Friday, January 29, 2010

Happy Friday

Long have I been a fan of the radio. I grew up in a house in which CBC Radio 2 was constantly on. It was on some much in fact, that there was often no one listening to it. My father would simply leave in on the morning, and when I got home in the afternoon it would still be playing. Throughout this time I never really listened to it and certainly never really appreciated it – likely because the last demographic CBC Radio is targeted to is the under 20 crowd. That all changed this past year due two large changes in my life: unemployment and my first car.

I spent the first 4 months of 2009 doing what I can only describe as living the life. Basically I spent my days cooking, eating, reading and playing video games with my evenings filled with trips to the gym to workout and play squash. During most of this time spent at home the radio would quietly play away. I would only semi-listen to it, but it was there filling my head with music, opinion and news. It was then that I was introduced to one of my favourite ways to spend an hour and a half – The Q with Jian Ghomeshi (from who I stole the title of this entry). Jian is an extremely talented radio host with an amazing insight in the arts in Canada and around the world. Beyond that he often does excellent interviews with many interesting personalities and puts his television contemporary, George Stroumboulopoulos, to shame. He became a bit of a sensation when he skillfully handled an arrogant and possibly drunk Billy Bob Thornton, and uses those same skills everyday to get interesting information and insight from his guests. (This morning he played a replay of his interview with Lenard Cohen)

After my winter of relaxation, I moved to Halifax and inherited my father’s old Saab 900s – I should mention here that I loved that car and mourn its retirement everday. I spent a lot of time in that car touring around the province and filling my days with adventure. Even though it was equipped with satellite radio, I always found myself listening to Radio One. I would listen to the Q in the morning and Maritime Noon and Main Street in the afternoon. Cruising down the coast or to the beach with those familiar voices and interesting topics are some of my fondest memories and a very good summer. Although I do not have my car anymore I have recently taken to listening to the radio here at work. The simulated company and mental stimulation CBC Radio supplies me with helps me get through even the dullest parts of the workday.

I would like to end this entry with a plea for all you reading to go out and try listening to the radio every now and then. We are very lucky to live in a country which such good public radio, free from commercials and stupid, cheesey radio personalities. Unfortunately, the CBC has been under funding attack for the last ten years, likely because many of you who do pay for it don’t even use it. So go and listen to the Q, or Dispatches, or Vinyl Tap (with Randy Bachman) and enjoy what Canadian culture has to offer. And remember in our age of the internet, no one needs a receiver to listen to the radio. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/

-DG


Note: One of the best gems on Radio One is The Age of Persuasion with Terry O’Reilly at 11.30am on Mondays. He tells very interesting stories and anecdotes about the advertising industry and is my favourite show. The entire show is also available online: http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/

Thursday, January 21, 2010

The Social Psuedosciences

The study of culture, ideas, history or the economy is a study of, in the essence, complexity. Rarely, if ever, does the focused study of these fields reveal much more than either an axiom of siloed knowledge or a very approximate model of its causes and effects.

Coming from the world of engineering I understand very well the gross inaccuracies of either a top down (taking effects and working backwards) or bottom up model (taking fundamental causes and working towards effects) and that often these models must be used, but should not be relied upon. In my specific field of material science, there are many theories and explanations for phenomena at the atomic level, but as of yet no model which uses such atomic causes has been able to produce results anything like that in real life. Luckily, in engineering, we only need a working knowledge and not a true understanding. I eventually came to the conclusion that almost all engineering is just a working knowledge, with very little to any true understanding. We leave that to the physicists (and perhaps computer scientists?).

This problem with our ability to understand complex phenomena becomes much more dangerous and troublesome when dealing with the social sciences, where very little, if any, working knowledge exists. It is perhaps because of this lack of working knowledge that we tend to rely so heavily models to explain and attempt to, often very badly, predict future occurrences. I should explain here that working knowledge generally is a direct result of highly controlled scientific observation, which may be possible with an aluminum bracket, but not any activity that involves people. I realize this is a contentious point as a great many social experiments are conducted at universities everyday. I contest that no human can ever be impartial when studying another human being. For any true science to be conducted there must be a removal of impartiality on the part of the observer, or what I think is the more important part of the experiment, on the part of the designer.

The second issue I have with the reverence the social sciences receive in modern culture is the siloed nature of its study. I have yet to know of an academic who has the vast knowledge, training and resources to actually be a sociologist/ economist/ psychologist/ historian/ anthropologist/political scientist, but so many of the problems they study could easily fall under any of these categories. A sociologist, historian or economist will all look at the Great Depression from vastly different viewpoints, but which of their arguments is the most valid? The truth is all of their arguments are likely very valid and that each of them has revealed a cause, while at the same time each likely missed many more. This is a battle against complexity and should never been one we so easily dismiss as being one. We are almost never right, just slightly closer to the truth. (Truth here is in italics as in many cases it may not exist, but that is another blog)

NOTE: I recently finished reading the book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim N. Taleb and it has undoubtedly influenced my thinking. At the same time I have had these thoughts for some time, but must thank Mr. Taleb for helping me form them into more concise arguments.

-DG