Arquivo anual: 2011

VOCÊ SABE COM QUEM ESTÁ FALANDO? (TRIP)

08/08/2011UncategorizedAntropologia, Cultura, Incerteza, Previsão, Risco, Visualidaderenzotaddei

Roberto da Matta reflete sobre como limites são as maiores conquistas e os maiores riscos

TRIP 196 – 14.02.2011 | Texto por Roberto da Matta
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Não deixa de ser curioso que o ser vivo mais consciente da própria morte, o animal mais certo de que sua única certeza é um limite final e definitivo — a morte —, seja o bicho que mais inventa e questiona limites. Os seus limites e os dos outros. Mais os dos outros que os seus.

A reflexão sobre os limites, sobre o que é suficiente ou bastante para cada um de nós (e consequentemente para os outros), é o resultado de mais igualdade, liberdade, oportunidade, poder de consumo e daquilo que se chama de “modernidade”: de mercado e competição eleitoral e de democracia. Da operação consistente de um sistema que tem no centro o indivíduo-cidadão livre e igual perante a lei. Todas as sociedades que passaram por uma aguda transformação no sentido de maior igualdade, acoplada a uma consciência mais aguda de liberdade, vivem um aparente paradoxo. Como usufruir a liberdade e a igualdade sem ofender os outros e, mais que isso, sem levar o sistema a uma anarquia e a um caos no qual alguns podem fazer tudo, o outro não existe e — como consequência — quem ocupa cargos importantes sobretudo no governo e do Estado acaba virando um mandão (ou mandona) de modo que, em vez de igualdade e limite, temos o justo oposto: uma hierarquia e o enriquecimento dos poderosos por meio daquilo que é o teste mais claro do limite e da igualdade: o sistema eleitoral que os elegeu.

— II —

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Neste momento em que o Brasil consolida sua democracia e torna-se um ator global, é crucial discutir esse equilíbrio entre o que aspiramos construir como coletividade mais justa e humana e as leis e normas que agindo sobre todos nós e governando por assim dizer esse jogo democrático que vem sendo jogado faz um tempo considerável, considerando nossa história republicana, limitam os nossos movimentos indicando o que é correto e ético realizar.

Não nos parece uma tarefa fácil conciliar desejos (que geralmente são ilimitados e odeiam controles) e a questão fundamental de cumprir regras, seguir leis e construir espaços públicos seguros e igualitários, válidos para todos, numa sociedade que também tem o seu lado claramente aristocrático e hierárquico. Um sistema que ama a democracia, mas também gosta de usar o “Você sabe com quem está falando?”, que é justamente a prova, conforme disse em Carnavais, malandros e heróis, um livro publicado, imagine, em 1979!

Ali, eu descobri o nosso amor simultâneo pela igualdade e, a seu lado, o nosso afeto pelo familismo e pelo partidarismo governados pela ética de condescendência tão nossa conhecida, que diz: nós somos diferentes e temos biografia; para os amigos tudo, aos inimigos (e estranhos, os que não conhecemos) a lei!

Não há nada mais claro da nossa aversão aos limites do que essa recusa de obedecer a lei, o cargo público para o qual fomos eleitos ou o sinal de trânsito. Uma pessoa, como digo no citado ensaio, que não foi criada para pensar em limites, porque todos somos (ou fomos) filhinhos de mamãe e criados em ambientes onde sabíamos perfeitamente bem quem era superior, quem era subordinado, quem mandava e quem obedecia, não pode funcionar igualitariamente na rua, onde ninguém é de ninguém ou sabe quem são os outros.

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A dificuldade em usar com tranquilidade o “Você sabe com quem está falando?” decorre da massificação da sociedade brasileira, que, com o aumento de renda e dos mecanismos destinados a melhorar o consumo das camadas mais pobres, torna todo mundo muito mais parecido e de certo modo obriga tanto o milionário filho de família tradicional quanto o pedreiro, o padeiro, o garçom, o estudante, o operário e o empregado doméstico a entrar numa fila. E, nela, a pensar que somos todos realmente iguais em certas situações públicas porque o limite do outro garante o meu limite.

O resultado dessa tomada de posição, básica numa democracia, é simples, mas muitas vezes ignorado entre nós: a minha liberdade teoricamente ilimitada tem que se ajustar à sua e as duas acabam promovendo uma conformidade voluntária com limites, com fronteiras cívicas que não podem ser ultrapassadas, como a de furar a fila ou a de dar uma carteirada.

Na sua simplicidade, a fila é um dos melhores, se não for o melhor, exemplos de como operam os limites numa democracia. Seus princípios são simples e reveladores: quem chega primeiro é atendido em primeiro lugar. Numa fila, portanto, não vale o oculto. Ou temos uma clara linha de pessoas, umas atrás das outras, ou a vaca vai para o brejo. Quando eu era menino, lembro-me bem como era impossível ter uma fila no Brasil. As velhas senhoras e as pessoas importantes (sobretudo os políticos) não se conformavam com suas regras e traziam como argumento para serem atendidos, passando na frente dos outros, ou a idade, ou o cargo, ou conhecimento com quem estava atendendo, ou algum laço de família. Afinal quem vai deixar a vovó esperando para depois tomar uma bronca em casa? Hoje, sabemos que idosos e deficientes não entram em fila. Mas estamos igualmente alertas para o fato de que um cargo ou um laço de amizade não faz de alguém um supercidadão com poderes ilimitados junto aos que estão penando numa fila por algumas horas. O princípio do quem primeiro chega é primeiro atendido revela uma outra dimensão da democracia e dos limites que deve ser igualmente discutida.

Refiro-me ao fato de que a fila anda (ou deve andar!). Ela é construída, como tudo que é governado por regras simples e conhecidas de todos, pelo princípio da rotatividade. Se “a fila anda”, ela faz com que o último acabe em primeiro e quem estava na frente seja obrigado a sair depois de ter sido atendido. Mais: se ele (ou ela) quiser voltar, vai para o “fim da fila”. Ora, isso não é um belo exemplo dos limites que tornam todos iguais, fazendo-os primeiros ou últimos e, consequentemente, tornando o primeiro e o último relativos? Numa hora e em dado lugar sou o primeiro, noutro sou um cara comum e apenas sigo as normas gerais da cidadania. Mas sei — e esse é um ponto capital — que, mesmo em primeiro lugar ou no último, tenho limites, tolerâncias, direitos sem dúvida, mas um monte de deveres. Uma vez atendido, cedo lugar a um outro que faz o mesmo com o seguinte e assim, meus amigos, a fila da democracia anda!

Tal como num jogo de futebol ou numa disputa política liberal e competitiva, a fila requer conformidade com as regras, com os limites impostos pela disputa, bem como um mínimo de honradez diante delas. Se entro na fila, espero que todos honrem o meu e os seus lugares. Isto é: o meu senso de limites é despertado pelo senso de limites dos outros. Se, numa disputa política, um partido não segue as regras e compra políticos e votos, então o sistema de disputa fica abalado ou deixa de existir. Todo jogador quer vencer, todo atacante quer o gol da vitória, mas ele não pode vencer quebrando as pernas dos seus adversários.

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Do mesmo modo e pela mesma lógica, ninguém pode ser sempre o primeiro da fila (e nem o último), como ninguém pode ser campeão para sempre. Se isso acontece, ou seja, se um time campeão mudar as regras para ser campeão para sempre, então o futebol vai pros quintos dos infernos. Ele simplesmente acaba com o jogo como uma disputa. Na disputa, o adversário não é um inimigo, do mesmo modo que, numa fila, quem está na frente não é um superior. O poder ilimitado e congelado ou fixo em pessoas ou partidos, como ocorre nas ditaduras, liquida a democracia justamente porque ele usurpa os limites nos quais se baseia a fila. Justamente porque ele acaba com a disputa e a esperança banal, mas básica, de que a fila anda e que amanhã podemos ser campeões! O fim do rodízio do poder que obriga o respeito aos limites de todos é a raiz dos autoritarismos que são hoje impensáveis no Brasil. Sem ele, a oposição e a esquerda não estariam no poder honrando e ajudando a provar que, onde há disputa, alguém vai perder ou ganhar.

— III —

Termino com uma história que é, de fato, uma parábola que fala tanto de democracia quanto de capitalismo, com seu poder de despertar inveja e aristocratizar pelo dinheiro.

Conta-se que, numa reunião na mansão de um milhardário americano, o escritor Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (autor, entre outros, do incrível Matadouro 5) perguntou ao seu colega Joseph Heller (autor do não menos perturbador Ardil 22): “Joe, você não fica chateado sabendo que esse cara ganha mais num dia do que você jamais ganhou com a venda de Ardil 22 no mundo todo?”. Heller respondeu: “Não, porque eu tenho alguma coisa que esse cara não tem”. Vonnegut olhou firme para ele e disse: “E o que é que você pode ter que esse sujeito já não tenha?”. Resposta do Heller: “Eu conheço o significado da palavra suficiente”.

Ora, é justamente esse suficiente que nos torna resistentes tanto ao poder do dinheiro como fim valor absoluto, capaz de suspender limites numa sociedade de iguais, quanto a uma dimensão muito importante da vida. É ele que permite valorizar o que somos e temos, o modo como vivemos, os nossos prazeres e escolhas. É essa reflexão sobre o que nos basta que nos faz ver a olho nu que ninguém pode ter (ou tem) tudo. E, se ninguém pode ter tudo, todos temos alguma coisa.

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A ideia de suficiência e de limite, portanto, traz de volta uma dimensão humana importante e não conformista. A dimensão que assegura por linhas tortas, é certo, que nenhum ser humano pode ser belo, bonito, rico, saudável e feliz ao mesmo tempo. Os reveses da vida, que nos fazem estar sempre no fim ou no início da fila, que nos dão a impressão de impotência ou onipotência, têm muito a ver com essa reflexão que pouco fazemos no Brasil. A saber: o que queremos do nosso país e deste mundo? O que precisamos e em que quantidade ou escala? Será que sendo quem sou eu não tenho mais do que o mais rico dos ricos ou o mais poderoso dos poderosos? Afinal de contas, a igualdade na diferença é uma alternativa para estilos de ser. Não se pode negar o valor do dinheiro, mas não se pode aceitar que o dinheiro seja tudo e que o amor, a compaixão, a honestidade, a honradez e a alegria de viver em harmonia consigo mesmo sejam inferiores à riqueza ou ao poder. Afinal de contas, o que seria da vida sem esses pequenos-grandes prazeres e gozos que são de fato o seu sal e a sua pimenta? Vale a pena ser infeliz com uma grande conta bancária, ou ser feliz com uma conta bancária? Ou, quem sabe, viver sem ir ao banco?

Porque, afinal de contas, o limite não está apenas nas coisas externas, ele está em todos nós — mortais complexos destinados ao gozo e ao sofrimento neste maravilhoso e único vale de lágrimas, nesta interminável fila que, andando, nos obriga a dialogar com os nossos limites e com o lado ilimitado de cada um de nós.

*Antropólogo, escritor e professor da PUC-RJ. Autor de vários ensaios sobre sociedades tribais e o Brasil, como Um Mundo Dividido; Carnavais, malandros e heróis; O que faz o Brasil, Brasil; Relativizando: uma introdução à antropologia social, todos editados pela Rocco. Seu último livro, Fé em Deus e pé na tábua, é um ensaio sobre o trânsito no Brasil. DaMatta tem uma coluna semanal nos jornais O Estado de São Paulo, no Globo e Diário de Fortaleza

Beyond space-time: Welcome to phase space (New Scientist)

08/08/2011Uncategorizedciência, Física, Incerteza, Psicologia, Visualidaderenzotaddei

08 August 2011 by Amanda Gefter
Magazine issue 2824

A theory of reality beyond Einstein’s universe is taking shape – and a mysterious cosmic signal could soon fill in the blanks

Does some deeper level of reality lurk beneath? (Image: Luke Brookes)

IT WASN’T so long ago we thought space and time were the absolute and unchanging scaffolding of the universe. Then along came Albert Einstein, who showed that different observers can disagree about the length of objects and the timing of events. His theory of relativity unified space and time into a single entity – space-time. It meant the way we thought about the fabric of reality would never be the same again. “Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade into mere shadows,” declared mathematician Hermann Minkowski. “Only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.”

But did Einstein’s revolution go far enough? Physicist Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, doesn’t think so. He and a trio of colleagues are aiming to take relativity to a whole new level, and they have space-time in their sights. They say we need to forget about the home Einstein invented for us: we live instead in a place called phase space.

If this radical claim is true, it could solve a troubling paradox about black holes that has stumped physicists for decades. What’s more, it could set them on the path towards their heart’s desire: a “theory of everything” that will finally unite general relativity and quantum mechanics.

So what is phase space? It is a curious eight-dimensional world that merges our familiar four dimensions of space and time and a four-dimensional world called momentum space.

Momentum space isn’t as alien as it first sounds. When you look at the world around you, says Smolin, you don’t ever observe space or time – instead you see energy and momentum. When you look at your watch, for example, photons bounce off a surface and land on your retina. By detecting the energy and momentum of the photons, your brain reconstructs events in space and time.

