Some links about fisheries and the tragedy of the commons

(Just to complement our lunchtime discussion, I wanted to take a look at a few articles)

One solution to global overfishing found

One of the unexpected results of the study revealed that co-management benefits the wealthier people in the local community, although it is not detrimental to the poor. "In other words, the main benefits tend to trickle up to the wealthy, rather than trickle down to the poor," Dr Cinner added. "Nevertheless, most people felt that they benefitted." The team found that the institutional design of the fishery management arrangement was vital in determining whether or not people felt they benefited from co-management and were willing to work together to protect fish stocks by complying with the rules.

Ending the oceans' 'tragedy of the commons'

Fishers and scientists had been working together on the problem for some years, sharing knowledge and building trust. This led to the trialling of new co-operative models for fishery management, based on the latest that science can reveal about the state of the fish stock and the surrounding marine ecosystem. The result is a revolutionary national system of marine tenure that allocates user rights and responsibilities to collectives of fishers.

The tragedy of the commons in international fisheries: An empirical examination (Journal of Environmental Economics and Management Volume 57, Issue 3, May 2009, Pages 321–333)

The results of my ordered category estimation indicate that the probability of a fish stock being over- (under-)utilised rises (falls) with the number of countries sharing the stock. This negative effect of sharing is apparent when stocks are harvested from either large or small portions of nations’ waters, suggesting that access is all that is required to have an effect on stock status. In addition to the detrimental impact of international sharing, some economic and biological characteristics affect stock status, for example, higher valued and slower-growing stocks face further exploitation pressure.

The future of the sea: Fish food | The Economist

Trying to farm a fish just because there is an established market for it is a waste of time and money, argues Mr Greenberg. Farm animals were domesticated because they were suitable to begin with, and only got more so over time. Aquaculture will only work, environmentally and economically, with the right sort of fish. So far the search has turned up two good freshwater options—tilapia and the Vietnamese Pangasius or river cobbler. A marine version may still be out there. The prize is a form of protein that is far cheaper and more efficient to produce than meat.

Fisheries are Classic Example of the "Tragedy of the Commons" | PERC – The Property and Environment Research Center

Fisheries provide the classic example of the tragedy of the commons, which occurs when property rights are incomplete and access to a resource is open. The migratory nature of most fish species makes it difficult to establish and protect rights to fish in the sea, so the rule of capture prevails. The result is often overexploitation of the resource. Economists long have argued that the waste associated with this problem could be reduced if we "privatized the commons," that is, created individual private property rights for common-pool resources.

The tragedy of the commons in a fishery when relative performance matters (Ecological Economics Volume 81, September 2012, Pages 140–154)

This paper presents a simple model of a common access fishery where fishermen care about relative performance as well as absolute profits. Our model captures the idea that status (which depends on relative performance) in a community influences a person's well-being. In our main specification, relative performance depends on the absolute difference in after-tax profits. We show that overharvesting resulting from the tragedy of the commons problem is exacerbated by the desire for higher relative performance, leading to a smaller steady-state fish stock and smaller steady-state profit for all the fishermen. We also consider alternative specifications where status depends on the absolute difference in harvests or relative difference in profits, or where there is heterogeneity in the degree to which status matters, or allowing for the possibility of extinction. In all these specifications, status further reduces the steady-state fish stock. We examine taxes and an individual quota as policy alternatives and find support for using the direct quantity method to implement the socially efficient stock level.

Brazilian rage at NSA was the sincerest form of flattery

Many people applauded the strong words Brazilian president Dilma Roussef directed at the US, but we should not forget that actions speak louder. And when politics is involved, we can give up any hope of coherence.

Brazil orders Google to hand over Street View data (here you can find the news in portuguese)

Brazilian judges have given US Internet search giant Google until Saturday to turn over private data collected through its Street View program, press reports said Thursday.

Bill Would Allow Brazil to Decree Local Internet Data Storage

Brazil is pushing ahead with legislation that would force global Internet companies such as Google and Facebook to keep data on Brazilian users inside the country, despite opposition from the companies and in Congress. A draft bill made public on Tuesday would grant President Dilma Rousseff decree powers to order companies to set up data centers in Brazil to store personal information on their users as a way of curbing U.S. spying.

The Statesman: Rousseff wants Web servers to be housed in Brazil

President Dilma Rousseff met earlier this week with the Bill's sponsor, Deputy Alessandro Molon of the governing Workers Party, and asked that he insert language into the Bill that would force Internet companies to keep their servers on Brazilian soil if they want to do business in the country, the lawmaker's office said. That would force companies to follow Brazilian privacy laws for the information on those servers.

A Molon spokesman, who would not allow his name to be used because he wasn't yet authorised to speak on the matter, said the legislator and his team were ironing out the exact language to be included in the Bill. The president’s office confirmed that Ms Rousseff met with Molon and Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo Silva on Tuesday, but referred all questions about the meeting to the legislator and the minister. After hours calls to the ministry rang unanswered.

Brazil Wants National 'Antisnoop' Email

The Brazilian government asked Correios (the Brazilian mail agency) to develop a national email system. Scheduled to be launched in the second half of 2014, it will be aimed at commercial security against "snooping." The plan is to create a Brazilian alternative to the popular Hotmail, of Microsoft, and Google's Gmail. The agency had been working on an electronic mailing system for commercial purposes which would include a delivery certification when read by the addressee. (...)

"When I send you an email and I want nobody to snoop. Last year, the U.S. made 311 requests (to companies). They aren't working in the retail market," Brazil's Communication Minister Paulo Bernardo told Folha. "It's necessary to encourage a safer email service." After the cases of espionage by the American government became public, Brazil's Communication Ministry requested the project be expanded into a national service. The government believes that the current services have proved to be vulnerable since Edward Snowden disclosed secret National Security Agency (NSA) documents, showing that American companies are obliged to supply their users' data.

