long. Keep out of trouble and you'll move up the ranks real fast. Just watch out for those three B’s." "Three bees?” "Yeah, booze, broads and bucks. If you get into a bind in any one of those, you get all fucked up. Almost any time a cop's career got ruined, it was over one of those things." And especially Bullet Brenda.
Reminiscent of early Wambaugh, although I found the POV shifts from third to first person jarring. That and occasional missteps like the following: "face of innocence just wreaked [sic] of being a cop. " I also found the ending quite unsatisfactory, but if it's the first book in a possible series, excusable, I suppose.
Nevertheless, if you like gritty, authentic cop stories, this is a good one.
'via Blog this'
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Goodreads | Eric_W Welch (Forreston, IL)'s review of Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
Goodreads | Eric_W Welch (Forreston, IL)'s review of Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?:
I love books like this: they challenge the mind and lead to great discussions.
Michael Sandel teaches a very popular course at Harvard entitled “Justice.” It’s available in video through the iTunes University (a phenomenal resource, I might add.) Sandel uses a series of hypothetical situations to focus the class on the different ways philosophers would have analyzed and puzzled out solutions to the problems raised in the hypotheticals. (This somewhat Socratic method is also used very effectively in several magnificent series created by Fred Friendly: The Constitution: That Delicate Balance and Ethics in America I & II - both available for free and I cannot recommend them too highly.)*
Sandel, reprises some of the major themes of that course in this fascinating book. I listened to this book as an audiobook and it’s read by Sandel who does an excellent narration. He again begins by posing several moral dilemmas and uses those as jumping off points for a discussion of the three philosophical theories and asking how they might help us decide what constitutes justice: that which provides the maximum good to the largest possible number of people; individual freedoms as opposed to collective virtues; or that which promotes the development of harmonious communities.
One example of a moral dilemma is taken from a true story. A platoon sergeant in Afghanistan was behind Taliban lines with three other soldiers on patrol when they came across two goat herders with their flock. Knowing that if they released the goat herders their position might be revealed they had to make a decision: whether to kill the goat herders and possibly save themselves, or whether to let them go and assume they were innocent civilians. They had no way to simply disable the man and boy and leave them. The sergeant polled his men and the vote was to kill them, but, examining his “Christian conscience” the sergeant decided to let them live. They were later ambushed by the Taliban and all of his men were killed and he barely escaped having been severely injured. In fact the rescue chopper sent to rescue them was shot down killing those on board. The sergeant later said he had made the wrong decision and should have killed the goat herders. Thank goodness I have never been faced with such a dilemma.
A really intriguing case was that of how we view our bodies. The Libertarian argues we own our bodies and therefore can do whatever we want with them. Can we then sell our body parts? Let’s envision the poor Indian who desperately wants to send his children to college. He sells one kidney. Problems yet? Now along comes a second child and the man is willing to sell his second kidney for his child even knowing that he cannot survive. How many of us would approve of his decision? Is he despicable? or a hero? So if he is despciable, how about the man who throws himself in front of the train to push his child out of the way who wandered on to the tracks. I suspect most people would consider him a hero, yet he is deliberately sacrificing his life for that of the child? How is that different from the Indian? A real case involved a prisoner in the Califonia prison system (http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Prison-Dad-s-Kidney-Plea-Refused-by-UC-Ethicists-2952021.php) who wanted to donate his remaining kidney to his daughter (the first donation had failed to take.) How is his willingness to self-sacrifice his life for his child different from the fellow with the fellow who saves his daughter from the train? The UC Ethics board denied his request. So does their decision mean that the state owns his body and can determine what to do with it? And what if a pregnant woman decided to sell (does it make a difference if it’s a donation as opposed to a sale?) her fetus? What are the rights of the state?
Sandel uses the last couple of chapters to state his own preference of what constitutes Justice. I found these the least interesting of the book. The best part if his weaving of the hypotheticals with a deep understanding of the historical and philosophical viewpoints.
Listening to this book, I was reminded of a talk I heard given by Rushworth Kidder whose point was that deciding between good and evil is easy; the hard decisions are those that require choosing between two goods each of which may have a different outcome.
