On the non-reading of books by Americans

February 15, 2017 • 11:00 am

I’ve long heard the claim that the average American reads less than one book a year, but a Pew Poll released last November shows that that’s not accurate—in two ways. First, as I note below, the concept of “books read by the average American” isn’t accurate, as the concept of “the average American” is meaningless on this issue. More important, that figure is in fact an underestimate, for 74% of American have read at least one book in the year preceding the survey, and the median value among Americans is four books per year (the median is the number of books read that is exceeded by half the population, and not achieved by the other half; in other words, it’s the number of books read that divides the population into equal moieties). The mean, as I show below, is much higher than that.

The full report (based on phone surveys of 1,520 adults age 18 or over) is here, but the general results are shown in the following figure:

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The data above are for at least one book, but the full report gives the median values:

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In the Appendix you can see that the mean (average) number of books is much higher than the median, which means one thing: a few Americans read a lot of books while many more American read few books. The disparity is large, with the mean being roughly three times higher than the median:

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The upshot:

  • Women read more than men
  • Blacks and Hispanics read less than non-Hispanic whites
  • Young people read more than older people (I suspect that some of this reading is assigned for school)
  • As expected, the amount of reading goes up with level of education, as it does with income (they did not, as far as I know, remove the cross-correlation of these factors, or with ethnicity and education)
  • Urban dwellers are more likely to have read at least one book, but don’t differ from the suburban or rural population in the median number of books read.

Finally, despite the wider availability of e-books and audiobooks in recent years, American’s still prefer to read paper books than the other two types, though the number who have read e-books and audiobooks has grown in the past five years.  But the number who have read at least one book in paper, or in any format, has remained fairly constant.

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I don’t have much to say about that; four books a year seems like a decent amount, though I’m sure many of us read a lot more than that.

In the end, the question, “how many books does the average American read” can’t be answered meaningfully because “the average American”, whoever that is, is not at issue. One meaningful answer is this: the average number of books read by an American is 12. But even that misses a lot of the information, for given the skew in the number of books read per year, which must look something like what’s below, another important result is this: far more than half of all Americans read fewer than 12 books.

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In a “right skewed” distribution, like this, the mean exceeds the median. This would be the kind of plot you’d get if you put “number of books read” on the X-axis and “number of Americans reading each number of books” on the Y-axis

h/t: Grania

Poor Nemo!

February 15, 2017 • 10:00 am

by Matthew Cobb

Here’s a gorgeous photo of clownfish, which just won the photographer, Qin Ling of Canada, an award in the Behaviour category at the Underwater Photographer of the Year competition (click to enlarge) – you can see all the winners here.

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Ling’s photo is entitled ‘Your home and my home’. Look closely at these Nemos. Look at their mouths. Those little eyes peeking out. They are not drawn on, as PCC(E) first suggested, nor are they Photoshopped. And they are not babies. They are isopods (like pillbugs or woodlice), which are parasitic. They eat the fish’s tongue, and then replace it, sitting in there, presumably getting first dibs on the food as it comes in. They occasionally turn up on people’s dinner plates when folk order fish and get a crustacean chaser.

The photography judge said:  “Six eyes all in pin-sharp focus, looking into the lens of the author … this was one of my favourite shots of the entire competition.”

Isn’t nature wonderful?

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JAC: Let me add two references and two videos.  You can read Carl Zimmer’s take on these parasites at National Geographic, or Wikipedia’s entry on Cymothoa exigua, the “tongue-eating louse,” which appears to be the only species that does this.

Here’s a video, which has only one photograph:

Here’s another video with photos; it claims that this is the only case in which one organism replaces another organism’s body part:

Four Republicans propose a bill to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency

February 15, 2017 • 9:00 am

Well, it’s been only about three weeks since the Trumpster took office, and if it wasn’t our country at stake, American politics would constitute a humorous soap opera. Already we’ve had the Failed Mexican-Financed Wall, the overturned immigration orders, the realization that it won’t be so easy after all to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, Nordstromgate (with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics now asking the White House to investigate Kellyanne Conway for telling people to “go buy Ivanka’s stuff”), the resignation of national security advisor Michael Flynn, the new revelation that Trump aides had repeated contact with senior Russian intelligence officials before the election, the criticism of Trump’s attitude to the judiciary by his own nominee for the Supreme Court, the conversion of the Mar-a-Lago Club’s terrace into a national security venue, complete with confidential information open to onlookers, and so on. And it hasn’t even been a month! What will it be like after four years???

And that’s just the administration. The legislature, emboldened by victory, is also up to no good, and one of their dumbest feats to date is the proposal, on February 3, of a House bill to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. Yes, you heard me right. Here’s the entire short bill:

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It was introduced by Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, who had the temerity to put a “black is white” post about it on his Facebook page:

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Gaetz’s partners in crime (all Republicans, of course, and all from the South) are the bill’s cosponsors: Barry Loudermilk (Georgia), Thomas Massie (Kentucky), and Steven Palazzo (Mississsippi). All have abysmal stands on the environment, and some have been vocal critics of the EPA. NBC News gives more information on these representatives, but also reassures us that the bill has virtually no chance of passing, especially since a similar bill  (though not as draconian) was introduced six years ago. (Go here to see other reasons why it won’t pass.)