The same is true of physics experiments. Inside particle smashers, physicists measure the energy and momentum of particles as they speed toward one another and collide, and the energy and momentum of the debris that comes flying out. Likewise, telescopes measure the energy and momentum of photons streaming in from the far reaches of the universe. “If you go by what we observe, we don’t live in space-time,” Smolin says. “We live in momentum space.”

And just as space-time can be pictured as a coordinate system with time on one axis and space – its three dimensions condensed to one – on the other axis, the same is true of momentum space. In this case energy is on one axis and momentum – which, like space, has three components – is on the other (see diagram).

Simple mathematical transformations exist to translate measurements in this momentum space into measurements in space-time, and the common wisdom is that momentum space is a mere mathematical tool. After all, Einstein showed that space-time is reality’s true arena, in which the dramas of the cosmos are played out.

Smolin and his colleagues aren’t the first to wonder whether that is the full story. As far back as 1938, the German physicist Max Born noticed that several pivotal equations in quantum mechanics remain the same whether expressed in space-time coordinates or in momentum space coordinates. He wondered whether it might be possible to use this connection to unite the seemingly incompatible theories of general relativity, which deals with space-time, and quantum mechanics, whose particles have momentum and energy. Maybe it could provide the key to the long-sought theory of quantum gravity.

Born’s idea that space-time and momentum space should be interchangeable – a theory now known as “Born reciprocity” – had a remarkable consequence: if space-time can be curved by the masses of stars and galaxies, as Einstein’s theory showed, then it should be possible to curve momentum space too.

At the time it was not clear what kind of physical entity might curve momentum space, and the mathematics necessary to make such an idea work hadn’t even been invented. So Born never fulfilled his dream of putting space-time and momentum space on an equal footing.

That is where Smolin and his colleagues enter the story. Together with Laurent Freidel, also at the Perimeter Institute, Jerzy Kowalski-Glikman at the University of Wroclaw, Poland, and Giovanni Amelino-Camelia at Sapienza University of Rome in Italy, Smolin has been investigating the effects of a curvature of momentum space.

The quartet took the standard mathematical rules for translating between momentum space and space-time and applied them to a curved momentum space. What they discovered is shocking: observers living in a curved momentum space will no longer agree on measurements made in a unified space-time. That goes entirely against the grain of Einstein’s relativity. He had shown that while space and time were relative, space-time was the same for everyone. For observers in a curved momentum space, however, even space-time is relative (see diagram).

This mismatch between one observer’s space-time measurements and another’s grows with distance or over time, which means that while space-time in your immediate vicinity will always be sharply defined, objects and events in the far distance become fuzzier. “The further away you are and the more energy is involved, the larger the event seems to spread out in space-time,” says Smolin.

For instance, if you are 10 billion light years from a supernova and the energy of its light is about 10 gigaelectronvolts, then your measurement of its location in space-time would differ from a local observer’s by a light second. That may not sound like much, but it amounts to 300,000 kilometres. Neither of you would be wrong – it’s just that locations in space-time are relative, a phenomenon the researchers have dubbed “relative locality”.

Relative locality would deal a huge blow to our picture of reality. If space-time is no longer an invariant backdrop of the universe on which all observers can agree, in what sense can it be considered the true fabric of reality?

That is a question still to be wrestled with, but relative locality has its benefits, too. For one thing, it could shed light on a stubborn puzzle known as the black hole information-loss paradox. In the 1970s, Stephen Hawking discovered that black holes radiate away their mass, eventually evaporating and disappearing altogether. That posed an intriguing question: what happens to all the stuff that fell into the black hole in the first place?

Relativity prevents anything that falls into a black hole from escaping, because it would have to travel faster than light to do so – a cosmic speed limit that is strictly enforced. But quantum mechanics enforces its own strict law: things, or more precisely the information that they contain, cannot simply vanish from reality. Black hole evaporation put physicists between a rock and a hard place.

According to Smolin, relative locality saves the day. Let’s say you were patient enough to wait around while a black hole evaporated, a process that could take billions of years. Once it had vanished, you could ask what happened to, say, an elephant that once succumbed to its gravitational grip. But as you look back to the time at which you thought the elephant had fallen in, you would find that locations in space-time had grown so fuzzy and uncertain that there would be no way to tell whether the elephant actually fell into the black hole or narrowly missed it. The information-loss paradox dissolves.

Big questions still remain. For instance, how can we know if momentum space is really curved? To find the answer, the team has proposed several experiments.

One idea is to look at light arriving at the Earth from distant gamma-ray bursts. If momentum space is curved in a particular way that mathematicians refer to as “non-metric”, then a high-energy photon in the gamma-ray burst should arrive at our telescope a little later than a lower-energy photon from the same burst, despite the two being emitted at the same time.

Just that phenomenon has already been seen, starting with some unusual observations made by a telescope in the Canary Islands in 2005 (New Scientist, 15 August 2009, p 29). The effect has since been confirmed by NASA’s Fermi gamma-ray space telescope, which has been collecting light from cosmic explosions since it launched in 2008. “The Fermi data show that it is an undeniable experimental fact that there is a correlation between arrival time and energy – high-energy photons arrive later than low-energy photons,” says Amelino-Camelia.

Still, he is not popping the champagne just yet. It is not clear whether the observed delays are true signatures of curved momentum space, or whether they are down to “unknown properties of the explosions themselves”, as Amelino-Camelia puts it. Calculations of gamma-ray bursts idealise the explosions as instantaneous, but in reality they last for several seconds. While there is no obvious reason to think so, it is possible that the bursts occur in such a way that they emit lower-energy photons a second or two before higher-energy photons, which would account for the observed delays.

In order to disentangle the properties of the explosions from properties of relative locality, we need a large sample of gamma-ray bursts taking place at various known distances (arxiv.org/abs/1103.5626). If the delay is a property of the explosion, its length will not depend on how far away the burst is from our telescope; if it is a sign of relative locality, it will. Amelino-Camelia and the rest of Smolin’s team are now anxiously awaiting more data from Fermi.

The questions don’t end there, however. Even if Fermi’s observations confirm that momentum space is curved, they still won’t tell us what is doing the curving. In general relativity, it is momentum and energy in the form of mass that warp space-time. In a world in which momentum space is fundamental, could space and time somehow be responsible for curving momentum space?

Work by Shahn Majid, a mathematical physicist at Queen Mary University of London, might hold some clues. In the 1990s, he showed that curved momentum space is equivalent to what’s known as a noncommutative space-time. In familiar space-time, coordinates commute – that is, if we want to reach the point with coordinates (x,y), it doesn’t matter whether we take xsteps to the right and then y steps forward, or if we travel y steps forward followed by x steps to the right. But mathematicians can construct space-times in which this order no longer holds, leaving space-time with an inherent fuzziness.

In a sense, such fuzziness is exactly what you might expect once quantum effects take hold. What makes quantum mechanics different from ordinary mechanics is Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: when you fix a particle’s momentum – by measuring it, for example – then its position becomes completely uncertain, and vice versa. The order in which you measure position and momentum determines their values; in other words, these properties do not commute. This, Majid says, implies that curved momentum space is just quantum space-time in another guise.

What’s more, Majid suspects that this relationship between curvature and quantum uncertainty works two ways: the curvature of space-time – a manifestation of gravity in Einstein’s relativity – implies that momentum space is also quantum. Smolin and colleagues’ model does not yet include gravity, but once it does, Majid says, observers will not agree on measurements in momentum space either. So if both space-time and momentum space are relative, where does objective reality lie? What is the true fabric of reality?

Smolin’s hunch is that we will find ourselves in a place where space-time and momentum space meet: an eight-dimensional phase space that represents all possible values of position, time, energy and momentum. In relativity, what one observer views as space, another views as time and vice versa, because ultimately they are two sides of a single coin – a unified space-time. Likewise, in Smolin’s picture of quantum gravity, what one observer sees as space-time another sees as momentum space, and the two are unified in a higher-dimensional phase space that is absolute and invariant to all observers. With relativity bumped up another level, it will be goodbye to both space-time and momentum space, and hello phase space.

“It has been obvious for a long time that the separation between space-time and energy-momentum is misleading when dealing with quantum gravity,” says physicist João Magueijo of Imperial College London. In ordinary physics, it is easy enough to treat space-time and momentum space as separate things, he explains, “but quantum gravity may require their complete entanglement”. Once we figure out how the puzzle pieces of space-time and momentum space fit together, Born’s dream will finally be realised and the true scaffolding of reality will be revealed.

Bibliography

The principle of relative locality by Giovanni Amelino-Camelia and others (arxiv.org/abs/1101.0931)

Amanda Gefter is a consultant for New Scientist based in Boston

Devagar e sempre (FSP)

08/08/2011Uncategorizedciência, comunicação científica, Cultura, Mídia, Visualidaderenzotaddei

JC e-mail 4317, de 08 de Agosto de 2011.

Movimento ‘Slow Science’ defende o direito de cientistas fugirem da corrida pelo grande número de publicações e priorizarem qualidade da pesquisa.

Um movimento que começou na Alemanha está ganhando, aos poucos, os corredores acadêmicos. A causa é nobre: mais tempo para os cientistas fazerem pesquisa. Quem encabeça a ideia é a organização “Slow Science” (http://slow-science.org), criada por cientistas gabaritados da Alemanha.

Aderir ao movimento significa não se render à produção desenfreada de artigos em revistas especializadas, que conta muitos pontos nos sistemas de avaliação de produção científica. Hoje, quem publica em revistas científicas muito lidas e mencionadas por outros cientistas consegue mais recursos para pesquisa.

Por isso, os cientistas acabam centrando seu trabalho nos resultados (publicações). “Somos uma guerrilha de neurocientistas que luta para que o modelo midiático de produção científica seja revisto”, disse à Folha o neurocientista Jonas Obleser, do Instituto Max Planck, um dos criadores do “Slow Science”. O grupo chegou a criar um manifesto, no final do ano passado, em que proclama: “Somos cientistas, não blogamos, não tuitamos, temos nosso tempo”.

“A ciência lenta sempre existiu ao longo de séculos. Agora, precisa de proteção.” O documento está na porta da geladeira do laboratório do médico brasileiro Rachid Karam, que faz pós-doutorado na Universidade da Califórnia em San Diego.

“O manifesto faz sentido. Temos de verificar os dados antes de tirarmos conclusões precipitadas”, analisa. “A ‘Slow Science’ nos daria tempo para analisar uma hipótese em profundidade e tirar conclusões acertadas.”

De acordo com Obleser, o número de cientistas simpatizantes do movimento está crescendo, “especialmente na América Latina”. “Mas não é preciso se filiar formalmente. Basta imprimir o manifesto e montar guarda no seu departamento”, diz.

O Slow Science é um braço do já conhecido “Slow Food”, que defende uma alimentação mais lenta e saudável, tanto no preparo quanto no consumo dos alimentos. Na ciência, a ideia é pregar a pesquisa que não se paute só pelo resultado rápido.

Ceticismo – “É improvável que o ritmo de fazer pesquisa seja diminuído por meio de um acordo mundial em que cada cientista assume o compromisso de desacelerar seus trabalhos”, diz o especialista em cientometria (medição da produtividade científica) Rogério Meneghini. Ele é coordenador científico do Projeto SciELO, que reúne publicações da América Latina com acesso livre.

Para Meneghini, o “Slow Science” é um movimento “anêmico” num contexto em que a rapidez do fluxo de ideias e informações acelera as descobertas. “Parece uma reivindicação de um velho movimento com uma roupagem nova. É certamente a sensação de quem está perdendo as pernas para correr”, conclui.
(Folha de São Paulo)

Roy Wagner: Time Sensitive Cultures, Culture Sensitive Time (2009 AAA meeting)

08/08/2011UncategorizedAntropologia, Cultura, Incerteza, Previsão, Semióticarenzotaddei

Roy Wagner: paper Time Sensitive Cultures, Culture Sensitive Time (audio recording), delivered at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C.

The Mathematics of Changing Your Mind (N.Y. Times)

08/08/2011Uncategorizedciência, Incerteza, Matemática, Previsãorenzotaddei

By JOHN ALLEN PAULOS
Published: August 5, 2011

Sharon Bertsch McGrayne introduces Bayes’s theorem in her new book with a remark by John Maynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?”

Illustration by Shannon May

THE THEORY THAT WOULD NOT DIE. How Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines and Emerged Triumphant From Two Centuries of Controversy. By Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, 320 pp. Yale University Press. $27.50.

Bayes’s theorem, named after the 18th-century Presbyterian minister Thomas Bayes, addresses this selfsame essential task: How should we modify our beliefs in the light of additional information? Do we cling to old assumptions long after they’ve become untenable, or abandon them too readily at the first whisper of doubt? Bayesian reasoning promises to bring our views gradually into line with reality and so has become an invaluable tool for scientists of all sorts and, indeed, for anyone who wants, putting it grandiloquently, to sync up with the universe. If you are not thinking like a Bayesian, perhaps you should be.

At its core, Bayes’s theorem depends upon an ingenious turnabout: If you want to assess the strength of your hypothesis given the evidence, you must also assess the strength of the evidence given your hypothesis. In the face of uncertainty, a Bayesian asks three questions: How confident am I in the truth of my initial belief? On the assumption that my original belief is true, how confident am I that the new evidence is accurate? And whether or not my original belief is true, how confident am I that the new evidence is accurate? One proto-Bayesian, David Hume, underlined the importance of considering evidentiary probability properly when he questioned the authority of religious hearsay: one shouldn’t trust the supposed evidence for a miracle, he argued, unless it would be even more miraculous if the report were untrue.

