Links - 17th November 2013

How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data - "A pooled weighted average of 1.97% (N = 7, 95%CI: 0.86–4.45) of scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once –a serious form of misconduct by any standard– and up to 33.7% admitted other questionable research practices. In surveys asking about the behaviour of colleagues, admission rates were 14.12% (N = 12, 95% CI: 9.91–19.72) for falsification, and up to 72% for other questionable research practices... Considering that these surveys ask sensitive questions and have other limitations, it appears likely that this is a conservative estimate of the true prevalence of scientific misconduct."

Scientific dishonesty¿a nationwide survey of doctoral students in Norway - "About 11% of the respondents had experienced unethical pressure concerning the order of authors during the last 12 months. 10% did not find it inappropriate to report experimental data without having conducted the experiment and 38% did not find it inappropriate to try a variety of different methods of analysis to find a statistically significant result. 13% agreed that it is acceptable to selectively omit contradictory results to expedite publication and 10% found it acceptable to falsify or fabricate data to expedite publication, if they were confident of their findings... Although there is less scientific dishonesty reported in Norway than in other countries, dishonesty is not unknown to doctoral students. Some forms of scientific misconduct are considered to be acceptable by a significant minority."

Vibration Nation? Gender Differences in Sexual Behavior and Orgasmic Function - "Quackenbush, Strassberg, and Turner (1995) conducted a study of 164 college students to determine if manipulating the themes of explicit videos would have any effect on arousal for men and women. The researchers found that the romantically themed videos, those depicting love and affection, were significantly more arousing for both men and women than videos without romantic themes"

An economist's critique of The Omnivore's Dilemma. - "Pollan argues that the costs and benefits of a meal should be as transparent as possible so that eaters are aware of the impact of their food decisions on the environment; he claims that his pig hunt roughly approximates this standard... Pollan neglects another cost of his "perfect" meal: Our author's time is gone forever. There are plenty of "cheap" ways to procure food if we do not measure our time and trouble as relevant costs. The problems with Pollan's "self-financed" meal reflect the major shortcoming of the book: He focuses on what is before his eyes but neglects the macro perspective of the economist... Pollan also argues against free trade in agriculture, on the grounds that the economics will bankrupt family farms and destabilize the market; Pollan fears centralization and the industrial mode of production. He does not note, however, that New Zealand has moved to free agricultural markets—virtually no subsidies or tariffs—and its farms, including family farms, have flourished. Nor should we forget that farm protectionism, as practiced in the EU and elsewhere, costs billions and damages economic development in poorer countries that might otherwise ship foodstuffs to the wealthier West."

Is a man's bladder larger or smaller than that of a woman? - "A GOOD source of physiological data of this sort is the Report of the Task Group on Reference Man, Publication 23 of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (1975). This gives the physiological capacity of the adult male and female as 500 ml, and notes that there is probably no inherent difference between male and female... THE QUESTION may be prompted by women's apparent need to go to the WC more frequently than men do. Some have suggested this is due to the woman's bladder pushing against interior parts that cause discomfort, whereas the male bladder bumps up against less objecting parts, so that the discomfort is far less."

SAF stopping the singing of ‘misogynist’ lyrics from marching song: AWARE - "“We were troubled that NSmen were bonding over misogynist lyrics about committing sexual violence against women"... One Facebook user said, “…it’s a non-issue that’s just being dramatised by a group of women who have excellent legal protection, a strong and supportive government in a very good living environment where they have options and opportunities not that [sic] many other Asian women get.” Another user justified the lyrics, saying, “The lyrics refer to the way many Singaporean women ditch their boyfriends without a second’s thought when they enter NS. Nearly three-quarters of the attached men in my BMT [Basic Military Training] platoon were dumped during the confinement weeks of BMT, and the lyrics were made up to express their rage and frustration.”"
You know women have it good when feminists spend their time this way.
Next target: violent computer games with violent gameplay where people bond over about committing murder against other people (usually men). But then since men are the "victims", no one cares (notice how according to AWARE, it is okay to kill a man but not rape a woman)

Humans do NOT come from Earth - and sunburn, bad backs and pain during labour prove it, expert claims - "Dr Ellis said many people feel that they don’t belong and feel at home on Earth. ‘This suggests (to me at least) that mankind may have evolved on a different planet, and we may have been brought here as a highly developed species.’"

