经济学人完整整理版
Digest Of The. Economist. 2006(8-9)
The mismeasure of woman
Men and women think differently. But not that differently
IN THE 1970s there was a fad for giving dolls to baby boys and fire-engines to baby girls. The idea was that differences in behaviour between the sexes were solely the result of upbringing: culture turned women into ironers, knitters and chatterboxes, and men into hammerers, drillers and silent types. Switching toys would put an end to sexual sorting. Today, it is clear why it did not. When boys and girls are born, they are already different, and they favour different toys from the beginning.
That boys and girls—and men and women—are programmed by evolution to behave differently from one another is now widely accepted. Surely, no one today would think of doing what John Money, of Johns Hopkins University, did in 1967:
amputating the genitalia of a boy who had suffered a botched circumcision, and advising the parents to bring him up as a girl. The experiment didn't work, and the consequences were tragic. But which of the differences between the sexes are “biological”, in the sense that they have been honed by evolution, and which are “cultural” or “environmental” and might more easily be altered by changed circumstances, is still fiercely debated.
The sensitivity of the question was shown last year by a furore at Harvard University. Larry Summers, then Harvard's
president, caused a storm when he suggested that innate ability could be an important reason why there were so few women in the top positions in mathematics, engineering and the physical sciences.
Even as a proposition for discussion, this is unacceptable to some. But biological explanations of human behaviour are making a comeback as the generation of academics that feared them as a covert way of justifying eugenics, or of thwarting Marxist utopianism, is retiring. The success of neo-Darwinism has provided an intellectual underpinning for discussion about why some differences between the sexes might be innate. And new scanning techniques have enabled researchers to examine the brain's interior while it is working, showing that male and female brains do, at one level, operate differently. The results, however, do not always support past clichés about what the differences in question actually are.
Differences in behaviour between the sexes must, in some way, be reflections of systematic differences between the brains of males and females. Such differences certainly exist, but drawing inferences from them is not as easy as it may appear. For a start, men's brains are about 9% larger than those of women. That used to be cited as evidence of men's supposedly greater intelligence. Actually, the difference is largely (and probably completely) explained by the fact that men are bigger than women. In recent years, more detailed examination has refined the picture. Female brains have a higher percentage of grey matter (the manifestation, en bloc, of the central bodies of nerve cells), and thus a lower percentage of white matter (the manifestation of the long, thin filaments that connect nerve cells together), than male brains. That, plus the fact that in some regions of the female brain, nerve cells are packed more densely than in men, means that the number of nerve cells in male and female brains may be similar.
Oddly, though, the main connection between the two hemispheres of the brain, which is known as the corpus callosum and is made of white matter, is proportionately smaller in men than women. This may explain why men use only one side of the brain to process some problems for which women employ both sides.
These differences in structure and wiring do not appear to have any influence on intelligence as measured by IQ tests. It does, however, seem that the sexes carry out these tests in different ways. In one example, where men and women perform equally well in a test that asks them to work out whether nonsense words rhyme, brain scanning shows that women use areas on both the right and the left sides of the brain to accomplish the task. Men, by contrast, use only areas on the left side. There is also a correlation between mathematical reasoning and temporal-lobe activity in men—but none in women. More generally, men seem to rely more on their grey matter for their IQ, whereas women rely more on their white matter.
American exceptionalism
The world's biggest insurance market is too splintered
KANSAS CITY, Missouri, is known more for its historical role as a cattle town than as a financial hub. But it is to this midwestern city, America's 26th largest, that regulators and insurance executives from around the globe head when they want to make sense of the world's largest—and one of its weirdest—insurance markets.
For it is in Kansas City that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is housed. It oversees a market
accounting for one-third of premiums written worldwide. Outside Kansas City, the market becomes a regulatory free-for-all. Each of America's 50 states, plus the District of Colombia, governs its insurance industry in its own way.