The theorem has a long and surprisingly convoluted history, and McGrayne chronicles it in detail. It was Bayes’s friend Richard Price, an amateur mathematician, who developed Bayes’s ideas and probably deserves the glory that would have resulted from a Bayes-Price theorem. After Price, however, Bayes’s theorem lapsed into obscurity until the illustrious French mathematician Pierre Simon Laplace extended and applied it in clever, nontrivial ways in the early 19th century. Thereafter it went in and out of fashion, was applied in one field after another only to be later condemned for being vague, subjective or unscientific, and became a bone of contention between rival camps of mathematicians before enjoying a revival in recent years.

The theorem itself can be stated simply. Beginning with a provisional hypothesis about the world (there are, of course, no other kinds), we assign to it an initial probability called the prior probability or simply the prior. After actively collecting or happening upon some potentially relevant evidence, we use Bayes’s theorem to recalculate the probability of the hypothesis in light of the new evidence. This revised probability is called the posterior probability or simply the posterior. Specifically Bayes’s theorem states (trumpets sound here) that the posterior probability of a hypothesis is equal to the product of (a) the prior probability of the hypothesis and (b) the conditional probability of the evidence given the hypothesis, divided by (c) the probability of the new evidence.

Consider a concrete example. Assume that you’re presented with three coins, two of them fair and the other a counterfeit that always lands heads. If you randomly pick one of the three coins, the probability that it’s the counterfeit is 1 in 3. This is the prior probability of the hypothesis that the coin is counterfeit. Now after picking the coin, you flip it three times and observe that it lands heads each time. Seeing this new evidence that your chosen coin has landed heads three times in a row, you want to know the revised posterior probability that it is the counterfeit. The answer to this question, found using Bayes’s theorem (calculation mercifully omitted), is 4 in 5. You thus revise your probability estimate of the coin’s being counterfeit upward from 1 in 3 to 4 in 5.

A serious problem arises, however, when you apply Bayes’s theorem to real life: it’s often unclear what initial probability to assign to a hypothesis. Our intuitions are embedded in countless narratives and arguments, and so new evidence can be filtered and factored into the Bayes probability revision machine in many idiosyncratic and incommensurable ways. The question is how to assign prior probabilities and evaluate evidence in situations much more complicated than the tossing of coins, situations like global warming or autism. In the latter case, for example, some might have assigned a high prior probability to the hypothesis that the thimerosal in vaccines causes autism. But then came new evidence — studies showing that permanent removal of the compound from these vaccines did not lead to a decline in autism. The conditional probability of this evidence given the thimerosal hypothesis is tiny at best and thus a convincing reason to drastically lower the posterior probability of the hypothesis. Of course, people wedded to their priors can always try to rescue them from the evidence by introducing all sorts of dodges. Witness die-hard birthers and truthers, for example.

McGrayne devotes much of her book to Bayes’s theorem’s many remarkable contributions to history: she discusses how it was used to search for nuclear weapons, devise actuarial tables, demonstrate that a document seemingly incriminating Colonel Dreyfus was most likely a forgery, improve low-resolution computer images, judge the authorship of the disputed Federalist papers and determine the false positive rate of mammograms. She also tells the story of Alan Turing and others whose pivotal crypto-analytic work unscrambling German codes may have helped shorten World War II.

Statistics is an imperialist discipline that can be applied to almost any area of science or life, and this litany of applications is intended to be the unifying thread that sews the book into a coherent whole. It does so, but at the cost of giving it a list-like, formulaic feel. More successful are McGrayne’s vivifying sketches of the statisticians who devoted themselves to Bayesian polemics and counterpolemics. As McGrayne amply shows, orthodox Bayesians have long been opposed, sometimes vehemently, by so-called frequentists, who have objected to their tolerance for subjectivity. The nub of the differences between them is that for Bayesians the prior can be a subjective expression of the degree of belief in a hypothesis, even one about a unique event or one that has as yet never occurred. For frequentists the prior must have a more objective foundation; ideally that is the relative frequency of events in repeatable, well-defined experiments. McGrayne’s statisticians exhibit many differences, and she cites the quip that you can nevertheless always tell them apart by their posteriors, a good word on which to end.

John Allen Paulos, a professor of mathematics at Temple University, is the author of several books, including “Innumeracy” and, most recently, “Irreligion.”

A saúde em 2021 (Fapesp)

08/08/2011UncategorizedIncerteza, Previsão, Saúderenzotaddei

JC e-mail 4315, de 04 de Agosto de 2011.

Um dos grandes desafios a serem enfrentados pelo setor de saúde no Brasil em 2021 será o crescimento no número de idosos com o consequente aumento que se pode esperar nos quadros gerais de diversas doenças.

A constatação foi feita por especialistas de diversas áreas durante o Fórum Internacional Saúde em 2021, realizado nos dias 2 e 3 de agosto, em São Paulo, pela Associação Paulista pelo Desenvolvimento da Medicina (SPDM).

Dividido em seis módulos, “Brasil no mundo em 2021”, “O sistema de saúde brasileiro em 2021”, “Profissionais da saúde em 2021”, “Informação, comunicação e saúde”, “Ética na saúde” e “Mercado e complexo industrial da saúde em 2021”, o evento teve por objetivo identificar prováveis cenários do setor, assim como debater possíveis estratégias para a próxima década.

“O envelhecimento é inevitável e essa geração de idosos já nasceu”, disse Rubens Ricupero, diretor da Faculdade de Economia da Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado (FAAP), em palestra no fórum.

Ricupero citou dados do Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) para destacar o envelhecimento populacional no país. Em 2001, 14,5 milhões de brasileiros (ou 9,1% do total) tinham acima de 60 anos. Em 2009, já eram 21,6 milhões (11,3%). Em 2025, a estimativa é que os idosos serão mais de 30 milhões (ou 15% do total). “Isso promoverá um grande impacto na economia do país”, disse.

De acordo com Maurício Lima Barreto, professor titular do Instituto de Saúde Coletiva da Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), problemas como diabetes e obesidade se tornarão ainda mais crônicos nas próximas décadas e, junto a novas doenças, poderão levar a um “estresse” no sistema de saúde brasileiro. “Temos de resolver os velhos problemas para podermos lidar com os novos no futuro”, ressaltou.

Para isso, o Brasil terá de investir ainda mais em ciência, tecnologia e inovação no setor. Isso tem ocorrido no Estado de São Paulo, por exemplo, em que a área de saúde é a maior destinatária dos recursos destinados pela FAPESP ao apoio à pesquisa.

“Em 2010, a Fapesp investiu R$ 215,3 milhões em pesquisas na área de saúde, o que representa 27,61% do total investido pela Fundação”, destacou Celso Lafer, presidente da Fapesp, no Fórum Internacional Saúde em 2021.

O desembolso da Fapesp com a Linha Regular – que compreende todas as modalidades de Bolsas e de Auxílios Regulares, excluindo as bolsas e os auxílios concedidos no âmbito dos Programas Especiais e dos Programas de Pesquisa para Inovação Tecnológica – totalizou R$ 595,91 milhões em 2010, correspondendo a 76,4% de todo o valor gasto pela Fundação. A área do conhecimento que recebeu maior volume de recursos dentro da Linha Regular foi saúde, com R$ 186,81 milhões (31,35%).

Glaucius Oliva, presidente do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) e coordenador do Centro de Biotecnologia Molecular Estrutural, um dos Centros de Pesquisa, Inovação e Difusão (CEPIDs) da Fapesp, reforçou essa necessidade de investimentos no setor de saúde.

Segundo ele, o País também precisa superar a pequena presença de doutores no setor industrial. “Em 2008, 80% dos doutores atuavam em educação. Isso, dois anos após o doutoramento. O restante estava na administração pública e menos de 1% atuava com pesquisas em empresas”, ressaltou.

Para que a pesquisa avance para além do universo acadêmico, Oliva destacou a necessidade de internacionalizar ainda mais a ciência brasileira, assim como avanços na multi, inter e transdisciplinaridade. “O maior desafio é traduzir o conhecimento científico para a sociedade. E, para isso, precisamos de mais doutores nas empresas”, disse.

Mais informações: http://www.spdm.org.br/site/forum.
(Agência Fapesp)

Stuff white people like: denying climate change (Grist)

04/08/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsão, Psicologia, Raça, Racismo, Visualidaderenzotaddei

CLIMATE SKEPTICS

BY DAVID ROBERTS
2 AUG 2011 4:11 PM

There’s a study running soon in the journalGlobal Environmental Change called “Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States.” It analyzes poll and survey data from the last 10 years and finds that … are you sitting down? … conservative white men are far more likely to deny the threat of climate change than other people.

OK, that’s no surprise to anyone who’s been awake over the last decade. But the paper goes beyond that to put forward some theories aboutwhy conservative white men (CWM) are so loathe to accept climate change. The explanation is some mix of the following, all of which overlap in various ways:

First there’s the “white male effect” — generally speaking, white males are less concerned with a variety of risks. This probably has to do with the fact that they are less exposed to risk than other demographics, what with running things and all.

Then, as Chris Mooney notes, there’s the “social dominance orientation” of conservatives, who see social life as following the law of the jungle. One’s choice is to dominate or be dominated; that is the natural order of things. Such folk are leery of climate change solutions premised on fairness or egalitarianism.

Then there are the well-understood “system-justifying tendencies” of conservatives. The authors explain that conservatives …

… strongly display tendencies to justify and defend the current social and economic system. Conservatives dislike change and uncertainty and attempt to simplify complexity. Further, conservative white males have disproportionately occupied positions of power within our economic system. Given the expansive challenge that climate change poses to the industrial capitalist economic system, it should not be surprising that conservative white males’ strong system-justifying attitudes would be triggered to deny climate change.
Finally, there’s “identity-protective cognition,” a notion borrowed from Dan Kahan at Yale. (See this PDF.) Here’s how Kahan and colleagues sum it up:

We propose that variance in risk perceptions — across persons generally, and across race and gender in particular — reflects a form of motivated cognition through which people seek to deflect threats to identities they hold, and roles they occupy, by virtue of contested cultural norms.

“Motivated cognition” refers to reasoning done in service of justifying an already held belief or goal. It helps explain why the CWM who know the most about climate science are the most likely to reject it; they learn about it in order to reject it. See Chris Mooney’s great piece on that. Point being: when facts (or the implications of those facts) threaten people’s social identities, they tend to dismiss the facts rather than the identity.

To all these reasons, I’d add “epistemic closure,” the extraordinary way that the modern right has constructed a self-contained, hermetically sealed media environment in which conservatives can be protected from ever encountering a contrary view. It’s an accelerant to all the tendencies described above.

Anyway, as you can see, the rejection of climate science among CWM is basically overdetermined. Climate change threatens their values, their privileges, and their worldview. They are reacting as one would expect them to react.

8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance (AlterNet)

04/08/2011UncategorizedCidadania, Educação, participatividaderenzotaddei

July 31, 2011
By BRUCE E. LEVINE

Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and author of Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite (Chelsea Green, 2011).

Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination.

Young Americans-even more so than older Americans-appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it. A 2010 Gallup poll asked Americans ‘Do you think the Social Security system will be able to pay you a benefit when you retire?” Among 18- to 34-years-olds, 76 percent of them said no. Yet despite their lack of confidence in the availability of Social Security for them, few have demanded it be shored up by more fairly payroll-taxing the wealthy; most appear resigned to having more money deducted from their paychecks for Social Security, even though they don’t believe it will be around to benefit them.

How exactly has American society subdued young Americans?

1. Student-Loan Debt. Large debt-and the fear it creates-is a pacifying force. There was no tuition at the City University of New York when I attended one of its colleges in the 1970s, a time when tuition at many U.S. public universities was so affordable that it was easy to get a B.A. and even a graduate degree without accruing any student-loan debt. While those days are gone in the United States, public universities continue to be free in the Arab world and are either free or with very low fees in many countries throughout the world. The millions of young Iranians who risked getting shot to protest their disputed 2009 presidential election, the millions of young Egyptians who risked their lives earlier this year to eliminate Mubarak, and the millions of young Americans who demonstrated against the Vietnam War all had in common the absence of pacifying huge student-loan debt.

Today in the United States, two-thirds of graduating seniors at four-year colleges have student-loan debt, including over 62 percent of public university graduates. While average undergraduate debt is close to $25,000, I increasingly talk to college graduates with closer to $100,000 in student-loan debt. During the time in one’s life when it should be easiest to resist authority because one does not yet have family responsibilities, many young people worry about the cost of bucking authority, losing their job, and being unable to pay an ever-increasing debt. In a vicious cycle, student debt has a subduing effect on activism, and political passivity makes it more likely that students will accept such debt as a natural part of life.

2. Psychopathologizing and Medicating Noncompliance. In 1955, Erich Fromm, the then widely respected anti-authoritarian leftist psychoanalyst, wrote, ‘Today the function of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis threatens to become the tool in the manipulation of man.” Fromm died in 1980, the same year that an increasingly authoritarian America elected Ronald Reagan president, and an increasingly authoritarian American Psychiatric Association added to their diagnostic bible (then the DSM-III) disruptive mental disorders for children and teenagers such as the increasingly popular ‘oppositional defiant disorder” (ODD). The official symptoms of ODD include ‘often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules,” ‘often argues with adults,” and ‘often deliberately does things to annoy other people.”

