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Upcoming Events
September 12 PLEASE NOTE TUESDAY MEETING TIME Lunch Colloquium-
Benjamin Reiss
September 12 PLEASE NOTE TUESDAY MEETING TIME WEBCAST - Lunch Colloquium - Benjamin Reiss
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find out about a travel destination or find other EUEC members who would like to travel with you, send an email to:
Find other members to get together for shared interests, whether it is forming a book club or a photography club, or getting together to take a hike. Send email to the following link to contact member who would like the same activity!
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This issue of our newsletter is sent to members and friends of the Emory University Emeritus College (EUEC). I hope the newsletter will help keep you informed about our activities and help you feel connected with our members throughout the U.S. On the left are links to our website and links to contact either me or the EUEC office.
With best wishes,
Gray
Gray F. Crouse Director, EUEC
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 Message from the Director
We had a great end to this academic year's Lunch Colloquiums: a full house and a fascinating talk on polling during last year's election. Donna Brogan is not a political scientist, but she understands surveys and she understands statistics, and she helped us all understand how political polling works (and doesn't work). The report in this issue gives a good overview of her talk, but she presented so much interesting information that it is well worth watching the recording of her presentation. We don't have any Lunch Colloquiums in August, but we have a full lineup for the fall, with the first Lunch Colloquium on Tuesday, September 12. (Because of room availability at the Luce in the fall, two of our Colloquiums will be on Tuesday instead of Monday. We are hoping the change of day will not be a problem for most of you.) Information about that talk will be in the next newsletter. Those of you who attended Craig Hill's Lunch Colloquium heard Stewart Roberts mention a book he was reading on climate change. He has a report on that book in this issue. We also celebrate a new member, Carl Holladay, and the upcoming publication of EUEC Member Howard Kushner's new book. Howard is one of our "distant" members, as he is currently residing in San Diego. I told him we would like to hear about his new work and he replied "Would love to give a talk to Emory Emeritus College--esp because all of my work on this book was done at Emory and with Emory support. Will let you know when I am next in Atlanta." Here's hoping!
I am very grateful to John Bugge, Herb Benario, and Gretchen Schulz for help with proofing and editing.
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Lunch Colloquium July 24
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New Members
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Faculty Activities
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DRAWDOWN: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, edited by Paul Hawken.
The New York Times recently reported that 40% of global warming since 1750 has occurred after 1990. A floating glacier the size of the state of Delaware has just separated from the land-based glacier of Antarctica. Should land-based glaciers follow this now open path, the seas will rise. DRAWDOWN is a collection of sustainable practices from all over the world. It is the most important book I have ever read. Hawken is an environmentalist who has edited the work of some 200 climate scientists, a peer-reviewed collection of 100 topics, gathered under eight master headings: ENERGY (19), FOOD (18), WOMEN & GIRLS (3), BUILDINGS & CITIES (14), LAND USE (11), TRANSPORT (11), MATERIALS (7), and COMING ATTRACTIONS (22).
The 100 topics are ranked in order of reduced atmospheric CO2, should the proposed recommendations be implemented. Net costs and lifetime savings by 2050 are projected.
A sample ranking of CO 2 savings by 2050 include: Refrigerant Management (1), Rooftop Solar (10), Tree Cropping (17), Wind Turbines - Offshore (22), Electric Vehicles (26), Insulation (31), Ships (32), LED Lighting - Households (33), LED Lighting - Commercial (44), Improved Rice Cultivation (48), Coastal Wet Lands (52), Bike Infrastructure (59), Telepresence (63), Water Distribution (71), Ride Sharing (75), and Grid Flexibility (77). If 40% of global warming has occurred since 1990, is it not imperative to reduce atmospheric CO 2 over the next 30 years? The earth is now leaving the fossil fuel era and entering the sustainable energy era. DRAWDOWN is your guide. DRAWDOWN is an 8 x 10 inch soft-cover book with many beautiful photographs, small print, brief biographical sketches of the contributors, and an index within its 240 pages. It costs $22.00 from your independent bookstore, or $13 plus $4 mailing from Amazon. Stewart R. Roberts, Jr., M.D.
