Month: June 2008

book review: Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington

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light, quick tour through a host of logical fallacies with lots of funny quotes and funny jokes

 

I was convinced to read this book when I stumbled upon it at an airport bookstore and saw that it had (a) quotes from The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, and (b) funny story jokes.  That was enough for me!

 

In this slim volume [just 3 CDs for the unabridged audiobook], the authors illustrate a broad array of logical fallacies (with fancy philosophical names like “denying the antecedent”*) using quotes from current politicians and lots of jokes (see Appendix A for an example).  Members of the George W. Bush administration are the primary targets, although Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and others don’t get left out.

 

The quotes are funny and the jokes are funny.  The book is light, quick, and enjoyable.

 

The philosophy provides a structural framework: the authors go through various fallacies one-by-one, giving a short description and then examples and jokes.  One could probably learn something about philosophy from this, but I admit that a few days after having finished the book, most of what has stayed with me are the quotes and the jokes.

 

I listened to the unabridged audioboook narrated by Johnny Heller [just 3 CDs].  He does a good job except when he is imitating Dick Cheney or George W. Bush: Then, not so much.

 

* That may not be the actual name.  I’m recalling here.

 

Appendix A: A joke from the book, retold by me

A man approaches another man on the street and says, “Jones, you’ve completely changed!  You used to be fat and now you’ve lost all the weight and are thin as a rail.  You used to wear nice suits and now you’re wearing these rags.  You even used to be short and now you’re tall.”  The other man responds, “My name isn’t Jones,” to which the first replies, “So you’ve even changed your name!”

reseña de libro: La Lectora, por Sergio Álvarez

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Para dos reseñas más amplias, puedes buscar acá y allá.

Mis pensamientos:

dos cuentos de acción: el cuento principal comienza mejor que acaba

 

Laura es estudiante universitaria en Colombia que sale a caminar un día cuando un hombre le secuestra y le obliga a … leer un libro sobre una prostituta (Karen) y un taxista quienes se enredan en unos asesinatos del narcotráfico, varios mafiosos, y un maletín lleno de dólares (¡claro!).  El [premise] es creativo e interesante y la acción no deja.

 

«La lectora» cuenta dos tramas paralelas: la primera es de Laura y sus captores, y la segunda es la trama del libro que Laura lee.  (Además hay dos narrativas menores: un monólogo contado a la prostituta de un ex–amante que parece ocurrir después de los eventos del libro y un diálogo breve entre dos comentadores.)

 

Las dos tramas invitan la atención: no son nada extremamente original (además de la estructura narrativa con sus tres o cuatro tramas – depende de cómo cuentas), pero tanto la trama de Laura y la de Karen se mueven rápidamente.

 

A pesar de eso, sentí algo decepcionado al acercarme al final.  La velocidad pareció más despacio a pesar de que la acción llega a su clímax.  No lamento haberlo leído, pero no voy a andar recomendándolo a otros.  (Si quieres una recomendación, lee La sombra del viento o El hombre, la hembra, y el hambre.)

 

Escuché el audiolibro completo, narrado por Adriana Sananes y publicado por Recorded Books Audiolibros [6 CDs].  Sananes narra bien.

 

Una nota sobre contenido: Este libro tiene algo de sexo y de violencia. 

deception … in social science!

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A recent paper by Martinelli & Parker – “Deception and Misreporting in a Social Program” – shows just how much people lie in self-report questionnaires (using data from Mexico).  The Freakonomics blog has a catchy write-up of it; we’d expect nothing less from those guys!  What’s interesting (and problematic) is that people both underreport and overreport.  (You expect people to underreport in a social program: if you look poorer, you might get more help.)  This, from the Freakonomics summary:

Below is a list of household items that were overreported — i.e., which applicants said they had but in fact did not (again, followed by percentages):

Toilet (39.07 percent)
Tap water (31.76)
Gas stove (28.56)
Concrete floor (25.41)
Refrigerator (12.05)

So 4 out of 10 applicants without a toilet said they had one.

This reminds me of a favorite story.  A good friend was with a survey enumerator who was gathering household data in rural Kenya.  The enumerator asked the household head how many kettles they had.  The head said, None!  We don’t have even one kettle!  And my friend asked, What about that kettle? [pointing to the one on the stove]  Oh, that one!  We borrowed it from the neighbor!