Many of America’s greatest activists including Saul Alinsky (1909–1972), the legendary organizer and author of Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals, would today certainly be diagnosed with ODD and other disruptive disorders. Recalling his childhood, Alinsky said, ‘I never thought of walking on the grass until I saw a sign saying ‘Keep off the grass.’ Then I would stomp all over it.” Heavily tranquilizing antipsychotic drugs (e.g. Zyprexa and Risperdal) are now the highest grossing class of medication in the United States ($16 billion in 2010); a major reason for this, according to theJournal of the American Medical Association in 2010, is that many children receiving antipsychotic drugs have nonpsychotic diagnoses such as ODD or some other disruptive disorder (this especially true of Medicaid-covered pediatric patients).

3. Schools That Educate for Compliance and Not for Democracy. Upon accepting the New York City Teacher of the Year Award on January 31, 1990, John Taylor Gatto upset many in attendance by stating: ‘The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions.” A generation ago, the problem of compulsory schooling as a vehicle for an authoritarian society was widely discussed, but as this problem has gotten worse, it is seldom discussed.

The nature of most classrooms, regardless of the subject matter, socializes students to be passive and directed by others, to follow orders, to take seriously the rewards and punishments of authorities, to pretend to care about things they don’t care about, and that they are impotent to affect their situation. A teacher can lecture about democracy, but schools are essentially undemocratic places, and so democracy is not what is instilled in students. Jonathan Kozol in The Night Is Dark and I Am Far from Home focused on how school breaks us from courageous actions. Kozol explains how our schools teach us a kind of ‘inert concern” in which ‘caring”-in and of itself and without risking the consequences of actual action-is considered ‘ethical.” School teaches us that we are ‘moral and mature” if we politely assert our concerns, but the essence of school-its demand for compliance-teaches us not to act in a friction-causing manner.

4. ‘No Child Left Behind” and ‘Race to the Top.” The corporatocracy has figured out a way to make our already authoritarian schools even more authoritarian. Democrat-Republican bipartisanship has resulted in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, NAFTA, the PATRIOT Act, the War on Drugs, the Wall Street bailout, and educational policies such as ‘No Child Left Behind” and ‘Race to the Top.” These policies are essentially standardized-testing tyranny that creates fear, which is antithetical to education for a democratic society. Fear forces students and teachers to constantly focus on the demands of test creators; it crushes curiosity, critical thinking, questioning authority, and challenging and resisting illegitimate authority. In a more democratic and less authoritarian society, one would evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher not by corporatocracy-sanctioned standardized tests but by asking students, parents, and a community if a teacher is inspiring students to be more curious, to read more, to learn independently, to enjoy thinking critically, to question authorities, and to challenge illegitimate authorities.

5. Shaming Young People Who Take Education-But Not Their Schooling-Seriously. In a 2006 survey in the United States, it was found that 40 percent of children between first and third grade read every day, but by fourth grade, that rate declined to 29 percent. Despite the anti-educational impact of standard schools, children and their parents are increasingly propagandized to believe that disliking school means disliking learning. That was not always the case in the United States. Mark Twain famously said, ‘I never let my schooling get in the way of my education.” Toward the end of Twain’s life in 1900, only 6 percent of Americans graduated high school. Today, approximately 85 percent of Americans graduate high school, but this is good enough for Barack Obama who told us in 2009, ‘And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country.”

The more schooling Americans get, however, the more politically ignorant they are of America’s ongoing class war, and the more incapable they are of challenging the ruling class. In the 1880s and 1890s, American farmers with little or no schooling created a Populist movement that organized America’s largest-scale working people’s cooperative, formed a People’s Party that received 8 percent of the vote in 1892 presidential election, designed a ‘subtreasury” plan (that had it been implemented would have allowed easier credit for farmers and broke the power of large banks) and sent 40,000 lecturers across America to articulate it, and evidenced all kinds of sophisticated political ideas, strategies and tactics absent today from America’s well-schooled population. Today, Americans who lack college degrees are increasingly shamed as ‘losers”; however, Gore Vidal and George Carlin, two of America’s most astute and articulate critics of the corporatocracy, never went to college, and Carlin dropped out of school in the ninth grade.

6. The Normalization of Surveillance. The fear of being surveilled makes a population easier to control. While the National Security Agency (NSA) has received publicity for monitoring American citizen’s email and phone conversations, and while employer surveillance has become increasingly common in the United States, young Americans have become increasingly acquiescent to corporatocracy surveillance because, beginning at a young age, surveillance is routine in their lives. Parents routinely check Web sites for their kid’s latest test grades and completed assignments, and just like employers, are monitoring their children’s computers and Facebook pages. Some parents use the GPS in their children’s cell phones to track their whereabouts, and other parents have video cameras in their homes. Increasingly, I talk with young people who lack the confidence that they can even pull off a party when their parents are out of town, and so how much confidence are they going to have about pulling off a democratic movement below the radar of authorities?

7. Television. In 2009, the Nielsen Company reported that TV viewing in the United States is at an all-time high if one includes the following ‘three screens”: a television set, a laptop/personal computer, and a cell phone. American children average eight hours a day on TV, video games, movies, the Internet, cell phones, iPods, and other technologies (not including school-related use). Many progressives are concerned about the concentrated control of content by the corporate media, but the mere act of watching TV-regardless of the programming-is the primary pacifying agent (private-enterprise prisons have recognized that providing inmates with cable television can be a more economical method to keep them quiet and subdued than it would be to hire more guards).

Television is a dream come true for an authoritarian society: those with the most money own most of what people see; fear-based television programming makes people more afraid and distrustful of one another, which is good for the ruling elite who depend on a ‘divide and conquer” strategy; TV isolates people so they are not joining together to create resistance to authorities; and regardless of the programming, TV viewers’ brainwaves slow down, transforming them closer to a hypnotic state that makes it difficult to think critically. While playing a video games is not as zombifying as passively viewing TV, such games have become for many boys and young men their only experience of potency, and this ‘virtual potency” is certainly no threat to the ruling elite.

8. Fundamentalist Religion and Fundamentalist Consumerism. American culture offers young Americans the ‘choices” of fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist consumerism. All varieties of fundamentalism narrow one’s focus and inhibit critical thinking. While some progressives are fond of calling fundamentalist religion the ‘opiate of the masses,” they too often neglect the pacifying nature of America’s other major fundamentalism. Fundamentalist consumerism pacifies young Americans in a variety of ways. Fundamentalist consumerism destroys self-reliance, creating people who feel completely dependent on others and who are thus more likely to turn over decision-making power to authorities, the precise mind-set that the ruling elite loves to see. A fundamentalist consumer culture legitimizes advertising, propaganda, and all kinds of manipulations, including lies; and when a society gives legitimacy to lies and manipulativeness, it destroys the capacity of people to trust one another and form democratic movements. Fundamentalist consumerism also promotes self-absorption, which makes it difficult for the solidarity necessary for democratic movements.

These are not the only aspects of our culture that are subduing young Americans and crushing their resistance to domination. The food-industrial complex has helped create an epidemic of childhood obesity, depression, and passivity. The prison-industrial complex keeps young anti-authoritarians ‘in line” (now by the fear that they may come before judges such as the two Pennsylvania ones who took $2.6 million from private-industry prisons to ensure that juveniles were incarcerated). As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed: ‘All our things are right and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.”

TV 10 weather forecasts worse than a crap shoot (City Pulse)

03/08/2011Uncategorizedciência, comunicação científica, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Opinião pública, Previsãorenzotaddei

Media Muckraker
November 12, 2002

The surprise 3.1-inch snowfall last Monday, Dec. 2, resulted in more than 100 Lansing area accidents. Little did I know, as I chugged my car on U.S. 127 that morning, that over 20 of those accidents were taking place at the I-96 exchange just up around the bend. Fortunately, before I arrived at the ice-slick, my instincts got the better of me and I averted a possible accident by turning off I-127 early.

No thanks to the weathermen of WILX-10 (who share double duty as the forecasters for the Lansing State Journal). They had forecast snow, but had never said how much, hinting at just an inch or so.

Then it happened again. On Tuesday, Rockcole, Provenzano and Drummond predicted a low temperature “near 10.” In fact the mercury fell to 18 degrees below zero, the day’s lowest temperature since 1869!

How could the weathermen be so wrong? I decided to do a little weather muckraking.

In Britain, earlier this year, Ben Magoo wondered about the accuracy of the BBC’s weather reporting after the sunny vacation day they predicted for him turned out soggy. “Is the super computer in the [BBC] office accurately modeling the world’s climate, or is it resting its brain and picking out sun and rain symbols at random? We will find the answer!” Magoo developed a computer program to automatically analyze their weather data at 10 sites, including York, the Tower of London and Cambridge. Here’s what he found at Cambridge:

Cambridge, England \| Days Monitored: 126
Days Ahead	1	2	3	4
Accuracy	55%	50%	43%	35%

Incredibly, the chance of the next day’s forecast being right was just 55 percent. Note that Magoo ignored the same-day predictions, making “the assumption that predicting today’s weather is dead simple, so the BBC couldn’t possibly get this wrong.” Really now?

Turning to Lansing, I analyzed 14 days of WILX-LSJ forecasts between Nov. 24 and Dec. 7. I determined a forecast to be in error if at least one of the following occurred: 1) the predicted temperature was incorrect by 5 degrees or more (for either the high or low); 2) precipitation did not occur as predicted (e.g… they predicted snow, but there was none, or the converse), or 3) the precipitation prediction was off by 100% or more (e.g.,. they predicted 1 inch of snow, but it snowed 3 inches, a 200 percent difference).

Lansing, MI \| Days Monitored: 14
Days Ahead	Same Day	1	2	3	4
Accuracy	50%	38%	50%	55%	20%

Remarkably, my analysis demonstrated that the WILX-LSJ forecasters were unable to predict the day’s weather – for the same day – a full seven of 14 days (50 percent)! The British chap had evidently presumed way too much. Distant predictions tended to be about 50/50, with fifth day a poor 20 percent.

You’d figure that predicting the weather a few hours hence would be a breeze. But they missed 3.1 inches of snow on Dec. 2 and were off by 28 degrees on Dec. 3. On Nov 29, the LSJ predicted that day’s weather would have a high in “the upper 30s,” which was significantly lower than the actual high of 46. And on Dec. 4, the LSJ predicted a low temp in the “low teens,” which was a far cry (for the freezing news carriers delivering the newspaper to your doorstep) from the actual low of 4 degrees below zero.

All tolled, of 60 days forecast, the accuracy rate was just 43 percent. Don’t believe it? Check it out for yourself, the evidence is in the library (the other TV weathermen do not have evidence so accessible). Lansing’s numbers are remarkably close to the Cambridge study, suggesting that this level of miscalculation might be consistent over the entire year.

One moral is to not rely on the forecasts to plan time off work.

At the very least, weathermen should humbly state the truth; there is a 50/50 chance that our forecasts will be wrong in at least one important area.Incompetence? Arrogance? It goes much deeper than that.

In Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Jack comments on the weather thus, “Charming day it has been, Miss Fairfax.” To which Gwendolen Fairfax replies, “Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous.”

It’s true. Weather forecasts are less about the weather than about cementing social relations – telling you who has authority. While weather seems so bloody innocuous, in fact, culturally speaking, the weather forecast is a covert agent of social control.

It doesn’t matter to the mainstream media bosses that weathermen are wrong most of the time (if they even know it). What’s important is that weathermen exude an aura of certainty (precision numbers) while expressing an undercurrent of fear (of the possible storm). Just like the IRS, the traffic cop or your boss, no matter how wrong, he’s the person in charge – with certainty. There’s no way out. That’s one hidden message.

The good news is that they’re wrong!

Here’s what needs to be done. Lose the “Stormtracker” and hire a muckraker. Don’t circumvent serious issues like the amount of PCBs in the morning’s snowfall, or the amount of soot in a Lansing fog. And tell the viewers/readers where the historic danger spots are (like I-127& I-96) before the next snowstorm.

Here’s my forecast. Under the current corporate structure, they’ll never do it.

Alex Peter Zenger is the pen name for the Media Muckraker. It is inspired by the work of John Peter Zenger, one of the founding fighters for press freedom in the United States.

Let’s Take Back the Sky! (City Pulse)

03/08/2011Uncategorizedciência, Incerteza, Mídia, Meteorologia, Opinião públicarenzotaddei

by Brian McKenna
November 7, 2001

Saturday, Nov. 3, just hours before the planned confrontation with the enemy, our intelligence assessed its radar, consulted U.S. satellite imagery and identified the front. It would be a good day for bombing, “sunny with a high of 58 degrees.”

The U.S. war on Afghanistan?

No, Stormtracker 6’s weather prediction efforts for the Spartan/Wolverine football game, Michigan’s civil war.

Historically, weather forecasting came of age with the D-Day assault on Normandy Beach in 1944. A half-century later weather-work still retains its militant glow.

