Metaphor Hacker
Mark Kleiman
When is subtle manipulation of data a flat out lie? Truth about Chinese prisons [UPDATE]
I’ve been on a China kick lately (reading and listening about its history and global position) and a crime public policy kick (reading and listening to Mark Kleiman). I was struck when I heard Mark say in an interview that the US has more people in jail in absolute terms than China. So I went [...]
Epistemology as ethics: Decisions and judgments not methods and solutions for evidence-based practice
Show me the money! Or so the saying goes. Implying that talk is cheap and facts are the only thing that matters. But there is another thing we are being asked to do with money and that is put it where our mouth is. So evidence is not quite enough. We have to also be [...]
Do science fiction writers dream of fascist dictatorships?
Some years ago in a book review, I made an off-the-cuff comment that thriller writers tend to be quite wright-wing in their outlook whereas science fiction authors are much more progressive and leftist. This is obviously an undue generalisation (as most of such comments tend to be) but it felt intuitively right. Even then I [...]
