I am a proud member of the Sierra Club. No, not that Sierra Club; what I mean to say is that I am a regular reader of the parenting blog ChildWild, and a fan of its wise and charming proprietor Sierra Black. I am therefore delighted that Sierra seems to have become a regular reader and frequent commenter here on The Big Questions, and glad to see she’s sticking around despite frequent disagreements—much as I do on ChildWild.

Over on another thread, amidst a discussion of the case for free trade, Sierra threw me for a brief loop with an issue I’d never seen raised before, though I’ve since learned that it’s commonplace in certain corners of the Internet. I thought, then, that it might be worth responding in a separate post.

(I’ll admit too that another motive for the separate post was my conviction that I’d be able to slip in a perfect pun around the phrase “Sierra, Madre”—Madre, of course. meaning mother, and what with her running a parenting blog and all and—well, it’s bad enough to have to explain your jokes, but here I am trying to explain a joke I couldn’t even figure out how to make. But by the time I’d realized the pun was stillborn, I was already committed to this post.)

Here’s the relevant part of Sierra’s comment:

Continue reading ‘From the Sierra Club’

Having recently bashed Paul Krugman, and in the full expectation that I’ll have occasion to bash him again, let me interject that Krugman is not just a first rate economist; he is also, when he wants to be, a superb economic communicator, with a long paper trail to prove it.

Take, for example his essay on the widespread failure of intellectuals to grasp Ricardo‘s theory of comparative advantage (the basis of the case for free trade). Instead of simply bemoaning the problem like the rest of us, Krugman makes a valiant and useful attempt to identify its root causes.

He starts with an analogy I’m also fond of (I’m not sure which of us has been using it longer): The theory of comparative advantage is like the theory of evolution by natural selection—to those who understand it, it is simple and compelling; yet non-experts can find it remarkably difficult to grasp.

In The Big Questions, I argue that this analogy ultimately breaks down: The theory of evolution is compelling largely because of the evidence that supports it, while Ricardo’s theory is compelling largely because of the logic that supports it. It’s not too surprising that a first-rate physicst or literary critic could be unfamiliar with a body of evidence, but it’s a little more unsettling when that same physicist or literary critic can’t follow a simple chain of logic.

Continue reading ‘Krugman: The Flip Side’

It’s always impressive to see one person excel in two widely disparate activities: a first-rate mathematician who’s also a world class mountaineer, or a titan of industry who conducts symphony orchestras on the side. But sometimes I think Paul Krugman is out to top them all, by excelling in two activities that are not just disparate but diametrically opposed: economics (for which he was awarded a well-deserved Nobel Prize) and obliviousness to the lessons of economics (for which he’s been awarded a column at the New York Times).

Continue reading ‘Krugman to the Rescue’