In an increasingly global insurance market, America's state-based system is coming under strong pressure to reform. Insurance has changed dramatically since the NAIC was set up in 1871, with growing sophistication in underwriting and risk management. Premiums in America have ballooned to $1.1 trillion and market power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of big players (some of them foreign-owned) that are pushing for an overhaul of the state-based system. “It's an extremely expensive and Byzantine process,” says Bob Hartwig, an economist with the Insurance Information Institute, a research group.
Though a fiercely political issue, congressional support for simplifying the system is gaining ground. Both houses of Congress are looking at proposals to change the state-based system. Big insurers favour a version that would implement an optional federal charter allowing them to bypass the state-bystate regulatory process if they choose. A similar system already exists for banks.
Proponents of the changes see more efficiency, an ability to roll out products more quickly nationally and, ultimately, better offerings for consumers as a result. Yet some consumer groups favour state-based regulation. They believe it keeps premiums lower than they otherwise would be. Premiums as a percentage of gross output are lower in America than in several other countries. The political headwinds are strong: insurance commissioners are elected officials in some states (California, for instance) and appointed by the governor in others. The industry is also split: most of the country's 4,500 insurers are small, and many of them have close ties with state-based regulators, whose survival they support. But even these forces may eventually be overcome. Elsewhere in the industry in America, there are other calls for reform. In a backdoor form of protectionism, American
reinsurance firms have long benefited from a regulation that requires foreign reinsurers writing cross-border business into America to post more collateral than they do. “If you operate outside the borders of the US, they don't trust you one inch,” laments Julian James, head of international business at Lloyd's of London, which writes 38% of its business in America.
The collateral requirement was established because of worries about regulatory standards abroad, and the financial strength of global reinsurers. Today regulatory standards have been tightened in many foreign markets. A majority of America's reinsurance cover now comes from firms based abroad, including many that have set up offshore in Bermuda (for tax reasons) primarily to serve America.
Too hot to handle
Dell's battery recall reveals the technology industry's vulnerabilities
THERE is the nail test, in which a team of engineers drives a large metal nail through a battery cell to see if it explodes. In another trial, laboratory technicians bake the batteries in an oven to simulate the effects of a digital device left in a closed car on a sweltering day—to check the reaction of the chemicals inside. On production runs, random batches of batteries are tested for temperature, efficiency, energy density and output.
But the rigorous processes that go into making sophisticated, rechargeable batteries—the heart of billions of electronic gadgets around the world—were not enough. On August 14th Dell, a computer company, said it would replace 4.1m lithium-ion batteries made by Sony, a consumer-electronics firm, in laptop computers sold between 2004 and last month. A handful of customers had reported the batteries overheating, catching fire and even exploding—including one celebrated case at a conference this year in Japan, which was captured on film and passed around the internet. The cost to the two companies is expected to be between $200m and $400m.
In some ways, Dell is a victim of its success. The company was a pioneer in turning the personal computer into a commodity, which meant squeezing suppliers to the last penny, using economies of scale by placing huge orders, and running efficient supply chains with little room for error. It all created a volatile environment in which mistakes can have grave effects.
Since lithium-ion batteries were introduced in 1991, their capacity to overheat and burst into flame has been well known. Indeed, in 2004 America banned them as cargo on passenger planes, as a fire hazard. But the latest problems seem to have arisen because of the manufacturing process, which demands perfection. “If there is even a nano-sized particle of dust, a small metal shard or water condensation that gets into the battery cell, it can overheat and explode,” says Sara Bradford of Frost & Sullivan, a consultancy. As the energy needs of devices have grown rapidly, so have the demands on batteries.
The computing industry's culture is also partly to blame. Firms have long tried to ship products as fast as they possibly can, and they may have set less store by quality. They used to mock the telecoms industry's ethos of “five-nines”—99.999% reliability—because it meant long product cycles. But now they are gradually accepting it as a benchmark. That is partly why Microsoft has taken so long to perfect its new operating system, Windows Vista.
