The importance of statictical power in experimental protocols

In 2016, the book, Moral Brains: The Neuroscience of Morality, was published. It was edited by bioethicist S.M. Liao (book review here). The book was a summary of the current neuroscience of morality as described by leading researchers. Their work was critiqued by philosophers who understood the science and the data analysis. 

A concern the philosophers raised was caution about over interpreting brain scan data. Their concern was that the sample size (number of people in the experiments) of most brain scan experiments was too small, due in part to the high cost of such research. That opened the possibility that results could be misleading. Small sample sizes can lead to insufficient statistical power, leading to irreproducible and thus probably inaccurate results. 

The philosophers' concern appears to have been right. The New York Times writes on a study that analyzed brain scan results from three huge brain scan studies. Based on results from those three, the researchers concluded that sample size in typical studies in the past was usually too small for the conclusions to be reliable. This was not just about studies on morality, but it includes essentially all brain scan research and possibly other areas of research, including cancer research. The NYT writes:

For two decades, researchers have used brain-imaging technology to try to identify how the structure and function of a person’s brain connects to a range of mental-health ailments, from anxiety and depression to suicidal tendencies.

But a new paper, published Wednesday in Nature, calls into question whether much of this research is actually yielding valid findings. Many such studies, the paper’s authors found, tend to include fewer than two dozen participants, far shy of the number needed to generate reliable results.

“You need thousands of individuals,” said Scott Marek, a psychiatric researcher at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and an author of the paper. He described the finding as a “gut punch” for the typical studies that use imaging to try to better understand mental health.

Studies that use magnetic-resonance imaging technology commonly temper their conclusions with a cautionary statement noting the small sample size. .... The median number of subjects in mental-health-related studies that use brain imaging is around 23, he added.

But the Nature paper demonstrates that the data drawn from just two dozen subjects is generally insufficient to be reliable and can in fact yield “massively inflated” findings,” Dr. Dosenbach said.

The authors ran millions of calculations by using different sample sizes and the hundreds of brain regions explored in the various major studies. Time and again, the researchers found that subsets of data from fewer than several thousand people did not produce results consistent with those of the full data set.

Dr. Marek said that the paper’s findings “absolutely” applied beyond mental health. Other fields, like genomics and cancer research, have had their own reckonings with the limits of small sample sizes and have tried to correct course, he noted.

“My hunch this is much more about population science than it is about any one of those fields,” he said.

Another source commented on this research:

Scientists rely on brain-wide association studies to measure brain structure and function -; using MRI brain scans -; and link them to complex characteristics such as personality, behavior, cognition, neurological conditions, and mental illness. But a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Minnesota, published March 16 in Nature, shows that most published brain-wide association studies are performed with too few participants to yield reliable findings.

Such so-called underpowered studies are susceptible to uncovering strong but spurious associations by chance while missing real but weaker associations. Routinely underpowered brain-wide association studies result in a glut of astonishingly strong yet irreproducible findings that slow progress toward understanding how the brain works, the researchers said.

A 2011 article commented: Since its inception in 1990, fMRI has been used in an exceptionally large number of studies in the cognitive neurosciences, clinical psychiatry/ psychology, and presurgical planning (between 100,000 and 250,000 entries in PubMed, depending on keywords).

Looks like it's going to take some more time to figure the brain out. Guess that's no surprise. Heck, it took ~42 years and several hundred thousand experiments just to figure out that sample size was too small. It's slow going when one is slogging through the great Grimpen Mire of Dartmoore in Devon, location of Baskerville Hall, in the middle of the night. 

Sigh. Gotta listen to them philosophers more carefully. 

The machine colors in areas of increased or decreased 

brain activity in response to a physical or mental task

Thoughts on Putin's war on Ukraine and American influence

Map of Eurasia

By now, it is clear that I know little about relevant Russian and Ukraine history. So, I have to stick with the bits and pieces I come across and know that extrapolating from that to US involvement in Putin's war on Ukraine is a fraught proposition. That caveat in place, a fact-intense opinion The Guardian published raised some interesting recent history and thoughts about the American presence:

This weekend, British investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr said on Twitter, “We failed to acknowledge Russia had staged a military attack on the West. We called it ‘meddling.’ We used words like ‘interference.’ It wasn’t. It was warfare. We’ve been under military attack for eight years now.” 

Of course the most striking role of the Russian government in the 2016 US election was its many, many ties with the Trump campaign, including with Trump himself, who spent the campaign and the four years of his presidency groveling before Putin, denying the reality of Russian interference, and changing first the Republican platform and then US policy to serve Putin’s agendas. 

