Classes
- MCB 192 – Principles of Drug Discovery
- Taught by Greg Verdine (who taught Chem 285 from my last semester), Vicki Sato (former Vertex Pharmaceuticals President and excellent lecturer – although this past lecture she gave was not at her best), and Mark Fishman (head of Novartis’s research group and one of the world’s foremost cardiologists). To be frank, I was somewhat disappointed in Verdine’s class last semester insofar as it didn’t test our ability to apply concepts of chemistry to biology, only our ability to memorize chemical activities in biological systems. Of course, I found the class to be very interesting, and the guest lecturers for the most part were superb (ie Vicki Sato) so I have very high hopes for this class.
- Research for Credit… ’nuff said
- Taught by Professor Masahiro Morii — picture Pikachu and your Asian physics-genius dad all rolled in one — and throw in some interesting American speech mannerisms (ie use of the word “gazillion”). If I hadn’t been born to Asian parents, I’d probably be unable to understand his bad accent, but seeing how I was, I can. I’m just hoping this class is more pre-med (and hence easier to deal with) than Physics 15/16 drop-out (and hence not easier to deal with).
- Taught by Professor Peter Bol — I started taking advantage of the abundance of Chinese cultural classes this year, but the main reason I’m taking this class is because of the excellent lecturer. Bol does not use humor (not that much), nor is he particularly dynamic, nor does he possess a peculiar voice — he just COMMUNICATES. I can’t even describe how he does it. (This class counts as a Historical Studies B Core which is what I’m using it for)
- Taught by Professor Michael Brenner and Daniel Larson – My newfound interest in nonlinear dynamics especially with regards to modeling biological systems has led me down a much more mathematical track than I ever thought I’d be taking. Brenner is an awesome lecturer, and at some point in time I needed to learn differential equations — so here I am.
Democracy?
It often strikes me as funny the single-minded focus on “democracy” that the Bush administration and countless other Americans have. We are supposedly better because we are “a democracy” or “we have Britney” (ok maybe not so much that last one).
Don’t get me wrong. America, in my mind at least, is currently the best place to live, for many reasons (ie Britney). But, what people commonly mistake to be from democracy are actually from a variety of other factors. I made this point during the summer in a post about why the Live8 movement and most international proclamations for the supremacy of democracy have no real impact on the daily lives of the people and, in many cases, can actually hamper real progress.
I think no better example works than the recent elections in Palestine where members of the more secular and centrist Palestinian authority have been replaced by religious extremists and demagogues (ie Hamas … not Britney). Despite Bush’s (and I’m sad to say, pretty much all politicians) narrow focus on building democracies, the historical record shows that democracies outside of the West typically lead to the stifling of minority rights and the suppression of dissidents and the centralization of power. The reasons are simple — democracies based on the popular will always escalate their own authority (as they claim they represent the people). Furthermore, there’s no better way to rouse the masses then to employ dogma and extremism to whip people up into a frenzy (remember Adolf Hitler? he was elected by a democracy).
The real genius of the Founding Fathers (I’ve always found it somewhat amusing that the phrase was capitalized) was not so much in implementing a system of popular will, but of implementing a system that was so CONTRARY to the popular will (one could argue the real genius was selling the system as based on popular sovereignty). The American system first declares a Constitution as the “law of the land” — something which was quite radical at the time, as it maintained that there was one document which was superior to the authority of even the President. The system then had a separation of powers into three branches, each which had the authority to check each other’s actions. Moreover, one branch (the judicial) was dedicated ENTIRELY to making certain that the government’s actions were in line with the Constitution. On top of that, a Bill of Rights was implemented to create an individual domain against everyone else AND the state, and a ridiculous winner-take-all Electoral College system which completely skews any real sense of popular sovereignty that could exist.
In essence, this system guaranteed that no single group could readily control the government — forcing rival politicians and parties to compromise, preserving the property rights which make the free market system that has made America so wealthy possible, protecting minority rights (most of the time), preventing the usurpation of absolute authority, and maintaining the freedom to dissent and to obtain information which maintains governmental transparency and accountability. And, when it comes down to it — this is a system which stands completely opposed to the democratic principle of “popular sovereignty”.
