March 2014 – Page 3 – artdiamondblog.com

In Traditional Societies People Try to Kill Strangers

Jared Diamond. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 12) Your latest book, “The World Until Yesterday,” is about traditional societies and your research in New Guinea. Why is the acronym Weird central to the book? In Weird — Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic — societies we take these things for granted that just didn’t exist anywhere in the world until a few thousand years ago. We encounter strangers, and it’s normal, and we don’t freak out and try to kill them. We eat food that somebody else grew for us. We have a government with police and lawyers to settle disputes.

. . .
. . . , the book has been criticized for saying traditional societies are very violent. Some people take a view of traditional society as being peaceful and gentle. But the proportional rate of violent death is much higher in traditional societies than in state-level societies, where governments assert a monopoly on force. During World War II, until Aug. 14, 1945, American soldiers who killed Japanese got medals. On Aug. 16, American soldiers who killed Japanese were guilty of murder. A state can end war, but a traditional society cannot.
People have called the book racist, saying it suggests third-world poverty is caused by environmental factors instead of imperialism and conquests. It’s clearly nonsense. It’s not as if people in certain parts of the world were rich until Europeans came along and they suddenly became poor. Before that, there were big differences in technology, military power and the development of centralized government around the world. That’s a fact.

For the full interview, see:
AMY CHOZICK, interviewer. “Talk; ‘New Guinean Kids Are Not Brats’; Jared Diamond on What We Can Learn from Traditional Societies.” The New York Times Magazine (Sun., JAN. 12, 2014): A12.
(Note: bold in original; ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the interview has the date JAN. 10, 2014, and has the title “Jared Diamond: ‘New Guinean Kids Are Not Brats’.”)

The book under discussion above is:
Diamond, Jared. The World until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? New York: Viking Penguin, 2012.

50% of Students Will Agree to a Request to Vandalize a Book

(p. 12) Do we realize how much power we wield with a simple request, suggestion or dare? New research by my students and me suggests that we don’t.
We examined this question in a series of studies in which we had participants ask strangers to perform unethical acts. Before making their requests, participants predicted how many people they thought would comply. In one study, 25 college students asked 108 unfamiliar students to vandalize a library book. Targets who complied wrote the word “pickle” in pen on one of the pages.
. . .
Our participants predicted that an average of 28.5 percent would go along. In fact, fully half of those who were approached agreed. Moreover, 87 percent of participants underestimated the number they would be able to persuade to vandalize the book.
. . .
American culture idolizes individuals who stand up to peer pressure. But that doesn’t mean that most do; . . .

For the full commentary, see:
VANESSA K. BOHNS. “Gray Matter; Would You Lie for Me?” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sun., FEB. 9, 2014): 12.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date FEB. 7, 2014.)

The article summarized above is:
Bohns, Vanessa K., M. Mahdi Roghanizad, and Amy Z. Xu. “Underestimating Our Influence over Others’ Unethical Behavior and Decisions.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 40, no. 3 (March 2014): 348-62.

Polar Bears Can Adjust to Global Warming By Changing What They Eat

“A polar bear eating a seal, its historically preferred prey.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. D2) As a warming climate causes sea ice in the Arctic to melt earlier each year, polar bears are spending more time on land — and changing their diets accordingly. A new study shows that the bears, whose traditional prey is ringed seal pups, are now eating more snow-goose eggs and caribou.
. . .
Samples of scat from different parts of the bay suggest that the bears are highly flexible and willing to change what they eat based on availability.
“Bears along the coast are eating more grass,” Dr. Gormezano said. “Further inland they are eating more berries.”

For the full story, see:
SINDYA N. BHANOO. “Observatory; CLIMATE CHANGE; Polar Bears Turn to Snow-Goose Egg Diet.” The New York Times (Tues., JAN. 28, 2014): D2.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JAN. 27, 2014, and has the title “Observatory; SCIENCE; Polar Bears Turn to Snow-Goose Egg Diet.”)

The following scientific articles more fully report the results summarized above:
Gormezano, Linda J., and Robert F. Rockwell. “Dietary Composition and Spatial Patterns of Polar Bear Foraging on Land in Western Hudson Bay.” BMC Ecology 13, no. 51 (2013).
Gormezano, Linda J., and Robert F. Rockwell. “What to Eat Now? Shifts in Polar Bear Diet During the Ice-Free Season in Western Hudson Bay.” Ecology and Evolution 3, no. 10 (Sept. 2013): 3509-23.
Iles, D. T., S. L. Peterson, Linda J. Gormezano, D. N. Koons, and Robert F. Rockwell. “Terrestrial Predation by Polar Bears: Not Just a Wild Goose Chase.” Polar Biology 36, no. 9 (Sept. 2013): 1373-79.

Carnegie Liked Partnership More than Incorporation

(p. 480) “Don’t want anything to do with a corporation as long as I am in business–Partnership is the only thing–no one man can manage well–every one needs the companionships of equals in business to contradict and differ from him–one advises the other… I who write you thus have grown gray in the service and speak the words of soberness and wisdom.”

Source:
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: ellipsis in original.)
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)

Angus Maddison Saw that Life Improved During the “Capitalist Epoch”

Source of graph: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A13) Angus Maddison, the late and eminent economist for the OECD, produced a famous chart in 1995, depicted nearby. For the longest time–basically from after the Garden of Eden until the 19th century–economic benefit for the average person in the West or Japan was flat as toast. The Mona Lisa aside, there was a reason someone back then said life was nasty, brutish and short. Then suddenly, new wealth spread broadly.