My wife and I listened to this book on a trip and the dilemmas posed some very lively discussions.
* http://www.learner.org/resources/series72.html and http://www.learner.org/resources/series81.html
'via Blog this'
I love books like this: they challenge the mind and lead to great discussions.
Michael Sandel teaches a very popular course at Harvard entitled “Justice.” It’s available in video through the iTunes University (a phenomenal resource, I might add.) Sandel uses a series of hypothetical situations to focus the class on the different ways philosophers would have analyzed and puzzled out solutions to the problems raised in the hypotheticals. (This somewhat Socratic method is also used very effectively in several magnificent series created by Fred Friendly: The Constitution: That Delicate Balance and Ethics in America I & II - both available for free and I cannot recommend them too highly.)*
Sandel, reprises some of the major themes of that course in this fascinating book. I listened to this book as an audiobook and it’s read by Sandel who does an excellent narration. He again begins by posing several moral dilemmas and uses those as jumping off points for a discussion of the three philosophical theories and asking how they might help us decide what constitutes justice: that which provides the maximum good to the largest possible number of people; individual freedoms as opposed to collective virtues; or that which promotes the development of harmonious communities.
One example of a moral dilemma is taken from a true story. A platoon sergeant in Afghanistan was behind Taliban lines with three other soldiers on patrol when they came across two goat herders with their flock. Knowing that if they released the goat herders their position might be revealed they had to make a decision: whether to kill the goat herders and possibly save themselves, or whether to let them go and assume they were innocent civilians. They had no way to simply disable the man and boy and leave them. The sergeant polled his men and the vote was to kill them, but, examining his “Christian conscience” the sergeant decided to let them live. They were later ambushed by the Taliban and all of his men were killed and he barely escaped having been severely injured. In fact the rescue chopper sent to rescue them was shot down killing those on board. The sergeant later said he had made the wrong decision and should have killed the goat herders. Thank goodness I have never been faced with such a dilemma.
A really intriguing case was that of how we view our bodies. The Libertarian argues we own our bodies and therefore can do whatever we want with them. Can we then sell our body parts? Let’s envision the poor Indian who desperately wants to send his children to college. He sells one kidney. Problems yet? Now along comes a second child and the man is willing to sell his second kidney for his child even knowing that he cannot survive. How many of us would approve of his decision? Is he despicable? or a hero? So if he is despciable, how about the man who throws himself in front of the train to push his child out of the way who wandered on to the tracks. I suspect most people would consider him a hero, yet he is deliberately sacrificing his life for that of the child? How is that different from the Indian? A real case involved a prisoner in the Califonia prison system (http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Prison-Dad-s-Kidney-Plea-Refused-by-UC-Ethicists-2952021.php) who wanted to donate his remaining kidney to his daughter (the first donation had failed to take.) How is his willingness to self-sacrifice his life for his child different from the fellow with the fellow who saves his daughter from the train? The UC Ethics board denied his request. So does their decision mean that the state owns his body and can determine what to do with it? And what if a pregnant woman decided to sell (does it make a difference if it’s a donation as opposed to a sale?) her fetus? What are the rights of the state?
Sandel uses the last couple of chapters to state his own preference of what constitutes Justice. I found these the least interesting of the book. The best part if his weaving of the hypotheticals with a deep understanding of the historical and philosophical viewpoints.
Listening to this book, I was reminded of a talk I heard given by Rushworth Kidder whose point was that deciding between good and evil is easy; the hard decisions are those that require choosing between two goods each of which may have a different outcome.
My wife and I listened to this book on a trip and the dilemmas posed some very lively discussions.
* http://www.learner.org/resources/series72.html and http://www.learner.org/resources/series81.html
'via Blog this'
Monday, September 17, 2012
Goodreads | Eric_W Welch (Forreston, IL)'s review of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion
Goodreads | Eric_W Welch (Forreston, IL)'s review of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion:
"This book is about why it’s so hard for us to get along. We are indeed all stuck here for a while, so let’s at least do what we can to understand why we are so easily divided into hostile groups, . . Politics and religion are both expressions of our underlying moral psychology, and an understanding of that psychology can help to bring people together. My goal in this book is to drain some of the heat, anger, and divisiveness out of these topics and replace them with awe, wonder, and curiosity. We are downright lucky that we evolved this complex moral psychology that allowed our species to burst out of the forests and savannas and into the delights, comforts, and extraordinary peacefulness of modern societies in just a few thousand years. . . I want to show you that an obsession with righteousness (leading inevitably to self-righteousness) is the normal human condition. It is a feature of our evolutionary design, not a bug or error that crept into minds that would otherwise be objective and rational."
