Passport Ownership Cures Diabetes (Analytic Traps)

(A big tip of the hat to Allen Thomson for this one!  Besides having an obviously  keen eye for learning opportunities, Allen is known for his exhaustive source documents typically hosted on the Federation Of American Scientists website.  You can see some of his work on the Israeli Strike on Syria, the allegations of cooperation between Burma (Myanmar) and North Korea or even his source report on the Russian Okno and Krona space surveillance systems by clicking on the links.  Note:  These are sizable reports and may take some time to download but are definitely worth it.)


Check out the two maps on the right.

It proves conclusively that passport ownership is a cheap and easy cure for diabetes, right?  I mean, look at the maps!  There is almost a perfect correlation between the so-called "diabetes belt" in the south and the lack of ownership of passports in the same region.  Increase the number of passport holders and the diabetes epidemic is over! 

If you have ever heard the classic scientific warning that "correlation does not imply causation" and did not understand what that saying meant, this is a perfect example.  Just because two things are happening at the same time does not necessarily mean that one caused the other.

Analysts typically spring this trap when the connection is not as obviously flawed as it is in this case.  The human mind is extremely good at seeing patterns -- even when they are not there.

Does correlation never indicate causation?  No, that is clearly false as well.   In fact, correlation is a necessary condition for causation -- necessary but not sufficient. 

The best way to expose this trap appears to be to imagine the counterfactual.  In the case above, imagine what it would be like if all those southerners actually had passports.  Would that, in turn, reduce any of the known risk factors for diabetes?  Unlikely.  It would appear to be merely a coincidence.

Should the analyst just discard the evidence at this point?  The answer is "No" once again.  Kicking back and pondering why this apparent coincidence exists might well yield new insights into diabetes or passport ownership or both.  Even if such thinking might not seem too valuable now, who knows what the future will bring? 

In case you need another example, consider the third chart which shows the rise in global average temperature over time as a function of the number of pirates.  Clearly, global warming is caused by the decrease in the number of pirates. 

For those of you who find this argument particularly compelling despite what I have written, I would remind you that "Talk Like A Pirate Day" is September 19th of each year where you, too, can do your part for the environment...

New Thinking On How AFRICOM Can Help Increase Stability (Strategic Studies Institute)

The Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute has just published what I think is an extremely interesting and insightful monograph about the kinds of engagement activities AFRICOM needs to consider in order to help increase stability in sub-Saharan Africa.

Titled, "Civilian Skills for African Military Officers to Resolve the Infrastructure, Economic Development, and Stability Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa," and authored by Diane Chido, this 56 page monograph contains "a good bit of good thinking" and should be required reading for anyone in the defense cooperation, defense partnership or security assistance communities that support African missions.  

Intelligence professionals should find this volume interesting as well for its exploration, in case-study format, of previous stability efforts in Africa.  The author highlights a number of indicators that probably aren't normally considered but seem to be highly relevant to any peacekeeping and stability operations in which the US might participate in Africa.

It is free to download here.  Worth checking out. 

(Full disclosure:  Diane is a friend and frequent co-author of mine.  I had nothing to do with this monograph, however (she wouldn't even let me see a draft...).  I first took a look at it today and was, as I usually am, impressed with her grasp of the issue and the quality of her recommendations.  As someone who spent several years working defense cooperation issues, I think she has hit the nail on the head.  While I may be biased, I still think that, if you work African issues at all, you owe it to yourself to read this book.)

"Gamification" And What It Means For Intelligence (NewScientist.com)

"Gamification" is a neologism that highlights the increasing tendency to add game-like qualities to serious or mundane tasks in order increase participation or, in the context of education, learning. 

A recent issue of The New Scientist, one of my favorite science magazines, contained a feature article on the trend and produced the nifty video below to explain the phenomena:




I accept the premise that gamification is a hot trend everywhere but recent reporting and my own research suggest that game-based learning has an important role in educating the next generation of intelligence professionals.

In the first place -- if we are honest with ourselves -- gamification of serious or mundane tasks has been around for quite some time now. I have been able to reliably trace the general trend back to at least 1964 (see the first ten seconds of this video) and it probably goes back much further.

This is true in intelligence as well.  Some of the classic cliches of intelligence, such as "connect the dots" and "put the pieces of the puzzle together" are game references.  Furthermore, to the extent that Kriegspiel has an intel component to it, you can push the date back to at least 1812.

Second, and despite the recent press coverage, I don't want to sound all pollyanna-ish about game-based learning. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that this pedagogical approach has its own challenges.

Many educators think like I thought at this time last year:  Games = attention and attention = learning. While capturing the attention of students remains one of the most important yet increasingly difficult elements of teaching, the idea that games = attention deserves some "tweaking".

