Letters January 28 2012

Thinking; the alcohol debate; and public broadcasting.

THINK ABOUT IT

Daniel Kahneman, the psychologist who in 2002 won the Nobel Prize in Economics, should be treated with caution (“Another think coming”, January 21). He is an academic, and I suspect many of the academics attempting to interpret society don’t see into the lives of the people.
“Without introspection,” says Kahneman, the psychologist-cum-economist, “you don’t get anywhere as a psychologist.” You can introspect all day without leaving the office, but the broader society is outside the walls of the institutions the scholars work in, and within which they earn their emoluments. They need to go into private houses, where they might be able to match what goes on there against what they have been told goes on. They need to write up their findings in a language that people will understand. Academics develop theories that frequently contradict other theories, and it is then a question of who is right. While questioning bias, they themselves often have a political slant that fits their environment and helps with funding.
Here is part of a summary of one of Kahneman’s articles: “Determinants and consequences of accessibility help explain the central results of prospect theory, framing effects, the heuristic process of attribute substitution, and the characteristic biases that result from the substitution of non-extensional for extensional attributes.”
Great stuff, isn’t it, if you happen to be a psychologist or an economist. Or, better still, if you happen to be the much-admired Kahneman.
On a more intelligible level, we learn from him that “people systematically make choices that do not promote their interests, and biases are often to blame”, and he thinks that “states have a role in protecting people from their mistakes. If friends and checklists cannot deter you from poor judgment, perhaps the government can.”
That style of thinking appeals to the leaders who believe compulsion is good for you. Now we have the watered-down but still sinister “nudge” concept, a way of persuading people “into making choices that promote their long-term interests” without appearing to be too political about it. “Nudging” will provide employment for the psychologists and public servants who will suppose us to have little insight or self-control. Before long, a society will emerge composed of fudgers, smudgers, bludgers and nudgers.
Milton Friedman, another Nobel-winning economist (the one we love to hate), said, “Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.” He also said that a government should not be asked to run anything “until someone can find some example of an activity that is conducted more economically by government than by private enterprise”.
I’ll stick with him. I want to go on making my own decisions.
RM Ridley-Smith
(Khandallah, Wellington)

WEATHER WISE

As a North Islander, I’m looking forward to the fine, warm February forecast by the Listener (Editorial, January 21). I am pleased to know that, despite this being a La Niña summer, there will be no “storms of tropical origin” (Met­Service talk) and that February for all New Zealanders will be reliably warm and sunny, despite the warmer sea temperature being conducive to cyclogenesis.
I only hope the warm, sunny January experienced this year by my non-farming Buller relatives lasts for them (but then being well south of the Bombay Hills, they hardly count).
True, statistically, February in Auckland is imperceptibly warmer than January (mean temperature 19.7°C as against 19.4°C – Summaries of Climatological Observations to 1980), but the number of rain days is the same (eight for each month, despite February being a shorter month). I could go on, but the “climate data” (unspecified) are by no means “beyond doubt”.
It may be that for sociological and business reasons February is a better time for summer holidays, but imagine the gall of the populace (more than 50%, according to the quoted 2007 poll) if, their holidays having been disrupted by the change, February happened also to be wet, with a tropical storm thrown in, as is often the case in a La Niña summer.
Jim Hessell
Ex-NZ MetService
(Parnell, Auckland)

PUBLIC BROADCASTING

Peter Bell (Letters, January 21) is correct that public broadcasting through TVNZ is apparently being run down. The intention seems to be we will have to pay Sky if we want to see anything other than cops and robbers, cooking shows, soap operas and similar rubbish.
TVNZ 7 has interesting current affairs programmes, but as it is not an income-earner, it is being closed down.
We need to follow the example of China, where new rules for TV were introduced on January 1. Their 34 satellite TV stations now have limits on “excessive entertainment shows”, which feature so highly here. There, the number has dropped from over 120 a week to under 40 (Economist, January 7).
What a brilliant example for our politicians and the TV industry to follow.
David Underwood
(Kelburn, Wellington)

