YFP: The More You Know

Word of the Day for Sunday, March 20th*

spoonerism \SPOO-nuh-riz-uhm\, noun:
The transposition of usually initial sounds in a pair of words.

Some examples:
* We all know what it is to have a half-warmed fish ["half-formed wish"] inside us.
* The Lord is a shoving leopard ["loving shepherd"].
* It is kisstomary to cuss ["customary to kiss"] the bride.
* Is the bean dizzy ["dean busy"]?
* When the boys come back from France, we'll have the hags flung out ["flags hung out"]!
* Let me sew you to your sheet ["show you to your seat"].
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Spoonerism comes from the name of the Rev. William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), a kindly but nervous Anglican clergyman and educationalist. All the above examples were committed by (or attributed to) him.

*Brought to you by Doctor Dictionary.

Self-Help Department Meets Captain Obvious

Apparently, there's actually a book to teach people how to argue.

That someone can fill an actual book with an explanation of how to talk to people is beyond me. Isn't this something learned by ... hmm ... talking to people?

I'm about to buy it for my mother, so we'll see if it has any redemptive value.

American Mathematical Political Correctness Society

The outgoing President (David Eisenbud of UC-Berkeley and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute) and President-elect (James Arthur of the U of Toronto) of the American Mathematical Society issued a statement in response to Larry Summers' remarks and posted it on the AMS website:

"The speculations made by Lawrence Summers, President of Harvard University, at a conference on January 14, 2005 about the causes of the current shortage of women in science were inappropriate. His high position at Harvard places on him a high burden of responsibility. His remarks may be damaging and counterproductive to a cause he and all educators should support. We who strive to make our subject areas attractive and accessible to all express our dismay at such remarks."

Sigh. I really thought that mathematicians were above this silliness. Eisenbud and Arthur are taking the position that certain subjects ought not even be pursued and that anyone who pursues them or even suggests that they be pursued is "inappropriate" and deserves "dismay." My favorite is the sentence "We who strive to make our subject areas attractive..." Taking contrapositives then, if you are not dismayed at such remarks, then you do not strive to make mathematics attractive and accessible to all.

I am not sure if this is the stance of the entire AMS or just Eisenbud and Arthur. The fact that it was posted on the AMS website, seems to imply that Eisenbud and Arthur are speaking for the entire AMS. As a member of the AMS, I'm rather dismayed that they didn't put this up for a membership vote, but went ahead and did it without really consulting us. I sent Arthur and Eisenbud an email you can read here (PDF). Some highlights:

I would like to know what you find so objectionable in what Larry Summers said, that it deserves your "dismay?" Why are "the speculations ... about the causes of the current shortage of women in science... inappropriate?" Are you suggesting that it is a mathematical impossibility that the variance of the mathematical and scientific abilities of men is much higher than that of women, therefore resulting in a higher number of men at the very extreme ends of the spectrum? Clearly, if you read Summers' remarks, you will find that he was commenting on some specific studies he had been shown by the organizers of the NBER conference. Do you have evidence suggesting that in fact there are no innate differences in either the means or the variances of the scientific abilities of men and women? If so, I would be very interested to see whatever evidence you could provide. Would you have been equally dismayed had Larry Summers made the claim that men are disproportionately likely to commit crime, especially violent crime, and that this might be the result of innate biological traits (e.g. evolutionary pressures to behave aggressively)? Should no one ever make any statements, even if true, if they might reflect poorly on some population group?

Are you claiming that it is too dangerous to study if there might be innate biological differences in the math and science abilities of men and women? Since the two of you are very distinguished academics, I find it rather odd that you would make the claim that any subject of inquiry (especially one that, in the end might help us understand how to increase the participation of women in math and science and the causes for currently low levels of participation) is not worth pursuing. It troubles me further -- since you are the outgoing and current Presidents of the AMS -- that this reflects AMS' official position on scientific inquiry: certain subjects are too dangerous to study and certain questions are too dangerous to ask.

I am disturbed that as two people whom I respect as mathematicians and who hold esteemed positions in the world of American mathematics, you would substitute what appears to be knee-jerk political correctness for a reasoned discussion that allows all viewpoints, no matter how inconvenient or politically unpopular, to be heard. Why did you, rather than tackling Mr. Summers' remarks on their merits (e.g. providing evidence that might undermine his claims or demonstrating the logical inconsistency of his remarks), tackled the "appropriateness" of his remarks instead?

