McCain invokes sunk cost thinking in 1st Presidential debate

As I write this, I'm watching a rerun of the first presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. They have just got onto the topic of Iraq and Afghanistan. I was struck by something that McCain said. He described meeting the mother of a US soldier who had died in Iraq. The woman expressed her support for McCain, gave him a wristband and asked that he ensure that her son had not died in vain. In the debate, McCain went on to say that he would honour this woman's wish and never allow defeat to occur in Iraq, or to withdraw troops before establishing security.

I'm not making any argument here about the US and allied presence in Iraq, but I simply note that John McCain's reasoning commits a basic fallacy of decision making. From a rational point of view, the decisions we make should be guided by a consideration of the likely outcomes of our decisions; that is, what costs and benefits are likely to follow? What's not rational is to base our decisions on investments that we have made in the past.

Research conducted by psychologists shows, however, that sunk cost thinking is widespread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost) . For example, in a classic study conducted by Arkes and Blumer (1985) students who purchased season tickets for the campus theatre were randomly allocated either full price tickets or discounted tickets. During the first half of the semester students who had paid full price attended the theatre more often (presumably feeling they had to get their 'money's worth'). Other examples abound, some of which show that people are more likely to continue trying to redeem a failing course of action where some previous investment has been made.

In the case of war, decisions should be made on an assessment of likely future outcomes. Continuing a war in order to ensure that others didn't die in vain may well be ensuring the future deaths of other soldiers (and, indeed, civilians).

Should creationism be taught in schools?

At a meeting of the British Association Festival of Science, Rev. Prof. Michael Reiss of the Royal Society has said that creationism should be taught in schools alongside evolution (full story here). Whilst Prof. Reiss fully supports evolution, he appears to believe that children who hold creationist beliefs - presumably learned at home - may simply switch off if no respect is shown for their views.

One difficulty that this view raises, however, is that there are very many non-scientific accounts of the origins of life on earth. According to the website Religious Tolerance, there are estimated to be over 500 different accounts of origins among the world's religions. Many of these are plainly contradictory. So, if one does want to discuss creationism alongside evolution then which non-scientific account(s) should be covered?

I would suggest that the most sensible way of dealing with this is to teach Darwin's own story. Darwin studied theology at Cambridge University before setting sail on the Beagle. He believed in the Christian God and accepted that God had put the many different creatures upon the earth. However, as he travelled around the word on the Beagle he gathered many observations which did not appear consistent with the biblical account of creation. Back in England he spent some 20 years working on his theory of evolution, possibly because he was aware of the controversy it would create, and eventually was forced into publication when Alfred Russell Wallace wrote to him with the same idea (they agreed to a joint presentation of their ideas at the Linnean Society, though they did not attend in person).

But what is important to remember is that even before the Darwin-Wallace theory had been revealed, the actual data collected by Darwin showed that the biblical account of creation was wrong. That is why evolution is regarded as a fact; the observations are incontrovertible. What Darwin's theory provides is a mechanism by which evolution occurs; that is, variation and natural selection. Darwin, of course, did not know about genes. We now know that genes are the unit of selection, which is why we now talk of neo-Darwinism.

As for Darwin himself, his own religious belief fell away. This was probably not just because of his observations and the development of his theory. Darwin was greatly affected by the death of his and Emma's first child, Annie, at the age of 10. Why would a loving God allow such a thing to occur? Darwin was also disturbed by the great cruelty he observed in nature. One such observation, discussed in Richard Dawkin's recent television programme, was of the Digger wasp. This wasp paralyses katydids and lays its eggs in them; then it buries the katydids, and when the eggs hatch the wasp's offspring are able to feed on fresh meat. To Darwin, this seemed unimaginably cruel and not the creation of a loving God.

Darwin's early beliefs and how they changed seem to me to be about as much creationism as one should teach students. It's a good and instructive story. But after that, then the focus should be on the development of evolutionary theory subsequent to Darwin. Of course, questions from students should be addressed, and some of these may come from a creationist perspective, but that simply gives an opportunity to show how creationist views are not supported by evidence.

Science and the 2008 US Presidential election

Congratulations to presidential hopeful Barack Obama for being the first contender to state his views on issues to do with science and technology. As reported in New Scientist (6 September 2008), Mr Obama has provided written responses to 14 questions posed to both candidates by 38,000 Americans, including Nobel laureates and other scientists, as well as scientific organisations. 3400 questions were posed in total and the final 14 selected to pose to the candidates. Mr Obama's responses can be found here, and hopefully there will be a response from John McCain at some point in the near future.

When third place is better than second

Was Milorad Cavic the unhappiest man at the Beijing Olympics? Cavic was the Serbian swimmer who seemed set to win the 100m butterfly. In doing so, he would have upset the party for Michael Phelps, who was seeking to win his seventh medal of the games. In the event, Phelps came from nowhere to beat Cavic by 1/100th of a second. Indeed, most people, commentators included, seemed to think that the declaration of Phelps as the winner was a mistake -- until they saw the slow motion replay.

In general, the silver medal position in sporting events seems to be less enviable than the bronze, according to research published in 1995 by Medvec, Madey, and Gilovich. These authors recruited some students who had no interest in sport and asked them to view footage from the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. The students were asked to rate how happy the athletes appeared. Some footage showed the reactions of silver and bronze medallists at the moment that they learned their positions, and other footage showed the medallists during the awards ceremony. To avoid any bias in what footage was shown, editing decisions were made by someone who did not know what the study was about, but who had been asked to pick the shots that best captured the emotions of the athletes.

The authors found that, on average, bronze medallists actually appeared happier than silver medallists. When the content of post-event interviews was examined, bronze medallists were found to be more focused on how they had performed, whereas silver medallists talked more about how they had almost performed. This kind of "upward comparison" is known to be associated with negative emotion, as when you find out that one of your co-workers has received a larger pay rise than you. But how long does the effect last for the silver medallists? Back in 1995 Medvec and colleagues noted that no-one had done any systematic research, and to the best of my knowledge this is still the case. However, they did note the case of Abel Kiviat, who just missed the gold in the 1500 metres at the 1912 Olympics after Britain's Arnold Jackson came from nowhere to beat him by 1/10th of a second. At the age of 91, Mr Kiviat reported that he still sometimes woke up in the night wondering how he could have lost. I can't help wondering, will this be the fate of Milorad Cavic?

UPDATE

Since originally posting the above, I've found that Milorad Cavic has a webpage. There he says that he is really happy with winning silver, which was the greatest moment of his life. He adds that there is nothing wrong with losing to the world's greatest ever swimmer:
http://www.zimbio.com/pilot?SP=1&ZURL=%2FMilorad%2BCavic%2Frolls%2F2%3FSort%3Ddate&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miloradcavic.com%2Fportal

It would be interesting to know whether this is a typical feeling; that is, whether silver medallists are happier when they know they have been beaten by the greatest ever. However, there are so few people in the same class as Michael Phelps that this could be hard to test.