A number of family members visited us over the holidays, and I ended up having to ship gifts, ski clothes, etc., back to them.  Some of them stayed almost a week, which we appreciated because we live great distances from them and with everyone working [which, as I’ve mentioned before, more and more often requires more and more time and effort for those who have jobs and wish to keep them], we don’t get to see them often.  Staying longer does require a few more clothes, especially in the case of small children, even though our washing machine was busy at many times, and more clothes means more weight.  More weight means checked suitcases… and since Southwest doesn’t fly to Cedar City, checked bags add to the cost of travel.

Then I recalled that, at one time, a little over ten years ago, a checked bag was not only free, but you could put 60 pounds of clothes and gear in it, rather than the current 50 pounds. That ten pound reduction doubtless reduced the strain on baggage handlers, and most probably accounted for some fuel savings – and cost savings – for the airlines.  All in all, though, these cost-savings measures for the airlines add to the cost for the traveler.  They also add to the inconvenience, since the overhead luggage bins are not adequate for all the carry-ons if a flight is full – and most are these days.  Then, too, there are the charges for seats with slightly more leg-room, and the elimination of in-flight meals in coach [often replaced with a “menu” of items for which the costs are just short of exorbitant].

Airport security also adds to the time spent in travel – from an additional 30-45 minutes at small airports to more than an hour at major hubs. And time is money, meaning that the more security agents on duty [to reduce waiting] the higher the cost to government.

Then I discovered that, because December 26^th was a holiday this year, all the packages we’d hoped to ship back to the various coasts on Monday had to wait until Tuesday, and one of my sons and I wasted gas and money to discover that – because the local shippers never said that they were closed – they just left messages on their telephones that they were busy and asked us to leave messages or to call back.  Now, except for the various layers of government, banks, and the stock market, most other businesses – except for the shippers – were open, obviously believing that Sunday, December 25^th, was the holiday, and not Monday.

Given the “efficiency,”  “effectiveness,” and self-centeredness of government, banks, and financiers, to find shippers following their lead gave me a very disconcerted feeling… and, well… you all know what I think about government, banks, and financiers, not to mention the airline industry.

Recently, I’ve posted a few blogs dealing with various aspects of personal opinion and confirmation bias and how the combination can, to an outsider, make any individual, in certain circumstances, look like a complete idiot.  That even includes scientists, sorry to say, yet “science” as a whole has an unprecedented record of accuracy over time, regardless of what climate change deniers and creationists say.  If scientists can be as personally biased and opinionated as all the rest of us, how does “science” end up with such a long-term record of accuracy?

There’s one basic reason, and that is that the modern structure of science, if you will, requires proof, and all the proof that is submitted is subject to scrutiny and attack from all quarters.  What emerges from this often withering barrage almost always turns out – in time – to be more correct and more accurate than that which preceded it.  That’s not to say that, upon occasion, it hasn’t taken the scientific establishment time to get things right, but eventually better techniques and better thought proved that plate tectonics was correct, just as, regardless of the creationists, there’s an overwhelming body of evidence in favor of evolution, and that relativity provides a more accurate picture of the universe than did Newton, or the Ptolemaic theorists.

But there are several “problems” with the scientific method.  First, establishing more accurate knowledge, information, or theories takes time, and often large amounts of resources, as well as winnowing through and considering a fair amount of uncertainty at times. Second, it requires reliance on data and proof; mere opinion is not sufficient.  Third, it’s not as set in stone as human beings would like.  The early Greek scientists had a fair idea about the earth and the moon, but their measurements and calculations were off.  As methods, equipment, and techniques improved, so did the measurements, and Newton did far better, and his methods and theories result in a high degree of accuracy for most earth-bound measurements and systems, but Einstein and his successors have provided an even more accurate explanation and more accurate measurements. And fourth, at present, the scientific method isn’t absolutely precise in predicting specific future results of massive interacting inputs.

That lack of absolute precision in dealing with future events often causes people to doubt science as a whole, even though its record is far better than any other predictor or prediction system.  Part of its accuracy comes from the fact that science as a structure adapts as more information becomes available, but some people regard this adoption of new data and systems as unsettling, almost as if they were saying, “If science is so good, why can’t you get it right the first time?”  An associated problem is that science is far more accurate as a descriptor than a predictor, and most people subconsciously assume that the two are the same.

Even so, one could easily adapt Churchill’s statement about democracy to science, in saying that it’s the poorest way of describing the universe and predicting how things will happen – except for any other way that’s ever been tried.  And that’s because the structure of modern science is greater than any individual scientist.

The other Sunday, I was finishing up my morning walk/run with the crazy sweet Aussie-Saluki some two blocks from home, and the church bells rang the hour.  A few minutes later, as we passed the church, I saw cars speeding in and people hurrying into the church.  A block later, people were still hurrying to the church [not my church, since I confess to being a less than diligent congregant at another one]. Once upon a time, I was indeed a most religious young man, president of a church youth group and an acolyte at services every Sunday. Consequently, I had the chance to observe just how many people were late to services, and, frankly, late-comers were rare, extraordinarily quiet, and invariably their body posture reflected a certain discomfort. I doubt I saw as many late-comers in all the years I served as an acolyte as I saw on my walk on that single recent Sunday morning.

This observation got me to thinking, realizing that lateness and/or lack of interest in punctuality has become an increasing staple in our society.  When my wife produces an opera at the college, there are always between twenty and fifty attendees who come in after the first break, and that doesn’t count those who struggle in during the overture.  When we attend local concerts, the same thing is true.  More and more college professors I encounter relate their tales of students who cannot seem to arrive on time, and some have had to resort to locking doors to avoid disruptions from late-comers.  My wife even got a jury notice emphasizing that, if she were picked for jury selection, she needed to be punctual or she could face a stiff fine. This morning, in the paper, there was a story about a surgeon who was late to a court appearance — and who was imprisoned when the judge was less than impressed.

