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WEIRD science
You reported that a lack of data on race hampers efforts to tackle inequalities, and exhorted governments to ensure that they start to gather this vital information (“Wanted: more data”, November 21st). This message also needs to be heard by researchers. The over- or under-sampling of ethnic and social groups in research is skewing our understanding of human behaviour and disease. As of 2018, individuals included in the vital studies defining the genetic causes of diseases were 78% European, 10% Asian, 2% African, 1% Hispanic, and less than 1% for all other ethnic groups. A report in Science suggested that Western bias in human genetic studies is “both scientifically damaging and unfair”. In the field of psychology, the problem is so great—96% of data comes from 12% of the world’s citizens—that the over-sampled privileged population has its own acronym, WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic). This WEIRD population has been shown across a number of traits to be poorly representative of the wider population.
Missing data matter. This increases inequalities, especially when missing from inputs to algorithmic decision-making systems and artificial intelligence, technologies that have an impact on society.
PROFESSOR ANDREW MORRIS
CAROLINE CAKE
PROFESSOR ALASTAIR DENNISTON
Health Data Research UK
London
Borders melt away
One important thing to note about the Spanish region of Galicia is that things began to improve when Spain joined the European Union and the border with Portugal disappeared (“Us Gallegos”, November 7th). The combined Spanish and Portuguese area in the north-west of the Iberian peninsula has 12.5m people. Money from Europe helped build a motorway between Vigo and Porto. Thanks to the EU, we are now more open to international trade than most Spanish regions, and our economy is growing fast. In Galicia, at least on the economic front, our relationship with Portugal is as important as it is with Madrid. Our languages are similar, which helps us communicate with 300m Portuguese speakers around the world.
ENRIQUE SáEZ
A Coruña, Spain
The economics of a disease
Although epidemiologists may have sometimes failed to see how social behaviour influences the spread of a disease (Free exchange, November 14th), economists have often been slow to recognise how the social changes generated by the threat of a disease affects the economy. This is the second time this century that economists have failed miserably to anticipate how an epidemic can be as much an economic crisis as it is a public-health one, and to anticipate how deep it would be once it did emerge.
You said, rightly, that economics shows very little interest in crossing disciplines. More worrying is the insistence of economists to rely on a limited set of methods that, although rigorous, prevent us from investigating catastrophic risks. George Akerlof recently criticised the “hard” methods that are preferred in economics.
ILAN NOY
Chair in the economics of disasters and climate change
Victoria University of Wellington
Wellington, New Zealand
Your column claimed that economists like me and epidemiologists “got off on the wrong foot” during the pandemic. The views you attributed to “economists” are those of a small but loud minority. Most economists I know value the work of epidemiologists and try to learn from them as much as possible. They do not “intensely criticise” epidemiologists’ models or their use. Instead they have benefited greatly from them and been very much aware of how difficult it is to forecast an epidemic in the face of limited and fast-changing data availability and quality. They also try to collaborate with, and get feedback from, epidemiologists and public-health researchers.
BENJAMIN MOLL
Professor of economics
London School of Economics
After the Dayton peace deal
“Dayton at 25” (November 21st) depicted Bosnia correctly in several aspects. When I started visiting the country 12 years ago, I was surprised to still see divisions among its people. The war heroes on monuments in one place would be considered war criminals just a few kilometres away. Car plates bear no indication of the region of registration, probably to prevent trouble. Yet some of the problems you pointed out are not necessarily attributable to the current state structure: mass emigration, poverty and bad public services can be found in several ethnically homogenous countries. As regards Milorad Dodik, he may well talk “of independence and integration with Serbia”, but he will not follow this up with action. Any new armed confrontation is close to impossible. Over time, the present differences will soften. In the future, Dayton at 50 might be a rare example of a successful case in state building.
OLEKSANDR OVCHYNNYKOV
Strasbourg
The corporate jungle
Writing about the change in leadership at McDonald’s, Schumpeter mused on new bosses who are “overeager to tear up the legacy of their disgraced predecessors” (November 14th). This is what I call the Simba Syndrome. Many new executives follow the model of the lion pride, formed by a dominant male, several lionesses and their cubs. When a new male takes over by chasing off or killing the previous king he then kills off the previous male’s cubs. This also happens in companies, where projects and sometimes people linked with the previous boss are “killed off” by the successor upon taking over.
DANIEL WEIHS
Haifa, Israel
What Abraham said
Your lovely obituary of Rabbi Lord Sacks (November 21st) mentioned that “Abraham, ordered to sacrifice his son Isaac, had said three times to God, ‘Hineni’, ‘Here I am.’” In fact, Abraham says Hineni to God only once in that episode, once more to God’s messenger (or “angel”), and once to Isaac himself. The story is about Abraham’s fidelity and availability to God, surely; but by embedding the same word in Abraham’s response to his son, the story itself presents the tension between our obligations to the divine and our obligations to our fellow humans. It does not try to obscure those tensions, but confronts the reader frankly with them.
I met Rabbi Sacks only once, and very briefly. But from that encounter, I suspect that he would be delighted that the obituary’s small slip gives us an opportunity to contemplate some of the fundamental dynamics he had dedicated his life to communicating.
CHARLES MATHEWES
Professor of religious studies
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
So there
Chinese officials’ views of America and its democracy may be filled with “disdain” (Chaguan, November 7th) but there is something we can do that China’s citizens cannot. We can change our president. And we did.
ROY GIRASA
Beaverton, Oregon
This article appeared in the Letters section of the print edition under the headline “Letters to the editor”
