Data vs. Interpretation

I don't remember if I've made this point here before -- if I have, I suspect it's probably buried in some lengthy block of text, so I'm going to go ahead and give it its own post.

Basically one thing I've noticed in whatever passes for "science journalism" these days (not that ALL of it calls for scare quotes, but enough of it does to merit them here) is that often articles are written and headlined in such a way that blurs the distinction between what researchers observed and/or recorded (i.e., data), and what this data means (to either the researchers or the authors of articles covering the research).

For instance, take the cat-cognition study I referenced in two recent posts. The study itself had some flaws (which I won't relate again here as I covered that in detail in the aforementioned recent prior posts), but by far the most bizarre thing I saw in response to the study was the vast number of popular articles announcing "Study Proves Dogs Smarter Than Cats", and similar sentiments along those lines.

As far as I could tell, there was no data whatsoever to support this notion of dogs being categorically "smarter" -- all the data really revealed was a difference in performance between the tested (rather small) sample sets of dogs and cats on a particular task. The implications of this task performance difference were discussed in the applicable paper(s), with the experimenters suggesting various interpretations of their own (some of which could stand for some rigorous criticism), and then the media had a kind of frivolous field day making their own further interpretations (but acting as if their particular interpretations had actually been objectively observed during the experiments).

Which is, you know, kind of a major category error. An interpretation isn't directly observable at all, and someone with a decent grasp of scientific methodology (and you don't need to be a professional scientist to acquire this) will pretty much always maintain awareness of this. If you read a paper of a well designed study you will probably find it very heavy on the data and very light on the firmly-stated conclusions. But a lot of people don't understand, or don't care, that being "tentative" in this manner isn't a weakness of science, but an essential strength and source of both flexibility and responsiveness to incoming information.

Anyway, though, this isn't some screed in defense of cat cognition (though I do think many cat cognition studies suffer from terribly poor design). I am just using that subject as something I can easily point to as a concrete example. Really my concern here has to do with far too many people, whether they be researchers, journalists, or simply curious laypersons, failing to distinguish between "what was measured/recorded" and "what can reasonably be concluded based on what was measured/recorded".

Too often it seems that conclusions based on stereotypes, unexamined assumptions, or sheer unmitigated ignorance get taken as somehow tantamount to Really Significant Data That Means Something Important.

This is not only an intellectual integrity/rigor problem, in my opinion, but an ethical one as well -- e.g., I've encountered a truly stunning amount of "interpretation/data blurring" in the realm of autism research, which of course has the potential to impact actual living autistic people in serious ways.

Phrases like "lack of Theory of Mind", "lack of empathy", etc., are pulled out of who-knows-where, defined poorly if at all, but then astoundingly offered up as objectively existing based on observations that could very well mean something else entirely (which is totally aside from the problem of the wrong observations being counted as significant or insignificant in the first place).

Of course I do not mean to say that interpretation is always bad and ought to be avoided -- rather, I just think too often interpretations are put forth too firmly and too prematurely, to the detriment of the subjects they seek to explore or point out. And like I've repeated several times here already, interpretations can get muddled with data to the point where questions that could really benefit from a lot more data do not receive this benefit. In other words, when people presume they already know everything there is to know about something, they may be less inclined to bother obtaining further information on it.

(Moreover, when this muddling becomes habitual, I suspect it also becomes really difficult for people to know when an interpretation is valid. But that's a whole other post!)

So in any case I will stop now, hopefully keeping this post at a more generally readable length than I am usually capable of (writing "long" posts is often the only way I can ever write anything at all). Because this is something I think about a lot, have experienced direct consequences from, and also see as being a concern for other sorts of humans and non-humans whose well being all too often can hinge upon the interpretive whims of others.

IEEE 2010 EMC Mini-Symposium To Be Held In San Jose

Not sure if any fellow Bay Area engineers (employed or not) are reading this, but I figured I would post this anyway (thus passing it along to any potentially interested parties).

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (one of the few organizations I am not averse to "belonging" to, given their practical, educational focus) is hosting an EMC Mini-Symposium at the Double Tree Hotel in San Jose, California.

I like attending these sorts of things when possible, and I am excited that this one is actually happening locally! Moreover, they have a discount for students and unemployed persons (I am currently still in the latter category) -- which I am fairly certain applies to non-IEEE members as well as members. Pricing goes up for all categories after August 31, so you probably want to register within the next week for maximum value.

I just registered this evening and am quite looking forward to the event. Of course it might be more difficult to go if I have a job by then, but either way, I figure it is good to keep in touch with the goings-on in one's industry even when one has been laid off.

The Grounding and Shielding in Mixed Signal PCBs presentation looks particularly interesting. It is described on the IEEE Santa Clara Valley website thusly:

Printed circuit boards with both digital and analog circuits are very common in today's highly integrated systems. Interference between the digital and analog portions of a board can be a significant problem if sufficient care is not taken to minimize unwanted coupling between circuits operating at voltages and currents differing by orders of magnitude. This presentation describes basic strategies for designing mixed-signal printed circuit boards that meet electromagnetic compatibility requirements without extensive shielding and filtering.