A stunning number of Trump’s closest associates had deep ties to the Russian government. They included Paul Manafort, who during his years in Ukraine worked to build Russian influence there and served as a consultant to the Kremlin-backed Ukrainian president who was driven out of the country – and into Russia by popular protest in 2014 (the Russian line is that this was an illegitimate coup and thus a justification for invasion is still widely repeated). Manafort was, during his time in the campaign, sharing data with Russian intelligence agent Konstantin V Kilimnik, while campaign advisor Jeff Sessions was sharing information with the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Manafort, Donald Trump Jr and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner held an illegal meeting in Trump Tower with a Kremlin-linked lawyer on 9 June 2016, where they were promised damaging material on the Clinton campaign.

Various other bits and pieces that evince the ex-president's and at least tacit Republican support for Putin[1]:

After Putin seized Crimea, Obama put sanctions on Russia. Trump got rid of those sanctions and declared that Crimea belonged to Russia, recognizing the legitimacy of their invasion. Trump Told G7 Leaders That Crimea Is Russian 

Belarus, is run by Putin's puppet dictator Lukashenko. Lukashenko won a clearly rigged election in 2020, leading to mass protests. A similar situation happened in Ukraine during Obama's administration, and we backed the protests and they ousted Yanukovych, and Ukraine was able to elect a free government that wasn't Putins puppet. So when a similar situation arises while Trump was president, guess what we did? The Trump administration was AWOL on Belarus.

Paul Manafort and Rick Gates ran Putin's puppet, Yanukovych's political campaign in Ukraine. Trump made them his campaign manager and deputy campaign manager. Paul Manafort Helped Elect Russia's Man in Ukraine

In 2019, Manafort plead guilty to "Conspiracy against the United States." Trump's campaign manager, a Putin-puppet enabler in Ukraine, came to America, helped Trump get elected, but was then imprisoned for conspiracy against the United States for collaborating with Russia. Trump pardoned him.

Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador (it was later learned the US had to extract one of their assets for their safety due to this).

Trump Pushed CIA to Give Intelligence to Kremlin, While Taking No Action Against Russia Arming Taliban

Trump team knew Flynn was being investigated (for lying about discussions with Russia), report says

Trump officials altered intel to downplay threats from Russia, White supremacists, DHS whistleblower says: A former acting undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security accused top officials there of ordering him to stop sharing intelligence assessments on Russia’s efforts to interfere in the U.S. election because they “made the President look bad.”

Trump followed this up with the criminal conspiracy to steal the US 2020 election for which the investigation committee has now submitted a 61 page court filing.

And then there's the heaps of highly classified documents Trump stole and stashed in Mar-a-Lago, containing information too sensitive to announce, it's assumption so far but it's not too much of a stretch to think they were probably destined for Russia, they have the largest interest."

What about the Republican Party?

What about the Republican Party, including its donors, propagandists (Fox News, etc.) and political leadership? What is their culpability, if any? The Guardian opinion essay ends with this:

The Republican party met its new leader by matching his corruption, and by covering up his crimes and protecting him from consequences, including two impeachments. The second impeachment was for a violent invasion of Congress, not by a foreign power, but by right-wingers inflamed by lies instigated by Trump and amplified by many in the party. They have become willing collaborators in an attempt to sabotage free and fair elections, the rule of law, and truth itself.

In my opinion, it is evidence-based and rational to attribute the same level of support for Russia and Putin, including the current war in Ukraine, that Trump showed. One can reasonably say that there is no significant difference, despite some recent Republican elite rhetoric about Russia being bad and Ukraine being good. One can defensibly believe and argue that is just pure propaganda and lies necessitated by the American public's siding with Ukraine and democracy (flawed as it was) over Putin and his kleptocratic dictatorship. 

The evidence is clear and convincing that the sympathy of Republican Party elites is with Putin and the kleptocrats, not Ukraine and the democrats. Right now, they just have to act otherwise or maybe face some opposition in the 2022 elections that they can subvert now simply by pretending to be democratic. The Republican rank and file can be subverted and kept loyal by this simple ruse because they have been taught to hate and distrust Democrats with serious intensity.

 

Question: Is arguing that there is major Republican Party elite culpability here (i) irrational, and/or (ii) not supported by significant evidence?

Footnote: 

1. For context about the current Russian geopolitical mindset, here is some commentary on an influential Russian book The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia, by Aleksandr Dugin. Wikipedia writes: 

In Foundations of Geopolitics, Dugin calls for the United States and Atlanticism to lose their influence in Eurasia, and for Russia to rebuild its influence through annexations and alliances.

