Some thoughts on probability, decision theory, statistical inference…and finally Inductive Reasoning…Part I : How Logicians think about Reasoning

Logic.  It is about good and bad reasoning. Logicians have given precise meanings to some ordinary words, in this first part of my blog dealing with some concepts of probability, statistical inference, decision theory and maybe even “some” inductive reasoning, I review the language of logicians dealing with reasoning…only the examples are original in my blog, the theory is based on Probability and Inductive Logic by Ian Hacking. I give the following title to this blog..

Some thoughts on probability, decision theory, statistical inference…and finally Inductive Reasoning…

Part I of this blog is on: How Logicians think about Reasoning….The theory is borrowed, but the examples are original…

Arguments

Logicians mean by an argument a point or series of reasons presented to support a proposition which is the conclusion of the argument.

An argument thus divides up into:

A point or series of reasons which are called premises,

And a conclusion.

Premises and conclusions are propositions, statements that can be either true or false.

Going wrong: The premises are supposed to be reasons for the conclusion. Logic tries to understand the idea of a good reason.

We find arguments convincing when the premises are true, and when we see that they give a good reason for the conclusion.

Two things can go wrong with an argument

·       The premises may be  false.

·       The premises may not provide a good reason for the conclusion.

The premises could be true and the conclusion false, for any number of reasons.(suppose the premise 1 is, if you love me you will sit on your haunches for one hour in class tomorrow. Premise 2 is-you will sit on your haunches for one hour tomorrow, Conclusion is-You love me, but conclusion could be wrong because of the following reason-you sit on your haunches for one hour because *you are given a punishment to that effect by your teacher!!!)

A fallacy is an error in reasoning that is so common that logicians have noted it. Sometimes they give it a name…affirming the consequent..In this fallacy we “affirm” the consequent..

Premise 1-If you love me, you will sit on your haunches Premise 2…you sit on your haunches…Conclusion…you love me.

It is a fallacy to affirm the antecedent..you love me from the consequent you will sit on your haunches..

There are two basic ways to criticise an argument:

#1Challenge the premises-show that at least one is false.

#2Challenge the reasoning-show that the premises are not a good reason for the conclusion.

So we can illustrate #1,  you might question the first premise if sitting on your haunches is a part of your exercise routine, you might also question the second premise…you call that sitting on your haunches???!

#2 Is illustrated by *

Logic is concerned with only reasoning. It cannot in general tell whether premises are true or false. It can only tell whether the reasoning is good or bad.

If the premises that if you love me you sit on your haunches; you sit on your haunches, but the conclusion that you love me is not true, that is an invalid argument…you can sit on your haunches for many reasons…so you don’t necessarily love me…

In logic:

Propositions are true or false

Arguments are valid or invalid…

Now consider this “if-then” proposition…

If every Nepali is Hindu

Manisha is a Nepali

Manisha is Hindu.

To every argument there is a corresponding conditional proposition “if-then” An argument is valid if and only if the corresponding conditional proposition is a truth of logic.

There are many ways to suggest the idea of validity:

The conclusion follows from the premises.

Whenever the premises are true, the conclusion must be true too.

The conclusion is a logical consequence of the premises.

The conclusion is implicitly contained in the premises.

 

Valid argument forms are truth preserving.

“Truth preserving” means that whenever you start with true premises, you will end up with a true conclusion.

When you reason from true premises using a valid argument, you never risk drawing a false conclusion.

Valid arguments are risk-free arguments.

 

WE say an argument is sound when: all the premises are true, and the argument is valid.

Thus an argument may be unsound because:

A premise is false.

The argument is invalid.

Validity has to do with the logical connection between premises and conclusion, and not with the truth of the premises or conclusion.

Soundness for deductive logic has to do with both validity and the truth of the premises.

Validity is not truth:A valid argument can have a false premises but a true conclusion.

 

Every shot that reaches the boundary is a four.

This shot reached the boundary on one bounce.

This shot was a four.

The first premise was false..the shot can be a six….

An invalid argument can have true premises, true conclusion.

This batsman always reaches his century with a six

This batsman hit a six

This batsman has reached his century…

invalid arguement…he my have hit a six and reached any other score so even if the premises and conclusion are possiblty true..the argument is invalid…

To know premises true…you have to know something about the world, about history…

Don’t need to know anything about the world to know whether an argument is valid or invalid. But you need to know some facts to know whether a premise is false or true…

There are two ways to criticise a deduction…

Premise false

Argument is invalid…

Expert on Truth-Detectives,nurses,surgeons, pollsters,astrologers,zoologists,reporters,you and me…

Expert on validity-logician

Logician study the relations between premises and conclusions, but as logicians are not especially qualified to tell whether premises are true or false

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Gujarat Agriculture performance-debate relooked

In a literature review below I bring out the major points discussed about Gujarat Agriculture in the past few years, the basic points which I would like to underlie are

·       Is this growth sustainable or a statistical aberration* due to high volatility?

