11.9.04

The Aussies Were Here First?

Who discovered the Americas? The first colonizers of the Americas came from Australia, according to archaeologists who have analysed skulls from 12,000-year-old skeletons found in California. The finding contradicts the traditional view that the first immigrants were the ancestors of modern Native Americans. The skulls, taken from skeletal remains found in the desert of the Baja California peninsula in Mexico, are long and narrow. "This is completely different to the Native Americans' rounder skull shape," explains lead researcher Silvia Gonzalez from the Liverpool John Moores University, UK. ... Traditional colonization theories hold that the first wave of humans to migrate to the Americas came from Siberia at the end of the last ice age. Skeletons of these migrants are dated at about 9,000 years old. So Gonzalez says the new evidence means that the Siberians, who are related to modern day Native Americans, did not get there first after all.

I would not be at all surprised if the closest living relatives of the very first Americans are Australian Aborigines. My knowledge of the American colonization debate is rather slim, but it doesn't seem inconsistent with any evidence I know of that there was a first wave of migrants early on, followed by a second stronger wave of people related to modern Siberians. Indeed, this would explain the sudden explosion of sites at the appearance of the Clovis culture, and the relative lack of very early Native American-like sites in Siberia.

But I see no reason to think that the first Americans came from Australia. While many sites were drowned by rising seas at the end of the last ice age, we have no evidence of major indigenous seafaring cultures in Australia. Aborigines made it to the Solomon Islands, but never got to Indonesia on their own. It seems much more likely that an early wave of humans leaving Africa got to China and then split -- some moving south to Australia, and others heading north along the coast and eventually winding up in America. Later arrivals killed or absorbed most of the Aborigines' Asian and American cousins.
Stentor Danielson, 18:56, ,

In Defense Of Cheney

I'm finding it hard to get outraged about Dick Cheney's remark that if John Kerry is elected, another major terrorist attack is likely. He seems to be just making explicit the implicit presupposition of the whole use of terrorism as an election issue.

The basic premise of any political campaign with respect to issue X (at least where X is agreed upon as a goal) is "you'll be better off with respect to X if you vote for me than if you vote for my opponent." So Kerry and Bush each claim that the economy will do worse under the other's leadership, that health care will be worse under the other's plan, etc. So why is it strange that one of them would claim that terrorism prevention would be worse under the other's leadership? Certainly one of the reasons I'll vote for Kerry is my view that Bush's conduct of the war on terrorism has been shoddy, and thus terrorist attacks would be more likely during a second Bush term than a first Kerry term.

It's hardly beyond the pale to make a factually incorrect statement about which party's policies are more effective, or to exaggerate the difference between them. Do Cheney's critics mean to suggest that there's nothing that we can do to affect the rate of terrorism -- that attacks are a force of nature like earthquakes or hurricanes?
Stentor Danielson, 11:10, ,

10.9.04

CNN Is Useless

Staying at a hotel with no internet is a good way for me to remind myself why I don't watch TV. For example, CNN has taken to parodying* the whole "he said, she said" style of reporting -- they report on spin that hasn't even been spun yet. A typical story goes something like this: "A report came out today that says blah blah blah. And I'm sure both parties will each have their own view of it to promote."

Then they did a segment with Bill Allen that was basically an ad for National Geographic. If you want to do a story about climate change, interview a climatologist. If you want to do a story about NG's conterversial decision to push an environmentalist viewpoint, then ask Allen about that. But don't repeat the points the magazine made, let Allen elaborate, then declare the issue "chilling."

*At least I hope it's parody. It's too depressing to imagine they think it's real journalism.
Stentor Danielson, 13:02, ,

8.9.04

Off To New Jersey Again

Hopefully the last round. No posting for a couple days.
Stentor Danielson, 22:26, ,

Women CEOs And The Adaptive Cycle

I just finished reading Lance Gunderson and C.S. Holling's book Panarchy, in which they elaborate on their "adaptive cycle" model for human and natural systems. They express some concern that it's so easy to see adaptive cycles everywhere that the theory risks explaining everything -- and therefore nothing*.

So perhaps it's no surprise that the adaptive cycle was the first thing to spring to mind when I encountered this story (via Echidne):

Alex Haslam and Michelle Ryan of Exeter University found large British companies that put a woman on their boards experienced consistently worse share price performance in the run-up to the appointment than those appointing only male board memers, the Financial Times reported Tuesday. ... By contrast, when things are going well, "there is no need to change the usual practice of jobs for the boys." Haslam also said: "The appointment of a woman director was not associated with a subsequent drop in company performance. Indeed companies that appointed a woman actually experienced a marked increase in share price after the appointment."

