Pharyngula::Bad journalism on Cobb County

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Monday, December 12, 2005

Bad journalism on Cobb County

PZ Myers • 100 Comments (last page)

Chris Mooney finds fault with some bad journalism. He picks on this one sentence…

Like others who adhere to a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, Rogers, a lawyer, believes that Earth is several thousand years old, while most scientists, basing their estimates on the radioactive decay of rock samples, say the planet is billions of years old.

…which is clearly screwed up. Lawyer Rogers is basing her opinion entirely on dogmatic acceptance of ancient religious texts that contradict reality, yet her opinion is presented as if it were a reasonable alternative to that of scientists who base their ideas on legitimate evidence. Mooney rewrites the bad sentence and improves it greatly, but still, the problem is deeper than one sentence—the premise of the whole article is flawed.

It's about dueling neighbors in a Georgia suburb. The differences on evolution are treated with the same seriousness as the fact that people disagree on who to vote for, whether to open the County Board of Commissioners with a prayer, or what brand of car to drive. It's all a mere difference of opinion, you know. Marjorie Rogers is presented as someone trying sincerely to find the truth, when what she's actually doing is swaddling herself in ignorance and trying to force a similarly benighted state on the kids in her school district.

Sparked by her son's interest in dinosaurs, Rogers read several books casting doubt on evolution science, including "Icons of Evolution" by Jonathan Wells and "Darwin on Trial" by Phillip E. Johnson. Once she saw the textbooks under consideration, she was appalled.

Where's the critical evaluation of these books? The reporter presents it as if she had done her homework, when what she'd actually done was dig up some bad creationist pseudo-scholarship that reinforced her biases. When you read about her objections, you don't see any counterpoint to balance her raving nonsense.

"Humans are fundamentally not exceptional because we came from the same evolutionary source as every other species," she read from one during an interview.

"That offends me," she said. "That has no business being in a science textbook. That's religion."

She points to another passage, in "Biology: Concepts & Connections," that she says is irreverent. The passage suggests that had human knees and spines been "designed" for our bipedal posture, rather than borrowed from four-legged ancestors, they probably would "be less subject to sprains, spasms and other common injuries."

Finding fault with the design of humans exasperates her.

"That's slamming God," she said.

Both of those passages are correct. There's nothing exceptional in the biology of human beings; every organism on the planet has its own unique suite of characters, and we can see how those characters are derived from its nearest relatives. We also see that many of those properties of all animals are cobbled together in a less than optimal way from ancestral states. We are good enough. We are not perfect.

Even within her own religious tradition, there are people who find nothing sacrilegious about that. Isn't everything on earth supposed to be the product of one god's hand, in her belief? Doesn't Christianity preach that every person is flawed, incomplete, and corrupted? When she goes to church and is told that we are all sinners, does she march up and bitch-slap the minister for insulting god?

If being apprised of the simple facts of reality is "slamming God", I think the problem lies with her simple-minded view of her God, not reality.

The reporter missed the real story. That people have different opinions is not newsworthy; that neighborhoods are infested with meddling kooks and journalists don't even notice…now that's an interesting story. I'd like to see a report on how 'objective journalism' has somehow been transformed into 'credulous journalism'.

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Comments:

#53787: — 12/15 at 06:50 AM
Sotek, I am puzzled by your question: "And who, precisely, decides who should own a frequency in the first place?"

In Europe frequencies and areas are starting to be traded of sorts, especially for mobiles. I thought that was true in other parts too, actually I thought US started it, so not uncommon.

Usually it is a bidding process, usually first time managed by the state (or an appointed body) who owned the earlier monopoly. It is regulated, often to a certain number of players, probably to guarantee quality and amount of service, and avoid a new monopoly, the first time (first couple of times) around.

I don't see why it can't develop into a free market in time (and be better for it). Do you?

#53800: — 12/15 at 11:44 AM
You wouldn't be defending slavery, Nature. The market behavior of the slave market is market bahavior.

In fact, the 18th century slave trade is a perfect example of how markets work in the absence of regulation and of accounting for all costs.

Because the cost of producing the product was never born by the traders (as, for example, the cost of producing an old-growth forest or oil is never born by the logger or the driller), then it made sense for the slavedriver to starve and discard his property whenever feeding him was more than the cost of acquiring a new slave. This is why whole shiploads of slaves were occasionally destroyed in transit; something you seldom see with shiploads of Hondas on the way to California in these 'overregulated' times.

You seem to have confused Ireland with Scotland. The enclosures, in any case, began not only before the potato famine but before potatoes.

#53816: — 12/15 at 01:36 PM
Also, flea markets are a really lame example. They don't have any producers.

If you're going to foist off some ideological view of an economy, try to include producers.

#53822: — 12/15 at 02:46 PM
Also, flea markets are a really lame example. They don't have any producers.