Consider the language. Channel 10’s “Sky Team” and “Stormtracker 6” punctuate their TV reports with alerts, watches, warnings, outbreaks, damage, hazards and threats. Like the Joint Chiefs, they monitor the scene with satellites, radar, chase vans, web cams and computerized maps. On occasion, they’ll interrupt our TV viewing with dire warnings of impending disaster, using the shrill three-note cry of the Emergency Broadcast System, originally intended for nuclear alerts. Channel 6’s WLNS will even e-mail you the warnings upon request.

The shift in terminology from the innocuous “weather report” to the ominous “Stormtracker 6” serves notice of a perennial threat.

There are rarely serious storm-related casualties in Lansing, yet Channels 6 and 10 have three full-time weathercasters apiece (yet not a single full-time environmental reporter).

What’s going on? According to several media critics, the latent function of the weather forecast is to reassure you that our boys (the “Sky Team”) are patrolling the heavens and carefully tracking any potential invaders. It’s 11 o’clock prayers, a psychological tonic. All is right with the world as you lay your head upon the pillow.

It’s no mistake that TV weather borrows the metaphorical ammunition of football and war. For, at its heart, U.S. culture is awash in fear and aggression. Has been for decades. And the “cultural cops,” be they Marines, Spartans or middle-aged weathermen with video map-clickers, are on guard, making us safe from “The Other.” Be they terrorists, a football rival or a storm.

Weather has become “the discourse of reactionary time,” says Alex Cockburn, social critic. Weather is supposed to be about our ability to “undergo or endure the action of the elements” in the open air. But weather reporters usually restrict analysis of those elements to the “natural” ones like H2O, lightning and tornadoes. Missing is coverage of human-made elements or compounds like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, mercury and hundreds of toxic chemicals spewing from General Motors car assembly plants, the Lansing Board of Water and Light’s coal fired utility or our car exhausts. These airborne elements – totaling hundreds of thousands of tons per year — account for untold levels of Lansing-area disease from cancer, hypertension and asthma.

There is some positive political movement around the edges of weather reporting. The cultural pressure on weathermen to report allergy alerts, ozone action days and high ultraviolet radiation days has highlighted the fact that, like it or not, weathermen are influential educators about nature and the environment.

Ironically, some local weathermen yearn to be seen as environmentalists. Channel 6 meteorologists highlight their relationship with the Ebersole Environmental Center, where once a month they escort a class of Lansing’s public school students for a nature study. Their Web site even has several links to interesting “Science and Astronomy” sites. Sadly, these fact-filled portals into the ecological and astronomical worlds are marginal to the TV show, where a de-politicized rhetoric of temperatures, clouds and the obvious abound.

Let’s imagine that TV weatherfolk really covered “the elements” in all their ecological diversity. Let’s fantasize about weathermen who enlighten, not just put us to sleep. Here are two items that I would have reported on last week:

October 2001 was the fourth wettest on record. It rained 5.69 inches. That equates to 123.5 million gallons of raw sewage that overflowed into the Grand River last month, a record amount for October.

On Thursday, Nov. 1, an environmental group named PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) released the third report that was suppressed by the Ingham County Health Department (the others are on water and food). It found an asthma epidemic among African American youth and particularly high asthma rates in the 48915 area code. (See the report at: http://www.peer.org/michigan/Ingham_air.pdf)

I’d include stories or guest spots by naturewatch folk in every broadcast. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that the red salamander had just come out of hibernation that day? Or that the full moon was rising on the “Give Peace a Chance” concert next Saturday night?

http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/lansing/archives/011107/health/index.html

Some People’s Climate Beliefs Shift With Weather (Columbia University)

02/08/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Incerteza, Memória, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsão, Psicologia, Semióticarenzotaddei

Study Shows Daily Malleability on a Long-Term Question

2011-04-06

Photo by domediart, Flickr

Social scientists are struggling with a perplexing earth-science question: as the power of evidence showing manmade global warming is rising, why do opinion polls suggest public belief in the findings is wavering? Part of the answer may be that some people are too easily swayed by the easiest, most irrational piece of evidence at hand: their own estimation of the day’s temperature.

In three separate studies, researchers affiliated with Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) surveyed about 1,200 people in the United States and Australia, and found that those who thought the current day was warmer than usual were more likely to believe in and feel concern about global warming than those who thought the day was unusually cold. A new paper describing the studies appears in the current issue of the journal Psychological Science.

“Global warming is so complex, it appears some people are ready to be persuaded by whether their own day is warmer or cooler than usual, rather than think about whether the entire world is becoming warmer or cooler,” said lead author Ye Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the Columbia Business School’s Center for Decision Sciences, which is aligned with CRED. “It is striking that society has spent so much money, time and effort educating people about this issue, yet people are still so easily influenced.” The study says that “these results join a growing body of work show that irrelevant environmental information, such as the current weather, can affect judgments. … By way of analogy, when asked about the state of the national economy, someone might look at the amount of money in his or her wallet, a factor with only trivial relevance.”

Ongoing studies by other researchers have already provided strong evidence that opinions on climate and other issues can hinge on factors unrelated to scientific observations. Most pointedly, repeated polls have shown that voters identifying themselves as political liberals or Democrats are far more likely to believe in human-influenced climate change than those who identify themselves as conservatives or Republicans. Women believe more than men, and younger people more than older ones. Other, yet-to-be published studies at four other universities have looked at the effects of actual temperature—either the natural one outside, or within a room manipulated by researchers—and show that real-time thermometer readings can affect people’s beliefs as well. These other studies involve researchers at New York University, Temple University, the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley.

In the current paper, respondents were fairly good at knowing if it was unusually hot or cold–perceptions correlated with reality three quarters of the time—and that the perception exerted a powerful control on their attitude. As expected, politics, gender and age all had the predicted influences: for instance, on the researchers’ 1-to-4 scale of belief in global warming, Democrats were 1.5 points higher than Republicans. On the whole though, after controlling for the other factors, the researchers found that perceived temperatures still had nearly two-thirds the power as political belief, and six times the power as gender, to push someone one way or the other a notch along the scale. (The coming NYU/Temple study suggests that those with no strong political beliefs and lower education are the most easily swayed.)

In one of the studies described in the paper, the researchers tried to test the earnestness of the responses by seeing how many of those getting paid $8 for the survey were willing to donate to a real-life charity, Clean Air-Cool Planet. The correlation was strong; those who said it was warmer donated an average of about $2; those who felt it was cooler gave an average of 48 cents.

The researchers say the study not only points to how individuals’ beliefs can change literally with the wind. Li says it is possible that weather may have influenced recent large-scale public opinion polls showing declining faith in climate science. Administered at different times, future ones might turn out differently, he said. These polls, he pointed out, include the national elections, which always take place in November, when things are getting chilly and thus may be empowering conservative forces at a time when climate has become a far more contentious issue than in the past. (Some politicians subsequently played up the heavy snows and cold of winter 2009-2010 as showing global warming was a hoax—even though scientists pointed out that such weather was probably controlled by short-term atmospheric mechanisms, and consistent with long-term warming.) “I’m not sure I’d say that people are manipulated by the weather. But for some percentage of people, it’s certainly pushing them around.” said Li.

The other authors are Eric J. Johnson, co-director of the Center for Decision Sciences; and Lisa Zaval, a Columbia graduate student in psychology.

Original link: http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2794

The great difficulty with good hypotheses

01/08/2011Uncategorizedciência, Cultura, Psicologia, Semióticarenzotaddei

“There is one great difficulty with a good hypothesis. When it is completed and rounded, the corners smooth and the content cohesive and coherent, it is likely to become a thing in itself, a work of art. It is then like a finished sonnet or a painting completed. One hates to disturb it. Even if subsequent information should shoot a hole in it, one hates to tear it down because it once was beautiful and whole.”

From The Log from the Sea of Cortez, by John Steinbeck.

Biased but Brilliant (N.Y. Times)

31/07/2011Uncategorizedciência, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Psicologiarenzotaddei

GRAY MATTER
Biased but Brilliant

By CORDELIA FINE
Published: July 30, 2011

Cordelia Fine, a senior research associate at the Melbourne Business School, is the author of “A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives.”

HOW’S this for a cynical view of science? “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

Scientific truth, according to this view, is established less by the noble use of reason than by the stubborn exertion of will. One hopes that the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Planck, the author of the quotation above, was writing in an unusually dark moment.

And yet a large body of psychological data supports Planck’s view: we humans quickly develop an irrational loyalty to our beliefs, and work hard to find evidence that supports those opinions and to discredit, discount or avoid information that does not. In a classic psychology experiment, people for and against the death penalty were asked to evaluate the different research designs of two studies of its deterrent effect on crime. One study showed that the death penalty was an effective deterrent; the other showed that it was not. Which of the two research designs the participants deemed the most scientifically valid depended mostly on whether the study supported their views on the death penalty.

In the laboratory, this is labeled confirmation bias; observed in the real world, it’s known as pigheadedness.

Scientists are not immune. In another experiment, psychologists were asked to review a paper submitted for journal publication in their field. They rated the paper’s methodology, data presentation and scientific contribution significantly more favorably when the paper happened to offer results consistent with their own theoretical stance. Identical research methods prompted a very different response in those whose scientific opinion was challenged.

This is a worry. Doesn’t the ideal of scientific reasoning call for pure, dispassionate curiosity? Doesn’t it positively shun the ego-driven desire to prevail over our critics and the prejudicial urge to support our social values (like opposition to the death penalty)?

Perhaps not. Some academics have recently suggested that a scientist’s pigheadedness and social prejudices can peacefully coexist with — and may even facilitate — the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

Let’s take pigheadedness first. In a much discussed article this year in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, the cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber argue that our reasoning skills are really not as dismal as they seem. They don’t deny that irrationalities like the confirmation bias are common. Instead, they suggest that we stop thinking of the primary function of reasoning as being to improve knowledge and make better decisions. Reasoning, they claim, is for winning arguments. And an irrational tendency like pigheadedness can be quite an asset in an argumentative context. A engages with B and proposes X. B disagrees and counters with Y. Reverse roles, repeat as desired — and what in the old days we might have mistaken for an exercise in stubbornness turns out instead to be a highly efficient “division of cognitive labor” with A specializing in the pros, B in the cons.

It’s salvation of a kind: our apparently irrational quirks start to make sense when we think of reasoning as serving the purpose of persuading others to accept our point of view. And by way of positive side effect, these heated social interactions, when they occur within a scientific community, can lead to the discovery of the truth.

And what about scientists’ prejudices? Clearly, social values should never count as evidence for or against a particular hypothesis — abhorrence of the death penalty does not count as data against its crime-deterrent effects. However, the philosopher of science Heather Douglas has argued that social values can safely play an indirect role in scientific reasoning. Consider: The greater we judge the social costs of a potential scientific error, the higher the standard of evidence we will demand. Professor A, for example, may be troubled by the thought of an incorrect discovery that current levels of a carcinogen in the water are safe, fearing the “discovery” will cost lives. But Professor B may be more anxious about the possibility of an erroneous conclusion that levels are unsafe, which would lead to public panic and expensive and unnecessary regulation.

Both professors may scrutinize a research paper with these different costs of error implicitly in mind. If the paper looked at cancer rates in rats, did the criteria it used to identify the presence of cancer favor over- or under-diagnosis? Did the paper assume a threshold of exposure below which there is no cause for concern, or did it assume that any level of exposure increases risk? Deciding which are the “better” criteria or the “better” background assumptions is not, Ms. Douglas argues, solely a scientific issue. It also depends on the social values you bring to bear on the research. So when Professor A concludes that a research study is excellent, while Professor B declares it seriously mistaken, it may be that neither is irrationally inflating or discounting the strength of the evidence; rather, each is tending to a different social concern.

Science often makes important contributions to debates that involve clashes of social values, like the protection of public health versus the protection of private industry from overregulation. Yet Ms. Douglas suggests that, with social values denied any legitimate role in scientific reasoning, “debates often dance around these issues, attempting to hide them behind debates about the interpretation of data.” Professors A and B are left with no other option but to conclude that the other is a stubborn, pigheaded excuse for a scientist.

For all its imperfections, science continues to be a stunning success. Yet maybe progress would be even faster and smoother if scientists would admit, and even embrace, their humanity.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on July 31, 2011, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: Biased But Brilliant.

Elite brasileira mostra sua cara (Brasil de Fato)

31/07/2011UncategorizedCidadania, Discriminação, Economia, Raça, Racismo, Sensacionalismo, Violênciarenzotaddei

Essa burguesia nos mostra que as necessidades históricas do povo brasileiro somente serão conquistadas com luta, mobilização e unidade

27/07/2011 – Editorial da ed. 439 do Brasil de Fato

“Há casos folclóricos nos hangares do Campo de Marte. Como o da milionária que mandou o cão para o veterinário de helicóptero. Dona da aeronave, ela estava em Maresias (litoral norte) e viu o cãozinho comer a marmita de seu segurança. Ela mandou o piloto voltar imediatamente a São Paulo para fazer exames no pet”, relata um piloto, que pede para não ser identificado.

Acredite. O trecho acima foi extraída da coluna de Eliane Trindade, publicado na Folha de S. Paulo, sob o título: “Helicóptero é usado para ir à balada e ao pet shop”.