I hardly feel qualified to make any kind of judgments on this book having little background in philosophy, especially moral philosophy, so I especially appreciate Haidt's lucid summary of the development of moral philosophy through examples and hypotheticals.
I remember several years ago having a visit from the local anti-abortion denizens, nice people, very concerned about youth, etc. They steered the conversation to abortion, their favorite topic. Being of a liberal and hopefully rational and reasoned mindset myself, I described a book I had recently read,[book:The Facts of Life: Science and the Abortion Controversy|672216] by Harold J. Morowitz, James Trefil, a small, excellent analysis of the abortion debate that contains a plea for looking at the issue rationally. I described their suggestion that we need to decide what constitutes "human" and then see when the fetus acquires the capability (cerebral cortex) to be human, etc. etc. To which the response was, "well, I don't believe that." All debate and discussions ceases when that statement arrives. Now, I could have said, well, you old biddy, I don't give a fuck what you believe, I'm trying to find some common ground here." But, my mother having raised me as a good little boy who is always polite to old people, I merely sat there rather stunned. That's the problem. How do you create a discussion of issues when either side can just say, well, I don't believe that.
This is not just a conservative or right-wing problem. Try having a rational or reasonable discussion about the merits of circumcision, climate. autism, raw milk or veganism. I guarantee the true believers will immediately assemble with truckloads of vitriol. We all suffer from what Haidt calls "confirmation bias," that is, our gut tells us what to believe first and then we seek out justifications for that belief.
Haidt's book reaffirms what has become fairly obvious: we divide ourselves into tribes and those tribes consist of like-minded people which we use to validate our intuitive predispositions. His stated goal is to attempt to find a way to bridge the divide between two different moral world views., and to find a way for each side to at least understand the other's perspective.
Both left and right are motivated by the moral foundations of care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity. But they differ qualitatively: liberals tend to care more about suffering and violence; conservatives care about harm done to others but not as intensely. Conservatives, on the other hand, place more emphasis on fairness, i.e. getting what you deserve. Both sides value liberty but have differing definition as to what constitutes the oppressor.
The biggest divisions relate to sanctity, authority and loyalty. You can easily guess where the preferences of conservatives and liberals lie. Haidt suggests that liberals will fail to gain wider acceptance until they come to terms with those three moral values and find someway to create their own vocabulary validating them. I would add that liberals will have to be more accepting of groups, particularly religious ones (as much as I despise them,) which serve an evolutionary need to discount selfishness and promote group adherence and benefits.
To some extent that's why I am so puzzled by the right's celebration of Ayn Rand who promoted the antithesis of group-think by celebrating independence and selfishness, i.e. think of yourself first and what benefits accrue to yourself through your actions. She hated coercion both governmental and religious, in particular, yet both encourage group adherence and loyalty.
I just wonder how much of what Haidt says come from his intuitive side (the elephant) and how much from the rational or reasoning part (the rider.)
Here's a quote that struck me: "And why do so many Westerners, even secular ones, continue to see choices about food and sex as being heavily loaded with moral significance? Liberals sometimes say that religious conservatives are sexual prudes for whom anything other than missionary-position intercourse within marriage is a sin. But conservatives can just as well make fun of liberal struggles to choose a balanced breakfast—balanced among moral concerns about free-range eggs, fair-trade coffee, naturalness, and a variety of toxins, some of which (such as genetically modified corn and soybeans) pose a greater threat spiritually than biologically."
