Problems in funding biological conservation research

REPLY TO: 20 Jul 2024: https://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~krebs/ecological_rants/problems-in-funding-biological-conservation-research/

I am neither a good ecologist nor a good environmentalist. But this is about research funding and conservation, so bear with me.

My wife and I enjoy walks around Deer Lake. If somebody were to ask me "Why are there so many mallards but so few wood ducks?", all I could do is some handwaving. It's survival and reproduction, it's the niche, it's all very complicated. I know, I know. Coexistence is one result of the Lotka-Volterra competition model (1), but to ask Platt's famous question (2): "But [Madam or] Sir, what experiment would disprove your hypothesis?" Causality is hard to establish in the historical sciences (3).

I am also not sure about conservation. As I have asked before (4): Why is biodiversity worth protecting? More than that. When I see the family-tent-sized rubber sheets rolled out around Deer Lake to combat the invasion of the yellow flag iris, I wonder how well these rubber sheets work. Looking at the sizeable populations next to the rubber sheets, my response is: Not well. 

Of course, you may say I am an idiot, and indeed I know very little. But if we cannot come up with good explanations for the abundance and the distribution of organisms, if the only reasons for protecting biodiversity we can name are vague notions of ecosystem stability and aesthetics, if the outcomes of our conservation efforts are uncertain at best and pathetic at worst, and if the timescales governing our objects of interest is decades to centuries, it is half a miracle that we do get funding at all. 

The question is this: How can we convince the average citizen that ecological research is important? (5)

I am not sure if education is the answer. I teach ecology and evolution at a fourth-rate university. I do have students who think that humans are the cause for the extinction of dinosaurs, a belief that would have gotten me thrown out of middle school. And a couple of months ago, I visited the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at U.B.C. with four questions in mind (4): How much biodiversity is out there? Why are there so many species, or why are there so few? Why is biodiversity worth protecting? How should we manage biodiversity? The only question that was somewhat answered is the first.

But maybe I am expecting too much from us humans. 

(An afterthought: When I was a postdoc at U.B.C. in the late 1990s, I dreamt of an independent research institute for ecology (6), where researchers could focus on hypotheses and evidence. I even imagined the funding. Not from the public, because it requires the writing of grant proposals that may not get funded and the publishing of papers that nobody reads. Not from "philanthropists", because it may require sycophancy, compromise, and possibly hypocrisy (7). The funding I envisioned was achieved through -- hold on to your seats -- sports betting. If we are as good at data analysis as we think we are, this should be a piece of cake. I even trained an artificial neural network on about a thousand baseball games. The trouble was that it never converged.)

NOTES AND REFERENCES

(1) C. J. Krebs (2009), Ecology (Sixth Edition).

(2) J. R. Platt (1964), Strong Inference. Science 146: 347 - 353.

(3) My comment on https://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~krebs/ecological_rants/the-two-ecologies/.

(4) My comment on https://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~krebs/ecological_rants/biodiversity-science/.

(5) If the average citizen is not convinced, the average politician will not act. That said, it is still a mystery to me how the physicists get their particle accelerators or the astronomers their space telescopes. 

(6) What the Institute for Advanced Study used to be to mathematics, the Santa Fe Institute to complex adaptive systems, the Oregon Research Institute to psychology.

(7) Who would you NOT accept money from? 

The calculator and artificial intelligence

A group of university administrators has made the following foolish argument (1).

OBSERVATIONS

O1: The introduction of the calculator in the classroom was opposed by many who predicted a decline in academic standards. 

O2: The introduction of the calculator in the classroom DID NOT result in a decline in academic standards. 

O3: The introduction of A.I. in the classroom is opposed by many who predict a decline in academic standards.

ASSUMPTION

A1: The introduction of A.I. in the classroom IS equivalent to the introduction of the calculator in the classroom.

CONCLUSION

C1: The introduction of A.I. in the classroom WILL NOT result in a decline in academic standards.

Here are my objections.