In brief, Gunderson and Holling say that traditional ecology was right to point out that systems move from a phase of identifying opportunity and moving to exploit it (r-phase), to a phase of increasing connectedness and complexity (K-phase). However, the K-phase is not a stable climax. The increasing connectedness also creates rigidity. The system becomes an accident waiting to happen -- and eventually one does (Ω-phase). Following the breakup and release of the accumulated "capital," the system enters a phase of unpredictability and experimentation (α-phase), from which a new r-phase is selected.

An adaptive cycle interpretation of the article would go something like this: companies start out with a certain way of doing things in the r-phase -- hiring mostly men for top jobs. That strategy seems to work all right, so it gets locked in as they move into the K-phase. But their old-boys' network becomes a sort of a rut, decreasing the company's resilience to changes in the market. As they tip over into the Ω-phase, they're forced to think outside the box -- for example, seriously considering women for top-level positions. And it seems like an advantageous bit of novelty to introduce into the system, as companies start to recover (move into a new r-phase) once they try appointing a woman**. The danger, of course, is that once the backloop (Ω-α) is past, companies will revert to the old r-phase of relying on men.

The adaptive cycle idea also suggests an argument for a degree of affirmative action. Gunderson and Holling point out that, since things look so good during theK-phase, we have a tendency to want to stay there forever. But efforts to lock in a K state tend to exacerbate the size of the inevitable Ω. Rather, we should deliberately introduce small backloops to keep our K phases fresh and avoid a hard fall. The classic example is fire management -- frequent small fires allow us to avoid the huge conflagrations that follow total fire suppression. So perhaps companies ought to consider shaking things up by hiring women during their K-phase, rather than waiting for a big Ω.

The whole situation might not be a good example of an adaptive cycle, however. I've painted a relatively optimistic view of forward-thinking managers taking a risk on hiring women during the backloop. But it may be that they expect the company to go under, or to recover on its own, regardless of their hiring decisions. In this case, hiring a woman is just a way to shift the responsibility (though considering the beneficial effects of hiring a woman, this may be classified as an inadvertant α).

*They do manage to find a few ecosystems, such as pelagic ocean environments, that don't seem to follow the adaptive cycle.

**The articles aren't clear on why. I'm skeptical about how much of it is due to women having an intrinsically different management style. It may be that, by being willing to seriously consider women, companies can tap into a better pool of candidates, since the good women haven't been snapped up by other companies. Or it may be that thinking outside the old-boys' network box leads them to use a different and better set of criteria for hiring, which happens to include "may be a woman."
Stentor Danielson, 10:31, ,

Why Oz?

It's amazing how backwards the process of doing research is when compared to the process of presenting and justifying your conclusions. I've decided I want to do my dissertation on Australia, so now I have to come up with a good intellectual justification for it.
Stentor Danielson, 01:26, ,

7.9.04

Transitions

This may be the first time I've ever heard anyone say this:

Clearly, today's is not an age of transition, and there is no substantial movement towards a new society.

The stock-in-trade of commentators is to delcare that there are major changes afoot, or that we're on the cusp of something big. Of course, this article doesn't really escape that conceit -- despite the above-quoted sentence, it focuses on the current transition from real radicalism to mere griping.
Stentor Danielson, 22:52, ,

Log It To Save It

Judge Halts Plan To Log Burn Area Near Tahoe Plans to log a remote and fire-damaged stretch of forest west of Lake Tahoe were blocked by a federal judge who ruled the U.S. Forest Service failed to show the project would not actually increase risk of another major wildfire. ... In his ruling England noted the Forest Service estimated as much as 85 tons per acre of wooden debris would be left on the ground in most of the logged area after profitable timber was removed and that the government failed to show that would not make fire danger worse. ... [District Ranger Rich] Johnson acknowledged limbs and other debris left on the ground would temporarily increase fire danger but said the danger would be outweighed by long-term benefits. "There would be a short-term increase but in the long run we would be able to better provide for regeneration of the forest," Johnson said. "Our feeling was we needed to treat the full spectrum of fuels and we were willing to make some trade-off."

