Observation and inference

As a scientist who interacts a lot with the general public, I am often asked to explain phenomena that lay people have observed. I used to take those observations at face value and was often stumped at coming up with an explanation because of the inconsistent elements the observations seemed to contain. But I have found from experience that what people tell me they ‘saw’ is not purely raw observational data but that when you go back and actually repeat the situation, the observations are different from what was originally reported and that much of the paradoxical elements go away. [Read more…]

Language in Veep

HBO has a free online screening of the first episode of the new comedy Veep starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. It has the same pacing, cross-talk, multiple storylines, and political infighting of The West Wing except it is played strictly for laughs. Some have suggested that it may even be a more accurate portrayal of life in the executive branch of the government than its more serious predecessor, and I can believe that since the principals in Veep are quite ambitious, cynical, and manipulative. There are no high-minded moralists in this crowd. [Read more…]

The return of debtors prisons

Throwing people in jail because of their inability to pay debts was one of the horrors of England that Charles Dickens inveighed against, he himself suffering from a deep sense of shame because his father met such a fate. Since 1830, such a practice is no longer legal in the US but the US has brought back what are effectively debtor’s prisons, because people have found ways to jail you for ostensibly other reasons but which in reality are based on your inability to pay debts. “Under the law, debtors aren’t arrested for nonpayment, but rather for failing to respond to court hearings, pay legal fines, or otherwise showing “contempt of court” in connection with a creditor lawsuit.” [Read more…]

Eating alone

I am currently attending a conference and so blogging will be a bit more erratic than usual.

When I travel on work, I often eat alone at restaurants. I don’t mind it in the least and, being somewhat introverted, even welcome the chance to be alone after mingling with people all day. I usually take a book with me as a companion, the main problem being that the lighting in restaurants is usually very dim and I have to specifically ask to be seated at a table near a light. The backlighted iPad comes in useful here. [Read more…]