SAVING THE LANDSCAPE

The landscape we take to be the norm in Central Otago is not “natural” (Editorial, January 14); it has been managed by burning, probably first by the moa hunters over 600 years ago, then latterly by the European pastoralists, who continued to use regular burning as a tool to provide fresh grazing for stock. However, reduced farm incomes, overgrazing, lack of fertiliser, introduced pests and loss of invaluable soil nutrients have led to land degradation and the situation the Listener describes of advancing wilding pines and hieracium on a large scale. The familiar iconic landscape we revere is at serious risk, and it’s beyond farmers’ incomes or the Department of Conservation to restore such large areas.
The recent proposed dairy-farming developments may cause alarm for many, but they offer one economically feasible option to restore the land; the only issue is the intensity of farming that can be sustained in these sensitive areas. That question is seldom asked or answered in this or many other New Zealand regions.
There are undoubtedly other economic opportunities for Central Otago land and you need to maintain some flexibility to allow innovation to flourish, but we have swung to the point where, since the Resource Management Act came into effect, central and/or local government has been reluctant to dictate or proscribe the boundaries of land use as would be commonplace in Europe.
We need to protect our most valuable resources of land and soil more than we do now, and recognise that land lost – whether through abandonment or the other extreme of housing subdivision – is not easily regained. Unless we take such concerns more seriously and fund it properly, the landscape will irrevocably change to one we don’t recognise today.
Peter Carey M App Soil Sci (1st Hons)
Soil scientist, LRS (Land Research Services)
(Lincoln)

UNCLE SCRIM

In his review of William Renwick’s bio­graphy of the Reverend Colin Scrimgeour (Books, January 21), Brian Edwards has strong views about the character of the most-loved broadcaster New Zealand has ever produced.
During the Depression years of the 1930s, “Scrim” warmed the hearts and lifted the spirits of listeners in their tens of thousands throughout the country with his “Friendly Road” and “Man in the Street” radio programmes. Nevertheless, his broadcasting career was abruptly ended by Labour Prime Minister Peter Fraser having him sacked and allegedly bundled off to World War II. The Prime Minister was very much hands-on about broadcasting and those who were to perform on it; he even thought of having the Listener’s proofs checked before they went to the printer; editor Oliver Duff adroitly sidestepped that.
The rights and wrongs of Scrimgeour’s fate still linger with us. Edwards fully acknowledges that the man achieved much for the country’s broadcasting. But looking back on the issues after over 70 years, he flatly asserts that an earlier generation’s treasured broadcaster was a “demagogue, prima donna, dissembler, philanderer, self-promoter and a fantasist … a man too often careless with the truth … losing sight of the very precepts of honesty and integrity fundamental to the Christian message” and also falling “victim to the worst sort of deception – self-deception”.
As well as that, he says Fraser “did not need to send Scrim to the front to silence him”, as Scrim was “justifiably sacked because he was unable to separate his far-left-wing political convictions from his obligation as a public-service broadcaster to be impartial … He would have suffered the same fate today as an employee of Radio New Zealand.”
How strange that Edwards, given his extensive feelings about Scrimgeour, could casually confirm without comment that a Labour Prime Minister sent off a broadcaster to the “front” of a world war “to silence him”.
Ian Cross
(Kapiti Coast)

WEIGHT LOSS

Kate Scott (Letters, January 21) gives a misleading account of the results reported in a recent Journal of the American Medical Association paper on high- and low-protein diets.
Twenty-seven normal-weight volunteers, two of whom dropped out, were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Over 10-12 weeks and in a controlled environment, subjects in all three groups ate meals with the same excess of calories, but consisting of small, medium or large amounts of protein. All this she describes accurately. But the conclusion to the study was as follows: “Among [overfed] persons living in a controlled setting, calories alone account for the increase in fat; protein affected energy expenditure and storage of lean body mass, but not body fat storage.”
So a high-protein intake made subjects heavier, and they expended more energy, but they did not become fatter.
The paper’s authors go beyond what was actually demonstrated in imputing gain of body fat to excess of calories, whatever their source, without distinguishing between calories derived from carbohydrates and calories derived from fat.
Mac Jackson
(Auckland)