The kind of big dead snags that the logging operation would remove serve important ecological functions. I know forests in Sweden have suffered greatly because of efforts to "protect" them by removing dead wood, and it seems likely that a similar situation pertains here. So I'm skeptical that logging would aid in the forest's regeneration.
Stentor Danielson, 21:16, ,

6.9.04

Just Say No To Cars

Will Baude links to this story about cutbacks in Greyhound's schedule, declaring it "a stern reminder to those bloggers who advocate the abandonment of cars." Presumably he means that giving up one's car is a risky decision, as it puts you at the mercy of Greyhound's schedule, and would therefore be an bad choice to make for yourself, or to recommend to others, in certain circumstances (such as people in very rural areas). As a matter of personal prudence, Baude has a point. I'm not certain which anti-car bloggers he's referring to, but my own anti-car feelings prompt me to make a few points. First, people like the now-stranded Elva Link in the article are the people that are the least in need of giving up cars -- she seems like she'd only use it for occasional long-distance trips, which are both more justifiable and less harmful than stop-and-go traffic on a 5-minute drive to the store on roads frequented by pedestrians. Second, the anti-car push can't be looked at as strictly a matter of individual choices. The reason Link wound up stranded was not because she gave up her car, but because she was the only person in Ritzville who gave up her car. If everyone in Ritzville had decided they need to take the bus, Greyhound would never have had to close the stop. Creating a more efficient transportation system requires collective action -- an organized and mutually supportive campaign, rather than individually virtuous decisions (though the latter can spur the former). Ultimately, yes, this should motivate changes in settlement patterns that create a more transportation-friendly geography.

(To put my own situation on the table, I'm not exactly an anti-car purist. I own a Buick Century, though I avoid driving it whenever I can -- including sometimes walking half an hour to take the bus. Unlike Baude, I have lived most of my life in areas where there wasn't Greyhound service (or any bus service in some cases) in the first place. But I didn't get my car until I moved for the first time to a city -- not because I need the car more in the city, but because it happened to coincide with a car-needing phase of my life.)

Also, my first ever use of trackback: success!
Stentor Danielson, 19:36, ,

"Classical" vs. "Tradtional"

I'm reading about efforts to incorporate Aboriginal knowledge into fire management. Some of the authors have taken to talking about "classical" Aboriginal knowledge, rather than the more common phrasing of "traditional" Aboriginal knowledge. The intent is to evoke a parallel with the way we respect the heritage of "classical" Greece and Rome, and escape the connotation of "traditional" as suggesting old-fashionedness.

But to me, "classical" is even more problematic. It suggests that we're looking back to an idealized golden age. This devalues what came after -- the "Dark Ages" in Rome, or Aboriginal knowledge that has been compromised by colonialism. That's a common view with respect to Aboriginal culture -- that the Aborigines had a perfectly functioning system in 1787, and to truly take advantage of what they have to offer, we have to try to get back to the "real" pre-European version. This tempts some people to say that "classical" Aboriginal knowledge is useless today, as it pertained to a different environment and society.

"Tradition," on the other hand, is subject to constant reiteration. In good structurationist fashion, traditions are maintained by being re-enacted in the present. So while tradition looks to the past, it's constantly engaging with the present. It isn't frozen in time the way a "classical" situation is.
Stentor Danielson, 01:06, ,

5.9.04

Women Have Bones, Right?

Men From Early Middle Ages Were Nearly As Tall As Modern People Northern European men living during the early Middle Ages were nearly as tall as their modern-day American descendants, a finding that defies conventional wisdom about progress in living standards during the last millennium. Steckel analyzed height data from thousands of skeletons excavated from burial sites in northern Europe and dating from the ninth to the 19th centuries. Average height declined slightly during the 12th through 16th centuries, and hit an all-time low during the 17th and 18th centuries. ... Reasons for such tall heights during the early Middle Ages may have to do with climate. Steckel points out that agriculture from 900 to 1300 benefited from a warm period – temperatures were as much as 2 to 3 degrees warmer than subsequent centuries. Theoretically, smaller populations had more land to choose from when producing crops and raising livestock. -- via Quark Soup

This is interesting, but I wonder why the study dealt only with men. It could be that Steckel just wanted to cut down on his data load, and decided that men's heights were more important. Or it could be a bias on the part of the people compiling his data, if the excavators whose work he relied on were more interested in the likely-better-provisioned male graves, so the data set on women is less complete.
Stentor Danielson, 01:29, ,