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\centerline{MONT 106N -- Identifying Patterns}
\centerline{Paper 2 -- November 23, 2009}
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{\it General Information}
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The final formal writing assignment for the course will be
an essay about one of the two readings listed below.  
Your paper should be prepared using MS Word or equivalent
software, about 5 double-spaced pages in length.   You will 
be submitting it by email as for some previous assignments.  
The due date is {\it Monday, December 7} 
(the final regular class day of the semester).
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{\it Description}
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The main objective of this essay will be to take an article
or blog entry from the popular press, summarize the contents
in a page or two, then discuss connections with topics we
have discussed in this course, along the lines of the questions
posed below.  A major component of the evaluation this time 
will be how well you are able to draw connections with things
we have discussed and make use of statistical concepts we 
have introduced in the course.  

Which topic you are considering should be clearly stated in the first 
paragraph.  Then the body of the paper should be the summary of the 
article or blog entry and the presentation of 
the reasoning and the evidence that lead you to 
your conclusions about the contents.  As on the first essay, 
your job is to convince your reader of the soundness
of your conclusions, starting ``from the beginning.''  That is, you 
should not assume the reader has been present for any of the discussions
that we have had in class, or that you might have had with other
Natural World cluster students.  You might try explaining a possible 
opposing point of view, then giving your reasons for rejecting it as 
part of your argument.   
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{\it Sources}
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This is not primarily a ``research paper,''
but you may wish to consult other sources (including Grinnell's 
{\it Everyday Practice of Science})  as you think about
the topic.  If you do, please list all the sources you use
in a References section at the end of the paper.  For books,
give the author, title, publisher, place and year of publication.
For articles, give the author, title, name of the periodical, 
and date of publication.  For online sources, give a {\it full URL
(web address)} and the date you consulted it online. 
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{\it A Suggestion}
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I will be happy to discuss (or read a first draft of) your paper and give 
you some preliminary comments by email.  Or, you can come by my office hours
if you want to ``run your paper by me.''  Alternatively,  I think 
you may find it very helpful to have a first draft of your paper read
by another student in the class.  I can set up ``reading pairs'' 
working on different topics if you are interested.
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{\it Evaluation}
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I will provide written comments on your work, and
assign two grades for each paper -- one for how well your conclusions
are presented and supported (in other words, for how convincing your
arguments are), the other for how well your writing follows the standards
for formal written English. (For instance, how well is the paper
subdivided into paragraphs each addressing a particular item in your
argument?  Are the paragraphs arranged in a logical, recognizable
sequence?  Are the sentences within each paragraph ordered well?
Are they grammatically correct?  Are there awkward sentences?  
Are there overly flowery, overly colloquial, or incorrectly-used
words or phrases?  Is punctuation used correctly?  Are there spelling and/or 
typographical errors?)   

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{\it Note:  Because of time constraints at the end of the semester, I
will not be able to offer the resubmission option as for the first
paper.}
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{\it Topic 1 -- ``Does the Vaccine Matter'?'}  
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In an article published in
the November 2009 issue of the {\it Atlantic Monthly}, available online
at {\tt http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brownlee-h1n1}, authors Shannon 
Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer raise some thought-provoking questions about the 
current efforts to immunize the population (particularly senior citizens) 
against H1N1 and seasonal influenza.  Their article has been copied by many 
anti-immunization groups as a major support for their position
and you will find the text copied at many places online.   
What are the key points in their argument against the current H1N1 
(and seasonal flu) immunization efforts?  How does what they say connect
with topics we have discussed?  Also, why does this make for such
a ``good story?''  (Think about what Grinnell has to say about the 
difficulty of getting new ideas to be accepted.)  Of course, this topic, 
and this article specifically, are hugely controversial in medical circles.  
Even though as many as 50\% of doctors and health care workers are
reluctant to be immunized themselves according to some estimates, there
are also strongly-argued cases {\it for influenza immunization} that you will
find if you look.   Also see 
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\centerline{\tt http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/10/journalists\_sink\_in\_the\_atlant.php}
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for one critical assessment of the {\it Atlantic} piece.  A key question here
is:  why have there been no randomized double-blind trials of flu vaccine using
placebos?  Why would doctors have resisted doing them?  Is resistance to doing such
trials understandable?  A final question:
If the ``experts'' cannot agree on something like this, where does that 
leave ordinary people?
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{\it Topic 2 -- Zipf's Law} 
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The first problem on our Excel regression lab was inspired by the following
Opinionator blog entry from the New York Times: ``Math and the City'' by
Steven Strogatz (a Cornell math professor), published on May 19, 2009; the URL is
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\centerline{\tt http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/math-and-the-city/}
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Who was Zipf and what did he do about relative sizes of cities?  What other
analogous possible patterns does Strogatz discuss?  What do you think
about the sort of ideas discussed here?

Next, if you look at the many
online responses to this blog entry, you will see a number of common threads
in the critical comments.

First, there are lots of ``debunkers'' who claim something to the effect
that in country X, the pattern does not hold exactly, so Zipf's Law is 
wrong.  What are they missing (what don't they understand about what
Zipf's Law is claiming)?  And how does this relate to what we did 
in the lab?  Could Strogatz have done a better job of describing the actual
mathematics and ``headed off'' this type of comment?

Second, there are several more considered rebuttals to the effect that
humans have a natural tendency to look for and find patterns in any
data they examine, even when there are no real patterns there (just noise).
How does this relate to Grinnell's ideas about the thought patterns and
presuppositions necessary to do science?  
\bye
         