·       Gujarat’s growth story is marked by a significant divergence between economic and human development. Besides, the agriculture sector in the state is faced with several special constraints- mainly agro-ecological and social-demographic.

·       *The agricultural ‘growth’ seen in the recent past in Gujarat is nothing but a good

 recovery from a major dip in production occurred during the drought years of 1999 and 2000, because of four consecutive years of successful monsoon and bulk water transfer through the Sardar Sarovar project. The real ‘miracle growth’ in Gujarat’s agriculture appears to have occurred during the period from 1988 to 1998.

·        six factors that were given a concerted push by the Gujarat government from 2002-03 onwards:

a sustained programme of water conservation and management;

a massive and well-coordinated extension effort;

a successful overhaul of rural electricity distribution;

a strong emphasis on non-food crops like horticulture, Bt cotton, castor and isabgol;

sustained and comprehensive support to livestock development;

major revamping of agriculture-supporting infrastructure, including roads, electricity and ports.

·       Gujarat is not an outlier economy in 1993 to 2002 and 2003 to 2009. In both these periods, Gujarat’s growth story broadly corresponds with those of other developed states like Maharashtra, Andhra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

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 GUJARAT AGRICULTURE-A MACRO OVERVIEW

In a report written for IWMI and IFPRI (2009) by Ashok Gulati, Tushaar Shah and Ganga  Shreedhar, the authors give a very favourable picture of Gujarat’s growth particularly from 2000/2001 to 2006/2007. Quoting the introduction to the paper:

“The paper explores if Gujarat’s agricultural story is sustainable and can be a divadandi (lighthouse) for other states and developing regions. First the sources of growth are identified followed by the main drivers of growth i.e. which policies and institutions have accelerated agricultural growth after 2000. Cotton, the high value segment (livestock, fruits and vegetables) and wheat are identified as the main sources of growth as they have grown rapidly both in production and value terms. Private sector has driven the cotton boom; but public sector has also played an important role. Besides favorable monsoons in the past few years and past investment in rural roads, active role of public sector through [a] mass based water harvesting and groundwater recharge; [b] reform of rural power system through Jyotigram Scheme; [c] reform of agricultural marketing institutions; [d] revitalized and reinvented agricultural extension system are among the factors that have contributed to Gujarat’s impressive performance in agriculture.”

However the authors themselves bring forward an important limitation of their paper, when they ask the question: Is this growth sustainable or a statistical aberration due to high volatility?

In a paper presented in a workshop on “Policy options and investment priorities for accelerating agricultural productivity and development in India”, November 10-11, 2011, Amita Shah presented a paper on “Perspective on Gujarat’s Agriculture”. She introduces her article with a section “A Decade of High Growth Rate and Beyond” in which she writes-

 
“ The last decade is marked by a phenomenally high rate of growth in Gujarat’s agriculture, the sector which till then was being viewed as the most lagging and highly fluctuating segment of the state’s economy. Development of irrigation, especially under the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) and also through augmentation of ground water during the last decade seem to have helped mitigating the uncertainty in the agriculture production, which in turn, has created favorable conditions for taking up high value crops such as cotton, spices, fruits and vegetables besides oilseeds. All these have led to a sustained high rate of growth for much of the period during 2000-2010. Access to bio-technology (BT) especially for cotton seeds has further strengthened the production base by way of enhancing stability as well as productivity thereby income form the sector. The success of Gujarat’s agricultural growth, has taken place at a time when the sector, in several other states had failed to demonstrate dynamism not to talk about buoyancy. No wonder therefore, the high growth trajectory in the state’s agriculture sector is being upheld as a potential `role model’ especially for the agriculturally lagging states.”

 She sets the stage for her discussion with the following

“The current debate on Gujarat’s agriculture is not so much about the rate of growth per se; rather it is more about what has driven the growth, how equitable/inclusive the growth is, and what are the likely environmental implications of such growth pattern. Essentially all these issues focus on the nature and composition as against the rate of agricultural growth in the sector, as the former may have significant role to play in influencing food and nutritional security unlike the growth rate in the sector as discussed in the previous section.”

After discussing various related issues in  Gujarat’s Agriculture she concludes with a section on “Constraints and Challenges”:

“Gujarat’s growth story is marked by a significant divergence between economic and human development. Besides, the agriculture sector in the state is faced with several special constraints- mainly agro-ecological and social-demographic. These include: i) low and variable rainfall with single rainy season thus, rendering large parts of the state as dry land/semi-arid region; ii) heavy dependence on ground water for irrigation, drinking/domestic water supply, and industrial-use; iii) a substantial larger tribal population (about 15% of the state’s population) facing high levels of poverty; iv) pressure for conversion of farm land for non-agriculture uses; and v) influx on migrant farm labour from the relatively poorer regions in the neighboring states (M.P. and Rajasthan) which may work against corresponding increase in agricultural wages. Together these constraints may create additional stress on natural resources especially, land and water; affect quality of drinking water often drawn from deep aquifers; and lead to unequal sharing of benefits between the farmers and the farm labour.”