One really fascinating and important aspect of EMC is "self-compatibility". Not only do devices need to meet certain standards as far as not interfering with, or being vulnerable to interference from, other external devices, but in order to work properly in the first place they cannot have their own sub-circuits interfering with one another. Grounding and shielding are, in my experience, both deceptively simple-seeming and immensely sensitive aspects of design. As in, you have to pay very careful attention to your layer stackup, how your traces are routed with respect to ground and power planes, etc. This is the sort of thing it can be really, really important to get right from the beginning as changes to the design later on can get awfully clunky and expensive (not to mention less effective) if EMC-cognizance is lacking throughout the process.

...and okay, I will stop for now, but this is again making me want to try actually blogging about EMC on here, at least periodically. Perhaps I shall get some interesting material in the service of this at the symposium.

A Note Re. "Visions of the Future"

Well judging from my search log entries recently it looks as if they must have recently re-aired the Visions of the Future episode (in the UK, possibly elsewhere) in which I had an approximately two-minute interview bit.

If you found this site as a result of seeing that programme, please read my post If You Saw Me On The BBC....

The short version is that while I don't regret taking part in the "Visions of the Future" project (it was a learning experience in many respects, that's for sure), I no longer identify as a transhumanist.

Mind you, this does not mean I am uninterested in longevity, robots, human modification, etc. I still find all those topics bloody fascinating. It just means I don't relate to the "transhumanist subculture" anymore and haven't for some time.

I really didn't fully know what I was getting into when I was associating with all that stuff and I've a feeling I'm going to be paying for it (in terms of having to write posts like this every so often, for one thing) for many years to come. Which is my own fault, but still.

In other words, if you want to discuss anything with me (which is fine, comments and emails are always welcome provided you're not a spammer or troll or other ne'er-do-well), please realize that people are not static in time, and please don't insist on treating me like I'm still living in 2007 and couldn't possibly have refined my views or changed my mind about anything in the past three or four years.

Thank you,

- Anne Corwin
16 August, 2010

An Outlet For A Different Kind Of Art

...well, at least a different kind of art than I usually make. The picture below is of what I guess would be called a "mixed media" piece. I went to the drugstore and printed out some of the photos I've taken of interesting electrical outlets, then cut them out, glued them to a piece of cardboard, and embellished them variously with acrylic paint, ink, decoupage medium, and a bunch of other random materials. So there are drawn/painted elements in the piece but also photographic elements, only I've deliberately tried to blur the distinction between photo and non-photo.



(Large size image can be viewed here on my Flickr album)

I have a bit of a fascination with electrical outlets (feel free to send pictures of them! Especially ones from different countries and any unusual ones, or outlets that are oddly oriented in walls, or covered in varying layers of paint, etc.) and my youngest brother Ryan (who just turned 18) has something of an appreciation for them as well. So for his birthday I made this piece. I figured at the very least it would be something interesting to hang in his future dorm/apartment/etc. Anyway I just figured I would post an image of it here because it is a very different style than I usually do. Normally I am more inclined to draw very realistic pictures where I have an idea at the beginning of what the end result will look like. My Difference Engine painting is an example of this; I had that thing visualized right from the beginning.

But for things like this outlet painting/collage piece I find it a bit scary to make them, almost, because at the beginning I have no idea what they will ultimately look like. With this piece I started with only a very vague idea and then just kept adding elements and colors until the whole thing looked "right" and "balanced". And I actually rather liked it in the end; it has very vivid color (hooray for acrylics!) and a lot more texture than my artwork usually does.

Oh and I don't think any type of art I can do (weird mixed media or hyper-realistic) is better or worse fundamentally, I just think they are very different and it is a wholly different state of mind I must enter in each case: one being very focused on emulating something external to me, and the other focused on using senses directly and updating the image in front of me in real-time in response to the feedback I get after doing something. (If that makes any sense, I am not actually very good at explaining this sort of thing).

This Old Bench

...was left in the garden shed of the house I moved into last summer, by the previous occupants:



The shed was a frightful mess until relatively recently, when I finally got tired of tripping over garden tools and random scraps of wood in the doorway and spent some time de-cluttering. And I have to say, I did not get a true sense of the sheer awesomeness of this thing until I had an unobstructed view of it. It has some wear and tear (i.e., the thick wooden bench-top is splitting in places) but overall it is ridiculously sturdy. All the drawers work fine. I think old, sturdy, worn pieces like this are beautiful. But part of that beauty comes from functionality, and this bench is not being very well utilized in the garden shed. So I am wondering what I should do with it.

Moving it to the garage would probably be the most logical thing to do, and it would certainly get used there, but part of me is curious about doing something more daring with it, like putting it in the living room or something (in front of a window, where it could be a kind of craft and project station). I do know that I really want to repurpose it in SOME way, as it's built in a way that you cannot get for anything resembling "affordable" these days.

Oh, and the old grinding wheel on the left appears to have bad bearings, unfortunately. But I would certainly be curious as to whether any old-time woodworking/machine-shop folks recognize it.