Compared with other product crises, from contaminated Coca-Cola in 1999 to Firestone's faulty tyres in 2000, Dell can be
complimented for quickly taking charge of a hot situation. The firm says there were only six incidents of laptops overheating in America since December 2005—but the internet created a conflagration. Keeping the faith
Mixing religion and development raises soul-searching questions
WORLD Bank projects are usually free of words like “faith” and “soul.” Most of its missions speak the jargon of development: poverty reduction, aggregate growth and structural adjustments. But a small unit within the bank has been currying favour with religious groups, working to ease their suspicions and use their influence to further the bank's goals. In many developing countries, such groups have the best access to the people the bank is trying to help. The programme has existed for eight years, but this brainchild of the bank's previous president, James Wolfensohn, has spent the past year largely in limbo as his successor, Paul Wolfowitz, decides its future. Now, some religious leaders in the developing world are worried that the progress they have made with the bank may stall.
That progress has not always been easy. The programme, named the Development Dialogue on Values and Ethics, faced controversy from the start. Just as religious groups have struggled to work with the bank, many people on the inside doubted if the bank should be delving into the divine. Critics argued that religion could be divisive and political. Some said religion clashes with the secular goals of modernisation.
Although the bank does not lend directly to religious groups, it works with them to provide health, educational and other benefits, and receives direct input from those on the ground in poor countries. Katherine Marshall, director of the bank's faith unit, argues that such groups are in an ideal position to educate people, move resources and keep an eye on corruption. They are organised distribution systems in otherwise chaotic places. The programme has had success getting evangelical groups to fight
malaria in Mozambique, improve microcredit and water distribution in India, and educate people about AIDS in Africa. “We started from very different viewpoints. The World Bank is looking at the survival of a country, we look at the survival of a patient,” says Leonardo Palombi, of the Community of Sant'Egidio, an Italian church group that works in Africa.
Although the work continues, those involved in Mr Wolfensohn's former pet project now fret over its future. Some expect the faith unit to be transferred to an independent organisation also set up by Mr Wolfensohn, the World Faiths Development Dialogue, which will still maintain a link with the bank. Religious groups are hoping their voices will still be heard. “If we are going to make progress, faith institutions need to be involved. We believe religion has the ability to bring stability. It will be important for the bank to follow through,” says Agnes Abuom, of the World Council of Churches for Africa, based in Kenya.
Like religious groups, large institutions such as the bank can resist change. Economists and development experts are
sometimes slow to believe in new ideas. One positive by-product of the initiative is that religious groups once wary of the bank's intentions are less suspicious. Ultimately, as long as both economists and evangelists aim to help the poor attain a better life on earth, differences in opinion about the life hereafter do not matter much.
Stand and deliver
For the first time since the epidemic began, money to fight AIDS is in plentiful supply. It is
now time to convert words into action
KEVIN DE COCK, the World Health Organisation's AIDS supremo, is not a man to mince his words. He reckons that he and his colleagues in the global AIDS establishment have between five and seven years to make a real dent in the problem. If they fail, the world's attention span will be exhausted, charitable donors and governments will turn to other matters and AIDS will be relegated in the public consciousness to being yet another intractable problem of the poor world about which little or nothing can be done.
For now, though, the money is flowing. About $8.9 billion is expected to be available this year. And, regardless of Dr De Cock's long-term worries, that sum should rise over the next few years. Not surprisingly, a lot of people are eager to spend it.
Many of those people—some 24,000 of them—have been meeting in Toronto at the 16th International AIDS Conference. An AIDS conference is unlike any other scientific meeting. In part, it is a jamboree in which people try to out-do each other in displays of cultural inclusiveness: the music of six continents resonates around the convention centre. In part, it is a lightning conductor that allows AIDS activists to make their discontent known to the world in a series of semi-official protests. It is also what other
scientific meetings are, a forum for the presentation of papers with titles such as “Differing lymphocyte cytokine responses in HIV and Leishmania co-infection”. But mostly, it is a giant council of war. And at this one, the generals are trying to impose a complete change of military strategy.
