Earth Day ambivalence

Never quite know what to make of Earth Day.

Eyebrows would be raised if the International Space Station had an annual “CO2 Scrubber Day” or submarine crews celebrated “Pressure Hull Week” every April.

I should say, I have a general disquiet about the whole concept of annual awareness time intervals. I’m certainly not against the idea for every good cause, but often they trivialise the thing they’re trying to promote. Not saying they don’t work, but somehow Earth Day, like Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, has a touch of absurdity and mild desperation.

Peak health?

Something I’ve often wondered about before, and now a paper’s been published that touches on it (in terms of cardiovascular health, at least).

What happens next, in terms of life expectancy, in the developed world? First of all there was sanitation and better housing to reduce the disease burden from infectious diseases. And immunisation, of course. Then economic development and societal changes drive gains from the third stage of the demographic transition (ie better maternal and childhood nutrition reaps more healthy years of life decades later in the lifecourse). And we start to identify some of the big risk factors for disease, and belatedly, deal with them in a meaningful society-wide way (eg smoking bans).

Some of the benefit from these changes is yet to filter through to the life expectancy figures of course, but the era of big improvements is probably drawing to a close. Meanwhile, an overweight younger generation is coming through which is steadily accumulating a hefty burden of future cardiovascular risk.

So how are we going to sustain those improvements in life expectancy in the future?

Margaret Thatcher

If you hadn’t noticed, she died yesterday. If the media (yes, them again) are to be believed, here in the UK we should all divide neatly into two groups: those huffing and puffing about how disgraceful it is she’s not going to have a state funeral— as if St Paul’s cathedral, gun carriages and military salutes are not enough— and those who broke out the champagne and partied hard all last night.

So when I try to decide what I think about her passing, it’s with half-hearted surprise that I conclude— pretty much nothing.

It’s not that I don’t think she was a hugely influential figure in national, and arguably global, 20th century politics, society (yes, it does exist) and culture.

It’s just that she was in power through most of my childhood, and like most background things you grow up with, she was just there. Being brought up in a middle class household in the south of the country, her policies didn’t appear to have any direct, immediate impacts on my family. According to my understanding, she did some necessary things early in her premiership, such as facing down the unions— although she did them in what appears to be a notably divisive and compassionless way. And much like an over-ripe cheese or Tony Blair, she stuck around far too long at the end.

In all, I struggle to marshal any strong feelings towards her one way or the other.

It’s always sad when a family member or friend dies, even when peacefully at the ripe old age of 87. So my condolences go out to those who knew her personally. As for her long term impact on the world, history will pass judgement in due course. I suspect it will be a mixed verdict.

That’s it really.

Media Chaos and measles outbreaks

After the MMR scare comes the inevitable measles scare: there’s now a big outbreak in Swansea, Wales.

BBC report

What Wakefield et al sowed is now being reaped. No reports yet of deaths or serious disability, but unfortunately the odds of getting through the outbreak without them are poor.

Why Swansea? It has been suggested that an anti-MMR campaign spearheaded by the local rag in the 1990s may, in part, be responsible for lower MMR uptake in the region and loss of herd immunity.

Now, I heard/read about this somewhere in the media in the last couple of days, so it’s not as if there’s a big conspiracy to keep it quiet. But in other circumstances,  if the actions of a named individual, organisation (eg hospital), or even another professional group (eg doctors) could be deemed even part-responsible for an outbreak of potentially serious harm to a large group of people, I’d expect to hear a lot more about it in the news. But maybe the fact that the media aren’t saying much about their own failings shouldn’t be a big surprise.

Anyway, here’s a pretty good account of it on “the home of UK regional journalism and jobs”.

Economics is painfully incomplete— discuss

“(Neo)classical economics is so appealing because it accurately describes the short term mechanics of how humans exchange goods and services, is remarkably self-consistent, and its language and logic are so versatile in application.”

But— for the invisible hand to work well [1], it has to operate within a particular set of parameters (see conditions for ideal market [2]) that in practice are rarely achieved, and sometimes so far off being achievable that a better understanding of reality may be achieved by setting aside the (neo)classical perspective entirely. The global financial system and health care are examples that immediately come to mind.

I suspect and hope there is a big socioeconomic/human collective behavioural meta-theory out there which will eventually supersede current economic theory, that incorporates its insights while providing a much deeper account of long-term human phenomena.

If you uncover it, I will buy you a pint.

Notes:
[1] The meaning of “work well” is of course open to discussion. Economists would describe it as something like “the efficient allocation of goods and services according to the agents’ preferences (utility).” Sadly they don’t seem to have much useful to offer in answer to the ensuing cascade of obvious follow-on questions; the logic starts to look very circular.
[2] Conditions for a perfect market
[3] See this thread on stoat for the indirect inspiration for this post

Lighting up the Dark Ages

First there’s this BBC piece, which is basically a summary of a series of papers published over the last few months describing unusual isotopes in tree rings and ice cores from the 8th century, attributable to some kind of external high energy radiation ‘event’. Perhaps a supernova, a solar superflare, or— as per the most recent paper, which is the focus of the BBC piece— a gamma ray burst.

Too intriguing to just leave there. What’s pleasantly surprising is that it’s relatively easy to follow the the back-and-forth in the academic literature— even with the frustrating Nature paywalls, and without understanding much of the detailed science.

Schumann Resonance

Also known, more poetically, as the Earth “breathing” or its “heartbeat”:

The Death of Theory: Kaggle, randomised control trials, and optimisation without understanding

Another effort to draw together some semi-coherent thoughts prompted by a couple of recent-ish items in the media.

Item 1:

“Down with experts”, a New Scientist opinion/interview piece from last month. It looks like Slate has the same interview subscription-free.

The Resilience of Diaspar: Thoughts on “The City and the Stars” by Arthur C Clarke

Over the last year or so I’ve started reading more science fiction again, as I’ve discovered old genre classics in handy ebook format at reasonable prices.

I thought I’d read most of Arthur C Clarke’s novels as a teenager, but “The City and the Stars”— an early effort, from 1956— slipped the net. Spoilers follow.

New blog name

I was never completely happy with “Geodoctor”, but it reflected two big topics that were preoccupying me three years ago: health and geosciences. I believed that without some narrowing of the remit, I would find it impossible to sit down and write anything focused. Perhaps restricting the areas of interest would make the whole blogging endeavour seem more manageable, and bringing together two seemingly disparate subjects seemed like a good project.

I think it worked, to a point. I’ve kept it going intermittently and more or less on-topic, although stunning insights and big audiences have both been lacking. At least it’s allowed me to continue writing when other outlets have dried up. In blogging terms I’ve dipped my toes in the water, and even paddled a little in the shallow end.

But things have changed over the last three years. Health and geosciences remain important concerns— expect further posts on these topics, if only because one area remains central to my working life, and the other still figures as a major interest— but with a more accommodating title I should feel free to put fingers to keyboard on a broader range of topics. The new title gives me permission to wander around a little more, and I hope this will lead to more frequent posts. With only a very limited amount of writing time, I can’t afford to limit myself to particular subject areas.

Having said that, part of me hopes that some unifying thread will emerge over time. If it does, it wouldn’t surprise me if the human health/ geosciences intersection is part of it.

Let’s see how it goes.