"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

Albert Einstein

And irrational behavior reigns again!

July 31, 2010

Books and Stuff to Read, Science, Society

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I’ve just started reading the book Sway: The Irresistable Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman. They are two brothers who got into seemingly different fields of business and psychology, but found that there are really interesting ideas that tie the two together.

I haven’t gotten that far in the book yet so I can’t give a full review yet, but I will highlight some interesting points that I have picked up on so far.

A lot of the concepts they bring up tie back to the idea of loss aversion, which I have blogged about in the past. The authors brought up the example of an extremely experienced commercial airline pilot who made a series of errors that led to the crash of the airliner and death of everyone on board. Long story short, the situation he was in placed him under pressure to avoid certain losses and eventually got the better of him in even the simplest decisions like waiting for takeoff clearance from the air traffic controller.

A few more things to think about:

  • diagnosis bias: when experts make an initial diagnosis and ignore all evidence against it, particularly in medical fields
  • value attribution: how the value or respect we place on or expect from a thing or person affects our view of their work
  • commitment: when we are very committed to a decision, we are more likely to behave irrationally to stay the course even if we realize we are wrong

I have so many books on my to-read list, but if you have any more suggestions, I would love to hear them!

Happy first birthday to this blog, and FRESH the movie

April 16, 2010

Misc, Society

2 comments

It has been a just a few days past a year since I first posted on this blog. A lot has changed since then, the most significant of which is that I now have a great job!

Since starting that job, this blog has been greatly neglected. So with that in mind, I will try to post much more often (which may mean shorter posts, but I will try!).

Last night I saw FRESH, the movie. It is a documentary about food, agriculture, and the stories behind the people growing food.

Watch this trailer:

I generally enjoyed the film and the story that unfolded. It is different from other documentaries in that it does not rely too heavily on the facts to tell the story. It is more about using the imagery and the narrative to reach out to the audience.

I liked seeing the sustainably managed farms, and especially Will Allen’s work in an urban setting. The stark comparison to the scenes from industrial farms are a harsh reality that I wish more people could witness.

If you would like to see FRESH, you can get a home screening license to watch in a group with friends, or try to catch a screening near you.

I have yet to see Food, Inc., but I will be seeing it at the end of the month. Perhaps then I can make a fuller comparison.

Defending wolves and worldviews

March 3, 2010

Musings, Science, Society

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I like wolves. As a child, I loved the book “Julie of the Wolves” and as an adult I enjoyed the anime “Wolf’s Rain.”

Wolves are some of the least understood of the predators that humans have pitted themselves against over the ages, others being sharks, bears, and large cats. One of the main reasons is that they compete with humans for resources. These predators won’t usually outright attack humans unless threatened, but humans will and have killed them in scores because of food and resources. This makes it extra difficult to make the case for their conservation in the face of endangerment and extinction.

I received this poster and bumper sticker in the mail yesterday from Defenders of Wildlife, along with a letter and fliers asking me to donate to the organization with the added incentive of receiving a wolf photo book and/or aluminum water bottle.

I have supported them with a donation in the past, but I am doubtful whether I will give again.

I have a few reasons for this. The main one being that this type of physical mail is so gimmicky and quite annoying, that I do not want to encourage them to send me more by responding to it. I’m hoping that by ignoring their waste of paper (even if it is recycled paper), they will eventually stop it. It would be nice if there were a way to opt out of physical mailings and in place of that receive emails, but as far as I can tell from their website, there is no such thing.

But still, I hope that the people who are reached by their campaigns truly consider conservation more seriously than the pamphlets suggest. The materials could be more informative, but I understand that the species-focus has been one of the most successful strategies.

This is where a more scientifically literate society would be very different. Conservation groups would not have to take the single species or simple issue angle in order to garner public support.

In areas of the world where most people live in and with the environment and accompanying wildlife, human culture has deeper understanding of the relationships of the ecosystems. We may not be able to return to that type of interaction with nature in this country, but perhaps with better incorporation of science into society we can achieve something similar.

This is what I hope to contribute to with my work!

TED Talk: Jamie Oliver’s wish to teach every kid about food

February 21, 2010

Nerdy Things, Society

2 comments

I watched this TED talk by Jamie Oliver last week and it was quite interesting. I was shocked to see the segment on the children in the classroom he visited in West Virginia. They could not identify vegetables. One child mistook tomatoes for potatoes!

Jamie’s wish is to create a network of organizations and community initiatives to teach kids about food, parents how to cook, and generally get people to eat healthier in the fight against obesity.



For more posts about food, click here.

Help save Idealist.org! Donate to keep them going!