When AIDS was discovered, there was no treatment. Existing anti-viral drugs were tried but at best they delayed the inevitable,
and at worst they failed completely. Prevention, then, was not merely better than cure, it was the only thing to talk about. Condoms were distributed. Posters were posted exhorting the advantages of safe sex. Television adverts were run that showed the consequences of carelessness.
Ten years ago, though, a new class of drugs known as protease inhibitors was developed. In combination with some of the older drugs, they produced what is now known as highly active anti-retroviral therapy or HAART. In most cases, HAART can prolong life indefinitely.
That completely changed the picture. Once the AIDS activists had treated themselves, they began to lobby for the poor world to be treated, too. And, with much foot-dragging, that is now happening. About 1.6m people in low- and middle-income countries, 1m of them in sub-Saharan Africa, are now receiving anti-AIDS drugs routinely. The intention, announced at last year's G8 meeting in Scotland, is that the drugs should be available by 2010 to all who would benefit from them.
However, those on drugs remain infected and require treatment indefinitely. To stop the epidemic requires a re-emphasis of prevention, and it is that which the organisers have been trying to do.
Man, deconstructed
The DNA that may have driven the evolution of the human brain
ONE of the benefits of knowing the complete genetic sequences of humans and other animals is that it becomes possible to compare these blueprints. You can then work out what separates man from beast—genetically speaking, at least.
The human brain sets man apart. About 2m years ago it began to grow in size, and today it is about three times larger than that of chimpanzees, man's closest relative. Human intelligence and behavioural complexity have far outstripped those of its simian cousins, so the human brain seems to have got more complex, as well as bigger. Yet no study has pinpointed the genetic changes that cause these differences between man and chimp.
Now a group of scientists believe they have located some interesting stretches of DNA that may have been crucial in the evolution of the human brain. A team led by David Haussler of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in California, compared the human genome with that of mammals including other primates. They reported the results in Nature.
The researchers looked at the non-human genomes first, seeking regions that had not changed much throughout evolutionary history. Regions that are untouched by normal random changes typically are important ones, and thus are conserved by evolution. Next the researchers found the equivalent regions in the human genome to see if any were very different between humans and chimps. Such a sudden change is a hallmark of a functional evolutionary shift.
They found 49 regions they dubbed “human accelerated regions” (HARs) that have shown a rapid, recent evolution. Most of these regions are not genes as commonly understood. This is because they code for something other than the proteins that are expressed in human cells and that regulate biological processes. A number of the HARs are portions of DNA that are responsible for turning genes on and off.
Intriguingly, the most rapidly changing region was HAR1, which has accumulated 18 genetic changes when only one would be expected to occur by chance. It codes for a bit of RNA (a molecule that usually acts as a template for translating DNA into protein) that, it is speculated, has some direct function in neuronal development.
HAR1 is expressed before birth in the developing neocortex—the outer layer of the brain that seems to be involved in higher functions such as language, conscious thought and sensory perception. HAR1 is expressed in cells that are thought to have a vital role in directing migrating nerve cells in the developing brain. This happens at seven to 19 weeks of gestation, a crucial time when many of the nerve cells are establishing their functions.
Without more research, the function of HAR1 remains mere speculation. But an intriguing facet of this work is that, until now, most researchers had focused their hunt for differences on the protein-coding stretches of the genome. That such a discovery has been made in what was regarded as the less interesting parts of the human genome is a presage of where exciting genomic finds may lie in the future.
Keeping it real
How to make digital photography more trustworthy
PHOTOGRAPHY often blurs the distinction between art and reality. Modern technology has made that blurring easier. In the digital darkroom photographers can manipulate images and threaten the integrity of endeavours that rely on them. Several
journalists have been fired for such activity in recent months, including one from Reuters for faking pictures in Lebanon. Earlier this year, the investigation into Hwang Woo-suk showed the South Korean scientist had changed images purporting to show
cloning. In an effort to reel in photography, camera-makers are making it more obvious when images have been altered.