To begin with, a game is not really a game unless the players enter into it voluntarily. Jane McGonigal in her new book, Reality Is Broken, talks about games as "voluntary attempts to overcome unnecessary obstacles."

In my mind, "voluntary" is the operative word here and voluntarism comes in degrees.  At one end of the spectrum, you have the passionate volunteer.  For this person, playing a game as a way of learning is a real pleasure.   In fact, if this passionate volunteer has played the game many times, they may have already sucked all of the learning out of it but not be aware of that fact because most of the lessons have been taught implicitly.

At the other end of the spectrum lies the person who hates a particular game or type of game.  Getting these aggressively indifferent players ("apathetes"?) to volunteer to play a game, no matter how tangible the benefits, is going to be difficult.  I often use the example of trying to get a 6th grade boy to play a Barbie-themed math game.  It might work, but I wouldn't count on it...

As a professor, I can adjust the level of voluntarism to some degree ("Would you rather hear me lecture or play a game?") but unless I am linking this new sense of voluntarism to an intrinsic motivation on the part of the student, I don't think I am necessarily increasing the learning. 

The focus, then, for game based learning initiatives (both inside and outside the intel community) needs to be as much on the motivations for playing a game as it is on the game itself.  As IARPA kicks off its SIRIUS program next week (with the goal of creating "Serious Games to train participants and measure their proficiency in recognizing and mitigating the cognitive biases that commonly affect all types of intelligence analysis") this is going to be at the top of my mind.

Previous Posts on this Topic:  Teaching Strategic Intelligence Through Games

Mercyhurst Intel Program Growing Again! New Faculty, New Building! (Shameless Self-promotion)

These are heady times on the shores of Lake Erie!  Within the next six months, we are set to hire at least two new full time faculty members and to break ground on a new building to house (among others) the Intelligence Studies Department and the Center For Intelligence Research Analysis And Training.

As for the faculty, we are currently looking to hire two new full time professors for next year.  For more information about the positions, the Chronicle of Higher Education has the complete details.  For anyone interested in the program, I recommend www.mciis.org, or in the college, I recommend www.mercyhurst.edu.  For those interested in (or nervous about) Erie, I recommend this amazing post.

Those of you who have made the pilgrimage to Mercyhurst know that we are bursting at the seams in our current digs.  The new building will not only give us room to stretch our legs in a state-of-the-art facility but also allow us to more easily interact with the faculty and students of other departments -- an opportunity that I think we all are excited about. 

The latest sketch of the new building is in the picture above.  For those of you familiar with the campus, the building is set to be north and east of the library in the very front of the campus.  The bridge on the third floor (visible in this picture) will connect the new building to the library.  The funding for the basic version of the building, as I understand it, is largely complete.  We are now looking for some generous donors to make it even more awesome...

So, students, parents, alumni and friends of the program, what do you think?  Leave a note in the comments!

Spot Report From The Future: North Korea Has 10% Chance To Take, Hold Seoul

An example of starting positions for DMZ.

Last week was Battle Week in my Strategic Intelligence class.  Using DMZ, Decision Games recently released tabletop wargame that simulates an invasion of South Korea by North Korean forces sometime in the near future, my 20 students duked it out over the Taebaeck Mountains and Cheorwon River Valley for nearly four hours. 

The results?  The rules give a "win" to the North Koreans if they can take and hold Seoul.  Those same rules call it a draw if North Korean forces can take Seoul but not hold it.  In the 10 games we played, the North Koreans were only able to take and hold Seoul once while they managed 2 draws.

Obviously, the purpose of this exercise was not to predict the future.  I wanted to get my students to think about strategy and the impact of intelligence on strategy.    In order to encourage this kind of thinking, I had them outline what they thought their opponent's strategy would be and then detail their own strategy before they began the game  

At the end of the game, I also asked them to consider how well they had been able to estimate their opponent's strategy and how well they had executed their own strategy.  

While I am still crunching all this data, one of the most interesting results came out of my students' predictions about the outcome.  I wanted to know which side the students' thought would win.  I also wanted to check for bias so I asked this question two different ways.

First, I asked who would win, "me" (the student filling out the survey) or "my opponent" (the student they were playing against)?  Only three of the 10 North Korean players predicted victory while none of the South Korean players predicted a North Korean victory.

Next, I asked, out of the 10 games to be played, how many times would the North Koreans win?  While the range was from 1 to 4, the average was 2.25 games.

While the level of understanding of the game and the rules varied among the players, if I give a half point to a draw (which I am inclined to do...), both the individual predicted average and the collective average indicates a high degree of calibration on the part of these student analysts -- an encouraging result, for me, at least. 

I will post more as I develop it but leave a comment if you have a specific question.