Laurent Bàn – Laurent Bàn sera la voix française du Fantôme - "Il existe en fait deux traductions. L’une de Stéphane Laporte, que nous avons enregistrée à Londres au Palace Theatre et qui sera destinée au marché francophone (Belgique, Luxembourg, Suisse, Canada). Une autre, de Michel Guillaume, a servi pour la version française enregistrée à Paris chez Dubbing brothers... Comme cette traduction de Michel Guillaume n’a rien à voir avec celle de Stéphane Laporte, cet enregistrement fut un nouveau défi. J’aurais bien aimé pouvoir peaufiner davantage, mais les délais ne nous l’ont pas permis"
PUTAIN

More than 40% of domestic violence victims are male, report reveals | Society

Gender Wage Gap May Be Much Smaller Than Most Think - "Some researchers believe that it is not enough to compare wages of similar men and women. They argue that total compensation (wages together with benefits) must be compared. Women of child-bearing age may prefer jobs with a lower wage but with employer-paid parental leave, sick leave and child care to jobs with a higher wage but without such benefits. A study that used National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) found that female workers were indeed more likely to receive family-friendly fringe benefits. Some economists believe that female workers "pay" for the benefits they prefer by accepting a lower wage. If that is the case, excluding fringe benefits would exaggerate the actual gender wage disparity."

Bigotry Against Men In Childcare - "There’s been a bit of a fuss recently about seating of children on airplanes in New Zealand. A man who was seated next to a child travelling alone was asked to change his seat, because the airline has a policy against men sitting next to unaccompanied minors... 'When men choose child care, their motives for making such a choice are questioned. In child care settings, this questioning occurs most often on those occasions when men get judged negatively for engaging in the same behaviors as their caregiving counterparts whoa re women – when they are suspect just for doing their jobs.'"

Lily Allen does not represent all feminism – and nor should she - "one single music video containing some fairly cursory observations on sexism is able to stir up such a reaction in the feminist movement. One explanation lies in a comment made by the blogger Glosswitch recently (and I recommend you read her piece in full): "I'd say one objective of feminism should be to help women's decisions become less loaded. It's oppressive to have to represent a whole sex in everything you do." Unfortunately for Allen and everybody else, her music video seems unable to stand in and of itself, representing only her opinions, but is instead being seen as some kind of expression of all feminism – and by extension all women. This is part and parcel of being in an oppressed group: women are routinely dehumanised and homogenised, so that every act we undertake in public tends to reflect on all women, instead of our own individual character. It's a problem men just don't have"
The flip side of the personal being political is that you must scrutinise all your actions; meanwhile men have a different problem: every act they undertake in public can be interpreted as oppressive

False Consciousness Theory in Feminism and Anti-Speciesism | Feminist Law Professors - "The argument, in both feminism and anti-speciesism, is that when the chooser chooses a pre-chosen choice, that choice is less authentic, valid, worthy of respect than a choice that is not pre-chosen. But if we embrace the implications of the Marxist critique, then there shouldn’t be any intellectual room for an unchosen choice. In other words, the critique itself arises out of culturally constrained circumstances that shape the critique. The self-righteous tone of the false consciousness claim is especially problematic for feminists, for whom choice is a dominant value. Choice can double back. If I chose my choice, even if my choice was pre-chosen, the choosing is what matters, not the choice. Yikes."

Feminist Media Criticism Problems - "This scantilly clad female character is clearly just meant to be eye candy for men... but am I Slut Shaming in thinking she should be more covered up?"

Why is there so much slut shaming in novels written by women? - "Why are women authors so anxious to devalue women based on what they wear and how sexually active they are? Why do we readers allow this thinking to perpetuate? If women in books written by women, celebrating womanhood, are constantly judging a woman’s worth based on their rape inducing clothing, their drunkness at a party, their willingness to have more than one partner and actually enjoy it, how can we ever be upset about the attitudes held by men quoted above. Too much alcohol and of course you are going to get some guy raping some girl. Too short of a skirt and of course you are going to get some guy raping some girl. Too promiscuous and of course you don’t deserve to say you were raped."
As a good economist I believe in revealed preferences

False Consciousness & Kafka-Trapping - "we encounter the peculiar feminist debating tactic called Kafka-Trapping. I did not invent the term; the credit must go to Eric S. Raymond, whose original article on the subject is linked below. Nor did Eric intend the term to be used only for feminists – any member of a victim ideology can effectively Kafka-Trap their opponents. The name, Kafka-Trapping, is a reference to Franz Kafka’s work The Trial, in which the protagonist is told that he is very, very guilty, although his crime is never specified; and, as he soon discovers, the only ‘way out’ is to admit his guilt (though he knows not what of), thus acquiescing in his own destruction. In Eric’s own words, a Kafka-Trap is an unfalsifiable claim, about thoughtcrime, intended to induce guilt so the subject becomes manipulable."

From the sublime to the ridiculous - "Consciousness is the driver of evolution. Every time you eat a chicken or banana it transforms into a human"

IMF: Austerity is much worse for the economy than we thought - "IMF forecasts have been consistently too optimistic for countries that pursued large austerity programs... (Conversely, countries that engaged in stimulus, such as Germany and Austria, did better than expected.)"