ON O2

The introduction of the calculator DID result in a decline in academic standards.

Perform the following long division by hand: 123456 ÷ 789. 

Did you find it easy? No? Why then should students be exposed to this avoidable tedium?

Because long division does train the mind NOT ONLY in long division. It also teaches students to break a big unsolvable problem into smaller solvable ones. And it exercises the mind in the consistent application of a simple set of rules, a procedure, an algorithm. And it teaches students perseverance and resilience. 

Not exactly irrelevant transferable personal qualities, transferable social behaviours, and transferable cognitive skills to have in life and in the workplace (2).

ON A1

The introduction of A.I. in the classroom IS NOT equivalent to the introduction of the calculator.

Calculators are primitive tools. They are about arithmetic, the processing of numbers. Calculators are not smarter than humans, they are just faster. 

Of course, mathematics also deals in algebra and calculus, the processing of variables and equations, respectively. We have invented tools to make us faster and more accurate in those areas as well (3). But using these tools requires knowledge about what you are doing. 

Even using the calculator: What exactly is it that you want to calculate? 

Conversely, much of today's "A.I." is based on Large Language Models, artificial neural networks that process complex symbols. These provide easy access to products of analysis and synthesis. Using them doesn't require the discipline of acquiring knowledge. An idiot can use ChatGPT and look smart (4). 

ON C1

Prompted with the observations (O1, O2, O3), the assumption (A1), and the conclusion (C1), the ChatGTP artificial neural network responded (5): 

"The key to this conclusion lies in the assumption that the introduction of A.I. is fundamentally similar to the introduction of calculators in terms of the context and scope of use. If this premise holds true, then the positive outcome from calculators can be reasonably extended to A.I., supporting the conclusion that the impact on academic standards will not be adverse."

Not bad. A machine displaying more intellectual rigour than the authors of the article. (And yes, I see the irony here: Had the authors used ChatGTP, they could have made a stronger argument.) Still, I am somewhat disappointed. I expected the machine to have more of an agenda. 

NOTES AND REFERENCES

(1) M. M. Crow, N. K. Mayberry, T. Mitchell, and D. Anderson (2024), AI Can Transform the Classroom Just Like the Calculator. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-can-transform-the-classroom-just-like-the-calculator/ (Accessed: 24 Apr 2024).

(2) https://www.citizenbaumann.ca/2019/07/selection-criteria-in-labour-market.html (Accessed: 24 Apr 2024).

(3) E.g. Mathematica, MATLAB, Maple. 

(4) You want to give a presentation on say 17th century French literature? Just sign up to ChatGPT and enter the following prompt: "Can you provide me with the text for ten PowerPoint slides on 17th century French literature?" Hey presto! 

(5) ChatGTP 3.5 (Prompted: 25 Apr 2024). ChatGTP gave a variety of responses to the same prompt. All consistent with each other. 

Higher education: The things we do and fail to do

The original title of my article was "Higher education: The things we do and fail to do". The editors changed it to "Preparing good citizens and workers means treating students as adults", which is lame.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/preparing-good-citizens-and-workers-means-treating-students-adults 

What to read in the ecological literature

REPLY TO: 23 Jan 2024: https://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~krebs/ecological_rants/on-what-to-read-in-the-ecological-literature/

Three thoughts, but a caveat first. 

"In our times, we would only publish when we felt we had something to say. Today, if you don’t have anything to say, you do that in at least two or three papers." Dennis Chitty said that (1). That was in 1996, when Chitty was 84 years old, and I was 31. I have lived by his standards ever since. 

I never had much to say, and even fewer things that hadn't been said before. (I remember one time I discovered something interesting about probabilities, and it turned out to be Bayes's theorem (2). About 250 years too late.) Consequently, I never believed that reckless publishing would move society forward. 

And yes, as was pointed out to me frequently: "Publication is the currency of our success." (3)

1: During my grammar school years and undergraduate studies, I wish my teachers had taken the time to expose me to the original books rather than some child's play version of them. Euklid, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, come to mind.

