Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 March 29

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March 29

Census nosiness

I just filled in the UK census, and was puzzled by one pair of questions: why do they want to know the name and address of the organization that employs me? Does this mean that statistics will be kept for every business in the UK, however small? Will those statistics be published, so that I can see how many people work(ed) for the corner grocery store, and doesn't that seem very useful for tax enforcement, and not at all useful for statisticians? What's the ostensible purpose of the question? 213.122.2.47 (talk) 07:35, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

The address might be used for working out how far people live from their workplace (which might be useful when considering transport plans, etc.). That doesn't explain the name, though. Proteus (Talk) 07:51, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

The report here says: "The address and postcode of the employer is one of a number of questions contained in the census questionnaire about jobs, place of work, hours of employment and methods of travel to work. Answers to these questions help to build a profile of the economy of England and Wales and provide the foundation for other labour market and economic statistics published by ONS..... As well as underpinning the planning of public services, census statistics are also used extensively by the private sector. Information on such things as the skill and age profile of the workforce and where people live can help businesses to decide where to place new offices, factories and other places of work and what training they need provide for their employees." All individual forms are confidential, but the results will be aggregated to provide statistical information by location and by business type - not for individual businesses. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:29, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

By door number and business type, by the sound of it? 213.122.57.127 (talk) 08:53, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

The work postcode is extremely useful to researchers of all kinds. Without it there would be no travel to work statistics. The industry that your employer is operating in is also crucial for knowing the mix of industries in each local area. What ONS says about business planning is also true, although it may be useful to note that it is not just ONS that crunches the information. There are numerous consultancies, large and small, that use Census data to model local economic development. Businesses can buy the info in to assist with planning; larger businesses contract with consultancies to do that while it is filtered to smaller businesses through local authorities, HMRC, chambers of commerce, business associations etc. The individual information is never passed on to HMRC but aggregate information is publicly available and can be used by anyone. So if the Census shows your town has hundreds of people working in construction but no construction businesses are registered for tax, HMRC might decide to send a team of inspectors to have a look around. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

So, why do they ask for the name and full address, rather than the postcode? Is the excess information thrown away? 213.122.57.127 (talk) 09:05, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Thrown away? Ha. Forms are kept for 100 years then made available to the public. Don't forget, you can use the street name to check if the respondent has made a mistake in the postcode. That's the sort of thing they will be doing for the next 18 months before they are ready to publish the first tables of figures. Not by hand, by computer algorithms. They cross-check against the last census, against the electoral register, against the credit reference agencies' data. Oh, and by the way, the UK government maintains a database of UK businesses that is supposed to be comprehensive. It starts with VAT registrations, and records for small businesses not registered for VAT are being added now or in the near future. It uses the database to make the sample for the Annual Business Survey (which may have changed its name again, need to check and amend WP article). Governments in developed countries know a lot of stuff. Assume they know more or less everything. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:16, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, they already know the names of all employers and whom they employ from Tax & NI returns. They already know extensive information about every person under 20 who has been in the state education system. In the past, information was seldom shared between different arms of government, but this is all changing. Dbfirs 10:35, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Not just people under 20. Individual records go back more than 15 years for schools, colleges, and universities. Our health records are also held. These days it is easy to combine records from different sources. The government agencies work with external bodies to develop their data systems. Nevertheless, there are some limits. Data sharing and security protocols are applied more strictly after the headline cases of databases left in taxis. Most of this can be found out by enquiring of government departments but I think most people would be shocked to know how much info is held on them by how many different bodies. The Census is the most secure and least problematic. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:12, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I probably should have said under 25. It is only in the last ten years or so that the Government has forced schools to use unique identifiers (UPNs) for pupils and to submit data electronically to their database. Dbfirs 20:21, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

How do they help an area with high unemployment? Do they really reward businesses for opening up shop there, or do they tear down the neighborhood to make room for a car park for the local stadium? (The latter being Chicago's preferred response, for example...) Wnt (talk) 00:32, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

It could be either, or neither. Authorities - central government, local government, and others - use census and other statistical information to develop policies towards an area - such as land use planning, or economic development strategies - that they consider appropriate, depending on the circumstances. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:27, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Professing and believing within Catholicism