Report - Brazil Monitored French Spies

Brazil's intelligence agency monitored French spies it suspected of involvement in the 2003 explosion at a satellite launch base, the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper said Tuesday, though it was finally determined they played no role. (...) When the explosion occurred, killing 21 engineers and technicians, suspicion fell on the French. Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper said the agency known as ABIN carried out at least three operations against what it called a "network of spies" from France's foreign intelligence agency and its activities in the French-Brazilian Technical and Scientific Cooperation Center and in Brazil's National Space Research Institute. But it said no evidence of sabotage was found and the explosion finally was blamed on poor maintenance and mechanical failures.

Report - Brazil Spied on Embassy Personnel

The Brazilian government confirmed Monday that its intelligence service targeted U.S., Russian, Iranian and Iraqi diplomats and property during spy activities carried out about a decade ago in the capital Brasilia. (...) Brazil's Institutional Security Cabinet, which oversees the Abin intelligence service, said in an emailed statement that all the operations cited in the Folha report "follow Brazilian law for the protection of national interests." (...)

In Monday's statement, Brazil's Institutional Security Cabinet said it planned to prosecute anyone who may have leaked the documents to the Folha newspaper. (...) The Folha report detailed at least 10 intelligence operations carried out in Brasilia in 2003-04, just as former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was settling into office.

Other targets included diplomats from the Russian, Iranian and Iraqi embassies, who were followed and photographed as they came and went from embassies and official residences. In particular, Abin was interested in Russian officials involved in negotiating arms deals in Brazil, and followed Iran's ambassador to Cuba as he visited Brazil.

Brazil Says It Spied on U.S. and Others Inside Its Borders

Still, the report focuses new attention on Abin, an agency that has drawn scrutiny for being caught by surprise by the huge street protests that shook Brazilian cities in June and for quietly ousting an agent suspected of passing secrets to the Central Intelligence Agency. Active intelligence officials have also publicly criticized the agency for prioritizing surveillance of Brazilian social movements. (...) Brazilian intelligence officials insisted in their statement that Abin’s operations were intended to defend “national sovereignty.” Referring to the revelations in the newspaper report, they also said that the leaking of classified material was illegal and that those responsible for doing so would be held accountable under Brazilian law.

Abin espionou jornalistas durante governo Lula (in portuguese only. Iit describes how the Brazilian inteligence agency has been purportedly used to spy journalists and media companies since 2004. This other commentary raises the possibility of the spying in Brasil being much more widespread, waiting for another Snowden to uncover it):

Um documento da Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (Abin), que descreve detalhes de uma queda de braço travada entre um agente e seus superiores durante o governo Lula, tem valor histórico inestimável. Esse documento, hoje arquivado, é a evidência oficial mais forte até aqui de algo que agentes confidenciavam a jornalistas, mas não podiam provar: o governo Lula espionou a imprensa. O texto revela que houve uma “Operação Mídia”, ação clandestina de espionagem de jornalistas e donos de empresas jornalísticas. VEJA teve acesso ao documento de seis páginas no qual o tenente-coronel André Soares revela a existência da operação ilegal.

So, to "counter" international spying what Ms. Roussef and her government propose is to force internet companies to store data in Brazil (it wouldn't prevent said data from being also under NSA's reach, in the US) and to create a governent e-mail system (we know our data would be safe with them, right?). To me it looks like they are just seizing the moment to implement their own surveilance under the guise of "protection against international interests", their favorite enemy. The Brazilian government  has indeed a very poor relation with individual freedoms, being one of the worst offenders against google for instance (see below, or twitter info) and having a strong tendency to prohibit whatever might be considered offensive -- which encourages people to be offended very easily.

Some more links below.

Battle Over Biographies Rages in Brazil

Now, Veloso is taking a shellacking from the press and his fan base alike, who say he's endorsing censorship by leading the defense of a wide-ranging law that allows Brazilians to block or pull from the shelves any biographical work about them that was created without their consent.

With Brazil's publishers mobilizing to repeal the restrictions, Veloso, romantic crooner Robert Carlos and other singers who became famous under the dictatorship have banded together to defend the 2003 law, which empowers Brazilians to quash works they consider attacks on their "good name or respectability."

That means objections by a biography's subject are enough to get the books removed or even keep them from reaching stores, with many publishers not printing a book if it's not explicitly endorsed by a subject. The law also applies to films and other media, though the debate and legal actions have focused on books. Critics say it is possibly the most extreme law regulating privacy and intellectual property among democratic nations.

Why the NSA Watches Brazil

Not coincidentally some of the world's least free countries are President Rousseff's most important foreign-policy partners. In a September Miami Herald column titled "Why We Spy on Brazil," Cuban-born writer Carlos Alberto Montaner transcribed a conversation with an unnamed U.S. ambassador. The diplomat explained: "The friends of [Lula], of Dilma Rousseff and the Workers Party are the enemies of the United States: Chavist Venezuela, first with (Hugo) Chávez and now with (Nicolás) Maduro; Raúl Castro's Cuba; Iran; Evo Morales' Bolivia; Libya at the time of Gadhafi; Bashar Assad's Syria." He also noted that "in almost all conflicts, the Brazilian government agrees with the political lines of Russia and China." The Brazilian relationship with Cuba is especially troubling. Instead of showing solidarity with Cuba's victims of oppression, the diplomat noted, "former president Lula da Silva often takes investors to the island to fortify the Castros' dictatorship. The money invested by the Brazilians in the development of the superport of Mariel, near Havana, is estimated to be $1 billion."

Press Freedom in Brazil: Sound the Alarm

The recent increase in acts of censorship of and violence against journalists in Brazil underscores a disturbing trend of government apathy. While Brazilian journalists are being threatened, beaten, and even killed, Brazil’s leaders offer their condolences but do little to rectify the problem, sometimes even contributing to it. In more than 70 percent of the murders of journalists in Brazil in the past 20 years, the killer walked away without a jail sentence.[23] This troubling level of impunity could lead to self-censorship by frightened reporters, and demonstrates just how little has been done to protect journalists. Brazil’s press is still relatively free, especially compared to some of its neighbors, but Brazilian supporters of press freedom should definitely begin sounding the alarm.