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Walking the Campus with Dianne
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Lunch Colloquium July 24
Why the 2016 U.S. Presidential Polls Were "Wrong": Implications for Future Polling
Donna Brogan, Professor of Biostatistics Emerita, Rollins School of Public Health
On July 24th, in the final Lunch Colloquium of the summer schedule, a record crowd of fifty-five members of the Emeritus College (and family and friends) gathered at the Luce Center to hear Donna Brogan, Professor of Biostatistics Emerita, address a topic that clearly had enormous appeal, "Why the 2016 U.S. Presidential Polls Were 'Wrong': Implications for Future Polling." As the promo for the presentation had said she would, she "focused on postmortems among professionals who work in sample survey methodology, the area of her own particular expertise," "sharing and explaining the results of a report the AAPOR (American Association for Public Opinion Research) published in May on their review and assessment of the polls." In writing up some comments on the presentation, EUEC member Phil Tonne well expressed the appreciation of Donna's "scholar's view" of the perplexities of polling that all present seemed to experience, as well. "She showed how polls are set up and discussed their inherent difficulties." And she showed how such inherent difficulties were exacerbated by problems with the polling in the battleground states that finally gave the election to Trump, especially the failure by most pollsters in those states to adjust their results for the number of college-educated people polled, people who were more likely to participate in a poll and who were also more likely to prefer Clinton to Trump. The skewed results of those polls--which pretty consistently showed Clinton leading Trump by 3% or 4%--were further skewed by reports that overemphasized the significance of the results. As Phil put it in his comments, "Clinton's 47% to 43% lead seemed big but this neglected the statistical margin of error." As Donna explained, the usual margin of error is 3% or 4%, and journalists who wrote or spoke about Clinton's "lead" without clarifying that fact left their readers and viewers confused about the validity of the stats. Then, too, this was an election in which there was a high incidence of "late change in voter preference." As Donna put it, and as Phil put it summing up her remarks, "many disliked both candidates," only deciding on one or the other "at the last minute." And even among those who'd decided earlier whom they would vote for, "there were people who were reluctant to admit that they favored Mr. Trump." Pollsters' results were skewed by these phenomena, too. Donna closed by pointing out that--given the difficulties that always plague polling, plus those that plagued this pre-election polling in particular--the results weren't as far off as they might have been. The popular vote did end up with Clinton in the lead by 2.9 million votes. And that may not be a 3% to 4% lead, but it's a lead of more than 2%. Also as we all know, the electoral vote was determined by very small margins in many of the battleground states. Phil's report closed by reminding us of Donna's final PowerPoint slide, the one quoting a bumper sticker she saw around the time of the election and hasn't been able to forget since: "For once, I'd like to vote for the greater of two goods." We hear that. Maybe next time.
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New Members
New members are the lifeblood of any organization. Please make a special effort to welcome them to EUEC!
In transition:
Carl R. Holladay, PhD, Charles Howard Candler Professor of New Testament Click here to return to top
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Howard I. Kushner
Nat C. Robertson Distinguished Professor of Science & Society Emeritus
EUEC Member (and current San Diego resident) Howard Kushner writes to let us know that his new book on left-handedness, On the Other Hand: Left Hand, Right Brain, Mental Disorder and History, will be published by Johns Hopkins University Press to be released on 9 September. Information on the JHU Press website states about the book:
Since the late Stone Age, approximately 10 percent of humans have been left-handed, yet for most of human history left-handedness has been stigmatized. In On the Other Hand, Howard I. Kushner traces the impact of left-handedness on human cognition, behavior, culture, and health.
A left-hander himself, Kushner has long been interested in the meanings associated with left-handedness, and ultimately with whether hand preference can even be defined in a significant way. As he explores the medical and cultural history of left-handedness, Kushner describes the associated taboos, rituals, and stigmas from around the globe. The words "left" and "left hand" have negative connotations in all languages, and left-handers have even historically been viewed as disabled.
In this comprehensive history of left-handedness, Kushner asks why left-handedness exists. He examines the relationship--if any--between handedness, linguistics, and learning disabilities, reveals how toleration of left-handedness serves as a barometer of wider cultural toleration and permissiveness, and wonders why the reported number of left-handers is significantly lower in Asia and Africa than in the West. Written in a lively style that mixes personal biography with scholarly research, On the Other Hand tells a comprehensive story about the science, traditions, and prejudices surrounding left-handedness.
Many EUEC members may remember Howard's presentation on left-handedness in a Colloquium of November 2013. Those who wish to know more can order the book from the JHU website at a 20% discount by using code HTWN. |
Walking the campus with Dianne
Did you feel a bit cooler looking at our last photo? And did you figure out where we were? It was Beckham Grove, and it is located between the Woodruff Library and Candler Library and across from the back entrance of the hospital. It is a lovely little spot on campus to read, have a chat with someone, people watch, or simply relax and listen to the gentle sounds of the fountains. I've supplied more photos below showing you more of the area.
According to Emory's website:
A quiet green space is named in honor of the long Emory legacy of the Beckham family, whose first Emory connection was through Robert Young Beckham, an Emory College student after the Civil War. Other family members with Emory connections include Walter Beckham, Jr., a 1999 Emory Medal recipient, and Walter Beckham III, a member of the DVS Senior Society.
Now that we've cooled off a bit, for our next walk let's have a different look at a place that should be familiar to a lot of our members.
Where will you find this on the Emory campus?
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Emory University Emeritus College The Luce Center
825 Houston Mill Road NE #206 Atlanta, GA 30329 |
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