I vaguely recall that within Roman Catholicism there is a meaningful distinction made between the two concepts, to the effect that a Catholic is required to profess certain doctrines, but technically he is not required to believe them. Or perhaps he is supposed to do both, but he is "more required" to profess a doctrine than to inwardly believe it. This is my very fragmentary recollection, and the reality is probably somewhat different. Can anyone clarify the point, or direct me to a source of more information on this particular distinction, and perhaps to critical discussions of the issue? LANTZY^TALK 11:26, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, attempted indoctrination by Roman Catholic church performed on me has told me that one has to profess and believe in the God. To claim belief but not truly hold it in your heart is a sin much like the fact that belief in God will save you from hell even if you are not baptised into the church and you can be forgiven your sin if you truly confess and regret it internally, but don't have the means to go to proper Confession at the moment. True belief is necessary for got to recognise you anything less is not a guarantee. What you do need to profess openly is rejection of sin (after every Confession), rejection of devil during marriage ceremony, baptism and few other ceremonies (godparents and parents on the behalf of an infant) and core set of beliefs known as Apostles' Creed which are recited on every mass and succinctly summarise the basics of the Roman Catholic belief. Melmann^(talk) 12:38, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Philosophical Defense of General Resurrection

Hello. Can anyone here point me to a rigorous philosophical defense of general resurrection as preached by the Catholic Church vis-a-vis resurrection? Please understand that I am only referring to the philophical arguments, not those discussing whether or not it is a biblical teaching or not, or whether or not it is more just than or as just as reincarnation. In particular, I am looking for treatment of questions such as "how can that which has a beginning be without an end?" That is, how something can be "immortal" but not "eternal". I asked for a "rigorous" defense because I have seen many so far and all of them touch issues which are settled as far as I am concerned, and their reasoning is misinformed or incomplete. Please do not hesitate to recommend a complex or highly theoretical work, I have a decent grasp of the different subjects in Western philosophy, and I am prepared to do the hard work to understand it fully. Please just let me know which is the strongest defense in this regard that you know of. Many thanks, ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 12:18, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

What are you looking for, exactly? In the words of the old Catholic Encyclopedia (which isn't always in conformity with teaching) "The general resurrection can hardly be proved from reason, though we may show its congruity." While one can carry out philosophical arguments about it's necessity, any rigorous defence is ultimately going to come down to the Bible, Holy Tradition and the Church's teaching: it's not something that's derivable outside that context. Having said that, if nobody has a better recommendation you might want to look up the various works of the Early Church Fathers cited in that article (under Tradition), since I expect some of them to have provided a thorough treatment. 86.164.69.241 (talk) 13:45, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. I am aware of a number of philosophical problems with resurrection, such as those recounted here:[1] and here:[2], besides others that I am aware of. I think these objections present challenges, and that reincarnation presents a a more coherent account in comparison. I wished to know if someone, preferably someone defending the Catholic doctrine, had offered a detailed treatment of the issues. But your answer is very useful too, I just wanted to know what are the strongest defenses that people know of. --ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 14:45, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I should also note (and I wish I could be more helpful) that the reason it is relatively hard to find a detailed philosophical treatment of this from the Catholic perspective, is because the Catholic Church doesn't really think the details are terribly important. Catholicism doesn't go quite as far as the Orthodox churches in terms of "It's a mystery, and the details aren't important", but the afterlife and the end of the world are topics it doesn't think yield or need a lot of detail. After all, what difference does it make to your actions today? We 'know' (based on Jesus's words) that existence in Heaven is not really comparable to existence on Earth, for example, so further extrapolating isn't really possible. If you know none of the old rules apply, but don't know the new rules, how can you meaningfully say what is and isn't possible? 86.164.69.241 (talk) 17:17, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I think what you are saying makes eminent sense. However, I was still looking for one because the Catholic Church, in the present age, presents itself as one that extensively depends on reason and community tradition (and reasoning within that community) in the formation of its beliefs and practices, besides the scripture itself. Moreover, I have come across defenses of a logical nature presented of general resurrection, and criticisms offered of reincarnation from the Catholic point of view, just not ones that seemed very convincing. --ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 18:49, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Formal term for an "it's your word against his" situation