2: During my Ph.D. years, I rated every book and paper I read. It turned out that about 90% of the books I read were worth my time and 90% of the papers were not. So, I focused on books and classic papers (4). But even here I wish I had had better guidance (5).

3: There is normal science and there are scientific revolutions (6). During periods of normal science, scientists work within a framework of beliefs and accumulate facts that strengthen the framework. Who is challenging the frameworks today?

And of course, there is the story of the newly hired professor at U.B.C. who only reads the abstracts, because reading doesn't get you tenure or grants, writing does.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

(1) D. Chitty (1996), pers. comm.

(2) T. Bayes (1763), An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances.

(3) L. M. Ward (2003, 2004, 2005, 2006), pers. comm.

(4) F. Courchamp and C. J. A. Bradshaw (2018), 100 articles every ecologist should read. Nature Ecology and Evolution 2: 395 - 401. This publication lists only six papers that were published after 2000. 

(5) It was years after I completed my Ph.D. in 1998 that I discovered: E.g. T. C. Chamberlin (1890), The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses; A. Szent-Györgyi (1960), Introduction to a Submolecular Biology; J. R. Platt (1964), Strong Inference. 

(6) T.S. Kuhn (1970), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Second edition. 

Belief versus Evidence

REPLY TO: 7 Feb 2023: https://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~krebs/ecological_rants/belief-vs-evidence/

If we assume two things …

Assumption 1: Knowing facts increases fitness -- survival and reproduction, "success".

This seems reasonable. Imagine the life expectancy of zebras that believe "There is a tree with a leopard tail." rather than "There is a leopard lurking behind the tree.".

Assumption 2: The function of higher education is two-fold: First, the development of competent citizens. Second, the training of a skilled workforce.

This also seems reasonable. What else are we doing?

Consequently, the distinction between fact and fantasy must be of vital importance in higher education.

It is not. I am somewhat old now, but in the 70 university courses I took in my younger more vulnerable years, not a single one formally dealt with this problem. And from my informal observations I must say that most people are rather confused about the distinction between facts, beliefs, preferences, and opinions.

I teach introductory biology and introductory ecology at an unnamed university. The formal distinction between facts, beliefs, preferences, and opinions is the first thing I teach the students. At the end of the semester, most of them have forgotten already.

On M.B.A. programs

A couple of days ago, I was sitting in the faculty lounge at the place where I work, having my lunch, minding my own business. That's when I overhear the following conversation between two faculty members in the M.B.A. program.

Faculty #1: I just planted a cedar tree in my garden. I hope it will stay alive.

Faculty #2: Do you talk to your tree?

Faculty #1: What do you mean?

Faculty #2: Have you not heard about the famous rice experiment (1)?

Faculty #1: No, what's that?

Faculty #2: A researcher in Japan had three jars in which he grew rice. He talked very nicely to the first jar. He was neutral to the second. And he frowned at the third.

Faculty #1: What happened?

Faculty #2: The rice in the first jar grew very quickly. The rice in the second jar grew normally. And the rice in the third jar got mouldy.

Faculty #1: Really?

Faculty #2: You see, it's the positive energy from humans that helps the rice grow.

Faculty #1: I certainly will talk to my cedar tree at home. And I will also use the rice experiment to start today's class. You know, if students want to open an agri-business, they should know these things.

For their M.B.A. courses, this university likes to hire "business people with experience".

There was another permanent faculty member in the M.B.A. program who sheepishly admitted to me that before teaching business ethics, he never even cracked open an ethics book. To be fair, I am not an expert in business ethics. Maybe basic knowledge about philosophy is not required to teach business ethics. After all, the university is charging students $2,000 for courses given by laypeople who read the textbook a week before they did.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto

Socrates on CoViD

The original title of my article was "Socrates on CoViD". The editors changed it to "The Pandemos".

https://philosophynow.org/issues/151/The_Pandemos

It is really a dialogue on thinking -- I could have picked any hard problem humankind is faced with, from climate change to the Downtown Eastside. Maybe the way to deal with corruption, injustice, and stupidity is this: One clown at a time.