February 9, 2010

Misc, Society

(No comments)

I’ve donated to Haiti relief efforts, and now I’ve also donated to help save this organization that has been important to me (especially in my current job search!).

In the spirit of altruism, I’d like to bring up the cause for Idealist.org.

For those of you who do not know, here is the description listed on their website describing who they are:

Idealist is a project of Action Without Borders, a nonprofit organization founded in 1995 with offices in the United States and Argentina. Idealist is an interactive site where people and organizations can exchange resources and ideas, locate opportunities and supporters, and take steps toward building a world where all people can lead free and dignified lives.


Through the website, you can find listings of nonprofit organizations and government agencies, people, jobs, internships, volunteer opportunities, events, and groups. They have mostly been able to stay afloat from the dues they charge when organizations post job listings. However, due to the recession, that amount of income is not covering the cost of running the website.

Idealist.org has been important, not only in helping me find job listings that apply to my interests, but I’ve also greatly benefited from their guide for job seekers. (I posted about it earlier here.)

I’m currently in the process of interviewing for a position that I found through Idealist.org, and if I do get the position, I want to pledge my first paycheck to Idealist.org. I think it is an invaluable resource and hope that it can continue to exist so that I may use it again in the future.

I know it might seem silly to donate to a website that mostly functions as a job board, but it is so much more than that!

They have been working to create a community of do-gooders around the world, and if you check out their appeal for donations on their website you will see many stories of others who have been affected by the work of Idealist and the people behind it.

So I hope that anyone who has ever used Idealist.org to look for a job or internship can contribute a few dollars to help it stay up and running. It would be sad to see this great website shutdown now when we need it the most to collaborate and keep doing good things!

Millennium Development Goals: global hunger and undernutrition

February 3, 2010

Features, Science, Society

2 comments

We may all be familiar with the face of hunger, but undernutrition may be more difficult to detect and treat. Last Tuesday, I attended a lecture by Dr. Jessica Fanzo of the Earth Institute’s Center for Global Health and Economic Development. She spoke about “Global Progress in Ending Hunger and Undernutrition.”

Some symptoms of undernutrition may include stunted growth for children, and overweightness for adults (due to a poor diet). Undernutrition is linked to lack of access to nutritious foods and poor economic opportunities.

Their Millenium Villages Project focuses on 4 main micronutrients: vitamin A, iron, folate, and iodine. These are essential micronutrients that when deficient are known to affect development, immune system function, and can increase disease risk, particularly of young children and pregnant women.

In general, micronutrients are compounds that are found in very small amounts. Plant health is pretty dependent on certain micronutrients in the soil, such as boron, calcium, zinc, iron, and chlorine.

But nutrition is complex and we do not have a full understanding of how it relates to human health, and that is why Dr. Fanzo promotes an overall approach that emphasizes a diverse diet that includes leafy greens and appropriate portions of carbohydrates and eggs or animal protein.

It is a complex problem overall because of a few major factors:

  • Nutrition and health issues are “political, administrative, and institutional orphan” because it is “everybody’s business and nobody’s responsibility”
  • As a result, there is a lack of political commitment
  • Nutrition focused programs are difficult or less popular to fund
  • Cultural factors make it tricky to gather support for initiatives

Global food issues are not just about availability of food, but of high quality food. We are still trying to figure out what that is, but we do know that a diverse diet of plants is essential to a healthy body. It saddens me to see that people consistently choose foods that are known to be bad for their health, when there are better alternatives. Especially in the United States, I’m ashamed of what our food culture has become. It happens here and it happens in poor countries as well, according to Dr. Fanzo. Women in the Millennium Villages Project’s villages eat large portions of refined maize meal daily, when native leafy greens are plentiful.

What is difficult now is, how do can people change their food choices and eating behavior? No one likes to be told what to do, especially with their bodies. If that were not true, smoking would not still be as popular today as it is.

Education and advocacy alone will not work. When given a choice between a food item that is tasty but unhealthy and a food item that is healthy but less tasty, the default is to go with the tastier item. The problem is that a lot of the “tastier” stuff is so far from natural that our bodies can’t process them as well as the plants and animals we have evolved to eat.

As a species, we need to return to the foods that have worked for us for hundreds and thousands of years, and wean ourselves off of the super processed foods that hardly resemble food anymore. For the U.S., maybe that will mean government regulations on the food industry, I’m not sure. But I think the only way that undernutrition and hunger will be alleviated in many places in the world will be through planning that involves capacity building for villagers to gather and grow nutritious food. It certainly will not solve any problems to send them corn meal grown in the U.S.

Thoughts?


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Image credit: Flickr user publik16

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