Posts tagged…Evidence
Evidence and muddling through
Wed, Apr 15 2009The difference is that 'muddling through' is a strategy bound to evidence, evaluation, and adaptation. In policy as in business entreprise, grand visions and definitive models, like 'settled science', call for commitment and resist new enquiry or contrary fact.
"Prof Lindblom contrasted what he called the ‘root’ method of decision-making with the ‘branch’ approach. The root method required…
Read more…The return on Ruddnet
Tue, Apr 14 2009Let's have a look at the numbers.
Malcolm Turnbull is saying that an optimistic one-year rate of return on the proposed $43 billion of investment in the NBN is
[{(($70 * 12) annual subscription rate times 4.5 million subscribers) minus $260 million in annual costs} divided by the investment of $43 billion]
These are optimistic assumptions, but we can work with them.
"[O]ne thing is very, very…
Strategic outlook for Australia
Mon, Apr 13 2009Defense must have an evidence-basis, just like all other policies. Allowing alarming 'long-tail' scenarios, such as an aggressive Chinese military posture, to drive policy—if that is what the Defense planners have in mind—is like gambling, not strategic planning. We don't have the resources to 'over-insure against a remote…risk', any more than Robert Gates does.
Our defense outlook is benign by…
How to manage without targets
Wed, Apr 01 2009
Is anyone really surprised that Victoria's biggest public hospitals have been caught manipulating surgery waiting lists?
They're using a variety of devices such as holding surgery clients on 'not ready for treatment' lists to keep the reported surgery waiting times low. Because the Department of Health rewards them for keeping the surgery waiting-lists short. Markets are wonderful, aren't they?…
Where’s the evidence?
Mon, Mar 30 2009"[Special Minister of State] John Faulkner promised full disclosure. In fact, disclosure has been pitifully inadequate. Access to the modelling underpinning FuelWatch: refused. Access to the model used to evaluate the ETS: refused. Access to the cost-benefit studies underpinning the NBN: refused. Access to the Building Australia Fund's project appraisals: refused. Access to the Treasury's…
UK plan to raise price of alcohol
Sun, Mar 15 2009"The government's top medical adviser has drawn up plans for a minimum price for alcohol which would double the cost of some drinks in England" Extract from BBC NEWS
More dumb nannying. Expect to see it here soon. No prize for guessing the impact on bathtub-gin production. Touch of methyl with that?
The truth about employment trends
Fri, Mar 13 2009There's a level of hysteria to the reporting of the February employment data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Better to look yourself at the ABS report (it's quite readable) where it is clear that, although unemployment is trending up after a long decline, there is no need for alarm about current levels. Australia still enjoys historically low levels of unemployment, while employment…
Evidence-free stimulus
Sun, Mar 01 2009It was two years late to end the economic downturn, but the US Highway bill of 1956 brought worse in its wake:
"The bill, for all its expense, seemed a no-brainer, and legislators cast their votes without even a hint of a sense that they might not know what they were doing, or that sums of money big enough to do your country much good are also big enough to do it much harm."Extract from the Effect of a market ‘fix’... Mon, Feb 23 2009
Contrary to the spin, emissions-trading discourages conservation:"But the fact is once emissions trading comes in, every tonne of emissions saved by households simply frees up an extra permit that will allow big polluters to increase their emissions. This is because emissions trading relies on a fixed number of pollution permits being in circulation at any point in time. While most people…Case for due diligence in public policy
Sun, Feb 22 2009
This is a great, if horrifying, read. Bruce McCulloch and Ross McKitrick have compiled a case-book of unsupported claims in science and public-policy research that complements Gary Banks' recommendations on evidence-based public policy.
"Empirical research in academic journals is often cited as the basis for public policy decisions, in part because people think that the journals have checked the…Naive forecasts outperform IPCC
Tue, Feb 17 2009
In a straightforward but important paper, Green, Armstrong and Soon demonstrate that there is no reason to develop elaborate 'forecasts' of temperature. The forecasts of the CGM models, they predict, will be no better over policy-relevant periods of 20, 50 or even 100 years than a naive forecast that assumes future temperatures will be the same as today's.
"Global mean temperatures were found…Obama’s science advisor hates science
Tue, Feb 17 2009
Second update: I have to revise my assessment—made after reviewing his publication history—that Dr John Holdren is 'something of a crackpot' (now over the fold).
This transcript shows that Holdren is a publicist for fashionable apocalypses with little sense of proportion or respect for evidence that might get in the way of his hyperbole. He could reasonably ask, of course, to be excused for…
![Mean and maximum errors in a naive forecast of temperature 1850-2008 [Green et. al.]](http://www.inquit.com/images/uploads/NaiveForecast.gif)