I am trying to express a negotiation situation wherein two sides both have limited information about each other, and make mutually unverifiable claims, with no objective evidence nor intermediary (i.e., a witness), such as when one says "it's your word against his". But this formulation lacks the requisite elegance (i.e., of the conceptual sort). Grateful for any ideas as to whether there is a formal and more elegant term, in law or logic or some other field, for such a situation. --Nicsilo (talk) 15:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

A specific instance of this is "He said, she said", which is a nice and more-elegant shorthand for the whole thing (except for your "limited information" requirement), but has sexual overtones. Our He said, she said article actually refers the reader to argument, but the desired meaning of "argument" is over at argument (disambiguation), which points the reader to disagreement, which is a redirect to controversy, which doesn't really address the topic. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:20, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

"One's word against another's" I think is intended to indicate a lack of third party or verifiable evidence. In a legal context, you can say a suit is "your word against mine" if there are no (or few) other witnesses available, and no (or few) documentary evidence available. Perhaps it can be expressed as "lack of external evidence"? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:18, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I guess there may not be an actual name for such a situation. Perhaps game theory has some answers, so I'll look at it from that angle. --Nicsilo (talk) 15:51, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I believe "hearsay" may cover it. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:39, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Hearsay is evidence which a witness received in a manner other than by direct perception. If a witness says "John told me he killed her", that's hearsay. It's not quite the same as what Nicsilo is asking for I think. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:46, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

It would be contentious, or contention. 92.15.1.33 (talk) 19:18, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Picture of Emperor Gaozu of Later Jin

What is the source of the image at this site? If the source is PD, is this pic? If this pic is not PD, does it qualify under WP's fair use policy? Thanks Kayau Voting IS evil 16:18, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

If the source is PD (and it certainly looks like it's old enough to be) then a faithful reproduction of it is of course PD. No clues in the text about the source of the pic though. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:16, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

A faithful reproduction of a Public Domain image is in the Public Domain In the United States (Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.). In other nations, it is less clear. In particular, the situation in the UK is somewhat murky right now. See [3] for some of the issues. The position of the Wikimedia foundation has been that US law is the only law that needs to be followed in this regard (in most instances on Wikimedia Commons, both the law in the U.S. and the law in the source country must be followed). Buddy431 (talk) 02:53, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

The source country is obviously the PRC, so I suppose the law of the PRC should be followed. In any case, googling the text returned no results, so I probably won't be able to find out if it's PD. Still, it may be interesting to note that as it calls Great Jin 'Later Jin', it's not contemporary. Assuming it's not PD, would it qualify for fair use? Thanks Kayau Voting IS evil 14:21, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's a slightly higher resolution of the same picture, found here. If I'm reading the Google Translation right, I think it was uploaded by this editor. If someone speaks Chinese, they could ask her where she got the photo from. And in general, for Wikipedia, it is the U.S. copyright law that's more important than that of the source country's. To qualify for fair use (WP:NFCC), you'd probably have to have a good reason to put it on a specific article where no free equivalents are possible (presumably Shi Jingtang). If looks like there are no pictures there, so it might qualify. You'd be better asking at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Buddy431 (talk) 17:39, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Buddy431. :) There seems to be another old-looking picture of Shi and 2 variants of it, so I'll let the post stay here for another day in case someone recognises its source. If not, I'll ask at the MCQ about both pics. Kayau Voting IS evil 09:49, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

How to judge parents?

Is there a scale to judge parents? Obviously, not getting sneakers for $200 is not a blatant case of abuse, and on the other extreme, sexual abusing your children will always get you a 0 as parent. But how to grade the cases between these two poles? 212.169.190.250 (talk) 16:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Not to dodge the question, but judge them for what purpose?

I think that makes a difference. If you're doing some sort of scientific study and you need to grade parents on their 'fitness' (so you can compare your test group and your control group) you're going to a very specific criterion.