Esse fato mostra a absoluta falta de escrúpulos dos poucos privilegiados do nosso país e demonstra mais uma vez o caráter e a natureza da elite brasileira. “Pensei que a história da dona Vera Loyola, há uns quatro anos, ter enviado seu cãozinho para o cabeleireiro de helicóptero e, em seguida, explicado aos jornalistas que o fez “porque o Rio é uma cidade muito violenta” fosse o ‘top de linha’ do escárnio”, diz o jornalista Alipio Freire. No entanto, segundo ele, a cada dia, a elite brasileira – a burguesia no Brasil – mostra sua face de absoluto desprezo e de humilhação contra aqueles aos quais passou a se referir como PPPs (Pretos, Pobres e da Periferia).

Essa notícia só reforça uma característica de parte do Brasil e uma herança maldita: uma burguesia com a cabeça colonizada, saudosa dos tempos da nobreza, realeza. Nossa memória não precisa ser muito estimulada para recordarmos do cão com coleira de diamantes de uma tal socialite, seguido de afirmações de que tal animal era provido de tanta doçura que o feito era pouco. Essa elite, consumista, não se importa de passar o ridículo por algo desta natureza. É a reafirmação de que é uma elite ignorante, colonizada, subserviente, babona, que sonha com o dia em que o Brasil será uma mistura dos paraísos europeus e estadunidense. Dizem que essa mamãe do cão pediu ajuda gritando “help”. E uma coincidência: a opulência sempre combinada com segurança, mal pagos, mal tratados, a ponto de ter uma quentinha que poderia fazer mal para o pobre cão.

SOS burguesia

A segurança é o principal problema do pais, dirá essa “nobreza” deslocada no tempo e espaço. E claro, clamam por polícia, mais investimento em segurança, mais leis, mais rigor, repressão. Afinal, querem copiar o país que tem mais de 1% da sua população encarcerada (EUA). E claro, entre eles há quem bem explore esse clamor. A título de exemplo, a cidade de São Paulo é uma das três maiores consumidoras de carro blindado, a frente de países com guerra civil e conflitos abertos. Se somarmos o crescimento da frota de helicópteros, que na mesma comparação a capital paulista fica entre as cinco metrópoles do mundo em tamanho de frota e volume de voos diários, chegando ao absurdo de ter um bairro – Moema – com mais heliportos do que pontos de ônibus. Patrão por cima, empregados por baixo e filhos no cofre motorizado (blindados). Eis o Brasil desenhado por eles.

Outra imagem simbólica disso são as casas fortificadas, condomínios parecidos com fortalezas da idade média. E o resultado? Segue a insegurança. Propõem com seus meios de comunicação, parlamentares, prefeitos, etc. o aumento dos orçamentos para segurança. Querem o exército nas ruas, tropas, tropas! Recrutam milhares de jovens para trabalhar como seguranças privados, num trabalho de tamanho risco que um dos “benefícios” oferecidos por algumas empresas é auxilio funeral. Um atestado de crueldade. Trabalhadores mal remunerados, obrigados a ter outros bicos, com estímulos econômicos para o uso da “valentia” para evitar assaltos não raras vezes resultando em mortes ou ferimentos graves. Mas se sobrevive, ganha prêmio. Alguns bancos chegam a pagar extra para o segurança que reage e consegue conter um assalto.

Essa mesma elite, em pânico e bradando por mais segurança e mais rigor nas leis, é a mesma que luta contra qualquer mudança que garanta e amplie direitos sociais, mudanças que alterem a concentração de renda, que o povo tenha acesso a programas de combate à pobreza e à miséria, dentre outros. Sempre com um discurso pronto para qualquer intervenção do Estado (quando em benefício do povo): “dar o peixe não resolve”. Cínica, prefere a cadeia à moradia, o trabalho informal, e sempre usando o argumento de que chegou onde chegou por mérito, muito esforço e toda essa velha história do empreendedor. Só esquece de dizer que cresceu e se fez pagando injustamente, com mais da metade dos trabalhadores sem direitos e na informalidade, não aceitando sequer a igualdade de direitos dos trabalhadores domésticos com os demais trabalhadores.

Contradição ou coerência?

Nem mesmo os poucos avanços obtidos com a Constituição Federal depois de muita luta são respeitados, como demonstramos em edições anteriores do Brasil de Fato. As bandeiras do povo, tais como a redução da jornada de trabalho sem redução de salários, o fim do fator previdenciário, resgatar o direito de greve, são bandeiras que essa elite reage com veemência.

Portanto, conhecer melhor os inimigos do povo é um desafio para compreender que essa burguesia só se submete com luta, se forçada pela pressão das massas e do povo organizado. Nada virá de negociações ou concessão.

Essa postura das elites brasileiras, que gasta mais com a alimentação de um cão do que de um trabalhador, que usurpa os recursos públicos, que exige mais recursos do Estado para a (sua) segurança, é a mesma de sempre na defesa de seus privilégios. E, assim, age coerente na recusa dos direitos sociais, contrária à distribuição de renda, aos programas sociais, às políticas públicas e tudo o que pode democratizar o acesso à habitação para todos, como terra para quem trabalha, apoio aos pequenos (campo e cidade), o acesso à educação superior, dentre outros.

Essa é uma característica dessa burguesia. Que prefere integrar -se de forma subordinada à burguesia mundial a ter projeto próprio de nação. Por lucro, passam por cima de tudo, inclusive de qualquer democracia. Essa burguesia nos mostra que as necessidades históricas do povo brasileiro somente serão conquistadas com luta, mobilização e unidade. Assim, quiçá, avancemos rumo à construção de um projeto popular para o Brasil.

Noruega ensina que racismo não pode ser visto como folclore (Terra Magazine)

31/07/2011UncategorizedDiscriminação, Raça, Racismo, Religião, Violênciarenzotaddei

Marcelo Semer
De São Paulo
QUARTA, 27 DE JULHO DE 2011, 08H13

Se existe algo que o massacre na Noruega pode nos ensinar é que racismo, machismo e xenofobia não devem ser tratados como mero folclore.

Entre as palavras e as ações há um longo caminho, mas sempre pode existir alguém disposto a percorrê-lo.

Sarah Palin, candidata republicana a vice-presidente e musa do ultra-conservador Tea Party, dizia que a deputada democrata Gabrielle Giffords era um dos “alvos a serem abatidos” na política norte-americana.

Tratava-se de uma metáfora, mas um atirador em Arizona, a levou ao pé da letra. A tentativa de abater o alvo, uma das vozes contra a política hostil aos imigrantes, resultou em seis mortes em janeiro último, na cidade de Tucson.

Não há hoje quem não tema as possíveis consequências políticas de uma Europa economicamente em frangalhos -a lembrança da mistura depressão-fascismo do século XX ainda é suficientemente viva para suscitar este temor. Mas parece não ser o bastante para afastar a xenofobia, agora focada na repulsa ao Islã e a imigrantes que vem da África e Ásia.

A recente era da globalização só funcionou enquanto serviu como uma segunda colonização.

Os países periféricos foram instados a abrir seus mercados, homogeneizar suas normas, privatizar e internacionalizar suas empresas estratégicas, criando mercados alternativos ao já saturados no hemisfério norte.

Mas o mundo tornou-se global apenas em uma direção, pois as fronteiras voltaram a se fechar de forma ainda mais vigorosa, com a construção de grandes muros e o recrudescimento das leis de imigração – imigração esta que em outros tempos supriu com mão de obra barata, serviços que nacionais se recusavam a cumprir.

Pouco se pode fazer, é verdade, para impedir de todo ações repentinas de vingadores que se sentem representantes de uma nova cruzada, propondo salvar o mundo com toscas visões.

Mas estimular o discurso do ódio certamente não é uma delas.

O alarmismo com a fé diversa, o maltrato com o forasteiro e o diferente, o apego extremado a valores moralistas, são o caldo de cultura próprio para gerar ações excludentes, que tanto podem reverter em atentados quanto desembocar em políticas de Estado. Afinal, o que pode ser mais terrorista que o Holocausto?

Se a história se repete, como profetizava Marx, o receio é que nos abata mais uma vez como tragédia. Parafraseando Martin Luther King, parece ser o caso de nos preocuparmos tanto com o silêncio dos bons, quanto com o grito dos maus, este cada vez mais ensurdecedor.

O Brasil não vive o momento depressivo que se espalha pela Europa e Estados Unidos, fruto dos desvarios neoliberais, que maximizaram os mercados e o lucro e minimizaram as regulações.

Ao revés, vive anos de crescimento que resultaram em inesperada mobilidade social, mas isto também é motivo para cautela.

À incorporação de direitos civis a grupos minoritários, como homossexuais, instaurou-se uma brigada da moral, com forte apelo religioso. À incorporação ao mercado consumidor de uma classe emergente, recém-saída da linha de pobreza, levantou-se reação de quem se sente invadido em espaços até então exclusivos, entre faixas de automóveis e assentos de aviões. Ao pujante crescimento do Nordeste, esboça-se uma xenofobia de cunho separatista.

Aqui, como na Europa, devemos temer, sobretudo, aos que se propõe a nos higienizar ou recuperar valores tradicionais, que apenas remontam a mais exclusão.

O antídoto ao fascismo é o exercício da democracia e a preservação da dignidade humana como vetor de políticas sociais.

Só se abate o preconceito acreditando na igualdade.

Marcelo Semer é Juiz de Direito em São Paulo. Foi presidente da Associação Juízes para a Democracia. Coordenador de “Direitos Humanos: essência do Direito do Trabalho” (LTr) e autor de “Crime Impossível” (Malheiros) e do romance “Certas Canções” (7 Letras). Responsável pelo Blog Sem Juízo

Climate Chaos (Against the Grain)

31/07/2011Uncategorizedciência, Cidadania, Clima, comunicação científica, discurso ambiental, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Políticas públicas, Previsão, Violênciarenzotaddei

Tues 6.28.11| Climate Chaos

Christian Parenti speaking at a KPFA benefit on July 14th, on Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence, Nation Books, 2011

Listen to this Program here.

Download program audio (mp3, 49.82 Mbytes)

Residents of the Global North may be justly wringing their hands about flooding, droughts, and freak weather, but the most worrying effects of climate change are expected to hit the countries of the Global South, especially those in the broad regions on either side of the equator. Christian Parenti has reported from that vast area and discusses the shape that climate-related social dislocation is already taking, as well as the militarized plans of the rich countries to keep poor climate refugees out.

I am, therefore I’m right (Christian Science Monitor)

31/07/2011Uncategorizedciência, Incerteza, Interatividade, Internet, Memória, Opinião pública, Psicologia, Semiótica, Visualidaderenzotaddei

By Jim Sollisch / July 29, 2011

If you’ve ever been on a jury, you might have noticed that a funny thing happens the minute you get behind closed doors. Everybody starts talking about themselves. They say what they would have done if they had been the plaintiff or the defendant. They bring up anecdote after anecdote. It can take hours to get back to the points of law that the judge has instructed you to consider.

Being on a jury (I recently served on my fourth) reminds me why I can’t stomach talk radio. We Americans seem to have lost the ability to talk about anything but our own experiences. We can’t seem to generalize without stereotyping or to consider evidence that goes against our own experience.

I heard a doctor on a radio show the other day talking about a study that found that exercise reduces the incidence of Alzheimer’s. And caller after caller couldn’t wait to make essentially the opposite point: “Well, my grandmother never exercised and she lived to 95, sharp as a tack.” We are in an age summed up by the aphorism: “I experience, therefore I’m right.”

This isn’t a new phenomenon, except by degree. Historically, the hallmarks of an uneducated person were the lack of ability to think critically, to use deductive reasoning, to distinguish the personal from the universal. Now that seems an apt description of many Americans. The culture of “I” is everywhere you look, from the iPod/iPhone/iPad to the fact that memoir is the fastest growing literary genre.

How’d we get here? The same way we seem to get everywhere today: the Internet. The Internet has allowed us to segregate ourselves based on our interests. All cat lovers over here. All people who believe President Obama wasn’t born in the United States over there. For many of us, what we believe has become the most important organizing element in our lives. Once we all had common media experiences: Walter Cronkite, Ed Sullivan, a large daily newspaper. Now each of us can create a personal media network – call it the iNetwork – fed by the RSS feeds of our choosing.

But the Internet doesn’t just cordon us off in our own little pods. It also makes us dumber, as Nicholas Carr points out in his excellent book, “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains.” He argues that the way we consume media changes our brains, not just our behaviors. The Internet rewards shallow thinking: One search leads to thousands of results that skim over the surface of a subject.

Of course, we could dive deeply into any one of the listings, but we don’t. Studies show that people skim on line, they don’t read. The experience has been designed to reward speed and variety, not depth. And there is tangible evidence, based on studies of brain scans, that the medium is changing our physical brains, strengthening the synapses and areas used for referential thinking while weakening the areas used for critical thinking.

And when we diminish our ability to think critically, we, in essence, become less educated. Less capable of reflection and meaningful conversation. Our experience, reinforced by a web of other gut instincts and experiences that match our own, becomes evidence. Case in point: the polarization of our politics. Exhibit A: the debt ceiling impasse.

Ironically, the same medium that helped mobilize people in the Arab world this spring is helping create a more rigid, dysfunctional democracy here: one that’s increasingly polarized, where each side is isolated and capable only of sound bites that skim the surface, a culture where deep reasoning and critical thinking aren’t rewarded.