Google transparency report about Brazil:

Why Rio’s ‘Favelas’ Disappeared On Google Maps

In the run-up to the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games, Brazilian tourist boards and Rio’s city hall have been keen to maintain a squeaky-clean image not only in the real world but the digital one as well. So much so, that they asked Google to remove the word “favela” from its city maps. The term itself means slum or shantytown in Portuguese. Hundreds were previously identified as such on maps, but are now labeled as “morros” or hills. Officials believe the change will reduce the prominence given to the favela communities, which they said were given greater importance on maps than conventional neighborhoods like Humaita and Cosme Velho.

Brazil | Freedom House

In late 2012 and early 2013, a spate of legal cases concerning intermediary liability drew worldwide attention to Brazil’s internet policies. In September 2012, a Brazilian electoral court issued arrest warrants for two senior Google Brazil executives, Edmundo Luiz Pinto Balthazar and Fabio Jose Silva Coelho, for failure to remove content prohibited under electoral law. The executives were accused of violating a vague provision that bans campaign material which “offend[s] the dignity or decorum” of a candidate.

(Crossposted from my other blog, in portuguese -- by mistake, actually ;)

When companies do it, shame on them. When politicians do it, that's the future.

The Next Frontier of Consumer Exploitation By Corporations

"So what if Google knows where I'm planning my next vacation and suggests hotels for me? Sure, it's creepy, but is there really any harm in companies tracking my info to target ads to me? Professor Ryan Calo (UW law) is out with a new paper that demonstrates the real harm behind these practices, making consumers vulnerable to making decisions that go against their self-interest (ie: predatory lending, price inflation, etc). The Atlantic has an article today that outlines the new research."

Obama, Romney Data Scientists Strike Out On Their Own

"The self-described nerds of President Obama's presidential campaign last year are back using big data analytics, this time to help Newark Mayor Cory Booker achieve a landside primary win Tuesday in the New Jersey Democratic primary for a vacant U.S. Senate seat. The data scientists from Obama and Romney campaigns recently formed their own consulting businesses within months of each other. The chief data scientist for Romney's campaign, Alex Lundry, co-founded Deep Root Analytics. He gives credit to the Obama campaign's data effort in 2012. But since last year's election, "what you are seeing is a flurry of activity on the right to make sure that we not only catch them, but surpass them," Lundry said. Meanwhile, the co-founder of BlueLabs, Chris Wegrzyn, a senior member of Obama's 2012 campaign analytics department, says last year was turning point for big data analytics in elections. "Usually the nerds in the back room don't warrant a great deal of attention, especially in politics," said Wegrzyn, "but the world is changing.""

Update 2014.03.01: I just realized that the same point (about neopopulism) has been made by Henry Kissinger at his talk at Google.

Well-meaning lobbying is eventually supplanted by plain old lobbying

I was just gonna include a link to a commentary on Nature News, but something at the end of the article called my attention. From "Bees, lies and evidence-based policy"(Lynn Dicks at Nature News & Comment):

Yet I also see that lies and exaggeration on both sides are a necessary part of the democratic process to trigger rapid policy change. It is simply impossible to interest millions of members of the public, or the farming press, with carefully reasoned explanations. And politicians respond to public opinion much more readily than they respond to science.

Which is an important point. In fact, one of the most convincing commentaries for me was based on the very understanding that scientists and all their uncertainties are always in disadvantage when compared to the unshakable belief of other policy actors. But I'm at loss about the need to dumb down the arguments in order to convince politicians. And I must disagree strongly with her conclusion, from the same Comment:

It is important to get as near to the decision-makers as possible, providing clear and well-referenced information with an independent voice. (...)
When I saw the exaggerated pollinator-decline claim attributed to me in The Guardian I did not seek to correct it, because the correct information, with references, will go into a forthcoming parliamentary-committee report.

It is shortsighted or worst to think that we can inform policy-makers without trying to correct the public understanding. Our dismaying state of political affairs is in large part consequence of this disconnect between the State as envisioned and as implemented -- governments don't see themselves as having to respond to those they represent, except in a shallow, populistic way. Her attitude might earn her a small immediate victory, but at a high cost in the long term. As scientists, the adoption of our favored solutions by politicians should not serve as a consolation for the maintenance of ignorance and misinformation. A likely outcome is to have an unpopular policy implemented, just waiting to be reverted back or replaced by another opaque and unaccountable one.

Bottom-up advocacy by informed citizens is always a better option than lobbying. If her proposed solution of cozy relations with policy-makers while neglecting the public is successful, we can expect the appearance of a lot of nonsense "correct information reports". It's "cheaper" to fake authority than to educate and convince the general public. In other words, politicians cannot distinguish between good and bad lobbyists. And this, in the end, will lead to a dillution of scientific education and to a politicization of scientists.

Accepting that scientists must work twice as hard to have half the impact is still better than the alternatives. Education is the only way to go (and by the way, science reporting falls short of that, too).

Fannie and Freddie, who could have predicted?

Watching this video and thinking about the dangers of government picking winners and protegees. Some links below (Interesting how we can use the term "deregulation" on government-sponsored, crony capitalist entities)

link para o vídeo no Youtube

The Velvet Fist of Fannie Mae - New York Times -- April 20, 1997

Fannie Mae's fearsome reputation has created the impression in Washington that Mr. Johnson can squelch any meaningful debate over the company's relationship with its Government benefactor. That debate encompasses a regulatory review of whether Fannie Mae should put aside more capital to protect taxpayers against the risk that a ruinous economic spell or mismanagement could lead to a Federal bailout.

Homeowners Record Is Set in Third Quarter - New York Times -- November 01, 1997

In 1995, seeking to save his department from elimination by the newly elected Republican-led Congress, Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros adopted a ''national homeownership strategy'' that eased requirements to qualify for Federal Housing Administration-insured loans and reduced closing costs by as much as $1,200 on those loans for first-time buyers.

A Homecoming At Fannie Mae; Franklin Raines Takes Charge Of a Most Political Company - New York Times -- May 17, 1998

Because much of its success can be tied to financial advantages stemming from its roots as a Government agency, Fannie Mae has a huge interest in holding off political attacks on its franchise. Indeed, the company plays hardball politics with tremendous sophistication to defend its interests.