I was talking about markets not an economy. A "flea market" is a market in it's basic form. It’s interesting that you consider a producer important here. What is a producer?

(as, for example, the cost of producing an old-growth forest or oil is never born by the logger or the driller)

So you’re saying the logger should be paying the trees for their wood? Or the ground for it’s oil? “Cost” is what you pay to people. The “old-growth” forest is a resource the logger has to pay lumberjacks to cut.

then it made sense for the slavedriver to starve and discard his property whenever feeding him was more than the cost of acquiring a new slave. This is why whole shiploads of slaves were occasionally destroyed in transit…

Huh? You’re clearly no entrepreneur. Can you show me this “shiploads destroyed” information?

#53826: — 12/15 at 03:23 PM
"WHAT would the money influence if there were NO regulations? You know what I’m getting at? So instead of regulations, the market vendors have all this extra money. I would think they would use the money on their businesses or give it back to the shareholders."

Or they'd use the money to sell at a loss and drive competitors out of business before going to monopolistic rates.

Or they'd use the money to bribe police to get competitors arrested for the sort of crimes even a Libertarian thinks the police should be able to arrest people for. (And then bribe judges and so on to force a conviction ... if that's even necessary, and the simple arrest doesn't destroy the competitor's business).

And yes, those are 'using their money on their business' in the same way advertisement is.

And then there's the situations where regulation could SAVE money. If drug companies were banned from advertising prescription medication directly to consumers, they'd save that advertisment money - and have no market share loss, because they wouldn't be losing market share to competitors still advertising.
It's a Nash Equilibrium that's Pareto Dominated by another alternative. And the only way to get there is by an external force creating disincentives.

And then there's the issues of hidden externalities that are the true bane of the free market - but Harry seems to be covering that pretty well.

#53827: — 12/15 at 03:28 PM
Torbjorn: Yes, it's /turning into/ a free market.

But, as you yourself just admitted... it started out by being sold by the government.

And is being regulated to keep monopolies from happening.

This contradicts my point that a market with no regulation is bad ... how, precisely?
I don't deny markets have their good points. They do. But they also have their bad points, and a pure market has some grave diseconomies, even ignoring the non-monetary things that a pure market can't hope to achieve.

#53829: — 12/15 at 03:32 PM
A market without an economy is a useless thing, I think.

Only people from the U. of Chicago who worship markets without concern for the people in them would care.

And, yes, Sotek got my point even if Nature didn't. Markets don't know how to evaluate all the costs, so a perfectly functioning market can also simultaneously be destroying its economy. (See Aegean islands.)

For detailed information about disposing of slaves, see Hugh Thomas, 'The Slave Trade.' This is one of the greatest commentaries on markets ever written.

#53861: — 12/16 at 01:15 AM
Harry and Sotek, why don't you two just get a room? ;)

Harry: I’m not from the U of Chicago.
Sotek: you’re showing immaturity by using jargon that doesn’t apply. I’m not impressed.

I was prepared to have a all-out discussion on this topic but I don’t think this is the place.

#53863: — 12/16 at 03:06 AM
If you think advertisement is not a Nash Equilibrium, I'd love to hear your reasoning.

If you think that not /needing/ to advertise is not Pareto-dominant for companies, I'd REALLY love to hear your reasoning.

And hidden externalities are the flaw of markets, and I'd really like to hear your reasoning why they're not a problem.

PS: Misusing jargon isn't being immature, it's being inaccurate.

#53869: — 12/16 at 06:01 AM
"The enclosures, in any case, began not only before the potato famine but before potatoes."

Thats right Harry. I only found that out recently myself; theres a lot of history they dont teach you in Scotland. The landlords were enclosing all the way through the 18th century, and people were pushed off productive fertile farmlands onto marginal land. This happened a lot in the Western Isles of Scotland. The potato actually helped the survival of people in the marginal areas after the enclosures, since it was such a good source of food. Not a balanced diet, but enough for people to scrape by on, until the blight arrived.

I like the way Natureselectedme (using which criteria?) completely missed the point about costs of creation of oil. And the fact is that it being a non-renewable resource is not priced into it. Extraction of natural resources seems to me to be a small problem in economics, but then I need to go and read more about it.

#53889: — 12/16 at 12:36 PM
Sotek,

"Yes, it's /turning into/ a free market."

Okay.

"And is being regulated to keep monopolies from happening."

It is, maybe initially, regulated, probably because the market replaced a monopoly. This isn't the ususal situation for a market start.

"and a pure market has some grave diseconomies,"

I don't know much about this, but are hoping to learn. I see that Harry, you and guthrie discusses these situations, for example when a market trade nonrenewables.

"even ignoring the non-monetary things that a pure market can't hope to achieve."

As I understand it, a market is good at that it is doing, and it is pretty selfregulating (with some help from courts) and local (distributed). No system has been able to replace it.