What exactly has happened to a society where cleanliness was next to Godliness and punctuality was a virtue?  And where even professional people who should know better don’t?

Oh… I know this is a western European-derived “virtue.”  When my wife did a singing tour of South America, no concert ever started “on time,” and in one case, the performance actually started more than an hour after the announced time because there was social jostling among the “elite” to see who could be the most fashionably late… as if to announce their power to make others wait.  And I have to confess that I tend to have an obsession with being on time because my father almost never was.

Still… what is it about being late?  Is it because, as our lives have gotten more and more crowded [often with trivia], we have trouble fitting everything in?  Is it because, with an internet/instant communications society, each of us feels more and more like the center of the universe, and our schedule takes precedence over that of others?  Is it merely a way of demonstrating personal power and/or indifference to others, or a lack of caring about the inconvenience being late can cause to others?  Is it a symptom of the growing emphasis of “self” over others?

I don’t have an answer… but I do know that I think most uncharitable thoughts about late-comers to anything, apparently oblivious or even enjoying the scene, whose lateness disrupts everyone else’s concentration and enjoyment… or even more important activities, like judicial proceedings.  And I seriously doubt I’m alone in those thoughts.

The December issue of The Atlantic Monthly contains a rather interesting article [“I was wrong, and so are you”] by Daniel Klein, a conservative/libertarian, who had published an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in June of 2010 arguing that, based on a study that he and another economist had earlier conducted, liberals/progressives had a far poorer grasp of basic economics than did conservatives.  Right wing and conservative groups trumpeted the results, and comments on the study were the second-highest of anything published in the Journal for the month in which it was printed. Klein’s in-box was also filled with messages suggesting that he had rigged the study.

After considering the reaction and the criticisms of the analysis of that study [which had been designed for another purpose], Klein and his co-author designed a second study specifically for the purpose of evaluating the accuracy of people’s economic perceptions and comparing their political outlook to the accuracy of their economic views on various issues.  To Klein’s surprise, the second study indicated that [astonishing] that all across the political spectrum of the respondents, each group was equally wrong when evaluating the accuracy of economic statements at variance with their political beliefs. As Klein wrote, “the more a statement challenged a group’s position, the worse the group did” [in accurately evaluating the statement].

In short, in all cases, respondents were less accurate in economic judgments that conflicted with their underlying biases and views, and the greater the conflict, the lower the accuracy.  What was even more interesting was that the level of education seemed to matter very little or not at all.

To me, all this was scarcely surprising, but what was surprising was that, while scholarly reviewers found the new study accurate, there was essentially no public or media reaction to the release of the results of the follow-up study, even though Klein was very clear in declaring that the new study invalidated the results of the earlier work.  Given that the results of the second study were also at variance with Klein’s own political predilections, it would seem likely that there might be at least more than polite notice of the second study.

There wasn’t. The few academic/critical reviewers who did comment essentially said, “there’s a lot of confirmation bias out there.”  The conservative/right wing types have said nothing, in contrast to their trumpeting the earlier [and incorrect] work, and there seems to be little liberal reaction either.

In short, we all want to hang on to our biases, even in the face of information to the contrary, and the more that information challenges what we believe, the more strongly we dispute it.

Is it any wonder Congress can’t get anything constructive done?

One of my smallest granddaughters is enchanted with the “aps” on her mother’s smartphone [she can’t be enchanted with mine, because I only have a new version of an old-fashioned cellphone], and everywhere I look or read, there’s another “killer ap.”  And I don’t have a problem with “aps.”  I do have an enormous problem with what they represent… in the deeper sense.

The other week, I was reading an article about the difference between inventors and “tweakers,” and one of the points made by the writer was that, in general, initial inventions seldom are what change society.  It’s the subsequent “tweaks” to those basic innovations that make the difference.  Bill Gates didn’t invent the personal computer, but the tweaks provided by Microsoft made it universal.  Steve Jobs was a superb tweaker and marketer, and those abilities led to the I-Phone, among other commercial and societally accepted and successful products, and all the smartphone clones that are changing communications patterns in technological societies.  And, of course, killer aps are another form of tweaking.

But… as I’ve noted before, for all our emphasis on tweaking and commercialization, we’ve seen very little development and implementation of basic technological innovation in more than a half century. We still generate the vast majority, if not essentially all, of our electricity based on 1950s (or earlier) principles; aircraft and automotive propulsion systems are merely tweaked versions of systems in use more than a half century earlier, and we don’t travel any faster than in 1960 (and actual travel time is longer, given security and other problems).

In some areas, we’ve actually shelved technology that was superior in performance to currently used technology for reasons of “economic efficiency,” i.e., cheaper. That tends to remind me of the ancient Chinese and the Ptolemaic Greeks, and even the Romans, who never implemented technological advances because slaves or servants were cheaper.

Take Burt Rhutan, one of the most prolific and dynamic aircraft designers of the past generation.  What I find most interesting is that for all of the technical success of his designs, few indeed have ever resulted in being produced in large numbers – and it’s not because his aircraft are particularly expensive [as aircraft go, that is].

Of course, all this raises the question of whether we’ve reached the effective limits of technology. This issue was raised more than a century ago, when some U.S. luminaries proposed closing the patent office because there was nothing new to discover.  It certainly wasn’t so back then, but all the emphasis on tweaking and commercialization I see now raises that same question once again, if in a slightly different perspective.  Have we hit the limits of basic science and technology?  Or are we just unwilling to invest what is necessary to push science further, and will we settle for a future limited to “killer aps”?