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending - New York Times -- September 30, 1999

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits. In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. (...) By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Big-City Paydays At 'Farmer Mac' - New York Times -- April 28, 2002

Farmer Mac is the country cousin of two much better-known government-sponsored entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Always far bigger, and growing by the day, they have spawned a cottage industry of critics who deride them as costly examples of government do-goodism that could backfire on taxpayers if their implied government guarantees were ever tested. (...)

Wall Street analysts pitch the stock as a ''toddler'' Fannie or Freddie, invoking two names that have made fortunes for investors. Farmer Mac does enjoy many of the same perks. It is exempt from most state and local taxes. Most of all, it pays just over half a percentage point more than the United States Treasury when it borrows. (...)

In 2000, after Mr. Baker proposed overhauling government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac swamped Congress with donations. He soon lost every one of his co-sponsors, according to an aide, and could not get legislation out of his subcommittee. Farmer Mac's spending on political gifts and lobbyists pales next to that of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

2 Big Mortgage Agencies Pressed To Buy More Low-Income Loans - New York Times -- May 12, 2004

The companies have not publicly opposed the changes, which will take effect on July 2 unless the administration rescinds them. But they are quietly worried that they will be unable to meet the new goals unless they refuse to buy some loans from people making more than the median income, in effect slowing their growth. (...)

While the companies are privately owned, they have a special relationship with the government, including a line of credit with the Treasury Department. As a result, investors believe that the government would never allow the companies to fail, and so Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can borrow at lower interest rates than other financial institutions.

The New York Times > Business > Fannie Mae Crisis Raises Concerns on Leadership -- September 29, 2004

Before the the problems surfaced at Fannie Mae, both men were considered to be high on the short lists for top administration jobs should Senator John Kerry prevail in the November presidential election.

A Coming Nightmare of Homeownership? - NYTimes.com -- October 3, 2004

Since regulators disclosed evidence of widespread accounting improprieties at the company, which carries almost $1 trillion in mortgages on its books, the response from the financial markets has been surprisingly muted. (...)

So far, Fannie Mae's rarefied status as a government-sponsored enterprise has certainly helped holders of its debt stay calm. (...) Thanks in large part to Fannie Mae's torrid growth, the market for mortgage securities now surpasses that for Treasury securities.

Chief Is Ousted At Fannie Mae Under Pressure - NYTimes.com -- December 22, 2004

In recent years, some industry and government critics, including Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, have sought to have Fannie Mae's privileges removed. They say the company could pose a significant risk to taxpayers if it became troubled. And the White House, concerned about any political fallout if Fannie were to stumble, has declined to make 5 appointments to the 18-member board.(...)

In the process, it has built a steadily profitable business for shareholders and enriched its top executives. Together with a smaller brother company, Freddie Mac, it holds or guarantees more than $7 trillion in mortgages.

Report on Fannie Mae Cites Manipulation to Secure Bonuses - New York Times -- February 23, 2006

Investigators have uncovered new evidence that senior executives of Fannie Mae, the nation's largest buyer of home mortgages, manipulated its accounting in the 1990's to meet earnings projections so that top executives could receive more than $25 million in bonuses.

When 'anything goes' in linguistics

At the Language Log there's a nice list of posts about the descriptive/prescriptive divide in linguistics, and I will put here excerpts of a few of these articles.
 
English grammar: not for debate:

A case from one of Engand's greatest ever poets, dated 1590, rather puts a damper on the theory that this is a matter of recent sloppiness, does it not? Probably not. I confess I cannot figure out what could convince this man. (...) His view may really be just that he personally dislikes encountering the verb warn without a noun phrase complement. He may be calling it ungrammatical merely to make his personal peeve sound more like an objective opinion.

Logical prescriptivism:

In the case of word formation and its connections to sound and sense, logic is an especially unreliable guide. And of course the English writing system is a complex pattern of overlapping historical layers with sporadic intrusions of reform, for which the appropriate mode of analysis is more geological than logical. (...) This is a sadly undemocratic fact, since it means that no reliable short-cut, in the form of a short list of simple rules, is available to those trying to master a standard language. There's no real alternative to doing a lot of reading and listening.

Usage advice:

There have been a couple of relevant posts over the years, but what this reader really needed was a reminder to check his copy of the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (or the concise edition of the same work). (...) If you don't already own it, you should go buy this book. And just as important, when a question of English usage comes up, it's one of the first places that  you should look for an evidence-based opinion.

The origin and progress of linguistic norms:

There are apparently a few people out there who object to the whole notion of a standard written language, or believe that it's wrong to urge people to learn one; but none of these people post on this site, as far as I know. (Some of our commenters may feel this way, I'm not sure.) At the other end of the spectrum, there are apparently some people who believe that all linguistic varieties that deviate from (someone's idea of) a standard should be ruthlessly suppressed. But most purveyors of usage advice, of whatever species, simply believe that the formal written language should be learned and used in certain contexts;

Contractual Grammar:

There's a presupposition that leaving people to work such things out for themselves is intolerable, either morally or practically, so that the principles must be codified and enforced by some authority.

The alternative — which most modern linguists prefer — is not to treat language as unsystematic or unconstrained, but rather to view it preferentially as a natural rather than an artificial phenomenon, what Hayek called a "grown" or "endogenous" or "spontaneous" order, rather than a "made" or "exogenous" or "artificial" order. (...) In this respect, descriptive linguists are libertarians, or perhaps classical liberals, while prescriptivists are authoritarian rationalists.

Progressive prescriptivism?:

In modern times, it's common for would-be linguistic authorities to pretend that they're holding the line against degenerative change, even when they get the history backwards. But John Dryden initiated the condemnation of sentence-final prepositions on the grounds "that the language, wit, and conversation of our age, are improved and refined above the last". Perhaps this style of progressive prescriptivism influenced some later grammarians to see the be/have change as a step forward into a better future, rather than a symptom of how far kids these days have fallen.

My reading list usually goes to my other, minimalist blog, but this discussion is relevant since in Brazil this is a hot topic: there is a sanctioned textbook defending grammatical errors and saying that otherwise would be prejudice, and neither the author nor the Ministry are retracting. It's one of the Brazilian versions of the "teach the controversy", forgetting that schools are for many the only place where they'll have contact with the language as a subject of inquiry, and are their best opportunity of improving their lives.