'via Blog this'
"This book is about why it’s so hard for us to get along. We are indeed all stuck here for a while, so let’s at least do what we can to understand why we are so easily divided into hostile groups, . . Politics and religion are both expressions of our underlying moral psychology, and an understanding of that psychology can help to bring people together. My goal in this book is to drain some of the heat, anger, and divisiveness out of these topics and replace them with awe, wonder, and curiosity. We are downright lucky that we evolved this complex moral psychology that allowed our species to burst out of the forests and savannas and into the delights, comforts, and extraordinary peacefulness of modern societies in just a few thousand years. . . I want to show you that an obsession with righteousness (leading inevitably to self-righteousness) is the normal human condition. It is a feature of our evolutionary design, not a bug or error that crept into minds that would otherwise be objective and rational."
I hardly feel qualified to make any kind of judgments on this book having little background in philosophy, especially moral philosophy, so I especially appreciate Haidt's lucid summary of the development of moral philosophy through examples and hypotheticals.
I remember several years ago having a visit from the local anti-abortion denizens, nice people, very concerned about youth, etc. They steered the conversation to abortion, their favorite topic. Being of a liberal and hopefully rational and reasoned mindset myself, I described a book I had recently read,[book:The Facts of Life: Science and the Abortion Controversy|672216] by Harold J. Morowitz, James Trefil, a small, excellent analysis of the abortion debate that contains a plea for looking at the issue rationally. I described their suggestion that we need to decide what constitutes "human" and then see when the fetus acquires the capability (cerebral cortex) to be human, etc. etc. To which the response was, "well, I don't believe that." All debate and discussions ceases when that statement arrives. Now, I could have said, well, you old biddy, I don't give a fuck what you believe, I'm trying to find some common ground here." But, my mother having raised me as a good little boy who is always polite to old people, I merely sat there rather stunned. That's the problem. How do you create a discussion of issues when either side can just say, well, I don't believe that.
This is not just a conservative or right-wing problem. Try having a rational or reasonable discussion about the merits of circumcision, climate. autism, raw milk or veganism. I guarantee the true believers will immediately assemble with truckloads of vitriol. We all suffer from what Haidt calls "confirmation bias," that is, our gut tells us what to believe first and then we seek out justifications for that belief.
Haidt's book reaffirms what has become fairly obvious: we divide ourselves into tribes and those tribes consist of like-minded people which we use to validate our intuitive predispositions. His stated goal is to attempt to find a way to bridge the divide between two different moral world views., and to find a way for each side to at least understand the other's perspective.
Both left and right are motivated by the moral foundations of care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity. But they differ qualitatively: liberals tend to care more about suffering and violence; conservatives care about harm done to others but not as intensely. Conservatives, on the other hand, place more emphasis on fairness, i.e. getting what you deserve. Both sides value liberty but have differing definition as to what constitutes the oppressor.
The biggest divisions relate to sanctity, authority and loyalty. You can easily guess where the preferences of conservatives and liberals lie. Haidt suggests that liberals will fail to gain wider acceptance until they come to terms with those three moral values and find someway to create their own vocabulary validating them. I would add that liberals will have to be more accepting of groups, particularly religious ones (as much as I despise them,) which serve an evolutionary need to discount selfishness and promote group adherence and benefits.
To some extent that's why I am so puzzled by the right's celebration of Ayn Rand who promoted the antithesis of group-think by celebrating independence and selfishness, i.e. think of yourself first and what benefits accrue to yourself through your actions. She hated coercion both governmental and religious, in particular, yet both encourage group adherence and loyalty.
I just wonder how much of what Haidt says come from his intuitive side (the elephant) and how much from the rational or reasoning part (the rider.)
Here's a quote that struck me: "And why do so many Westerners, even secular ones, continue to see choices about food and sex as being heavily loaded with moral significance? Liberals sometimes say that religious conservatives are sexual prudes for whom anything other than missionary-position intercourse within marriage is a sin. But conservatives can just as well make fun of liberal struggles to choose a balanced breakfast—balanced among moral concerns about free-range eggs, fair-trade coffee, naturalness, and a variety of toxins, some of which (such as genetically modified corn and soybeans) pose a greater threat spiritually than biologically."
'via Blog this'
Saturday, September 08, 2012
"They Won't Magically Turn You Into A Lustful Cockmonster": Chris Kluwe Explains Gay Marriage To The Politician Who Is Offended By An NFL Player Supporting It
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