Nice.  This illustrious tradition takes us back to Margaret Meade and her (self-admitted) lying informants in Samoa in the 1920s.  Which makes me even more confident in most social science conclusions.  (I say most, because my research is clearly different.  Who would lie to me?  I’m the Magic Man.)

Abstract of the academic paper below Continue reading “deception … in social science!” →

see john worrall (2002) on why randomized clinical trials are not a gold standard

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The above footnote in Nancy Cartwright’s Hunting Causes and Using Them: Approaches in Philosophy and Economics* piqued my interest.  She refers to John Worrall’s paper “What evidence in evidence-based medicine?”**  Much of my work involves randomized trials of international development projects, so the argument interested me.

 

Ultimately, Worrall makes some very good points (yes, other evidence has validity as well) but I don’t find his critiques as convincing as he does.

 

Greatest hits below the fold…

Continue reading “see john worrall (2002) on why randomized clinical trials are not a gold standard” →

best line from the hulk

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Last night I took in some fine Tanzanian culture by going to see The Incredible Hulk at a local theater: I went to the Century Cinemax at Milimani. It was showing The Incredible Hulk, The Happening, Speed Racer, and Indiana Jones.  (The other theater I located was playing three Bollywood films.)  The audience was an ethnic mix as the picture below attests.

My favorite line from the Hulk: Bruce Banner, hiding out in Brazil, warns some antagonists in his poor Portuguese.

Don’t make me hungry. You won’t like me when I’m hungry. Wait, that’s not right.

Here’s the crowd, anxiously awaiting the film!

no better way to spend a birthday…

David Evans1 Comment

…than in the field!  Finally out of the office and off to some coastal villages.  More when I return, hopefully.

I have a pleasant tradition of birthdays around the African continent: last year I was in Abuja, Nigeria, the previous year in Kampala, Uganda, and at least once (2000) I was in Busia, Kenya.  And now, Dar es Salaam and outside, Tanzania.

Best wishes to you all, fine readers!

la cucaracha

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As I’ve been in meetings in Dar es Salaam and haven’t much to offer in the way of experiences, I’ll post this (bad) poem I wrote a couple of months ago in Freetown (Sierra Leone) after a skirmish with an unwelcome visitor to my bathroom tub.

Kakroch

copper warrior, iron armor
i slap at you with a mat, a slipper,
you demonstrate fear to pacify
and hide just inside the drain
waiting
 
robert e lee of the bathroom, the better general
destined to lose by forces beyond you
 
i respect but fear
bully but am powerless to vanquish
bra kakroch

50 Africa Reading Challenge Reviews!

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I’ve received ten more reviews for the Africa Reading Challenge.  Here they are:

  1. Wizard of the Crow, by Ngugi wa Thiong’o / Aburiria (Magic Man)
  2. A Bend in the River, by V.S. Naipaul (Rob Crilly)
  3. Coconut, by Kopano Matlwa / South Africa (La Lucuma)
  4. The Syringa Tree, by Pamela Gien / South Africa (La Lucuma)
  5. Before I Forget, by Andre Brink / South Africa (La Lucuma)
  6. The Uncertainty of Hope, by Valerie Tagwira / Zimbabwe (La Lucuma)
  7. The Translator, by Leila Aboulela / Sudan (Kate)
  8. Measuring Time, by Helon Habila / Nigeria (Amani)
  9. Waiting for an Angel, by Helon Habila / Nigeria (Ms Four)
  10. Olive Schreiner, by Ruth First and Ann Scott / South Africa (Zhiv)

how to write about africa

David Evans1 Comment

This is absolutely brilliant; it made my night.  Read Binyavanga Wainaina’s whole essay in Granta 92.  Here are a few passages I identified with.

Always use the word ‘Africa or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. Subtitles may include the words ‘Zanzibar’, ‘Masai’, ‘Zulu’, ‘Zambezi’, ‘Congo’, ‘Nile’, ‘Big’, ‘Sky, ‘Shadow’, ‘Drum’, ‘Sun’ or ‘Bygone’. Also useful are words such as ‘Guerrillas’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Primordial’ and ‘Tribal’.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don’t get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn’t care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African’s cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat.

mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can’t live without her. Africa is the only continent you can love — take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.

And so much more!  That’s why we recommend reading books by African writers.  Lots of recommendations here (plus a few offenders).

Hat tip to Blattman, the one blog I take time to read in the field (I’m in Tanzania, by the way).