ScienceMag New Focus - Science in Brazil

There are three articles in this week's Science magazine penned by Antonio Regalado, talking about current challenges for Brazilian research. This is the same issue where the famous arsenic bacteria were announced. The abstracts follow below.

Brazilian Science: Riding a Gusher (Vol. 330 no. 6009 pp. 1306-1312 DOI: 10.1126/science.330.6009.1306):

Over the past 8 years, Latin America's largest nation has begun to boom. Its economy is growing fast, and it has become a player in world affairs, reveling in an unprecedented bout of self-confidence. It will host the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics 2 years later. The good times are lifting science, too. Between 1997 and 2007 the number of Brazilian papers in indexed, peer-reviewed journals more than doubled to 19,000 a year. Brazil now ranks 13th in publications, according to Thomson Reuters, having surpassed the Netherlands, Israel, and Switzerland. Brazil's universities awarded twice as many Ph.D.s this year as they did in 2001, and thousands of new academic jobs have opened up on 134 new federal campuses. It's a reversal of fortune for a nation that during the 1990s was beset by dire economic problems. But Brazil is not formidable yet; its scientific output trails its ambitions. The country produces few high-impact papers and only a trickle of patents. Its primary and secondary public education system is in shambles, leaving the nation of 195 million chronically short of technical workers.

Talented But Underfunded: Brazil's Future Scientists (Vol. 330 no. 6009 p. 1311 DOI: 10.1126/science.330.6009.1311):

Twenty-five-year-old Reinaldo Sousa dos Santos is a Ph.D. candidate in biochemistry at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and a resident of Parque União, a crowded favela where residents live under the thumb of a drug gang. Dos Santos owes his journey from shantytown to lab bench to his mentor, Leopoldo de Meis, a 72-year-old professor of biochemistry at UFRJ. In 1985, de Meis began offering a hands-on science course for low-income adolescents called Young Talents. Dos Santos enrolled when he was 14, a year after his father died, leaving him orphaned. Brazil must write thousands more stories like Dos Santos's if it is to overcome deep social divisions and achieve its dream of becoming a major player in scientific research. Many say the task must begin with improving public schools, where poorly paid teachers offer rote lessons.

Tapping a Deep, 'Pre-Salt' Bounty (Vol. 330 no. 6009 pp. 1308-1309 DOI: 10.1126/science.330.6009.1308):

Three years ago, a drill bit struck immense oil deposits deep off the coast of Brazil. Petrobras, the national oil company, tapped undersea fields now estimated to hold about 80 billion barrels of oil and natural gas—about three times the size of the reservoir under Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. It brought the promise of new wealth and expectations that Brazil will climb to the world's top rung of achievement in science and technology. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva once termed the oil strike "a second independence for Brazil" and promised to use the oil revenue for education and public health. But Brazil's R&D sector has been first to benefit.

Two quick notes about science funding in Spain and EU

Austerity measures sap Spanish science - Nature News, 7 October:

On Tuesday, science minister Cristina Garmendia defended her ministry's budget in a press conference, suggesting that it was similar to last year. But overall government expenditure in research and development (R&D) is set to drop by 8.37% next year compared with the 2010 budget, according to an analysis released on Monday by the Confederation of Spanish Scientific Societies (COSCE).

Europe Aims to Boost Economy in New Innovation Plan - ScienceInsider, 7 October:

Europe has a new plan aiming to ensure that science will get the continent's economy humming again. The Innovation Union, adopted yesterday by the European Commission, is a new attack on one of Europe's intractable problems: research is plentiful and of relatively high quality, but it doesn't as often as desired result in products and services that create jobs and wealth for the 27 member states of the European Union.

The Innovation Union document is billed as the "flagship" of the Europe 2020 plan for economic growth. High in aspirations, the plan proposes a wide range of measures—from bolstering funding for science and radically simplifying the European Unions's own funding procedures to removing barriers to international collaboration.

If that sounds familiar, that's because many of the proposals have been official policy for years; they have just been hard to implement. The so-called European Research Area (ERA), for instance, aims to create a borderless market for researchers. But most grants still aren't portable, and moving to a university 30 kilometers away that happens to be in another country can put a major dent in a scientist's retirement plan as pensions often can't be transferred. (The new strategy says ERA should be completed by 2014.)

Three articles at the NYT about the Brazilian scandalous elections

With comments in bold added by me.

Brazil's Rousseff Takes Heat In Televised Debate (September 12, 2010):

Early during a two hour debate on Rede TV with three other candidates, Rousseff was repeatedly on the defensive, forced to defend her party against allegations of corruption and dirty tricks politics, as well as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's close ties to Iran. "Their democracy is one that uses the state apparatus to protect their comrades and persecute their adversaries," Serra said. (...)

Rousseff, a career civil servant, has benefited enormously from the support of Lula, who has become Brazil's most popular president thanks to his folksy charm and a booming economy. Lacking that charisma and common people's touch, Rousseff stood her ground and stumbled less than she did during the first nationally televised debate more than a month ago. [which was still terrible, like coming from an essay mill]

But she left unanswered growing questions in a fresh graft scandal during her tenure as Lula's chief of staff. Leading news magazine Veja at the weekend accused Rousseff's former aide and current chief of staff, Erenice Guerra, of involvement in a kickback scheme for public works contracts run by her son's consultancy. [and major newspapers found other connections between members of the Guerra family and illegalities after the accusations from the magazine]

Scandals Not Slowing Brazil Front Runner (September 14, 2010):

Analysts say the immense popularity of her political mentor, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has swamped any concerns over revelations that members of Rousseff's party illegally accessed tax records of Serra's daughter and allegations one of her former top aides was involved in a kickback scheme.

Late Tuesday, the government took strong measures to stamp out both scandals -- saying tax records would be further secured and that an investigation into the corruption allegations was opened. [tax records from politicians only, regular people will continue to have their tax information devastated - and the investigation is a limited one, just to find a fall guy] (...)

