Epistemically Pernicious Groups and the Groupstrapping Problem

Recently, there has been growing concern that increased partisanship in news sources, as well as new ways in which people acquire information, has led to a proliferation of epistemic bubbles and echo chambers: in the former, one tends to acquire information from a limited range of sources, ones that generally support the kinds of beliefs that one already has, while the latter function in the same way, but possess the additional characteristic that certain beliefs are actively reinforced. Here I argue, first, that we should conceive of epistemic bubbles and echo chambers as types of epistemically pernicious groups, and second, that while analyses of such groups have typically focused on relationships between individual members, at least part of what such groups epistemically pernicious pertains to the way that members rely on the groups themselves as sources of information. I argue that member reliance on groups results in groups being attributed a degree of credibility that outruns their warrant, a process I call groupstrapping. I argue that by recognizing the groupstrapping as an illicit method of forming and updating beliefs we can make progress on some of the open questions concerning epistemically pernicious groups

Selected issues for closing the income gaps between Indigenous and other Australians, 2001-11

This paper charts recent changes in personal and household income by combining the first release census data for 2011 with community profiles for Indigenous and other households from the 2001 and 2006 Censuses. Changes in household size and housing cost are also explored in order to appreciate some of the changing pressures on family resources. Image: breahn / flick

The Open Future, Free Will and Divine Assurance: Responding to Three Common Objections to the Open View

In this essay I respond to three of the most forceful objections to the open view of the future. It is argued that a) open view advocates must deny bivalence; b) the open view offers no theodicy advantages over classical theism; and c) the open view can’t assure believers that God can work all things to the better. I argue that the first objection is premised on an inadequate assessment of future tensed propositions, the second is rooted in an inadequate assessment of free will, and the third is grounded in an inadequate assessment of God’s intelligence

Tempered Fermions in the Hybrid Monte Carlo Algorithm

Parallel tempering simulates at many quark masses simultaneously, by changing the mass during the simulation while remaining in equilibrium. The algorithm is faster than pure HMC if more than one mass is needed, and works better the smaller the smallest mass is.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Combined proceedings for Lattice 97, Edinburgh and the International Workshop 'Lattice QCD on Parallel Computers', University of Tsukuba, Japa

A tale of two nations: The divergent pathways for indigenous labour force outcomes in Australia and New Zealand since 1991

This paper compares labour market experiences of indigenous Australians and Maori since 1971 with a particular focus on the early 1990s where employment outcomes appeared to diverge dramatically. One way to enhance the interpretability of international comparisons is to examine what happened in urban and other areas because the globalised economy means that the labour market in major cities tend to track one another reasonably closely. It is also important to condition on the level of urbanisation in the respective countries because geography provides a rudimentary control for differing levels of acculturation and the historical experiences of colonisation. The analysis provides two main insights: first that Maori populations are more fully integrated into the New Zealand economy and business cycle than indigenous Australians are into the Australian economy. The second finding is that while Maori are performing very well in terms of employment growth, the prospect for future improvements may be constrained by unresolved cultural conflict embodied in the high ongoing rates of Maori arrest. While there is a similar level of cultural conflict between indigenous and other Australians, it is probable that the historical difference in the treatment of the respective indigenous populations is partially responsible for the different economic outcomes in the two nations

On setting up a sail

John 3:1-