But other than that, it's difficult to imagine a good 'ranking' scale, except perhaps, how happy or successful the children are when they grow up. (Even then, which is better? Successful but not happy? or vice-versa?) APL (talk) 17:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, judging parents might be interesting for social workers or psychologists coaching parents to be better parents. Judging might sound as a too strong of a term. Evaluating is just as good here. I'm sure that happiness - which is partially genetic - is not an issue here, nor success - which is equally determined by factors beyond parents' control. 212.169.190.250 (talk) 17:37, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

At a first step, you'll have to define what a "good parent" is. What obligations do they have? Should be judge them by outcome or by intention? Should be pardon mentally ill parents or drug users? Excluding the obviously criminal, I see little chances of reaching a conclusion. Family psychologist could, however, still work on the relationship. Quest09 (talk) 17:49, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

One might also consider the happiness (or success, or whatever) of the children right at the moment, rather than concentrating on outcome. Does the influence of one's parents abruptly end when one reaches whatever the age of adulthood is? Is it unimportant how awful an experience a child has for those 18 or 21 or however many years, provided the emerging adult is in some sense "good"? Besides this, rather than attempting an objective assessment, one could ask the child to rate the parent by whatever criteria the child thinks are important, which of course will not always be the same. One child's good parent might not seem a good parent to another child. 81.131.66.235 (talk) 23:56, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

A ranking system like you describe only works if you can meaningfully say, for any two parents, A and B that either "A is a better parent than B", "B is a better parent than A" or "A and B are equally good parents". That clearly isn't the case. Consider a case where A is very caring and loving but can't hold down a good job so A's children have to go without things their friends have and B doesn't pay much attention to their children, but works hard so they never have to go without. Clearly, A is a better parent in one way and B is a better parent in another. You would need to decide whether being caring and loving or being able to financially support your children is more important, and you can't really decide that. They are obviously both important. Trying to quantify it will get you no-where. --Tango (talk) 19:17, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Everyone is assuming that no one studies this stuff or attempts to quantify what good parenting is. That's bullshit. The above people make it sound like its some crapshoot; that there is nothing at all to say that some actions people take make them better parents and some actions make them worse parents. There are scads of studies which clearly show high correlations between child outcomes and parental actions. The Wikipedia articles Parenting and Parenting styles which give a start. If someone wanted to do some research outside of Wikipedia, one could find oodles of studies which show what being a good parent takes. --Jayron32 19:24, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Of course there are studies into parenting, but they are of a qualitative nature, not a quantitive one. --Tango (talk) 21:27, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense, there are hundreds of quantitative studies regarding parenting, such as XXX% of parents that raise their kids a certain way end up with children who have a certain outcome. Those studies place hard numbers for the kinds of parenting that produce specific outcomes in children; i.e. studies on the effects of child sexual abuse regarding the outcomes for the abused children (with facts and figures), or maybe effects of parental involvement on student test scores (a number, mind you). There are LOTS of quantitative studies on what parents should do to be good parents, and what they should not do lest they be bad parents. It isn't just "kids turn out good or bad, and we have no idea how the parents figure into it". --Jayron32 21:54, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Teachers judge parents all the time, even before they meet them. HiLo48 (talk) 19:32, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

You are actually referencing the primary metric for measuring the quality of a parent - the children. The assumption is that good parents produce good children and bad parents produce bad children. -- kainaw™ 19:35, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Well in nature vs nurture, parents are responsible for both the nature (genetics) and the nurture (their parenting). Googlemeister (talk) 19:45, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, a strong correlation would normally exist. HiLo48 (talk) 19:47, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Does a scale exist for grading children? Obviously there are school grades, but do those reflect whatever kind of value the OP is interested in? Even if they reflected general moral worth, which they don't, is it good to attempt to measure people's absolute worth, outside of context? Seems a silly idea, and unpleasant. 81.131.66.235 (talk) 23:49, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that murdering the children would rate even lower than sexual abuse. And then there could be things worse than murder, like lifelong torture followed by murder. StuRat (talk) 20:50, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