In a televised debate on Sunday, he dropped his usual civil tone and aggressively questioned Rousseff about revelations that Workers Party members last year accessed the tax records of Serra's daughter and other members of his party. Rousseff's backers argue it is common to leak tax records in Brazil and said there were no political motivations because the violations took place long before campaigning began. [she is campaigning  unofficially  since 2008  at least, and the dismissal of illegal access as common practice does not work in her favor as a chief of staff]

Scandals Dominate Brazil Campaign as Vote Nears (September 14, 2010):

The so-called tax scandal has been rumbling on for weeks as evidence of new violations emerge in the media but has yet to resonate with voters. (...) A key reason why the mudslinging over tax records is not having an impact on polls may be that only about 15 percent of Brazilians pay income tax and therefore have little understanding of the scandal, he said. [most don't even know what "breach of secrecy" means]

Residents in the interior of northeastern Pernambuco state were mostly clueless about the issue when questioned by a reporter from O Globo newspaper, as quoted in a story on Sunday. "I don't know what a tax privacy code is, but I'm following it on TV," said Edmilson Felix da Silva, a 50-year-old plowman. "For me, this is just being done to hurt Dilma." (...)

A similar scandal involving Workers' Party officials trying to buy information about the opposition was seen as one factor preventing Lula from winning in the first round in the 2006 election.

Oh, and did I mention that the elections in Brazil are completely electronic, using the infamous Diebold machines?

I still don't get this framing...

Skeptics discount science by casting doubts on scientist expertise (@ ars technica):

According to the new study, this isn't necessarily the fault of the scientists, though. The authors favor a model, called the cultural cognition of risk, which "refers to the tendency of individuals to form risk perceptions that are congenial to their values." This wouldn't apply directly to evolution, but would to climate change: if your cultural values make you less likely to accept the policy implications of our current scientific understanding, then you'll be less likely to accept the science.

But, as the authors note, opponents of a scientific consensus often try to claim to be opposing it on scientific, rather than cultural grounds. "Public debates rarely feature open resistance to science," they note, "the parties to such disputes are much more likely to advance diametrically opposed claims about what the scientific evidence really shows."

But even if we have evidence for need of action, this is not evidence for need of government action. Even this evidence I doubt is a scientific one (is it a "scientific" consensus or a policy one?), despite very important. The "policy implications of our current scientific understanding" can be debatable and should not be confounded with the scientific understanding itself. Yes, I agree with the authors that ideological bias can affect our acceptance of the science - but even if I accept the science it is valid to question the policies.

As usual, I must mention that I don't question the scientific evidence, but I really don't like one particular policy being conflated with the science. As far as I know, science alone cannot tells us what we ought to do. And that's what democracy is here for.

credit: René Maltête

(via @brasilciencia)

The wrong tool for solving political disputes

Excerpts of Daniel Sarewitz's column at Nature News:

Of course, during the regime of Republican president George W. Bush, opposition Democrats got surprisingly good political mileage from accusations that science and scientists were routinely suppressed, flouted or abused on issues ranging from stem cells to air pollution. But the political resonance of this subject has mostly died down during the Obama administration. Could this be because less than 10% of US scientists are Republicans? In any case, the fact is that Obama, like Bush before him, is not sacrificing his political agenda on the altar of science. (...)

The decade-long brouhaha over the politicization of science in the United States reflects an incorrigible cultural delusion: that if science were left alone to speak truth to power, it would exercise a purifying magic on the miasma of politics. The delusion serves politicians, who are free to hand over difficult choices to scientists, as they did with Yucca Mountain — and later with climate change. It also serves scientists, who get to maintain their position of high cultural authority and do a lot of research in the process.

Intellectual Property around the tubes

Helpless Mainstreamers Grappling with Intellectual Property (Stephan Kinsella):

A recent CNET video on “Intellectual property rights vs. journalism” shows a Stanford University’s Innovation Journalism conference on June 7, with a panel discussion by various mainstreamers discussing the quesion “Is intellectual property protection a threat to journalism?” The lack of libertarian principle and sound economics has these commentators floundering as they discuss various cases where IP infringes free speech and freedom of the press. Lacking any principled approach they retreat to legal positivism, talking about how the Constitution protects both freedom of the press and speech as well as IP rights, so some “balance” must be made. Without Austrian economics and libertarian principle, even well-intentioned people, who sense that something is wrong, are helpless before the state’s propaganda and onslaught of legal positivism.

Copyright as a Moral Hazard (Jeffrey Tucker):

You can tell that intellectual property rights are not real property rights just from this very interesting item on BoingBoing, a report on round one of the Google vs. Viacom case. With real property rights, people do not usually go around actively violating their own rights in order to collect from innocent defendants. I’m not even sure I understand how that would work in a case of real property rights. But in this Viacom case:

Filings in the case reveal that Viacom paid dozens of marketing companies to clandestinely upload its videos to YouTube (sometimes “roughing them up” to make them look like pirate-chic leaks). Viacom uploaded so much of its content to YouTube that it actually lost track of which videos were “really” pirated, and which ones it had put there, and sent legal threats to Google over videos it had placed itself.

Why would Viacom have done that if the company really believed that these postings were hurting its business? Perhaps they believed they would help the business: promoting its product and creating an opportunity for legal blackmail.

Was Napster Right?: Is this what they mean by analog hole? (David K. Levine):

Having trouble with DRM on your ebooks? Try this site. The problem with DRM is it encourages piracy. It can always be removed - but it can be a hassle. So: if you are going to distribute it widely it is worth the effort - and if you take the trouble to do it yourself you are so pissed off that you feel a strong temptation to share it. Irritating your customers hasn't proven a winning business model in the past.

Ideas vs. Execution Shows Why Competition Is A Good Thing (Mike Masnick):

Similarly, just because there are so many companies in a market, it doesn't mean any of them are really executing well (...) In fact, this succinctly reiterates a whole bunch of the points that we've discussed repeatedly over time. First, there's a big difference between ideas and execution. Just because others are in the market (and even well established), it doesn't mean you can't do a better job. It also highlights the difference between invention and innovation, where invention is just coming up with something new, but innovation is really bringing it to market successfully. Facebook and Google are both great examples of innovative companies who didn't really "invent" their initial markets.