In defence of government

Start with a particle so small that 100 million of them fit on the head of a pin. Each of these particles can replicate inside the human body, disable you, kill you. Each of them can mutate and become nastier. A lot nastier. 

Add to this an array of professional politicians, administrative bureaucrats, health officers, statisticians, ecological modellers, epidemiologists, vaccination experts, drug regulators, welfare economists, financial experts, experts on trade agreements, on constitutional law, on law enforcement, ... This is your government. All imperfect people, all with imperfect information.

Add their constituents -- children, students, senior citizens, citizens informed, half-informed, misinformed, disinformed, people who fell ill, people who lost family or friends, ... Throw in different interest groups -- ethnic communities, congregations, small business associations, the nurses' union, the teachers' union, First Nations, doctors' associations, ... 

Add actors from areas that are suffering economically -- face-to-face retail, restaurants, the travel industry, tourism, oil and gas, sports, concerts, theatres, ... Add actors from areas that are benefitting -- pharma big and small, e-commerce, streaming services, food delivery, hot-tub installers, ... Be sure to add some actors who are uncertain where they stand -- banks who suddenly see no need for expensive downtown office towers, credit card companies who see an explosion in credit card usage, universities who can operate at lower cost using blended course contents delivery, ... 

Don't forget to add a few anarchists and archconseratives who share in their delusion that the best government is no government, some anti-vaxxers who think that the government is out to get them, some loud pundits trying to make a name for themselves, and a few people who are simply nasty for no particular reason.

Now, consider the demands on the government to fulfil the varied goals of all the different stakeholders. Consider that government actions are always limited. Consider that outcomes are always uncertain. Consider that indicators are often ambiguous. Consider that data are always incomplete and often inconsistent. Consider that no government action occurs in isolation.

Hey presto! The CoViD crisis.

I don't know where people like Dr. Henry and Mr. Horgan find the strength to get out of bed in the morning. But I for one thank them that they do.

(After I had finished my article, my wife and I had a discussion over dinner what it is that you can demand from your government. That they be honest with us and that they give it their best effort towards the public good, not less, not more. In Canada, we sometimes forget how lucky we have been. Think anything Trump, think Brazil, Russia, India, and China, think W.M.D.s in Iraq, think Iran-Contra, think Chernobyl, ...)

On lunatics

Lunatics are gaining legitimacy. And here is my hypothesis.

In the past, if there was 1 lunatic in 1,000 people, lunatics had great difficulty finding each other. Today, thank you very much social media, lunatics can easily form groups.

Lunatics form groups. Groups shout louder. Loudness attracts publicity. Publicity legitimates lunacy.

We cannot control lunacy, or the forming of groups, or the shouting for that matter. The question is: Can we control publicity?

Unfortunately, in the evolution of democratic society, we have reached a stage where ignoring an opinion is considered an undemocratic act. Consequently, we patiently listen to even the most lunatic ideas, ideas that not only lack evidence but that often go against massive evidence to the contrary.

This practice has had dire consequences: The reinforcement of the lunatic's confidence that his conviction represents a legitimate position. The conclusion by the underinformed that facts are fewer and less certain than they in fact are. The folly to take the lunatic's confidence as a measure of the strength of his claims. The abuse of our good will by people with nefarious agendas. The catering of desperate politicians to lunatic superminorities. The adoption of the fear-and-anger business model in the media. The readiness of governments to disinform their own citizens and those of foreign nations. ...

And so, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 9 - 11 conspiracies, birtherism. And so, holocaust denial, climate change denial, mass shooting denial, CoViD denial. And so, QAnon, the "stolen" 2020 U.S. election, anti-vaccine delusion.

But here is the thing: NOT ALL TRUTH PROPOSITIONS ARE EQUALLY PROBABLE.

And, yes, I am shouting this.