So that would make This guy a particularly bad parent... --Jayron32 21:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem with trying to analyze this kind of thing quantitatively like Jayron32 says is determining what is causation and what is mere correlation. For example, I saw a public service announcement telling parents to eat dinner with their kids, citing some study that said that kids who eat dinner with their parents are less likely to do all kinds of bad stuff like illegal drugs. But that doesn't mean that the exact act of eating pizza with Junior makes him a better kid. Rather, it's probable that the parents who eat with their kids every day are more involved in their kids' lives all around. They're also probably more likely to be better-educated and higher-income than people who don't eat with their kids (because they're working the late shift at Wal-Mart, or whatever), and those factors are probably more-closely linked to kids' well-being than anything else you can measure statistically. The fact is, while there are certainly many ways not to raise children -- being physically or emotionally abusive or neglectful, for example -- there's not one right way to do so. Amy Chua's daughter seems to have turned out OK so far; so have Benjamin Spock's kids (a rumor that one committed suicide is untrue). Suffice to say Chua and Spock raised their children rather differently. Of course, if it really doesn't matter whether one follows the Chua or Spock school of child-rearing, following the former path seems a bit cruel. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:49, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

You can isolate for all of that, however. You can say "OK, we're only going to look at low-income parents who work evening jobs, and see what they do differently, and see what has a negative or positive impact on their children in some measurable way (say, by looking at test scores, children in trouble with the law, adult incarceration rates, attendance at secondary education, whatever metric you use to look at the children)." Such studies can actually be very insightful, because they can show ways in which parents can have a positive effect, even in highly disadvantaged situations. --Jayron32 03:09, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

It depends on the variable. With something like the presence of lead paint, it's fairly straightforward to draw a relationship between cause and effect. You can factor out income, ethnicity, parents' educational attainment, the absence of one parent, etc. from a comparison of kids who are and those who are not exposed to lead paint in their homes. If the 30% of the first group and 15% of the second group is involved in delinquency, you could reasonably draw a correlation between lead paint exposure and delinquency. But let's say someone finds that kids who play video games for two hours a day are more likely to get into legal trouble. No matter how many socioeconomic factors you adjust for, it's very difficult to prove that the video-game playing is a cause of the delinquency rather than another symptom of a root cause. Perhaps kids who play video games for 2 hours a day are more likely to have indifferent or neglectful parents. The only way to factor that out would be to do a detailed qualitative study of the family, and the more in-depth you look at each case, the fewer cases you can study. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:41, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Press conferences

I was watching William Hague and another address a press conference, entirely as one would expect in terms of the way it was carried out. As each question from the floor was being answered, the reporter who asked it would be furiously scribbling. Would it not be simpler to merely review the footage after? It did occur to me that it is something to do whilst the speaker is addressing both the questioner and the rest of the floor, but perhaps there is something more obvious? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:56, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a timing thing. This will probably have been a print journalist who had to file a story for the next day's paper. He hasn't got the time to review the footage, he just has to write his story as quickly as possible and send it to the paper. --Viennese Waltz 17:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

As someone who used an audio-recorder to take notes in school, I can tell you that even with a tape, it's very useful to get down the key bullet-points on paper. If you're in a hurry (and I assume that reporters almost always are) trying to find the one good quote in two hours of tape is an ordeal. APL (talk) 17:05, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone use shorthand any more? 92.29.112.51 (talk) 19:05, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Certainly they do. The "furious scribbling" described by the OP could well have been shorthand. --Viennese Waltz 19:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Something else that sometimes happens is that the speaker reveals some info during the press conference that then makes the reporter think of a follow-up question, which they quickly scribble down, in the hope that they will be called upon. StuRat (talk) 20:46, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Is this what Highlander (film) and the spin-off TV shows were about? I haven't seen any of them. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 07:03, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

The answer to that is such a strong "no" (IMHO) that I am wondering if you meant to post this somewhere else. --Dweller (talk) 10:07, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Presumably the "POV of an immortal" section above. Proteus (Talk) 07:42, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

As a print reporter, I suspect Viennese Waltz was probably accurate. I often cover news conferences side-by-side with television reporters, and I take very detailed notes. Because the cameras belong to someone else, I don't even have access to the video footage. All I have are my notes. And from experience, I can say that written notes are faster than using a portable audio recorder. ... Also, regarding shorthand, many reporters use a form of shorthand, but it is not a classic system (like Gregg shorthand or something. My shorthand is of my own invention, and I doubt anyone else could decipher it. It's a combination of abbreviations, phonetic transcriptions, symbols and pictograms. I didn't set out to invent it; it just evolved. — Michael J 14:02, 1 April 2011 (UTC)