"Every murderer is somebody's old friend"

Yesterday, I discovered an astounding bit of news: Vadim Ivanov, who last month shot and killed his ex-wife and her fiancée in broad daylight before fatally turning the gun on himself, was once a resident of Midwood, Brooklyn, where I lived from 1989-1993. In fact, he was our neighbor in that old apartment building on E. 13th and E Street -- and a good friend of my father's. I have pictures of him on a trip we took with my dad and my cousin to an exhibit at the Javits Center when I was six or seven.

In my mind, I can just barely make out his face -- blonde, youthful, ambitious. We lost touch after moving from Brooklyn, but last month my father recognized his name in the news. My dad says he pities him, but I have nothing but fear, shock, and disgust. His 17-year-old son is now an orphan. And what were the passersby doing, as they watched it happen? How could no one have leapt in and stopped it?

How is this possible -- that a stranger you meet on the street, a neighbor, a good friend -- could one day be a murderer? I don't know how to begin comprehending that question.

More s.s.p.

I'm in The Weekly Standard (March 14 issue), opining on an obscure feature of the Supreme Court's death penalty decision -- the mash note from Stevens and Ginsburg to Kennedy, dressed up as a "concurrence." Link.

Shameless Self-Promotion

I have a review of the book America's Right Turn, by Richard Viguerie and David Franke, up today, if you're at all interested in the conservative media revolution. It provides some valuable historical background and raises interesting questions on the compromise between the popular appeal and philosophical integrity of ideas.

Dialectic:

Thesis.

Antithesis.

Synthesis.

Diana: on the issue of the death penalty case, you've chosen the Scalia dissent excerpt well -- a lot is going on there. The role of the American Psychological Association, as a frequent amicus curiae over the years, is particularly interesting -- maintaining that persons under 18 are insufficiently endowed with moral awareness to be punished as adults would be, yet are fully mature enough to make the abortion decision without parental guidance.

I've blogged about this case here. There's a lot to say about the Court's contempt for democratic procedure, and about its infatuation with Eurotrash jurisprudence, which it thinks of as "international law."

For the record, I'm not sure I favor executing juveniles, or indeed anyone. But the notion that the Eighth Amendment places any limits on capital punishment, while sitting there as part of a Constitution that elsewhere explicitly assumes the normality and liceity of the death penalty, is just daffy. We're perfectly free to ban the death penalty by legislation, but the Constitution imposes not the slightest obligation to do so.

On a political note -- since most Americans in fact have far fewer doubts about the death penalty than I do, this decision is one instance of judicial activism that could gain traction as an issue, and help speed along certain present and future judicial nominees.

Free Speech at Yale (and the YFP in the news)

Supreme Court Pronounces Juvenile Death Penalty Unconstitutional

The most exciting court decision the SCOTUS has handed down all term. I'm most interested, however, in Scalia's dissent -- because it's uncontroversial that killing young people seems to be at least aesthetically repulsive, so why would someone defend it?


I highly recommend the full opinion and dissent here (don't worry, it's a perfectly legit PDF), but here's an excerpt to chew on. Scalia makes a fascinating argument ... lots of cool psychological and moral implications. Tell me what you think at diana(dot)feygin(at)yale(dot)edu.

...[T]he real force driving today ’s decision is not the actions of four state legislatures, but the Court ’s ‘own judgment’ that murderers younger than 18 can never be as morally culpable as older counterparts…. The Court claims that this usurpation of the role of moral arbiter is simply a “retur[n] to the rul[e] established in decisions predating Stanford. That supposed rule — which is reflected solely in dicta and never once in a holding that purports to supplant the consensus of the American people with the Justices’ views —was repudiated in Stanford for the very good reason that it has no foundation in law or logic. If the Eighth Amendment set forth an ordinary rule of law, it would indeed be the role of this Court to say what the law is. But the Court having pronounced that the Eighth Amendment is an ever-changing reflection of ‘the evolving standards of decency’ of our society, it makes no sense for the Justices then to prescribe those standards rather than discern them from the practices of our people. On the evolving-standards hypothesis, the only legitimate function of this Court is to identify a moral consensus of the American people. By what conceivable warrant can nine lawyers presume to be the authoritative conscience of the Nation?