The book declares that "the battle for the world rule of Russians" has not ended and Russia remains "the staging area of a new anti-bourgeois, anti-American revolution". The Eurasian Empire will be constructed "on the fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism, strategic control of the USA, and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us."

Military operations play relatively little role. The textbook advocates a sophisticated program of subversion, destabilization, and disinformation spearheaded by the Russian special services. The operations should be assisted by a tough, hard-headed utilization of Russia's gas, oil, and natural resources to bully and pressure other countries.

The book states that "the maximum task [of the future] is the 'Finlandization' of all of Europe". 

In Europe: 

• Germany should be offered the de facto political dominance over most Protestant and Catholic states located within Central and Eastern Europe. Kaliningrad Oblast could be given back to Germany. The book uses the term "Moscow–Berlin axis".  

• France should be encouraged to form a bloc with Germany, as they both have a "firm anti-Atlanticist tradition".

• The United Kingdom, merely described as an "extraterritorial floating base of the U.S.", should be cut off from Europe. 

• Finland should be absorbed into Russia. Southern Finland will be combined with the Republic of Karelia and northern Finland will be "donated to Murmansk Oblast". 

• Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia, "Serbian Bosnia" and Greece – "Orthodox collectivist East" – will unite with "Moscow the Third Rome" and reject the "rational-individualistic West". 

• Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire [ideologically contained, i.e., a pro-Russia puppet regime is installed], which would be inadmissible.

The mental toll of climate change

One of the most common propaganda tactics that interests and individuals who deny or downplay climate change employ is ignoring or denying damage. Evidence of economic damage is accumulating and has been tracked in recent years. A few reports of psychological damage are starting to appear. The New York Times writes:

Experts and psychologists are racing to understand how the torments of a volatile, unpredictable planet shape our minds and mental health. In February, a major new study highlighted the mental health effects of climate change for the first time, saying that anxiety and stress from a changing climate were likely to increase in coming years.

In addition to those who have lost their homes to floods and megafires, millions have endured record-breaking heat waves. The crisis also hits home in subtle, personal ways — withered gardens, receding lakeshores and quiet walks without the birdsong that once accompanied them.

Some people grieve the loss of serene hiking trails that have been engulfed by wildfire smoke while others no longer find the same joy or release from nature. Some are seeking counseling. Others are harnessing their anxiety by protesting for change or working to slow the damage.

“This is becoming a No. 1 threat to mental health,” said Britt Wray, a Stanford University researcher and author of “Generation Dread,” a forthcoming book about grappling with climate distress. “It can make day-to-day life incredibly hard to go on.”

A survey of people 16 to 25 in 10 countries published in The Lancet found that three-quarters were frightened of the future. More than half said humanity was doomed. Some feel betrayed by older generations and leaders. They say they feel angry but helpless as they watch people in power fail to act swiftly.

Almost 40 percent of young people say they are hesitant about having children. If nature feels this unmoored today, some ask, why bring children into an even grimmer future?

The NYT quoted one woman saying “I feel hopeless all the time and none of my actions seem to make any positive impact. I just want to give up.” Another woman who moved with her husband from Oregon to Virginia to escape fires and drought said “We are climate change refugees. I am 68 years old and too tired to start over. What has happened to my world?”

One can easily and rationally relate to those sentiments. What has happened to our world? Corrupt, incompetent two-party politics as usual is what has happened.

The political and social forces that stand firmly opposed to seriously trying to deal with climate change are powerful and wealthy. They have been effectively blocking major government action for decades. Specifically, the pro-pollution and pro-climate change forces[1] include the Republican Party, most libertarian government haters and powerful business interests that profit from making and selling products that pollute. 

There is damn good reason for individuals to feel hopeless all the time. It is because they are powerless, as this 6 minute video discusses. 

Research: Public opinion has zero impact on policy,

but wealth does affect policy

Footnote: 

1. By “pro-pollution and pro-climate change forces”, I do not mean people, businesses and ideologies that necessarily want to pollute and climate change. I mean ones that protect profit above doing anything major to reduce climate change. Regardless of what their contrary propaganda and lies may assert, their main actions speak louder than their rhetoric or symbolic support of climate change opponents to score public relations points. That callous disregard for the environment reflects the heart and soul of unregulated capitalism. I presume that most pro-pollution people would prefer not to wreck the environment, but the profit motive just sweeps those concerns away.

Dirty politics & dirty tricks

James O'Keefe, the sleazemaster of Project Veritas

The New York Times writes on how the radical right lies and sleaze group, Project Veritas, aggressively intrudes into private lives to find dirt for Republican political advantage:

Ashley Biden’s Diary Was Shown at Trump Fund-Raiser. Weeks Later, 

Project Veritas Called Her.

