Rotundus.com

HT: JS

Why Doctors Die Differently

"It's not something that we like to talk about, but doctors die, too. What's unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared with most Americans, but how little." One of the reasons that the article lists for this is false impressions given in the media of the success rate of certain procedures.

The Power of Being Pulled Over

The author of Traffic: "You might think that the police officer who pulled me over wasn’t doing his job, because he didn’t ticket me. But there is evidence that what often matters in reducing traffic violations is not punitive action per se, but simply the process of being pulled over and receiving the warning. This imparts the idea that the driver has violated some community norm, and reminds him (and other drivers who pass by) that there are police looking after those norms. The effects can be dramatic and long-lasting."

Blacks say atheists were unseen civil rights heroes

"Think of the civil rights movement and chances are the image that comes to mind is of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. leading the 1963 March on Washington. But few people think of A. Philip Randolph, a labor organizer who originated the idea of the march and was at King's side as he made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Why is King, a Christian, remembered by so many and Randolph, an atheist, by so few?"

Investing in Good Deeds Without Checking the Prospectus

How people don't seem to use a lot of wisdom in selecting charities to donate to. One of the biggest problems I'd argue is the following: "But donors often give to charities for reasons of pride. Monitoring a charity means worrying about the wisdom of contributing to that charity. Many donors would instead prefer simply to feel good about their generosity and thus they deceive themselves into thinking that all is going well. Furthermore, many donors seek a sense of affiliation and wish to be a part of large and successful organizations — the "winning team," so to speak. Again, these donors do not focus on how, or if, they actually end up improving the world."

Bad News for People With Hard-to-Pronounce Names

"people form more positive impressions of easy-to-pronounce names than of difficult-to-pronounce names" and that seems to translate to being more likely to be promoted. "[T]he effect is independent of name length (Studies 1, 2, and 4), orthographic regularity (Studies 1, 2, and 4), unusualness (Studies 1 and 3), name typicality (Study 3), and name foreignness (Study 5)."

I came across an article today entitled Dangerous Tales: Dominant narratives on the Congo and their unintended consequences (gated version here). What did it conclude?

The dominant narratives have oriented international programmes on the ground toward three main goals – regulating trade of minerals, providing care to victims of sexual violence, and helping the state extend its authority – at the expense of all the other necessary measures ... because of these exclusive focuses, the international efforts have exacerbated the problems that they aimed to combat: the attempts to control the exploitation of resources have enabled armed groups to strengthen their control over mines; the disproportionate attention to sexual violence has raised the status of sexual abuse to an effective bargaining tool for combatants; and the state reconstruction programmes have boosted the capacity of an authoritarian regime to oppress its population.

The title of this post was taken from a post by Chris Blattman which directed me to the paper. As he notes

Simple stories make for very effective advocacy. The problem with simple narratives, arise, however, when they drive simple-headed policy.

China Congress of Billionaires Makes Capitol Hill Peers Look Like Paupers

"The richest 70 members of China’s legislature added more to their wealth last year than the combined net worth of all 535 members of the U.S. Congress, the president and his Cabinet, and the nine Supreme Court justices."

Public health: The toxic truth about sugar

Here's the first sentence: "... Last September, the United Nations declared that, for the first time in human history, chronic non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes pose a greater health burden worldwide than do infectious diseases, contributing to 35 million deaths annually." (Unfortunately to get access to even that first sentence you need a subscription ... and I haven't yet found a non-gated version so non-academic readers may be out of luck).

Editorial: The real carbon bomb

Not quite a coal-bad/oil-good article, but makes some interesting points in claiming that coal is worse for the environment in mining than oilsands development is: "... mountain top coal mining in the U.S. has already disturbed 10 times more surface area than current oilsands development and will mine more area than oilsands developers can ever exploit in the lifetime of the resource."

Why Do Innocent People Confess?

An interesting read, not only for its analysis of why people might confess but also for its description of some of the police tactics that can lead to false confessions. I'd argue that it also demonstrates the need for things like a statute of limitations.

Dr. Edward Kruk: ‘Sole Custody System Tailor-Made to Produce Worst Possible Outcomes’

"More recent studies… have found not only that EPR (Equal Parental Responsibility) is not harmful in high-conflict situations, but equal parenting can ameliorate the harmful effects of high-conflict: a warm relationship with both parents is a protective factor for children in high conflict families." Also seems to eventually result in reduced conflict between the parents eventually per the primary study the article analyzes.