The challenge for most of us isn’t to go backwards: We can’t disconnect from the Internet. Nor would we want to. But we can work harder to make “search” the metaphor it once was: to discover, not just to skim. The Internet lets us find facts in an instant. But it doesn’t stop us from finding insight, if we’re willing to really search.

Jim Sollisch is creative director at Marcus Thomas Advertising.

She’s Alive… Beautiful… Finite… Hurting… Worth Dying for.

29/07/2011Uncategorizedambientalismo, Clima, discurso ambiental, Enquadramento, Mídia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Violência, Visualidaderenzotaddei

This is a non-commercial attempt to highlight the fact that world leaders, irresponsible corporates and mindless ‘consumers’ are combining to destroy life on earth. It is dedicated to all who died fighting for the planet and those whose lives are on the line today. The cut was put together by Vivek Chauhan, a young film maker, together with naturalists working with the Sanctuary Asia network (www.sanctuaryasia.com).

Dancing, Climate Change, and Human Perseverence

27/07/2011UncategorizedÍndios, Clima, Cultura, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, participatividade, Psicologia, Religiãorenzotaddei

Posted by Douglas Joseph La Rose at the EANTH list. 23/07/2011 12:20

“This Wednesday, I had one of the most powerful experiences of my life. I went to a small village in the Upper West Region of Ghana named Bakbamba to help conduct research on climate change and social-cultural adaptations to a changing environment. I have been doing this work for a few weeks now, beginning in coastal eastern Ghana and moving north. But what I experienced today was a life-changing experience. I will do my best to convey my feelings here, but no words would ever be ample to describe the emotion, compassion, and appreciation I felt in this community.

The Upper West Region of Ghana is the poorest region in the country. Outside of the regional capital, Wa, there is really nothing else but vast savanna covered with Shea and baobab trees. The people are primarily subsistence farmers and fishers. The farmers plant guinea corn, maize, yams, beans, bambara beans, millet, groundnuts, and some other crops. Fishers set traps and mobilize nets in the black Volta river that separates Ghana from Burkina Faso. Women also gather Shea nuts and sell them to foreign buyers who process them into cosmetics and edibles. Over the past ten years, rainfall has become sporadic, inconsistent, unpredictable, and unreliable. In these Wala, Fulani, and Lobi communities that have been surviving for centuries, people are beginning to give up and move out. They are suffering from observable climate change and often becoming climate change refugees.

In the course of doing interviews with rural farmers, fishers, and gatherers I heard many stories about failed crops, declining catches in fish, and even lack of fruits from Shea trees, which have been a productive alternative economic resource for decades. Their story is a bleak one. Most crops fail and the only foods Wala and Lobi people can depend on are fish and maize, which takes three months to grow and can be opportunistically planted. Though they plant other crops, many of them are failing because rains are becoming increasingly unpredictable and deluges and floods more common. There is no source of potable water, so people in the village drink from stagnant, muddy ponds. Guinea worm is still a widespread problem. There is no other option. Most of the people we were able to interview were only in their 30s and 40s – because that is about as old as they live. In this village of 300 people, 20 have already died this year. One particular woman I interviewed was 30 years old, but she looked like she was 60. Poor nutrition, hard work, and no access to clean water are taking their toll.

At the end of the day, the women in the town gathered in a circle and began a traditional dance. The women around the circle were clapping poly-rhythmically and singing with beautifully sculpted, angelic voices. I watched as, one by one, the women would enter the circle and do an energetic, stomping dance. At the end of the dance they would throw themselves into the surrounding circle and be caught by the other women. This went on for almost 45 minutes. I asked one of our local research assistants what they were singing and he explained that the dance was about a fighting couple, and they were saying that if the husband no longer loved the wife he should leave her. The women who were catching each other represented the community. “We should support each other,” a woman told me. I sat down and watched the dance, how the women were moving around in passionate whirls, heaving themselves into the boundaries of the circle to be caught by other community members. In this poor village of hunger, desperation, and confusion about a changing environment they were finding the energy to remember and celebrate the perseverance of the human spirit. It was an overwhelming experience to watch frustration and unity translated into cultural performance.

Throughout our interviews and participation in the community, I felt both alarmed and reassured. Alarmed that the situation in this part of upper Ghana is much worse than I expected, and reassured that people are forging ways to adapt.”

Why Global Warming Slowed in the 2000’s: Another Possible Explanation (Climate Central)

27/07/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, comunicação científica, Incerteza, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsãorenzotaddei

Published: July 21st, 2011
By Michael D. Lemonick

The world is getting progressively warmer, and the vast majority of evidence points to greenhouse gases spewed into the atmosphere by humans — carbon dioxide (CO2), especially — as the main culprit. But while the buildup of greenhouse gases has been steadily increasing, the warming goes in fits and starts. From one year to the next it might get a little warmer or a lot warmer, or even cooler.

That’s because greenhouse gases aren’t the whole story. Natural variations in sunlight and ocean currents; concentrations of particles in the air, manmade and otherwise; and even plain old weather variations can speed the warming up or slow it down, even as the underlying temperature trend continues upward. And while none of those factors is likely to change that trend over the long haul, scientists really want to understand how they affect projections of where our climate is heading.

The latest attempt to do so just appeared in Science Express, the online counterpart of the journal Science, where a team of climate scientists is reporting on their investigations of airborne particles, or aerosols, in the stratosphere. It’s well known, says co-author John Daniel, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., that these particles have a cooling effect, since they reflect sunlight that would otherwise warm the planet.

Mt. Pinatubo’s erruption in the Philippines, in 1991. Credit: USGS.

It’s also well known that major volcanic eruptions, like Mt. Pinatubo’s in the Philippines in 1991, can pump lots of aerosols into the stratosphere — and indeed, Pinatubo alone temporarily cooled the planet for about two years. The explosion of Mt. Tambora in 1815 had even more catastrophic effects, which you can imagine given that 1816 came to be known as “the year without a summer.” But what lots of people thought, says Daniel, “is that since there haven’t been any eruptions on that scale recently, aerosols have become relatively unimportant for climate.”

That, says the study, is not true: even without major eruptions, aerosols in the stratosphere increased by about 7 percent per year from 2000 to 2010. Plug that figure into climate models, and they predict a reduction in the warming you’d otherwise expect from the rise in greenhouse gases by up to 20 percent.

In the real world, as it happens, the rise in temperature slowed during that same decade. “That,” says Daniel, “was the motivation for doing this research. It could have just been natural climate variability, but we wondered if it could be something else.” Some climate scientists attribute the slowdown to heat being temporarily stored in the deep oceans, but stratospheric aerosols could clearly be part of the answer as well.

Whether these aerosols are natural or manmade, however, is something the scientists didn’t address. Just last week, a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggested the cause was a construction boom of coal-fired power plants in China over the same decade. The new study doesn’t necessarily contradict that. “Human emissions could play a role,” says Daniel, although the PNAS study was talking about aerosols in the lower atmosphere, not the stratosphere. “But even in the absences of colossal volcanic eruptions,” he says, “smaller eruptions could still add up.”

The other difference between the two studies is that the one from last week looked at the relatively slow temperature rise over the most recent decade and tried to tease out what might have changed since the previous decades, when the warming was faster. The new one took actual observations of aerosols and tried to predict what the temperature rise should be. That sort of approach tends to produce more credible results, since an incorrect prediction would stick out like a sore thumb.

Where the two studies emphatically agree is that if the level of aerosols goes down — due to a lull in eruptions, or a reduction in coal-plant pollution, or both — the pace of warming would likely pick up. That would mean that current projections for up to a 4.5°C increase in global average surface temperatures by the end of the century might turn out to be an underestimate. And if aerosol levels increase, the temperature in 2100 could be lower than everyone expects.

80 Percent of World Climate Data Are Not Computerized and Readily Available (Science Daily)

27/07/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Incerteza, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Previsão, Visualidaderenzotaddei

Science News

ScienceDaily (July 20, 2011) — In order to gain a better knowledge of climate variations, such as those caused by global warming, and be able to tackle them, we need to understand what happened in the recent past. This is the conclusion of a research study led by the Rovira i Virgili University (URV), which shows that the scientific community today is only able to access and analyse 20% of the recorded climate information held. The remaining data are not accessible in digital format.

Some climate data in Europe go back to the 17th Century, but “not even 20% of the information recorded in the past is available to the scientific community,” Manola Brunet, lead author of the study and a researcher at the URV’s Centre for Climate Change, said.

This situation is even worse in continents such as Africa and South America, where weather observations did not begin until the middle of the 19th Century. These are the results of a study published in Climate Research, which highlights the need to urgently recover all the information recorded in perishable formats.

“Failure to decipher the messages in the climate records of the past will result in socioeconomic problems, because we will be unable to deal with the current and future impacts of climate change and a hotter world,” says Brunet.

Spain, along with the USA, Canada, Holland and Norway, is one of a small number of countries which allows partial access to its historic climate data. The rest of the world does not make these data available to the scientific community or the general public, despite recommendations to this effect by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

In order to overcome the political and legal hurdles posed by this currently poor access, “governments should adopt a resolution within the United Nations on opening up their historical climate data,” the researcher suggests.

Predicting heat waves

Weather services in all countries are faced with the overwhelming job of converting all their paper-based historical climate information, which is stored in archives, libraries and research centres, into digital format. The wide range of forms in which the information is held makes access harder, as do the purposes for which the meteorological service itself was actually created.

“The main objective is to provide a weather service to public, who want to know what the weather will be like the next day,” explains Brunet. This has led to climate science (which studies the range of atmospheric conditions characterising a region rather than focusing on weather forecasting) becoming the great ‘victim’, receiving fewer funds with which to digitise, develop and standardise data.

However, climate services do play a significant role in some European countries, the United States and Canada. It was these services that were able to explain last summer’s heat wave in Eastern Europe and put it into context, as well as the high temperatures recorded on the Old Continent in 2003.

“If we had access to all the historical data recorded, we would be able to evaluate the frequency with which these phenomena are likely to occur in the future with a higher degree of certainty,” the expert explains.

This kind of information is of scientific, social and economic interest, with insurance companies setting their premiums according to expected climate changes, for example. City councils and governments also “want to understand climate conditions and how these will change in future in order to improve land zoning and prevent urban development from taking place in areas likely to be affected by flooding,” concludes Brunet.

Science and truth have been cast aside by our desire for controversy (Guardian)

27/07/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, comunicação científica, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Previsão, Sensacionalismorenzotaddei

Last week’s report into media science coverage highlighted an over-reliance on pointless dispute

Robin McKie
The Observer, Sunday 24 July 2011

Thomas Huxley, the British biologist who so vociferously, and effectively, defended Darwin’s theory of natural selection in the 19th century, had a basic view of science. “It is simply common sense at its best – rigidly accurate in observation and merciless to fallacy in logic.”

It is as neat a description as you can get and well worth remembering when considering how science is treated by the UK media and by the BBC in particular. Last week, a study, written by geneticist Steve Jones, warned that far too often the corporation had failed to appreciate the nature of science and to make a distinction “between well-established fact and opinion”. In doing so, the corporation had given free publicity to marginal belief, he said.

Jones was referring to climate change deniers, anti-MMR activists, GM crop opponents and other fringe groups who have benefited from wide coverage despite the paucity of evidence that supports their beliefs. By contrast, scientists, as purveyors of common sense, have found themselves sidelined because producers wanted to create controversy and so skewed discussions to hide researchers’ near unanimity of views in these fields. In this way, the British public has been misled into thinking there is a basic division among scientists over global warming or MMR.

It is a problem that can be blamed on the media that believe, with some justification, that adversarial dispute is the best way to cover democracy in action. It serves us well with politics and legal affairs, but falls down badly when it comes to science because its basic processes, which rely heavily on internal criticism and disproof, are so widely misunderstood.

Yet there is nothing complicated about the business, says Robert May, the former UK government science adviser. “In the early stages of research, ideas are like hillocks on a landscape. So you design experiments to discriminate among them. Most hillocks shrink and disappear until, in the end, you are left with a single towering pinnacle of virtual certitude.”

The case of manmade climate change is a good example, adds May. “A hundred years ago, scientists realised carbon dioxide emissions could affect climate. Twenty years ago, we thought they were now having an impact. Today, after taking more and more measurements, we can see there is no other explanation for the behaviour of the climate. Humans are changing it. Of course, deniers disagree, but that’s because they hold fixed positions that have nothing to do with science.”

It is the scientist, not the denier, who is the real sceptic, adds Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society. “When you carry out research, you cannot afford to cherry-pick data or ignore inconvenient facts. You have to be brutal. You also have to be sceptical about your own ideas and attack them. If you don’t, others will.”

When an idea reaches the stage where it’s almost ready to become a paper, it has therefore been subjected to savage scrutiny by its own authors and by their colleagues – and that is before writing has started. Afterwards, the paper goes to peer review where there is a further round of critical appraisal by a separate group of researchers. What emerges is a piece of work that has already been robustly tested – a point that is again lost in the media.