Anything goes on the internet

The "Special report: Living in denial" issue of the New Scientist (12 May 2010) has some interesting articles. Two excerpts below.

When a sceptic isn't a sceptic (by Michael Shermer):

A climate sceptic, for example, examines specific claims one by one, carefully considers the evidence for each, and is willing to follow the facts wherever they lead. A climate denier has a position staked out in advance, and sorts through the data employing "confirmation bias" - the tendency to look for and find confirmatory evidence for pre-existing beliefs and ignore or dismiss the rest.
(...)
It has, for example, become fashionable in some circles for anyone who dares to challenge the climate science "consensus" to be tarred as a denier and heaved into a vat of feathers. Do you believe in global warming? Answer with anything but an unequivocal yes and you risk being written off as a climate denier, in the same bag as Holocaust and evolution naysayers. (...) When I say "I believe in evolution" or "I believe in the big bang", this is something different from when I say, "I believe in a flat tax" or "I believe in liberal democracy".
(...)
What sometimes happens is that people confuse these two types of questions - scientific and ideological. Sometimes the confusion is deliberate. Denial is one outcome. Thus, one practical way to distinguish between a sceptic and a denier is the extent to which they are willing to update their positions in response to new information.

Questioning science isn't blasphemy (Michael Fitzpatrick):

As philosopher Edward Skidelsky of the University of Exeter, UK, has argued, crying denialism is a form of ad hominem argument: "the aim is not so much to refute your opponent as to discredit his motives". The expanding deployment of the concept, he argues, threatens to reverse one of the great achievements of the Enlightenment - "the liberation of historical and scientific inquiry from dogma". Don't get me wrong: the popular appeal of pseudoscience is undoubtedly a problem. But name-calling is neither a legitimate nor an effective response.
(...)
Such attempts to combat pseudoscience by branding it a secular form of blasphemy are illiberal and intolerant. They are also ineffective, tending not only to reinforce cynicism about science but also to promote a distrust for scientific and medical authority that provides a rallying point for pseudoscience.

I also liked Jim Giles's article about how easy it is to spread a lie, and how hard to fix it nowadays.

Just out of reach

first page of pdf report

There is a special report at Financial Times about Brazilian Infrastructure, and the future looks dimmer than we would like to think of. (HT @brasilciencia, AKA Daniel Ferrante)

Going green is not enough. Specially if you're running for president

There is a very positive article on The Economist about the Brazilian presidential candidate Marina Silva, a strong environmentalist. But one of her weak points is her permissive view towards religious issues, as described in the comment I dropped there:

You also forgot to mention her proximity with the creationist movement: when asked about it, she used the "teach the controversy" strategy, saying that the children should be free to decide. She also breached the religion-state separation a couple of times when lecturing at religious events as a minister.

I understand she fits well with the liberal saviour character that western academics enjoy, but they (and the media outlets) should not forget that she also represents a good share of the retrogressive religious wackos. I don't have quarrels with her being an outspoken person of faith, but she should also be outspoken about what is her stance on these (religious) issues, in such a way that voters and political pundits can know what to expect --besides going green, whatever that means. (IOW, she must show if she can control her clergy or if she is the one below the strings).

I am also suspicious about her connections with the Natura cosmetic firm's president (since we don't know if he's just a successful entrepreneur or he wants a legal platform to sell his snake-oil) and with a lame self-help writer (a medical version of Deepak Chopra).

(PS: I apologize but almost all the links are in portuguese)

El cocalero

Evo Morales and the Populist Paradox - Project Syndicate:

According to his opponents, Morales is reproducing the tradition of caudillismo, concentrating power in his hands and turning government institutions into mere formalities. But his immense popularity over the past five years suggests that most Bolivians do not seem very worried in putting their country's democracy at risk. (...)

Thus, despite official speeches intended to support state intervention, Morales's government benefits mainly from the workings of the market. The failure of state plans and projects is overlooked because of the small but expanding internal market, which is invigorated by de facto economic liberalism involving the growth of smuggling and drug traffic. These illicit activities are not intended, but they increase the income of peasants, transporters, builders, and businessmen.

This is the paradox of twenty-first-century socialism: economic liberalism is the foundation for a policy that aspires to replace it. This might also be its greatest limitation as a political project.

And then I read the news (here in portuguese and here in spanish) that Evo Morales affirmed that human baldness - specially among europeans - and homosexuality are caused by the excess of feminine hormones given to farm chicken (calling them "transgenic"), and that dutch potatoes have fish hormones, which must be peeled to remove the excess of "poison"; he furthermore criticized Coca-Cola, western medicines and defended the use of traditional pottery. At least for the Coca-Cola quarrel, we know the reason. He wants the real thing:

A certain US soft drinks giant may disagree, but Bolivia has come up with a fizzy beverage it says is the real thing: Coca Colla. The drink, made from the coca leaf and named after the indigenous Colla people from Bolivia's highlands, went on sale this week across the South American country.

It is black, sweet and comes in a bottle with a red label - but similarities to Coca-Cola end there. One is a symbol of US-led globalisation and corporate might; the other could be considered a socialist-tinged affront to western imperialism.

Or he is already having too much of it.

I won't blame it on racism when ignorance suffices

Japan, Inc.’s Communication Gap - Project Syndicate:

Indeed, although Toyota claims to be “global,” its board of directors is exclusively Japanese. Toyota Europe’s executives felt that making English the working language would contribute to improving trust, communications, and efficiency, and also to retaining high-quality staff. But this was not adopted.

If Toyota and other Japanese companies want to become truly global, their managers must learn to communicate effectively with all their foreign stakeholders. In this global age, the language of business is English. In a recent international test of English proficiency, Japan ranked 136th, well behind South Korea, at 89th, and even North Korea, at 111th. While journalists in South Korea used this survey to demand reforms to improve English instruction in their country’s schools, the same survey hardly received any coverage in Japan.

Maybe because this was hardly a surprise, and maybe because the author could hardly tell a big from a small coverage in Japan. The reforms are already in course in Japan. The Japanese society is investing a lot of effort in improving its general english knowledge. And the government (at least the previous ones) invested a lot of money on it, from international english-only research institutes - I think it appeared on Nature or Science in 2008, it was something like 8 billion US dollars per year just for these centers - to a special JSPS program of postdoctoral grants for native speakers of english only - in which they must make a commitment of teaching at japanese high schools.

