Posts tagged…Evidence
Caloric restriction diet doesn’t work
Mon, Jul 13 2009Reports this week that a "nutritious but reduced-calorie diet blunts aging and significantly delays the onset of such age-related disorders as cancer…" are a perverse account of a study that showed no statistically significant effect of calorie restriction.
Sandy Szwarc shows that the supposed benefits appear only if the results are cooked by 'cherry picking' the trial's mortality records. She…
Read more…Manufacturing copyright ‘consensus’
Fri, Jun 26 2009
A fascinating analysis of a 'coalition of interest' at work—strategies often alleged but rarely detailed with such clarity.
Geist shows how three Canadian entertainment industry organizations have manufactured the appearance of widening concern over copyright piracy and growing evidence of its impact.
"It is not just that these reports all receive financial support from the same organizations and…
Plimer review: more from G Schmidt
Sat, May 23 2009Dr Gavin Schmidt has further criticisms of my review of Plimer (and of Plimer's book). I'm happy to reproduce them as emailed (presuming again that he has no objection). He has three main points concerning the Wegman 'cluster' analysis of the Mann authorial relationships; whether the Hockey Stick article was a 'fraud', and; whether Plimer's account of paleo-climate variability matters to current…
Plimer’s Heaven + Earth
Mon, May 18 2009
I have finally finished reading and skimming Ian Plimer's thick book Heaven + Earth. I found it admirable for being a comprehensive and intelligent account of relevant evidence on climate change. I did not like it so much for the writing, or for the organization of ideas in some places, but that's a quibble in light of the book's strengths.
Prof. Plimer's book looks like a text book (and weighs…
Evidence on obesity and HIV prevention
Mon, Apr 20 2009
Two notable evidence-based re-assessments of medical risk that deserve your attention—if only as antidotes to policy-based or dogma-based spin.
The first is a journal article by Katherine Flegal, a senior researcher at the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, who examines the evidence from a large study of the U.S. population on whether obesity is strongly linked to death from disease,…
Australia’s information deficit
Wed, Apr 15 2009
Australia is falling behind on access to data, thanks to apparently indifferent government at the Federal and State level—and it has nothing to do with proposed NBN. The United States, however, is moving ahead wth plans for the creation of a government-wide data access facility.
data.gov will be managed by Obama's 'Chief Information Officer', Vivek Kundra. Here is an example of what he has…
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…
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?