Over the centuries, this process has been honed to near perfection. By proposing and then attacking ideas and by making observations to test them, humanity has built up a remarkable understanding of the universe. The accuracy of Einstein’s theories of relativity, Crick and Watson’s double helix structure of DNA and plate tectonics were all revealed this way, though no scientist would admit these discoveries are the last word, as the palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould once pointed out: “In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent’,” he admitted.

Certainly, things can go wrong, as Huxley acknowledged. Science may be organised common sense but all too often a beautiful theory created this way has been skewered by “a single ugly fact”, as he put it. Think of Fred Hoyle’s elegant concept of a steady state universe that is gently expanding and eternal. The idea was at one time considered to be philosophically superior to its rival, the big bang theory that proposed the cosmos erupted into existence billions of years ago. The latter idea explained the expansion of the universe by recourse to a vast explosion. The former accounted for this expansion in more delicate, intriguing terms.

The steady state theory continued to hold its own until, in 1964, radio-astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson noted interference on their radio telescope at the Bell Labs in New Jersey and tried to eliminate it. The pair went as far as shovelling out the pigeon droppings in the telescope and had the guilty pigeons shot (each blamed the other for giving the order). Yet the noise persisted. Only later did the two scientists realise what they were observing. The static hiss they were picking up was caused by a microwave radiation echo that had been set off when the universe erupted into existence after its big bang birth.

That very ugly fact certainly ruined Hoyle’s beautiful theory and, no doubt, his breakfast when he read about it in his newspaper. But then the pursuit of truth has always been a tricky and cruel business. “It is true that some things come along like that to throw scientists into a tizz but it doesn’t happen very often,” adds Jones. “The trouble is, the BBC thinks it happens every day.”

And this takes us to the nub of the issue: how should science be reported and recorded? How can you take a topic such as climate change, about which there is virtual unanimity of views among scientists, and keep it in the public’s eye. The dangers of rising greenhouse gas emissions have dramatic implications after all. But simply reporting every tiny shrinkage in polar ice sheets or rise in sea levels will only alienate readers or viewers, a point acknowledged by May. “Newspapers, radio and TV have a duty to engage and there is no point in doing a lot of excellent reporting on a scientific issue if it is boring or trivial. The alternative is to trivialise or distort, thus subordinating substance in the name of attraction. It is a paradox for which I can see no answer.”

Jones agrees. “What we don’t want to do is go back to the days when fawning reporters asked great figures to declaim on scientific issues – or political ones, for that matter. On the other hand, we cannot continue to distort views in the name balance,” It is a tricky business, but as former Times editor Charlie Wilson once told a member of staff upset at a task’s complexity: “Of course, it’s hard. If it was easy we would get an orang-utan to do it.”

Jones, in highlighting a specific problem for the BBC, has opened up a far wider, far more important issue – the need to find ways to understand how science works and to appreciate its insights and complexities. It certainly won’t be easy.

Mato Grosso do Sul tem mais de 600 índios nas universidades e cursos de pós-graduação (Midiamax News)

27/07/2011UncategorizedÍndios, Cidadania, Discriminação, Educação, Línguas indígenas, Racismorenzotaddei

24/07/2011 13:38

Jucyllene Castilho, com informações da UCDB

Atualmente, há mais de 600 índios nas universidades de Mato Grosso do Sul, segundo estimativa do Projeto Rede de Saberes. Esse número vem crescendo junto ao de pós-graduandos índios, que fazem mestrado é até doutorado dentro ou fora do estado. Na sexta-feira (22), eles se reúnem na UCDB (Universidade Católica Dom Bosco) para pensar a criação de um fórum ou uma rede de pesquisadores indígenas.

Os professores perceberam que a universidade precisa estar preparada para recebê-los e criar formas de reconhecer os conhecimentos que eles já trazem de suas comunidades, ou seja, os conhecimentos tradicionais, que por muito tempo foram subestimados pela academia. A idéia desses professores é mostrar que os saberes destes povos são tão importantes quanto o da universidade, então a academia não deve tentar “engessá-los” em métodos científicos, mas ouvi-los e dialogar com eles.

Desde 1995, professores da UCDB têm trabalhado em projetos com populações indígenas de MS. Eles se articulam à professores de outras universidades do estado para ampliar essas ações e melhor entender quais são as necessidades destas comunidades.

Graduação

A UCDB tem 40 índios na graduação e seis cursando Mestrado em Educação ou Desenvolvimento Local. O número é maior nas universidades do interior do estado, que ficam mais próximas das reservas indígenas. Estes índios são das etnias Guarani, Terena, Kadiwéu, Ofaié e Kinikinau.

O projeto que trabalha especificamente com os universitários indígenas no MS é o Rede de Saberes. Os outros trabalhos de pesquisa e extensão junto aos índios estão articulados ao Programa Kaiowá Guarani, coordenado pelo Antonio Brand e desenvolvido pelo Neppi (Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas das Populações Indígenas), que é coordenado pelo padre George Lachnitt.

Rede de Saberes conta com a parceria entre a UCDB, UFMS (Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul), UFGD (Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados) e UEMS (Universidade Estadual do Mato Grosso do Sul), realizaram no último dia 17, em Dourados, o III Encontro de Acadêmicos Índios e Política Partidária, que reúne índios, professores e representantes de instituições convidadas, além de oito vereadores indígenas.

Durante o evento foi realizada uma discussão entre os parlamentares, estudantes e lideranças, a respeito de estratégias que fortaleçam a presença de índios no segundo maior estado com população indígena do País. Junto com o III Encontro, o Rede de Saberes realiza também nesses dois dias, o 1° Encontro Temático Saberes Tradicionais e Científicos – Direito.

O evento, que conta com a presença do Neppi da UCDB e de acadêmicos do curso de Direito da Católica, busca abrir discussão entre os estudantes sobre os saberes tradicionais e científicos, a fim de articular os dois conhecimentos. Mais informações sobre o Rede de Saberes podem ser obtidas pelo telefone 3312-3351.

Bob Stein vem ao Brasil para congresso em que analisa uma mudança nas narrativas a partir da revolução digital (O Globo, JC)

25/07/2011UncategorizedCultura, História, Interatividade, Literatura, Mídiarenzotaddei

JC e-mail 4307, de 25 de Julho de 2011.

Formas completamente novas de narrativa surgirão a partir da revolução tecnológica. A previsão é de Bob Stein, editor de 65 anos que desde os anos 1980, bem antes do advento da internet, dedica-se à produção de conteúdo eletrônico.

Foi pioneiro ao lançar uma enciclopédia para computadores pessoais e como criador de CD-ROMs interativos e multimídias. Fundador do Institute for the Future of the Book, com pesquisadores sediados em Nova York e Londres, Stein promete abalar as convicções da plateia de editores do 2º Congresso Internacional do Livro Digital da Câmara Brasileira do Livro, que acontece amanhã e quarta-feira em São Paulo.

O futuro do livro, prevê o especialista, é se tornar uma praça pública virtual, um mundo no qual leitores se reúnem e criam suas próprias histórias, uma forma de contar histórias bem parecida com a dos games. A leitura como uma experiência solitária e silenciosa está com os dias contados, assim como o livro impresso, cujo futuro é sobreviver apenas como objeto de arte para consumo dos mais afortunados.

Como surgiu e qual foi a função do Institute for the Future of the Book?
BOB STEIN: Há sete anos, fui convidado pela MacArthur Foundation a voltar a ser editor. Mas naquela época, com a internet, eu acreditava que já não havia mais lugar para um editor, não entendia qual seria sua função. Relutei em aceitar o convite. Tive então a ideia de propor à fundação que financiasse uma pesquisa sobre o papel do editor nesta nova era. Eles foram extremamente generosos, doaram US$ 1 milhão para a criação do instituto. O instituto foi criado em 2004. A princípio, era um projeto de cinco anos de duração cujo objetivo era entender como as narrativas, o discurso, mudam ao deixar as páginas impressas rumo às mídias eletrônicas e à internet. Acredito que conseguimos entender como o mercado editorial vai evoluir. O livro será uma praça, um ponto de encontro e reunião de leitores. Não é algo que acontecerá da noite para o dia, mas chegaremos lá. Fundei recentemente uma nova empresa, a Social Books, e estamos criando plataformas para publicações eletrônicas e sociais.

A geração digital será capaz de ler um livro impresso como fazemos, sozinhos, concentrados, em silêncio por horas a fio ou ela não terá mais as habilidades cognitivas para tanto?
Ler da maneira que você descreveu é algo recente, não é uma prática tão tradicional e arraigada assim. No século XIX, o normal era as pessoas lerem em voz alta, em grupo. Uma biblioteca pessoal com estantes cheias de livros era raríssimo, privilégio dos ricos até depois da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Os comportamentos que envolvem a leitura solitária são recentes. Temos medo de perder algo se estes hábitos mudarem. Mas a Humanidade evoluiu durante muito tempo sem isso. As novas gerações encontrarão algo novo que será tão valioso quanto este tipo de leitura foi para nós.

Como a revolução digital está transformando o mercado editorial?
O mercado editorial sabia há muito tempo da iminência dos livros digitais. Mas, em vez de investir, permitiu que Amazon e Apple pilotassem o navio. Foi um erro grave. As editoras perderam a dianteira e agora têm de correr atrás do prejuízo. O problema é que estão acostumadas e se agarram a um modelo de negócios no qual vendem objetos impressos por uma quantidade justa de dinheiro. Agora todas estão convertendo e lançando seus livros em formatos eletrônicos e acreditam que assim será possível manter a mesma margem de lucro. Isto nunca vai acontecer. A verdadeira energia de transformação vem de fora do mercado editorial, principalmente do mundo dos games. As editoras terão de seguir este exemplo para aprender como integrar diferentes formas de mídia – não apenas adicionar fotos, vídeos e áudios aos textos -, e como lidar com comunidades de leitores. A indústria dos games já sabe muito bem como fazer isso. Um exemplo é “World of warcraft”, espécie de role-playing game on-line, com mais de 12 milhões de assinaturas por mês. É um conceito a ser estudado. Talvez o futuro da literatura esteja em autores que criam um mundo a ser habitado pelos leitores, que dentro deste universo escrevem suas próprias histórias. Não me surpreenderá se uma empresa de game comprar uma grande editora em algum momento dos próximos dez anos.

O mercado editorial vai passar pela mesma crise da indústria fonográfica?
Sim, é bem parecido. As editoras acreditam que o que aconteceu com as gravadoras e a indústria do cinema não acontecerá com elas. Infelizmente não é verdade. No Pirate Bay é possível encontrar milhares de livros, muito mais do que seremos capazes de ler a vida inteira.

Houve um momento em que o futuro parecia estar nos enhanced books (o primeiro foi uma adaptação interativa, com áudio e vídeo de “Alice no País das Maravilhas, lançada em 2010 como um aplicativo para iPad). Este formato já está ultrapassado?
Sim. Embora muito do meu trabalho seja aprimorar livros, filmes ou músicas adicionando conteúdo para que eles sejam mais bem compreendidos e apreciados, no fim do dia isto jamais será tão importante quanto criar uma maneira completamente nova de se consumir conteúdo. A revolução tecnológica propicia a criação de novas formas de narrativas. Algo como a invenção de um novo gênero literário, adequado aos novos tempos, a exemplo do que aconteceu quando Miguel de Cervantes inventou, com “Dom Quixote” o romance moderno.

Livros impressos vão sobreviver?
Sim. Mas irão se tornar uma espécie de objeto de arte. Só quem é muito rico será capaz de comprá-los. Algo como os livros para mesas de centro que compramos hoje em dia porque são bonitos, decorativos. No futuro, o livro como uma forma de transmitir ideias será eletrônico.

Uma (in)certa antropologia

An (un)certain anthropology

Arquivo anual: 2011

VOCÊ SABE COM QUEM ESTÁ FALANDO? (TRIP)

Beyond space-time: Welcome to phase space (New Scientist)

Bibliography

Devagar e sempre (FSP)

Roy Wagner: Time Sensitive Cultures, Culture Sensitive Time (2009 AAA meeting)

The Mathematics of Changing Your Mind (N.Y. Times)

Illustration by Shannon May

A saúde em 2021 (Fapesp)

Stuff white people like: denying climate change (Grist)

8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance (AlterNet)

TV 10 weather forecasts worse than a crap shoot (City Pulse)

Let’s Take Back the Sky! (City Pulse)

Some People’s Climate Beliefs Shift With Weather (Columbia University)

Study Shows Daily Malleability on a Long-Term Question

The great difficulty with good hypotheses

Biased but Brilliant (N.Y. Times)

Elite brasileira mostra sua cara (Brasil de Fato)

Noruega ensina que racismo não pode ser visto como folclore (Terra Magazine)

Climate Chaos (Against the Grain)

I am, therefore I’m right (Christian Science Monitor)

She’s Alive… Beautiful… Finite… Hurting… Worth Dying for.

Dancing, Climate Change, and Human Perseverence

Why Global Warming Slowed in the 2000’s: Another Possible Explanation (Climate Central)

80 Percent of World Climate Data Are Not Computerized and Readily Available (Science Daily)

Science and truth have been cast aside by our desire for controversy (Guardian)

Mato Grosso do Sul tem mais de 600 índios nas universidades e cursos de pós-graduação (Midiamax News)

Bob Stein vem ao Brasil para congresso em que analisa uma mudança nas narrativas a partir da revolução digital (O Globo, JC)