the fallacy fallacy

One of the grand worries in the business of evolutionary explanations is that they sometimes (especially when put into colloquial terms) seem to confuse is with ought. This is known formally as the naturalistic fallacy (or its converse, the moralistic fallacy, depending on which way the conflation runs). Whenever a report on scientific findings uses the word "should," I worry.

Azra Raza of 3QD quotes a piece in Scientific American:

In research that could give doctors a way to reassign sex in cases of unclear gender, scientists report this week that they have figured out why some children with genes that should make them boys are instead born as girls.

A more precise statement might go:

In research that could give doctors a way to assign sex in cases of unclear gender, scientists report this week that they have figured out why some children with genes expected to make them boys are instead born as girls.

The phrase "think deviant" comes from the notion that a goal of science is to explain why it is that things deviate from what we might otherwise expect. And so I have no problem with journalistic characterization of results as unexpected or revolutionary--science even for workaday Kuhnian normal scientists can be incredibly exciting. No new paradigm is suggested by results like this one: the Sox9 gene, which is expected to activate, sometimes doesn't. Manipulating this process can change sexual expression.

[Lovell-Badge] adds that he's very hopeful that with further analysis, scientists may determine ways to reassign gender later in life, "perhaps for cases of sex reversal or perhaps even for individuals who want to undergo sex changes," although he acknowledged that "this is getting very contentious."

And that's precisely the point: it's an exciting find and raises fascinating ethical issues by itself--issues that shouldn't be confused at the start by careless use of words like "should" when "expected" will do.

burying the lede

Scientific American, ever a bastion for good history of science and balanced coverage of social science, has it in for economics.

The strategy the economists used was as simple as it was absurd—they substituted economic variables for physical ones. Utility (a measure of economic well-being) took the place of energy; the sum of utility and expenditure replaced potential and kinetic energy. A number of well-known mathematicians and physicists told the economists that there was absolutely no basis for making these substitutions. But the economists ignored such criticisms and proceeded to claim that they had transformed their field of study into a rigorously mathematical scientific discipline.

Nadeau criticizes economic theory for two deadly sins: stealing methods from physics and then not updating methods when the physics changed. The first is on the right track, the second is simply absurd.

Nadeau's criticism of neoclassical economics should be as follows: The physical calculus introduced to economics because of familiarity carries with it ontological implications that do not hold for economic systems. Economists failed to learn this lesson and improve the calculus, and as a result economics remains unable to deal appropriately with environmental problems.

In fact, Nadeau runs his argument almost completely off a cliff. He pollutes his account with distracting tidbits about how the "old" physical theory has since been updated--in physics. What happened in physics is irrelevant to his argument: it might have been the case that the calculus of the old physical theory was the correct basis for economics. It isn't, and that should be the focus of his criticism.

A few of Nadeau's specific criticisms of neoclassical economic theory are worthwhile. For example, under such a theory, "the market system is a closed circular flow between production and consumption, with no inlets or outlets." This seems not to be true, and altering the calculus to allow for inlets and outlets might, as Nadeau suggests, better allow for the inclusion of natural resources within economics.

In the end, Nadeau gets it about right:

If the environmental crisis did not exist, the fact that neoclassical economic theory provides a coherent basis for managing economic activities in market systems could be viewed as sufficient justification for its widespread applications. But because the crisis does exist, this theory can no longer be regarded as useful even in pragmatic or utilitarian terms because it fails to meet what must now be viewed as a fundamental requirement of any economic theory—the extent to which this theory allows economic activities to be coordinated in environmentally responsible ways on a worldwide scale.

Why not lead with that?

a flood of new experimental data

via /.:

The [Glen Canyon] Dam is releasing four to five times its normal amount of water over the course of a three day artificial flood [in the Grand Canyon]. Scientists are conducting this massive experiment in order to document and better understand the complex relation of the aquatic habitats, natural floods, and the sediment they bring. Floods no longer bring sediment to these parts of the canyon as the Dam keeps it locked up and released in small, drawn out intervals. The Dam prevents the floods from bringing the sediments into replenish the sandbars and allow the river to maintain its warm, murky habitat rather than a cool, clear one. It is thought that this cool clear environment brought on by the dam is responsible for helping to extinguish 4 species of fish and push 2 more towards the brink. It is hoped that this terra-reformation experiment will positively impact the habitat and fish populations, warranting further artificial floods at an increased rate of every one to two years rather than the time span between the two previous floods and this one of 8 and 4 years.

It is delightful to hear that river managers are taking seriously the notion of planned extreme events.

One of the great joys of my early education was the scale river model in Mr. Lind's seventh grade science class. The table, perhaps one meter wide and two in length, with one end a hand or two higher than the other, was filled with gravelly sand. At the higher end, a faucet. At the lower, a bucket. Much like the ones used at the Waterways Experiment Station, this scale model demonstrates (or simulates) alluvial processes such as the formation of oxbows. This was one of my favorite experiences as a seventh grader, so I have a soft spot in my heart for WES.

More recently, I came across "The Art of Scientific Precision: River Research in the United States Army Corps of Engineers to 1945" by Martin Reuss [Technology and Culture 40.2 (1999) 292-323]. Reuss gives a good technical history of river research, contextualizing the scientific and technical challenges in a broader landscape of national politics and inter-agency scuffles. Though the work misses the larger context of culture, it still might help to fill in gaps left by other works. Reading at times like a biography of the Waterways Experiment Station, Reuss outlines the reasons for its inception, the details of its founding, and its relatively successful early history. The Army Corps of Engineers, the body responsible (along with the Bureau of Reclamation) for most large waterways engineering projects in the US, had a history of extraordinary successes and a few catastrophic and very public failures (Katrina is merely the most recent). The gap between theory and practice in hydraulic engineering was more of a chasm, and certain strong-willed bureaucrats clashed over what to do about it. The science was hard, the engineering involved too many variables, too much space, and too long a time span. "Hans Albert Einstein is reported to have said that his more famous father, Albert, was interested in river mechanics, but after careful consideration opted for the simpler aspects of physics" (322).

Many histories of new fields or agencies have an element of the "lone, neglected genius" and Reuss follows the script, which has the advantage of preventing him from slipping into technical inanity until the end of the paper. In any case, after a turf battle of sorts with the Bureau of Standards, a division of the Department of Commerce (which was interested in rivers for obvious reasons), the Waterways Experiment Station was formed (and words like "hydraulic," "research," and "laboratory" are missing from the title as a result of the politics).

One of the most fascinating lessons of ecology over the past century is the need for periodic medium-sized disruption to maintain overall system stability--and prevent catastrophe. Massive wildfires followed decades of fire control policy. Now foresters set small blazes to clear the forest floor of excess debris. Dammed rivers died without occasional floods to refresh their supply of nutrient-bearing silt and irregular shoals and sandbars. It stands to reason that smaller, planned floods will help to correct this deficit. The question now is, what else have we missed?