AFTER THE QUAKES

David Larsen’s review of the film When a City Falls (December 3) was poignant and commendable, which may inspire readers to make a conscious effort to see it. With the experiences and memories of the earthquakes, including the witnessing of two dead bodies as a result of falling rubble on February 22, still fresh in my mind I will need the healing of time before it becomes essential viewing for me.
It is, however, disconcerting to hear that even though this film has been popular with Cantabrians, this trend has not been occurring elsewhere in the country, particularly in Auckland. Has our suffering become yesterday’s story?
Larsen concludes that When a City Falls is a story of the people of Christ­church. I wish to add it is a story for the people of New Zealand. Let us not forget.
Chris Emeleus
(Bishopdale, Christchurch)

CLAWS FOR THOUGHT

The picture illustrating Brian Easton’s excellent Economy (January 7) shows a previously unknown European encounter with Maori, who presented the men with a creature new to them – a lobster. Either that or the Maori are showing the visitors a local crustacean, a giant freshwater crayfish (now apparently extinct; current species do not exceed 16cm in length).
Or perhaps the artist did not realise New Zealand saltwater crayfish do not have the spectacular claws of the lobsters found off the northeast and northwest coasts of the Atlantic. He or she should have taken more notice of the eyewitness drawing by Tupaia, who saw such an exchange and got it right.
As the Listener has a reputation for accuracy, it may like to add to its checking processes a requirement that all pictures of New Zealand saltwater crayfish show them without claws. As a motivator to accuracy, providers of faulty illustrations could be required to buy a large crayfish, draw it from life, then have it sent, in edible condition, to the writer. I can provide my address on request for such delivery.
Bruce Tulloch
(Bishopdale, Christchurch)

THE ALCOHOL DEBATE

Nobody should be encouraged to drink more than they do. Heavy drinkers and problem drinkers should drink less. Alcohol is not a medicine, and it causes problems.
But Professor Jennie Connor’s advice (“Knocking it back”, December 24) that we should all drink less, and preferably nothing, is not appropriate, and not supported by her own research findings. It is unfortunate John Austin (Letters, December 24) no longer believes two glasses a day are good for his health, because of advice like this (assuming he is not young).
The Australian guidelines mentioned in the article are based on studies like Connor’s. In the most recent estimate available (2001), more lives are saved than lost by individuals drinking alcohol overall, though not in the young.
More recently, in the British Medical Journal (February 22, 2011, free online), Ronksley and others, from three North American universities including Harvard, analysed 84 studies examining various cardiovascular effects of alcohol.
From the graphs, cardiovascular death was decreased in drinkers in 22 out of 23 studies, cardiovascular disease events decreased in 34 out of 36 studies, and overall mortality rates decreased in 27 out of 33 studies. Strokes were about the same as in abstainers. The findings did not vary by date of publication or study duration. Confounding and misclassification are discussed, and assessed not to have changed the major findings, which are clear.
The authors conclude public health messages should better communicate that alcohol in moderation may have overall health benefits. These conclusions have been accepted by the editors and referees of this prestigious journal, and this information will be passed on by thousands of doctors to their communities. The findings and advice are very different from those in the Listener article.
Connor’s doubts (Letters, January 14) about methodology have some validity, but she is too strong in advocating what is, in a global sense, a minority view.
Jonathan Zwi
(Castor Bay, Auckland)

Letters to the editor: letters@listener.co.nz; or writer to The Editor, Listener, PO Box 90783, Victoria Street West, Auckland 1142.