Data sharing not so easy at NASA

NASA planet hunters may only be releasing limited data set:

Although the CRU researchers appear to have had an attitude towards data sharing that breached generally accepted scientific ethics, the process of actually sharing the data would have been anything but straightforward. The CRU had no procedures in place for data sharing, the data came from a variety of sources with no standardized data format, it was a mix of published and proprietary information, etc. In short, it's one thing to decide to share the data, another challenge entirely to actually do so.

You can contrast this with NASA, which has procedures in place for sharing data and a standard policy for publishing it. But, according to a report produced by Nature News, the agency may only be sharing a deliberately limited version of the data from its planet hunting probe, Kepler.

Sharing data is considered an essential part of science because it allows others to verify and build on a research group's work. In most circumstances, however, researchers are allowed to keep data confidential until publication. This enables them to receive credit for their work, and allows them to perform a rigorous analysis before turning work over to the wider field for consideration.

I can see two differences: 1) in the CRU affair they've failed to share the data after publication - including those necessary to replicate their results, while NASA (as far as I can tell from the article) is only withholding data that might be spurious signal and does not interfere with the other conclusions presented in the articles; 2) NASA scientists are not pushing any particular policy based on the confidential datasets, as it was claimed to be the case with CRU.

I personally don't like embargoes and other bureaucratic policies in research, but I understand that sometimes they are the only feasible solution. specially for large scale analyses. This article at Ars Technica gives us a good example. But we must also recognize that the (real and perceived) relevance of the work is also dependent on how transparent the data are.

A disclaimer, which unfortunately is necessary to avoid future misunderstandings: I have no deep knowledge of climate sciences and I wholeheartedly trust those who know it; I know (it's not only a belief) that the climate is changing, while I disagree with the framing of overconfidence of some engaged scientists. There are many, many reasons to worry about the way we deal with the environment, anthropogenic global warming in this sense is just a diversion. But I don't think that whatever the scientific conclusions are, they lead to an inexorable government-sponsored solution (this step wouldn't be science-based). I am allergic to these lazy (almost irresponsible) solutions.

God and Darwin in the Land of the Sun

For 59% of the Brazilians, humans are the result of millions of years of evolution, but guided by a supreme being, according to a Datafolha survey. On the other hand, 25% of the participants believe that the human being was created by god less than 10 thousand years ago and another 8% think that evolution takes place without god's intervention. The proportion of creationists was higher among lower income and less educated people. The dataset was composed of 4158 people older than 16 years old. I cannot provide more details now since 1) the full newspaper article is behind a paywall and 2) these surveys tend to be poorly designed, with ambiguous terms (e.g. in the free version of the article they mention the terms "Darwinists" and "creationists" along with the descriptions...) so that I should look at the details before commenting.

My impression is that this theistic evolution view of Brazilians reflects the catholicism to which many people loosely identify with - those self-proclaimed "non-practicing" catholics. The creationists are more frequent among the protestant churches, like the conservationist Marina Silva who is now a candidate for presidency. She has strong ties with religious movements and when questioned about her defense of the teaching of creationism backpedalled using the "let the children decide" argument.

Paraphrasing the great journalist Josias de Souza, Brazilians believe more in president Lula (76%) than in the evolution of the species.

PS: The post title is a reference to the cult Brazilian movie Black God, White Devil.
PPS: most links are in portuguese...

[links] flaxseed, unpublished results, gene patenting and some comments

CBC News - Film - Japanese vets admit on film to Nanjing atrocities:

On Dec. 13, 1937, Japanese troops marched into Nanking and murdered 300,000 Chinese people, including many civilians, in a six-week orgy of violence. Chinese authorities say as many as 20,000 women were raped. Japanese historians and journalists refer to the event as an "incident" and many deny the casualty rate was so high.

Lula Succession Race Starts as Rousseff, Serra Resign - BusinessWeek:

Rousseff, a former member of Brazil’s Marxist underground who has never run for office, may increase public spending, Bank of America said. Serra, who as recently as July 2009 newspaper column criticized Brazil’s “stratospheric” interest rates and strong exchange rate, raises questions about how independent the central bank would be under his government, the bank said.

Short Sharp Science: Is this the end of gene patenting? - New Scientist:

A court in New York yesterday ruled that patents on two genes linked to breast cancer are invalid. By declaring that the genes can't be patented because they are essentially products of nature rather than inventions, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York state has effectively cast doubt on whether patents on 2000 other human genes - around 20 per cent of the total - are valid, The Times of London reports.

Animal studies paint misleading picture : Nature News:

Published animal trials overestimate by about 30% the likelihood that a treatment works because negative results often go unpublished, a study suggests. This is a surprisingly strong bias, says the study's lead author, Malcolm Macleod, a neurologist at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, UK. The work, published today in PLoS Biology, analyses the effect of publication bias in animal models of disease.

Flaxseed lowers high cholesterol in men, study suggests - Science Daily:

Suzanne Hendrich, an ISU professor in food science and human nutrition, led a study that examined the effects of flaxseed lignan in 90 people diagnosed with high cholesterol. The results showed that consuming at least 150 milligrams of flaxseed lignans per day (about three tablespoons) decreased cholesterol in men, but not women, by just under 10 percent over the three months that they were given the flaxseed. While Hendrich admits that's considerably less than the expected outcome from cholesterol-lowering drugs -- approximately 10 to20 percent for three months, depending on the individual -- it's still enough to make flaxseed a more natural option for some men.

PS: I still haven't found a good formula for when to publish here and when to publish on my rant blog... as long as nobody complains I won't think too much about it. I'm liking this tumblr blog, it doesn't take up my time and I have more freedom than on twitter. For now I use it as a fancy bookmark. And I know that writing too many twitter updates is not an effective approach. On a related note, I had to stop following a lot of interesting tweeters and then I set up a twitter list so that I can read them on my spare time using hootsuite. Which means that I won't be following them on real time...