While some conservatives are praising the proposal, the legislation has little chance of getting through both chambers of Congress.

“It’s hard to imagine Congress being willing to do so, and the American public would almost certainly virulently oppose such a move,” Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles Law School, told Bloomberg BNA in March.

Since its creation in 1970 under President Richard Nixon, the EPA has grown into an agency with an $8 billion fund. And throughout its history, politicians have called to end the EPA both on the campaign trail and through legislation.

Six years ago, Sen. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, introduced a bill with 15 co-sponsors to consolidate the Energy Department and the EPA, but the proposal never made it through the Senate. And earlier that year, as a 2012 presidential candidate, New Gingrich proposed abolishing the agency, as well

I’m not worried that this bill will pass, as it’s unthinkable to get rid of an agency like this (of course with Trump the unthinkable has become thinkable), but it’s symptomatic of the follies that have now become licensed with the Chief Clown as President.

Readers’ wildlife photos

February 15, 2017 • 7:30 am

Reader Cameron Way of Fort Collins, Colorado sent a passel of photos that, he said, depicted “playing” in his backyard. He identifies them as fox squirrels (Sciurus niger), but isn’t sure.

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When I asked him if they were playing or fighting, he responded, “I don’t know if they were fighting, but there was a lot of this, also,” and sent two more pictures. Now I have no idea if this is mock copulation between two same-sex squirrels, real copulation, or simply a wrestling hold, but it seems that it wasn’t merely playing. It could have been “practicing.”

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Wednesday: Hili dialogue

February 15, 2017 • 6:30 am

Good morning on Wednesday February 15, 2017. It should be National Leftover Candy day, but it’s actually National Gumdrop Day and National Chewing Gum Day. It’s also National Flag Day of Canada, celebrating the adoption of its current flag in 1965:

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O Canada!

And can somebody tell me why the hockey team is called the “Maple Leafs” rather than the “Maple Leaves”?

On this day in 1923, Greece became the last country in Europe to adopt the Gregorian calendar. In 1946 ENIAC, described by Wikipedia as “the first electronic general-purpose computer” was “formally dedicated” at The University of Pennsylvania—whatever it means to dedicate a computer. (Did they break a bottle of champagne on it?) On February 15, 1971, British coins became decimalized, and, in 2001, the journal Nature published the first draft of the human genome. A Nobel Prize has not been awarded for that achievement.

Notables born on this day include Galileo (1564) and Jeremy Bentham (1748). Bentham’s real mummified head and skeleton, the latter dressed up in his clothes and sitting in a chair (with a wax replica head), are still preserved at University College London; see photo below.

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Jeremy Bentham’s head

Also born on this day were Susan B. Anthony (1820), Ernest Shackleton (1874), Art Spiegelmann (1948), and Matt Groening (1954). I highly recommend reading Spiegelmann’s Maus, a graphic novel using animals (mice, pigs and cats) to illustrate the Holocaust. It is a fantastic novel/artwork, and was the first such book to win a Pulitzer Prize (1992). This year is the 25th anniversary of the book, and you can buy a special edition at Amazon by clicking the screenshot below:

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Those who died on this day include Nat King Cole (1965), Mike Bloomfield (1981), Richard Feynman (1988), Martha Gellhorn (1998), and Howard K. Smith (2002). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili insists that the loving she gets from everyone is merely her due (below she’s getting fusses from Marta, Elzbieta’s daughter):

Marta: Hili, admit that you’re spoiled by everybody.
Hili: I will not admit it.
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In Polish:
Marta: Przyznaj, Hili, że jesteś przez wszystkich rozpuszczana.
Hili: Nie przyznam.

Out in frigid Winnipeg, Gus got a Valentine: a special arrangement of the crunchy, smelly dried shrimp that he loves so much. Here’s a video of him nomming his Valentine:

And here’s a new Simon’s Cat, just up yesterday for Valentine’s Day. It depicts the love between cat and staff:

A baby elephant’s first steps

February 14, 2017 • 2:30 pm

I don’t know much about these videos except that they’re of African elephants (probably the bush elephant, Loxodontia africana). This one shows a baby elephant’s first halting steps, accompanied by loud complaining. Notice how both adults try to help it up.

. . . and a 10-minute video of an elephant giving birth and the baby’s arrival. Notice how, still covered with the birth membrane, it’s immediately surrounded by adults, no doubt to protect it from predators. They try to help it up, and constantly examine it with their trunks. And, lo and behold, it’s alive and it gets up!

Happy Valentine’s Day!