Would we give television time or newspaper space to someone who claims electricity does not work, or antibiotics, or bridges across rivers? To someone who believes water, or food, or gravity are social constructs? (Admittedly, the number of gravity deniers must be small, not because the evidence is literally just a stone's throw away, but because their lives must be so short.)

Yes, I do realize the irony of dedicating a couple of hundred words to lunatics. But let us just stop giving intellectual space to the perpetual re-examination of lunatic ideas. And let us use it to solve actual problems.

Now, about the U.F.O. that landed on my hiking boot ...

Almost nothing you know ...

Almost nothing you know or believe about the world is based on your own experience. Almost everything you know or believe about the world you know on trust.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/142/Elements_of_Truth

When 2 + 2 = 5

Imagine you have to score student performance in a Grade 10 algebra test (1). Looking at one student's step-by-step calculations you discover that at one step she calculated that 2 + 2 = 5. Obviously, for a Grade 10 student this is a very basic arithmetic mistake.

Now, because this is a very basic mistake, would you dock more or fewer points for it than for an advanced mistake? Why? Why not? Would you dock more points if the algebra problem were framed in terms of serious consequences (2)? Would you dock "a good student" the same number of points as you would "a bad student"? Would you dock a female student the same number as a male student, a white student the same number as a black student?

How about a mediocre male student who protests every self-perceived act of injustice inflicted upon him? Would you deduct the same number of points from his test as from a mediocre meek female?

Making performance judgements on math problems is relatively easy (3). Consider judgements on more important things. All other things being equal: In an election, do you interpret dishonesty or stupidity in "your candidate" with the same gravity as you do for a rival candidate? In a job competition, do you judge experiences and accomplishments of a local candidate with the same rigour as those of an outside candidate. In court, do call for the same sentence for an offender born in Switzerland as you do for an offender born in Nigeria?

It is hard work to develop and stick by good rules of judgement. And it is easy to dress up prejudice in a mantle of objectivity (4).

My favourite example comes from an Israeli parole board where cases were randomly assigned to judges, and yet the proportion of decisions in favour of the prisoners declined in the course of the sessions and reached a minimum just before the scheduled breaks (5).

Of course, the first step towards improved judgement is a correct judgement of our judgement apparatus. Unfortunately, we aren't good at that either. Consequently, as a family member, as a good friend, as a professional, as a citizen, what are your obligations to alert someone to their faulty judgement?

NOTES AND REFERENCES

(1) For example: Solve the following equation for x: -2 * (x + 2) + 2 * (-x + 2) + 2 * (2 + 2) = 0

(2) Say: "Determine the amount x (in millilitres) of midazolam that can be safely administered in preoperative sedation." "Calculate the number of battalions required to secure the border."

(3) Given these axioms and these rules and these particulars, these results must follow.

(4) "My decision sexist? Oh god, far from it. His publication record just wasn't as impressive." "My decision racist? It couldn't be further from the truth. She just wasn't a good team-fit." "My decision age-ist? Oh my god, never. His coding skills just weren't up to par."

(5) Danzinger et al. (2011), Extraneous factors in judicial decisions: www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1018033108 (Accessed: 5 Jul 2018)

How complacency is failing Canadian university students

The original title of my article was "How complacency is failing Canadian university students ". The editors changed it to "We need to seriously rethink the concept of final exams", which misses the point.

http://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/need-seriously-rethink-concept-final-exams/  

The fish that weren't there

When my daughter Phoebe was in Grade 3 or 4, her class collaborated with a Grade 7 class in a project called Salmonids in the Classroom (1). The project was (and still is) supported by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and the idea behind it is that raising salmon in the classroom will teach students a little bit about science, among other things.

Every school day a few Grade 3ers would walk over to the Grade 7ers and take a few scientific observations. And since I was working in Fisheries Oceanography at the time, one day I asked whether I could accompany Phoebe and her three classmates. 

