Ethics of the scientist qua policy advisor: inductive risk, uncertainty, and catastrophe in climate economics

This paper discusses ethical issues surrounding Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) of the economic effects of climate change, and how climate economists acting as policy advisors ought to represent the uncertain possibility of catastrophe. Some climate economists, especially Martin Weitzman, have argued for a precautionary approach where avoiding catastrophe should structure climate economists’ welfare analysis. This paper details ethical arguments that justify this approach, showing how Weitzman’s “fat tail” probabilities of climate catastrophe pose ethical problems for widely used IAMs. The main claim is that economists who ignore or downplay catastrophic risks in their representations of uncertainty likely fall afoul of ethical constraints on scientists acting as policy advisors. Such scientists have duties to honestly articulate uncertainties and manage (some) inductive risks, or the risks of being wrong in different ways

Harper Collins, 1998: A Review by David Frank

I received this book in a package labelled “extremely urgent”, and the provocative title inside certainly sounded a note of alarm. In several short, forceful chapters the retired York University historian Jack Granatstein argues for the restoration of Canadian history to its proper place at the centre of public discourse in this country

Location of the target pitch within a vibrato wave

The current study investigated the relationship between the vibrato wave and the target pitch while eliminating some of the methodological problems that have plagued such research in the past. Three commercially-recorded selections were chosen for each of seven artists (for a total of 21 selections), and modern computer equipment was used to extract pitch information for each of six to fourteen notes from each selection. The chosen selections were all accompanied so that the target pitch could be determined from the accompaniment, and target pitch location within the vibrato wave was quantified absolutely and relatively. In general, the target pitch lay at or slightly below (average 4.29 cents below) the vibrato wave mean, and an analysis of variance revealed no significant differences between artists. Analyses of variance within each artist showed no differences between selections except for the soprano, who had one selection where the target pitch was generally above the vibrato wave mean

Projective structures and projective bundles over compact Riemann surfaces

A projective structure on a compact Riemann surface X of genus g is given by an atlas with transition functions in PGL(2,C). Equivalently, a projective structure is given by a projective sl(2,C)-bundle over X equipped with a section s and a foliation F which is both transversal to the fibers and the section s. From this latter geometric bundle picture, we survey on classical problems and results on projective structures. We will give a complete description of projective (actually affine) structures on the torus with an explicit versal family of foliated bundle picture

Maximum a Posteriori Estimation by Search in Probabilistic Programs

We introduce an approximate search algorithm for fast maximum a posteriori probability estimation in probabilistic programs, which we call Bayesian ascent Monte Carlo (BaMC). Probabilistic programs represent probabilistic models with varying number of mutually dependent finite, countable, and continuous random variables. BaMC is an anytime MAP search algorithm applicable to any combination of random variables and dependencies. We compare BaMC to other MAP estimation algorithms and show that BaMC is faster and more robust on a range of probabilistic models.Comment: To appear in proceedings of SOCS1