More political propaganda in a biological journal

With its cherry-picked sample size of one, creative accounting and political slogans, the paper Input subsidies to improve smallholder maize productivity in Malawi: toward an African Green Revolution by Glenn Denning, Jeffrey Sachs and others is pure propaganda. It runs on PLoS Biology.

Hard and soft science

Massimo Pigliucci has an interesting post on the distinction between hard science (mathematical, confident, fast-paced) and soft science (qualitative, discursive, running in circles). The usual way to discuss the matter is to compare "fields." For example, Pigliucci compares particle physics and ecology. Each discipline studies different things and uses different methods, and the two disciplines evolve in different ways. But it is difficult to discern why exactly the two disciplines evolve differently. Is it because they study different things? Or is it because they use different methods?

Fortunately, we have the opportunity to compare disciplines that study the same subject matter using different methods. Classical economics, on one hand, and sociology, anthropology and ecological economics/resilience science, on the other, approach the same topic of human collective behavior using different methods. I leave the detailed comparison of the two approaches to others. For me it suffices to say that one is fun and the other is boring.

Agriculture and biodiversity

More from Aide and Grau (I edited out the literature references):

Present efforts to promote production systems with high local biodiversity, but low productivity (e.g., traditional agriculture and grazing, shade coffee, etc.) will not be sufficient to produce agricultural products for a population of more than 9 billion people, which is increasing per capita consumption, without sacrificing large areas of natural ecosystems. To meet the rising global demand for food and conserve Latin American ecosystems, modern high-yield agriculture and agriculture adjustment coupled with rural–urban migration need to be incorporated into large-scale conservation planning.

Consumerism

You call someone a consumerist because (replace "he, his, him" with "she, etc" where appropriate):

1. His tastes differ from yours. It is the same as saying "he is different from me, therefore he is an idiot."

2. You think he is acting under pressure from evil greedy corporations instead of acting in his own interest. This is just an anti-capitalist way of saying 1.

3. You think he is too keen on signaling his social status. By calling him a consumerist you are trying to signal your own social status.

4. You enjoy saying you are an idiot. This applies if you say "we are all consumerists." Perhaps you are not an idiot, but you like pretending so.

Environmental effects of the war on drugs

Although agriculture is being abandoned in some marginal areas, in other areas it continues to expand; for example, in regions used for illegal crops. Compared with modern agriculture, which concentrates in fertile and flat soils [thus sparing land for wild habitats], illegal crops are often cultivated in marginal areas, mainly because of poor accessibility, which reduces legal controls. The most common of these areas in Latin America are the humid slopes of the Andes, where cultivation of coca and opium are a major source of deforestation and environmental degradation.

From Grau and Aide.

Roboethics

Noel Sharkey (The ethical frontiers of robotics, in Science) comments on the use of robots designed to entertain children and assist with care-giving via video cameras and similar devices.

There is a vital need for public discussion to decide the limits of robot use before the industry and busy parents make the decision themselves.

Industry and parents... those bastards!

Government spending pay-offs

This is Obama:

And think of what's happening in countries like Spain, Germany and Japan, where they're making real investments in renewable energy. [...] It's because their governments have harnessed their people's hard work and ingenuity with bold investments - investments that are paying off in good, high-wage jobs - jobs they won't lose to other countries.

At least in Spain those spendings have destroyed more good, high-wage jobs than they have created. But they have probably payed off in votes for the spending politicians.

Snake eating its own tail and head at the same time

Giovanni Bearzi writes in Conservation Biology (When swordfish conservation biologists eat swordfish):

In an ideal world, people should elect sensible representatives through the democratic process so that laws and regulations will allow us to make good choices.

In an ideal world people would make good choices - period. And I can say no more about the sentence because its circular logic has boggled my mind.

Ecosystem disservices of pollen and pollinators

Garry Peterson of Resilience Science comments on the negative effects of pollen on allergy sufferers and of insect pollinators on the quality of tangerines (consumers prefer unpollinated, seedless tangerines). What is the best "solution?" Torts? Coasian bargaining? Regulation? A biodiversity tax? Biodiversity cap-and-trade?

Health care

Robin Hanson on health care:

That is, we can't stand to be thought of as the sort of uncaring heel who wouldn't try everything possible. But we are not very concerned about private signals about the quality of medical care, since our unconscious goal is mainly the appearance of effort. We do respond much more, however, to publicly visible quality signals that our intended audience would likely see as well. The marginal health-value of medicine may therefore be low, both because we spend more than is useful and because we have little incentive to privately monitor quality. [...]

Once nations became thought of as tribes, citizens and politicians supported national health insurance in order to show that they care about sick citizens of their nation, and to show other citizens that the nation is loyal to them. Thus the primary function of national health insurance may be to show social solidarity, rather than to respond to any failure in the market for health care. And since the world is not (yet) thought of as a tribe, there is little support for international health insurance.