Fareed Zakaria popularized the term “illiberal democracy” in a famous article in Foreign Affairs (“The Rise of Illiberal Democracy” where he talks about how democracy in the West has been a success primarily because it goes hand-in-hand with the liberal values and traditions of Western Enlightenment thinkers. He points out how in Eastern Europe and in much of the Third World, where such a tradition does not exist, the focus of “democratic” government is on popular soveriegnty, the result being poverty and hypercentralized authority, oftentimes leading to dictatorship (ie … almost every African country).
Of course, some will argue (and I believe the more intelligent of Bush’s supporters would chime in here) that implementing popular sovereignty as democracy is a good first step to these liberal views — that they go hand-in-hand. Except of course, how the historical record denies this. Except of course how the concept of liberalism is a more or less uniquely Western tradition (a by-product of Renaissance humanism maybe?). Zakaria certainly does in his book (of which I’ve only read the first few chapters in a bookstore, but I like the guy’s writing 
) The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad
Where does that leave us now? Simple, Bush and anyone who wants to improve the plight of people in repressive regimes or to reduce the influence of extremists on religion — focus first on liberalizing economic systems (which engenders a culture of respect for rights) and implementing basic transparency provisions and a parliamentary system which dilutes the power of the central authority, and THEN maybe on “Democracy.”
Freakonomics
by Stephen Levitt on my return flight from the Barkley Forum at Emory this past weekend, and it definitely revived some of the economics-envy that I often feel when I see those ec kids studying interesting stuff.
For the longest time, I wasn’t sure what to make of the book. The name didn’t inspire thoughts of a very serious endeavor (I mean, come on, you might as well have called it Bizarreciology or something like that), and the description “A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything” as well as the bizarre cover (of some sort of apple-orange hybrid thing) seemed like it was one of those pop-superficial-actually-empty-on-the-inside books. Much to my surprise, it was anything but.
To be fair, Stephen Levitt is only the economist who did much of this data collection. The actual author and probably a huge reason why this book was such a quick read (even to someone who’s as dyslexic and slow as I am) is Stephen J. Dubner, who I believe is a New York Times writer of some sort. He’s funny and manages to carry across actual economic intuition without overly dumbing it down OR using excess academic verbiage.
Onto the meat of the matter, Levitt basically describes how the basic concepts of economic study (ie incentives, information, market arbitrage) apply to things that aren’t conventionally thought of as economic studies. Levitt himself covers parenting, the naming of children, cheating, and crime, but the field goes farther than that. I’ve seen papers talking about the “value” of having more sex (the increased happiness from increasing the amount of sex a couple has from once/month to once/week is apparently equivalent to more than $100,000), studies detailing the optimal strategy for whether to leave the toilet seat up or down, and some other random stuff like how to pick/when to dump significant others (apparently the best strategy is to stay in any relationship that’s still good but with the caveat that as soon as you find someone better, you drop them like a bad habit).
Levitt is particularly bold in the way that he approaches politically sensitive topics. He tackles the issue of the quality of schools in America and shows how from an incentives point of view, teachers have a huge reason to cheat to make themselves (and their students) look better and then shows with empirical data how this is true. He also tackles the idea of crime in America and its paradoxical decline in the 1990s when every expert had predicted a huge rise. Concluding that the cause could not have come from (or at least was not primarily due to) better economic policies, increased police numbers/quality, new criminal laws, or even the politically charged concept of gun control, but the landmark Supreme Court decision of Roe v Wade. Tracing the numbers and using the example of a poor Eastern European nation, Levitt concludes (although this is no moral endorsement of it) that the sudden legalization of abortion led to a decline in the number of children born to the families and the environments most likely to “produce” the children who would turn to crime!
I was somewhat stunned by that proclamation, and turning to my debate/science/atheist instincts, I was immediately skeptical — although somewhat fascinated by the prospect, and I think that is why this book was such a delight to read — Levitt does not dumb the explanation down nor does he bog it down with excessive academic ivory-tower-ness.
One of the best things — Levitt was Harvard-educated, is part of (or was in) the Harvard Society of Fellows which is basically a society where mad genius nerds get together and talk about mad genius nerd things, and seems to collaborate with Harvard people up the wazzoo (either that or they’re the only ones who study anything interesting). Another great thing, especially to anyone who wants to do economics but is worried about math or the lack of any real affinity for monetary issues, is the fact that Levitt says he hates math and knows next to nothing about how the economy works.
What’s not to like?