One way of doing this is to use image-authentication systems to reveal if someone has tampered with a picture. These use computer programs to generate a code from the very data that comprise the image. As the picture is captured, the code is attached to it. When the image is viewed, software determines the code for the image and compares it with the attached code. If the image has been altered, the codes will not match, revealing the doctoring.
Another way favoured by manufacturers is to take a piece of data from the image and assign it a secret code. Once the image file is transferred to a computer, it is given the same code, which will change if it is edited. The codes will match if the image is authentic but will be inconsistent if tampering occurred.
The algorithm is the weapon of choice for Hany Farid, a computer scientist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Digital images have natural statistical patterns in the intensity and texture of their pixels. These patterns change when the picture is manipulated. Dr Farid's algorithms detect these changes, and can tell if pixels have been duplicated or removed. They also try to detect if noise—the overexposed pixels within the image that create a grainy effect—was present at the time the photograph was taken or has been added later.
However, forgers have become adept at printing and rescanning images, thus creating a new original. In such cases, analysing how three-dimensional elements interact is key. Long shadows at midday are a giveaway. Even the tiny reflections in the centre of a person's pupil tell you about the surrounding light source. So Dr Farid analyses shadows and lighting to see if subjects and surroundings are consistent.
For its part, Adobe, the maker of Photoshop software, has improved its ability to record the changes made to an image by logging how and when each tool or filter was used. Photoshop was the program used by the journalist fired by Reuters; his
handiwork left a pattern in the smoke he had added that was spotted by bloggers. Thus far the internet has proven an effective check on digital forgery. Although it allows potentially fake images to be disseminated widely, it also casts many more critical eyes upon them. Sometimes the best scrutiny is simply more people looking.
Collateral damage
Why the war in Iraq is surprisingly bad news for America's defence firms
WHEN Boeing announced on August 18th that it planned to shut down production of the C-17, a huge military cargo plane, the news sent a shiver through the American defence industry. As it winds down its production line at Long Beach, California, over the next two years, Boeing will soon begin to notify suppliers that their services will no longer be needed. It had to call a halt, because orders from America's Defence Department had dried up and a trickle of export deals could not take their place. The company would not support the cost of running the production line for the C-17 (once one of its biggest-selling aircraft) on the off-chance that the Pentagon might change its mind and place further orders.
The wider worry for the defence industry is that this could be the first of many big programmes to be shut down. A big part of the problem is that America is at war. The need to find an extra $100 billion a year to pay for operations in Iraq means there is pressure to make cuts in the defence budget, which has been provisionally set at $441 billion for the fiscal year beginning in October. American defence budgets involve a complicated dance starting with what the Pentagon wants, what the White House thinks it should get and, finally, what Congress allows it to get away with. Although the armed forces' extra spending on
ammunition, fuel, provisions, medicines and accommodation in Iraq does not strictly come out of the same budget as new weapons, the heavy bill for fighting eventually leads to calls to save money on shiny new equipment.
Earlier this month, for example, the Congressional Budget Office expressed “major concerns” about Future Combat Systems, a $165 billion project to upgrade all of the army's vehicles and communications networks. The scheme is the Pentagon's second-biggest development programme and is intended to give the soldiers on the ground access to real-time battlefield
information from sources such as satellites and unmanned aircraft. But the programme was initially expected to cost about $82 billion, half the latest estimate, and critics are also worried about how well it will work and whether it will be delivered on time. Last week the army issued a glowing progress report on the project and insisted that Boeing and Science Applications
International Corporation, the lead contractors, are on schedule. This was welcome news to defence contractors worried that the grandiose project might fall victim to pressure for budget cuts. Even so, the prospects for many other big weapons programmes are less rosy.
The problem is not just the cost of the fighting in Iraq, but also its nature. The shift in the style of warfare, towards such
“asymmetric” conflicts, means that there is now less demand for big-ticket weapons systems. Things were simpler in the cold war, when the Pentagon spent about $150 billion a year on new weapons. That fell to around $50 billion after the fall of the Berlin Wall.