The discussion if one should supplement/regulate markets, and how much the market will loose function due to that, is of course complex. I think I leave that to you guys this time. I am glad that you discuss it, I am eager to learn.

#53895: — 12/16 at 01:53 PM
Gee, guthrie. I'd have thought that the Gaelic revival movement would have been all over the factors that depopulated the Highlands.

Nature, I don't suspect you of actually being part of the U. of Chicago, just of parroting the naive Hayek/Friedman ideology.

I like markets, sort of, but the idea that they promote or require liberty -- as the Chicago School would have us believe -- is ridiculous. The existence of SLAVE markets proves that Friedman's base assumption cannot be correct.

Markets are like natural selection: They reward survivors. That is the only value they recognize.

Since I can recognize more values than mere survival, I do not worship markets.

#53896: — 12/16 at 02:05 PM
Torbjorn: Non-renewable resources are an instance of market failure, yes. Expensively-renewable resources are another such instance (old-growth forests), although those will, once the supply is more limited than we'd tend to desire, tend to start correcting themselves.

Another instance would be ATM surcharges - where increased prices mean it's more desireable (from an economic standpoint) to go there.

Yet another is pollution - industrial plants had a strong tendency to dump waste into rivers and suchlike until regulation imposed hefty fines.

A perfect free market would be one where all externalities were made explicit by regulations - for instance, if dumping waste required payment equivalent to that required to clean it up.

This would, however, still have problems. It would find local optima with no difficulty - but would have a strong difficulty making long-term positive movement.

For instance, consider the internet. It almost certainly would never have happened if the market had been left to its own devices - the market didn't even pick it up until it'd been around for a few decades.

So that's one flaw with a free market - it needs a non-market influence to have long-term direction.

There's one other flaw I feel markets have.
Specifically, they violate a principle of social contract theory - when there's an imbalance, they tend to favor those who have more over those who have less. Social contract theory (which is a moral philosophy, for anyone who isn't aware) would say that imbalances should favor those who have less over those who have more - and I find it very hard to disagree with that.

Thus, I feel markets need an influence to correct that - such as minimum wage laws. (Which I also feel have an overall positive influence, taking the principle of Reaganomics that sounded plausible, and applying it to people who'd actually follow it, but.)

#53900: — 12/16 at 02:41 PM
I like the way Natureselectedme (using which criteria?) completely missed the point about costs of creation of oil. And the fact is that it being a non-renewable resource is not priced into it.

Well I’m glad I was able to provide you some enjoyment.

I’m curious about costs of creation of oil. What do you mean? Nobody created the oil.

It’s. Just. There.

It doesn’t do anyone any good where it is. It has to be brought up to be used. What is the cost for being a non-renewable resource? How will that be priced into it? When it becomes scarce the price will increase and alternatives will be found.

Earlier I mentioned history of trucking regulations. People like you thought that without the ICC, trucking will just not work. But more importantly, won’t be fair. The ICC set the routes and rates. After they got rid of the ICC, trucking went on. Is it fair? Does it matter?

#53902: — 12/16 at 02:56 PM
Nature, I don't suspect you of actually being part of the U. of Chicago, just of parroting the naive Hayek/Friedman ideology.

Someone who actually doesn't agree with Friedrich A. Hayek? How interesting! You don't agree with The Road to Serfdom?

#53913: — 12/16 at 06:09 PM
I don't think markets have anything to do with freedom. Period.

Because if they did, there couldn't be SLAVE markets, could there?

We will never know for certain, but the first market was almost certainly in women. The second, more than likely, in useless gauds like ocher. And the third, slaves.

Not a promising beginning, if that's the way it was.

Also, it is incontrovertible that markets cannot -- or at least in all history have not -- produced certain highly desirable social goods. Like highways.

Your trucks would never have existed except for a socially coerced and regulated imposition of paved roads on markets that did not want them and destroyed the first few thousand attempts to have them.

There's what market worship leads to: a barefoot, hungry, pregnant slave walking somewhere.

You can keep it.

#53926: — 12/17 at 12:18 AM
Well, for one thing Harry, nobody can call you ambivalent on markets.
You’re not joking around here, are you? In an earlier comment you said you worked as a journalist.

I’m sorry but I can’t decide what you mean by markets.(assuming you’re serious) The word you’re using doesn’t fit your contempt. My definition of a market is where people trade goods and services.

I think the first market would have been in food because that’s a basic necessity

Also, it is incontrovertible that markets cannot -- or at least in all history have not -- produced certain highly desirable social goods.

Since I’m not sure what you mean, I have to use my definition of market to rebuff this.
In the United States at least, markets have been responsible for great social good.
The goods and services obtained in markets have freed society from a hand to mouth existence. Every person in society doesn’t have to grow food, build shelter, or write newspapers for themselves. We trade for what we need using markets.