So we walked over, each of them carrying a sheet with instructions. First, they had to measure the water temperature and write it down, which they all did. Then, they had to determine the pH of the water. Of course, none of the Grade 3ers, or the Grade 7ers for that matter, knew what a pH was, but they had learned how to use pH test strips for litmus testing and how to compare them to the colour chart, and they did it well.

Then they sat down in front of the fish tank and continued their assignment, which was this: In the space below, draw what you see. So, the three girls and one boy began to draw the little fish, which were supposed to be in the fry stage.

The problem was that there was not a single fish in the tank (2). 

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"We are drawing fish," Phoebe answered without even looking up.

"But you are supposed to draw what you see." 

"We know."

"But there are no fish in the tank."

"Believe me," Phoebe said. "We are supposed to draw little fish, and that's what we are doing."

"Aren't we supposed to draw fish?" the boy asked me.

"No," I said. "You are supposed to draw what you see."

After ten minutes the three girls (3) had finished drawing little fishes, and we returned to the Grade 3 classroom. All four of them handed their assignments to the teacher, and that was it.

Except that a few minutes later the boy was called to the teacher and was publicly reprimanded for having failed to complete the assignment. He didn't argue. He just stood there nodding in agreement to the admonition.

I walked over to the teacher and explained that there were no fish in the tank, and consequently all that they should have drawn was an empty fish tank.

A few questions came to my mind: Why did the girls draw fish that weren't there? Why didn't they listen to me? Why did the boy believe me? Why did the teacher jump to conclusions? Why didn't the boy defend himself? Why didn't the girls defend the boy? Why didn't the teacher reprimand the girls who had failed to complete the task correctly?

But there looms a larger questions: How often do you and I draw fish that aren't there?

NOTES AND REFERENCES

(1) http://www.salmonidsintheclassroom.ca/index.html (Accessed: 23 Mar 2017)

(2) Later I learned that the fish had been released two days earlier and nobody had bothered to inform Phoebe's class.

(3) When I wrote this, I realized how much I resent the fact that it was the boy who was disobedient and not one of the girls. 

Success = Competence + Luck

 It is a frightening equation, really, because all your success is a function of your competence, which you control, and your luck, which you don't control. That we have accepted this equation as a good model of reality expresses itself in our attributions: When we succeed, we attribute the outcome to our competence; when we fail we attribute it to bad luck. Most of us do.

In a perfect world, in a perfect meritocracy, everyone would get what they deserve and luck could be ignored. You work your way up the competence axis and reap the rewards on the success axis.

(Competence is of course a continuous variable. However, in the workplace it is treated discretely: Educational attainment, as a proxy for competence, is reflected in discrete salary scales; experience is reflected in discrete salary steps.)

In the real world, of course, you also need luck. Luck to be born in the right place at the right time. Luck to be physically and mentally healthy. Luck to have parents who care enough but not too much. Luck to receive a good education, to meet the right soul mate, to be in the right place at the right time.

Luck can be represented as the frequency distribution of successes at any given competence level.

We neither know what these distributions look like nor how wide they spread around the mean, i.e. the shape and magnitude of the luck component. We also don't know whether these distributions look the same for every competence level. But we do know that they overlap; we have all seen good people in bad positions, and bad people in good ones.

So what to take away from this?

1: For most of us the labour market will decide our career path. That's the way it is, and ever was, and ever will be.

2: The labour market is imperfect; a problem that may have a considerable cost to the economy.

3: If you are in a position that undervalues your competence, keep moving within your competence level and regression to the mean will take care of you. (And don't make the mistake to assume that increasing your competence level will automatically put you in a better success position; we usually don't hire Ph.D.s into clerical positions.)

4: If you are in a position that overvalues your competence, stay put or regression to the mean will take care of you, as it should.

Of course, there is the problem that we usually overestimate our own competence and underestimate that of everybody else. But that is another issue.

Why education has lost its mind

The original title of my article was "Why education has lost its mind (and soul)". The editors changed it to "What education is (or should be) all about", which is excruciating.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/vancouver-sun/20070913/281797099614906