The reason for insistence on legislative primacy is obvious and fundamental:“‘[I]n a democratic society legislatures, not courts, are constituted to respond to the will and consequently the moral values of the people.’” Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S.153, 175 –176 (1976) (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and STEVENS, JJ.) (quoting Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S.238, 383 (1972)(Burger, C.J., dissenting)). For a similar reason we have, in our determination of society ’s moral standards, consulted the practices of sentencing juries: Juries “‘maintain a link between contemporary community values and the penal system ’” that this Court cannot claim for itself. ... Today ’s opinion provides a perfect example of why judges are ill equipped to make the type of legislative judgments the Court insists on making here. To support its opinion that States should be prohibited from imposing the death penalty on anyone who committed murder before age 18, the Court looks to scientific and sociological studies, picking and choosing those that support its position. It never explains why those particular studies are methodologically sound; none was ever entered into evidence or tested in an adversarial proceeding. ...

In other words, all the Court has done today, to borrow from another context, is to look over the heads of the crowd and pick out its friends…. We need not look far to find studies contradicting the Court ’s conclusions. As petitioner points out, the American Psychological Association (APA), which claims in this case that scientific evidence shows persons under 18 lack the ability to take moral responsibility for their decisions, has previously taken precisely the opposite position before this very Court. In its brief in Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U.S. 417 (1990), the APA found a “rich body of research ”showing that juveniles are mature enough to decide whether to obtain an abortion without parental involvement. Brief for APA as Amicus Curiae, O.T.1989, No.88 –805 etc., p.18. The APA brief, citing psychology treatises and studies too numerous to list here, asserted:“[B]y middle adolescence (age 14 –15)young people develop abilities similar to adults in reasoning about moral dilemmas, understanding social rules and laws, [and ]reasoning about interpersonal relationships and interpersonal problems.” Given the nuances of scientific methodology and conflicting views, courts — which can only consider the limited evidence on the record before them — are ill equipped to determine which view of science is the right one. Legislatures “are better qualified to weigh and ‘evaluate the results of statistical studies in terms of their own local conditions and with a flexibility of approach that is not available to the courts.’” McCleskey v.Kemp, 481 U.S.279, 319 (1987)(quoting Gregg, supra, at 186).

Even putting aside questions of methodology, the studies cited by the Court offer scant support for a categorical prohibition of the death penalty for murderers under 18. At most, these studies conclude that, on average, or in most cases, persons under 18 are unable to take moral responsibility for their actions. Not one of the cited studies opines that all individuals under 18 are unable to appreciate the nature of their crimes.

Moreover, the cited studies describe only adolescents who engage in risky or antisocial behavior, as many young people do. Murder, however, is more than just risky or antisocial behavior. It is entirely consistent to believe that young people often act impetuously and lack judgment, but, at the same time, to believe that those who commit premeditated murder are — at least sometimes — just as culpable as adults. Christopher Simmons, who was only seven months shy of his 18th birthday when he murdered Shirley Crook, described to his friends beforehand —“[i]n chilling, callous terms, ” as the Court puts it, , ante , at 1 — the murder he planned to commit. He then broke into the home of an innocent woman, bound her with duct tape and electrical wire, and threw her off a bridge alive and conscious ... In their amici brief, the States of Alabama, Delaware, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Virginia offer additional examples of murders committed by individuals under 18 that involve truly monstrous acts. In Alabama, two 17-year-olds, one 16-year-old, and one 19-year-old picked up a female hitchhiker, threw bottles at her, and kicked and stomped her for approximately 30 minutes until she died. They then sexually assaulted her lifeless body and, when they were finished, threw her body off a cliff. They later returned to the crime scene to mutilate her corpse ... Other examples in the brief are equally shocking. Though these cases are assuredly the exception rather than the rule, the studies the Court cites in no way justify a constitutional imperative that prevents legislatures and juries from treating exceptional cases in an exceptional way — by determining that some murders are not just the acts of happy-go-lucky teenagers, but heinous crimes deserving of death...