Maddison describes 1820 till 1950 as the “capitalist epoch.” He means that admiringly. The tools of capitalism unlocked the knowledge created until then. What came to be called “economic growth” gave more people jobs that lifted them and their families from the muck of joblessness and poverty. Maddison also noted that much of the world did not participate in the capitalist epoch. No wonder they revolt now.
This history is worth restating because the importance of strong economic growth, and the unavoidable necessity of a U.S. that leads that growth, may be disappearing down the memory hole of public policy, on the left and even among some on the right. Both share the grim view that the U.S. economy is flatlining, and the grim fight is over how to divide what’s left.

For the full commentary, see:
Henninger, DANIEL. “WONDER LAND; The Growth Revolutions Erupt; Ukrainians want what we’ve got: The benefits of real economic growth.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., Feb. 27, 2014): A13.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Feb. 26, 2014.)

One of Maddison’s last important books was:
Maddison, Angus. Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Better Wheat Is “Mired in Excessive, Expensive and Unscientific Regulation”

(p. A19) Monsanto recently said that it had made significant progress in the development of herbicide-tolerant wheat. It will enable farmers to use more environmentally benign herbicides and could be ready for commercial use in the next few years. But the federal government must first approve it, a process that has become mired in excessive, expensive and unscientific regulation that discriminates against this kind of genetic engineering.
The scientific consensus is that existing genetically engineered crops are as safe as the non-genetically engineered hybrid plants that are a mainstay of our diet.
. . .
Much of the nation’s wheat crop comes from a section of the central plains that sits atop the Ogallala Aquifer, which is rapidly being depleted.
. . .
New crop varieties that grow under conditions of low moisture or temporary drought could increase yields and lengthen the time farmland is productive. Varieties that grow with lower-quality water have also been developed.
. . .
Given the importance of wheat and the confluence of tightening water supplies, drought, a growing world population and competition from other crops, we need to regain the lost momentum. To do that, we need to acquire more technological ingenuity and to end unscientific, excessive and discriminatory government regulation.

For the full commentary, see:
JAYSON LUSK and HENRY I. MILLER. “We Need G.M.O. Wheat.” The New York Times (Mon., Feb. 3, 2014): A19.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Feb. 2, 2014.)

United States Drops Out of Top 10 in Economic Freedom

Source of table: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A13) World economic freedom has reached record levels, according to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, released Tuesday [Jan. 14, 2014] by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. But after seven straight years of decline, the U.S. has dropped out of the top 10 most economically free countries.

For 20 years, the index has measured a nation’s commitment to free enterprise on a scale of 0 to 100 by evaluating 10 categories, including fiscal soundness, government size and property rights. These commitments have powerful effects: Countries achieving higher levels of economic freedom consistently and measurably outperform others in economic growth, long-term prosperity and social progress.

For the full commentary, see:
TERRY MILLER. “America’s Dwindling Economic Freedom; Regulation, taxes and debt knock the U.S. out of the world’s top 10.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Jan. 14, 2014): A13.
(Note: bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Jan. 13, 2014.)

For more on the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, visit:
http://www.heritage.org/index/

Incentives Limit Collusion

(p. 476) Carnegie’s business strategy was the one he had followed twenty years earlier: keep production steady by accepting orders at any price. In early (p. 477) October, he notified Frick that the time had come to leave the rail pool. “I confess I can see nothing so good for us as a ‘free hand'” in setting prices. He was willing to lower his prices and profit margin on rails if that was the only way to get the orders he needed to keep his works running. “By this policy we shall keep our men at work.” Carnegie had never been entirely happy as a member of the rail pool, especially after Illinois Steel was allocated a greater share than Carnegie Steel. “For my part,” he now declared, “I do not wish to play second fiddle in the rail business any longer. I get no sweet dividend out of second fiddle business, and I do know that the way to make more money dividends is to lead…. I am sure that The Carnegie Steel Co. can make more dollars, even next year, and certainly in future years, by managing its own business in its own way, free from all understandings with competitors, than by continuing in any combination that possibly can be formed. Now having made my speech, which I trust you will read to all my partners, I take my seat and imagine the loud applause with which my sentiments are greeted.”

Source:
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: underlines and ellipsis in original.)
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)

Better to Fail at Solving a Big Problem, than to Succeed at a Minor One?

Source of book image: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61s10qMqpxL._SL1400_.jpg

Francis Collins, head of the NIH, discusses a favorite book of 2013:

(p. C6) Taking risks is part of genius, and genius is not immune to bloopers. Mario Livio’s “Brilliant Blunders” leads us through the circumstances that surrounded famous gaffes. . . . Mr. Livio helps us see that such spectacular errors are opportunities rather than setbacks. There’s a lesson for young scientists here. Boldly attacking problems of fundamental significance can have more impact than pursuing precise solutions to minor questions–even if there are a few bungles along the way.

For the full article, see:
“12 Months of Reading; We asked 50 of our friends–from April Bloomfield to Mike Tyson–to name their favorite books of 2013.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Dec. 14, 2013): C6 & C9-C12.
(Note: the online version of the article has the date Dec. 13, 2013.)

The book that Collins praises is:
Livio, Mario. Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein – Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013.