There's what market worship leads to: a barefoot, hungry, pregnant slave walking somewhere.

I couldn’t disagree with you more.

#53927: — 12/17 at 01:17 AM
Sotek, I hadn't completely read your comment in #53896.

You lay out your theory quite well, not obfuscated with jargon.

I disagree with most of it (of course!) but at least I can see your reasoning. You place heavy requirements from social contract theory.

I’ll comment on one thing:

Social contract theory (which is a moral philosophy, for anyone who isn't aware) would say that imbalances should favor those who have less over those who have more - and I find it very hard to disagree with that.

This is a dangerous goal in the wrong hands. In the name of correcting an imbalance grave atrocities have been committed. When someone gets it in their head that they are doing something for society the individual is a mere nuisance to be disregarded.
.

#53929: — 12/17 at 03:07 AM
"certain" highly desireable goods, Nature.

You seem to keep missing key words. Do you have some sort of vision problem? Maybe you need to use larger fonts?

I mean, it'd be interesting to have a discussion (if you really are willing to, contrary to your previous claim), but only if we can all manage to read what the other people are saying, as opposed to what they're not saying.

#53930: — 12/17 at 03:17 AM
Nature, no, you misunderstand what social contract theory says.

It does not say there shouldn't be imbalances. Of course there should - a person with a college degree should generally be making more money than a burger flipper.

What social contract theory says is that when there are structual imbalances - that is, one group gains over another group - those imbalances should be in favour of the group who is at a disadvantage.
One of the classic examples of this is the graduated income tax, where the more money a person has, the higher a percentage of their income they pay.
I'm aware there are people who argue this is unfair - but can you imagine anyone, ever, arguing that it should be inverted (that is, that the poor should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes)? I can't.

#53942: — 12/17 at 10:04 AM
Soltek,I think my fonts are fine, thank you very much.

Yes, Harry did say certain but he ended it with barefoot, hungry, pregnant slave walking somewhere which seems to have expanded his original point. Plus, he used a highway as his example of things that a market can never do, which is silly. Markets don't prevent people from cooperating in other areas of their lives. It's just work. People still go home at night.

#53955: — 12/17 at 12:00 PM
Silly? OK, direct me to a map of a road network somewhere that was created by market forces.

Markets can, sometimes, generate things many people want. But they don't always.

Markets can do only what markets do. If you, like Friedman, want to check your brains at the door and declare that 'value' is defined by what markets produce, be my guest.

I can imagine other values. Barefoot, pregnant slaves are not the only outcomes of markets, but they are one of them.

Sotek, I can think of people arguing that the poor should pay more. That was the situation in the ancien regime, where the peasants, who had nothing, paid all the taxes.

The aristocracy argued that, as the warriors who defended society, they 'paid' their share of social duty in blood; and the clergy said they 'paid' in spiritual coin.

We do not have to accept that they were sincere.

#53985: — 12/17 at 04:23 PM
Nature: If you claim the fact that highways won't happen purely from markets isn't a weakness of markets...

... then you're restricting the SCOPE of markets - which is exactly what I advocate for.

Markets are the correct solution to some problems. They are hopeless when applied to other problems.

When markets are allowed to rule unchecked (As many self-proclaimed "libertarians" would claim is good), then the natural result is that things begin to be sold by people who have no right to sell them, and things begin to be bought that should not be for sale at all - like justice.

Harry: True. Allow me to revise my previous statement from "But can you imagine anyone, ever, arguing that it should be inverted?" to "But can you imagine anyone, in this day and age, arguing that it should be inverted?"

#54286: — 12/19 at 03:56 PM
NSM:
"Is it fair? Does it matter?"
Precisely. Now, those are more ethical and value laden questions. What do they have to do with markets?

Haryy- what Gaelic revival? I went to school through the 80's and 90's and dont recall it. I had to deliberately go and read books of personal and, how shall I put it, emotional and biased accounts of the clearances to get an idea of what went on and what was behind it all.
POssibly the clearances are not the sort of thing that the reverend Blair wants to hear about.

#54368: — 12/20 at 10:00 AM
Hmmmm. I had thought there was an effort to teach Gaelic back in the '60s. I did not realize it had died out.

The echoes of that are still heard, faintly, way out here in the North Pacific, where there are plenty of Scottish bands, even caber tossing.

The revival of Hawaiian, now pretty strongly developed, began without any government support, against strong government opposition. But the indigenes persevered and we now have schools (called 'immersion schools') that teach solely in Hawaiian. Dance (the central cultural artifact of Hawaiian life) is extremely strong. At the annual Merrie Monarch Festival, commercial television attempts to put the chants into context for English speakers.

Most of us still don't speak more than a few words of Hawaiian, but the revial is real enough for all that.

The Scots must be backsliding.

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Monday, December 12, 2005

Bad journalism on Cobb County

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