Wanna bet?

Forcing a bet can work to induce rationality. Someone makes a claim you think is false, offer a bet on it. Sometimes you'll get a clean agreement on odds and terms. But sometimes folks wishing to hold on to preferred beliefs will state a sufficiently difficult list of auxiliary conditions to make the claim untestable, and consequently unbettable.

Chris Blattman, a Yale political scientist doing field work in Liberia, reports on a Liberian hunter who claimed to be able to transform into any animal.

Last Liberia trip, my survey staff tried to convince me that Liberian hunters have the power to transform themselves into animals. I bet them otherwise, and they pledged to prove it the next time I came to Liberia.

Staff excitement rose after a reader pointed out there’s a million dollar prize for proof of the supernatural.

Well here we are.

A more or less trustworthy and credible staff member says he has located someone, and promises I can meet this amazing man Saturday, where he will turn into an animal.

What animal? “Dog, hog, chimp, anything” was the text reply. And yes, he says, he has seen it himself.

Blattman then updates:

In the end, it turns out he can’t perform the full transformation in the city, only in forested regions. We offered to drive out of the city, but it seems only in his home county of Nimba can he do so. Nimba will have to wait for my next trip (we have, in fact, a project there) but you’ll forgive me if I haven’t reserved judgment.

Hey, I can fly like Superman too. But only on dates that are prime numbers and only if the wind is right.

Blattman goes on to point out some of the rather unpleasant consequences of superstitious beliefs. A fun one:

Just today a senior diplomat bemoaned a recent by-election. The popular, qualified candidate lost to a less scrupulous one whose entire campaign aimed at convincing the populace that his opponent would die from evil spirits if elected. It seems to have won him the election.

I do work on political ignorance; I should stop complaining about things in NZ and the US.

It's also more than a little worrying that Blattman's field staff, presumably among the more educated folks, are taken in by claims of mystical powers.

Morning roundup

• We have a verdict in the Janet Moses case. If you recall, her family drowned her because they mistook mental illness for demonic possession and thought the makutu ceremony, with attendant risks of drowning, just the thing. Well, the courts seem to have agreed with the family. The jury said guilty of manslaughter; the judge said no jail. For the record: if ever someone thinks I'm possessed by demons, I have not consented to any application of any exorcism (consent of the victim can matter).


• Some sciency goodness from our friends at New Zealand Ag Research: The Epigenome Song!

Assorted updates

• I'd previously noted the sad case of Janet Moses, drowned by her family in a ritual exorcism. The jury verdicts are now in: one uncle and four aunts found guilty of manslaughter; three others acquitted. All acquitted for the similar (but not fatal) treatment accorded to a 14 year old girl in the same incident. The TV news reports howls of outrage from the public galleries; the audience seems to have thought all should have been acquitted. We'll see what the Court deems appropriate for sentence.


• Another update on ticket scalping, from Slate:

  But even economists who think that tickets are badly mispriced can have problems with ticket scalping. In his Offsetting Behavior blog, economist Eric Crampton discusses another theory of scalping in a post that's probably the only essay in which you'll see an economist turn to an analysis by Trent Reznor of the Nine Inch Nails. Crampton argues that one of the reasons that scalping persists might be because venue operators find shady ways to share in the profits at the expense of fans and performers. Crampton notes that Reznor gives one very good piece of evidence that there's something shady going on here: Ticket sellers could end scalping tomorrow by just printing names on the tickets.

  Surely other economists have turned to Reznor before. No?


• I'd previously argued against two Canterbury philosophers in defense of sweatshops; here's a nice argument from a U San Diego philosopher in favour of sweatshops.

  Abstract:
  This paper argues that a sweatshop worker's choice to accept the conditions of his or her employment is morally significant, both as an exercise of autonomy and as an expression of preference. This fact establishes a moral claim against interference in the conditions of sweatshop labor by third parties such as governments or consumer boycott groups. It should also lead us to doubt those who call for MNEs to voluntarily improve working conditions, at least when their arguments are based on the claim that workers have a moral right to such improvement. These conclusions are defended against three objections: 1) that sweatshop workers' consent to the conditions of their labor is not fully voluntary, 2) that sweatshops' offer of additional labor options is part of an overall package that actually harms workers, 3) that even if sweatshop labor benefits workers, it is nevertheless wrongfully exploitative.

Death by superstition

Different superstitions, same effect. First from the US:

A two-year old baby girl, dies of a treatable lung infection, as her mother "...follows church guidelines..." (Insight, June 20, 1988, p. 57). In Florida, a family withheld "insulin" from their "diabetic daughter" which resulted in her death (El Paso Times, December 6, 1988, p. 6-A). In 1984, Natalie, an 8-month-old child died "...of complications from a virulent flu-like illness..." and in March of the same year a 4-year-old girl "...died of meningitis..." (The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, CA April 12, 1989, p. B-3). These are but a few of the countless cases, in which members of this nationally recognized Church, have died as a result of refusing to seek medical treatment.

In the 20th Century, an age when science is making such strides in medical technology, why would people refuse medical treatment for their own children? Because the Church of Christ, Scientist, better known as Christian Science, denies the reality of sickness.

And now in New Zealand:

A teenager has told how she was pinned down, and water poured in her eyes and mouth to free her of the demon insider her.

She remembered saying, "I'm gonna die," before blanking out in a ceremony in which another person is alleged to have drowned.

One of the 14-year-old's eyes was still bandaged when she was recorded talking to police about events two days earlier on October 12, 2007, at Wainuiomata.

The recording was played in the High Court at Wellington yesterday where nine people are charged with the manslaughter of mother-of-two Janet Moses, 22, who the Crown says drowned during the same water-based exorcism ritual.

Although the girl spent five days in hospital with eye injuries and a possible lung infection she told police the people involved had not meant to harm her.

"The cold water in my eyes ... I think my, I got my injuries because it took them longer to get the demon out of me," she said.

The 14 year old who survived believes the procedure got a demon out of her.

It's 2009.

Depressing.

Would it be culturally or religiously insensitive for schools to, umm, teach kids that superstition is at best silly and at worst deadly?