The right-wing group’s deceptive call to the president’s daughter a month before Election Day is among the new details that show how the organization worked to expose personal information about the Biden family.

A month before the 2020 election, Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s daughter, Ashley, received a call from a man offering help. Striking a friendly tone, the man said that he had found a diary that he believed belonged to Ms. Biden and that he wanted to return it to her.

Ms. Biden had in fact kept a diary the previous year as she recovered from addiction and had stored it and some other belongings at a friend’s home in Florida where she had been living until a few months earlier. The diary’s highly personal contents, if publicly disclosed, could prove an embarrassment or a distraction to her father at a critical moment in the campaign.

She agreed with the caller to send someone to retrieve the diary the next day.

But Ms. Biden was not dealing with a good Samaritan.

The man on the other end of the phone worked for Project Veritas, a conservative group that had become a favorite of President Donald J. Trump, according to interviews with people familiar with the sequence of events. From a conference room at the group’s headquarters in Westchester County, N.Y., surrounded by other top members of the group, the caller was seeking to trick Ms. Biden into confirming the authenticity of the diary, which Project Veritas was about to purchase from two intermediaries for $40,000.

The caller did not identify himself as being affiliated with Project Veritas, according to accounts from two people with knowledge of the conversation. By the end of the call, several of the group’s operatives who had either listened in, heard recordings of the call or been told of it believed that Ms. Biden had said more than enough to confirm that it was hers.

Drawn from interviews, court filings and other documents, the new information adds further texture to what is known about an episode that has led to a criminal investigation of Project Veritas by federal prosecutors who have suggested they have evidence that the group was complicit in stealing Ms. Biden’s property and in transporting stolen goods across state lines.

And by showing that Project Veritas employed deception rather than traditional journalistic techniques in the way it approached Ms. Biden — the caller identified himself with a fake name — the new accounts could further complicate the organization’s assertions in court filings that it should be treated as a publisher and granted First Amendment protections. Project Veritas regularly carries out undercover stings, surveillance operations and ambush interviews, mostly against liberal groups and journalists.

At the same time, new information about the case suggests that the effort to make the diary public reached deeper into Mr. Trump’s circle than previously known.

A month before the call to Ms. Biden, the diary had been passed around a Trump fund-raiser in Florida at the home of a donor who helped steer the diary to Project Veritas and was later nominated by Mr. Trump to the National Cancer Advisory Board. 

Project Veritas — which is suing The New York Times for defamation in an unrelated case — has denied any wrongdoing or knowledge that the belongings had been stolen. It has portrayed itself as a media organization that is being unfairly investigated for simply doing journalism and has assailed the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for their handling of the case.

Prosecutors have signaled that they view the circumstances very differently, all but dismissing in one court filing the group’s defense that it was acting as a news organization, saying that “there is no First Amendment protection for the theft and interstate transport of stolen property.”

In response to a request to Project Veritas for comment, Mr. O’Keefe sent an email criticizing The Times. “Imagine writing so thoroughly divergent from reality and so mendacious with innuendo that there is literally no utterance that won’t make it worse,” he said.

At this point, I now firmly believe that: 

• America's radical right and in particular the Republican Party and its major donors and propagandists do not speak or act in good faith or with good will; 
• Relentless ill-will and bad faith come from a recognition that because their ideologies, morals and policy preferences are out of synch with an apparent permanent majority in America, the radical right minority has to resort to staunch anti-democratic authoritarianism in a desperate attempt to not lose the concentrated power and wealth the elites have long enjoyed; and
• Due to the desperate situation that radical right extremist elites find themselves, mostly laissez-faire capitalists and aggressive, vengeful Christian fundamentalists, the ends justify all means that might be feasible and practical, legal or not, moral or not, deadly or not, and dirty or not.  

So, is it time to unleash the dogs of dirty politics to look into the dirty laundry of Don Jr, Ivanka, Eric, Barron, Melania and the children, spouse and/or close relatives of Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, Marjory Taylor Greene, Kevin McCarthy, Mike Pence, William Barr and all the rest of the morally rotted GOP leadership? We are in an all-out war of corruption, deceit, lies and American fascism against honesty, transparency, truth and American democracy. Maybe the ends do justify the means. 

Questions: Do political ends justify dirty politics and tricks means, e.g., since they are just legal dark free speech? Does it make any difference if democracy falls if its defenders do not adopt dirty politics and dirty tricks tactics? 

He's so sure of himself