Tushaar Shah, Ashok Gulati, Hemant P, Ganga Shreedhar, R C Jain write in EPW, 2009, Secret of Gujarat’s Agrarian Miracle after 2000: “Arguably, mass-based water harvesting and farm power reforms have helped energise Gujarat’s agriculture.”

 A contrasting perspective is provided by M. Dinesh Kumar, A. Narayanamoorthy, OP Singh, MVK Sivamohan, Manoj Sharma and Nitin Bassi in a Working Paper for Institute of Resource Analysis and policy “Gujarat’s agricultural growth story Exploding Some Myths” ,March 2010 where they write-

“The agricultural ‘growth’ seen in the recent past in Gujarat is nothing but a good

recovery from a major dip in production occurred during the drought years of 1999 and 2000, because of four consecutive years of successful monsoon and bulk water transfer through the Sardar Sarovar project. The real ‘miracle growth’ in Gujarat’s agriculture appears to have occurred during the period from 1988 to 1998.”

Shankar Acharya in his article “Agriculture:be like Gujarat :Other states have much to learn from Indian Agriculture’s star performer”, July 14, 2011, Business Standard, quotes Ravindra Dholakia and Samar Datta: High Growth Trajectory and Structural Changes in Gujarat Agriculture (Macmillan, 2010). He writes, broadly speaking, professors Dholakia, Datta et al  identify six factors that were given a concerted push by the Gujarat government from 2002-03 onwards:

• a sustained programme of water conservation and management;
• a massive and well-coordinated extension effort;
• a successful overhaul of rural electricity distribution;
• a strong emphasis on non-food crops like horticulture, Bt cotton, castor and isabgol;
• sustained and comprehensive support to livestock development;
• major revamping of agriculture-supporting infrastructure, including roads, electricity and ports.

Further Acharya quotes the authors from their preface writing “It is not a miracle that happened exogenously. It is fully endogenous, systematically led by long-term vision and comprehensive strategy requiring solid commitment and dedication to the cause, political will to pursue market-oriented reforms of policies and institutions, interdepartmental and inter-ministerial coordination and cooperation, and a responsive and entrepreneurial farming community”.

M K Venu in his column in Financial express “It’s Gujarat, not just Modi”, August 13, 2012, states that Arvind Panagariya’s growth data series from 1993 to 2009 reveals an interesting feature. Gujarat’s much hyped growth story over the past decade is not borne out by hard data. Gujarat is not an outlier economy in any of the two phases shown by Panagariya—1993 to 2002 and 2003 to 2009. In both these periods, Gujarat’s growth story broadly corresponds with those of other developed states like Maharashtra, Andhra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

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“Jinnah of India”, the could have been of Indian History Part-I

                                      “Jinnah of India”, the could have been of Indian History

                                                                     Part-I

                                                                 By Munish Alagh

Jinnah’s story is an apparent paradox, why did a person considered the greatest “Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity”, become the creator of Pakistan, indeed Jinnah, like his fellow Gujarati, Gandhi was an extremely enigmatic figure, but the fact is that we know very little about him, his inomitable will with which he created Pakistan, could have very easily have been directed towards the opposite direction, ie., towards strengthening Hindu-Muslim unity, this blog attempts to study why that did not happen? What are the lessons we should learn from this big failure of Indian nationhood?

From the time when Jinnah in his early days in Britian saw Dadabhai Naoraji struggling against racism Jinnah became an uncomprising enemy of all forms of colour bar and racial prejudice, listening from the Commons gallery in 1893 to Dadabhai’s maiden speech and being thrilled to hear the Grand Old man extol the virtues of “free speech”, Jinnah noted “there he was, an Indian, who would exercise that right and demand justice for his countrymen.” So, thus began  Jinnah’s advent into politics as a liberal nationalist.

It is interesting that when he returned to Bombay, Jinnah’s heroes remained Dadabhai Naoroji and other brilliant Bombay Parsi, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta who, in fact very much was the model for Jinnah’s early career specially with reference to his impassioned advocacy of the role of minorities in India’s nation-building process. Further, in the 1904 Congress, Jinnah first met Gokhale, whose wisdom, fairness, and moderation he came to admire so that he soon stated his “fond ambition” in politics was to become “the Muslim Gokhale.”

Another interesting aspect of these early years is that the doughtiest opponent of the Muslim league in 1906 (in the Aga Khan’s words) was Jinnah, who “came out in bitter hostility toward all that I and my friends had done and were trying to do. He was the only well-known Muslim to take this attitude…..He said that our principle of separate electorates was dividing the nation against itself.” Such an impassioned advocacy against separate electorates by the man who was later responsible for creating Pakistan!!

Jinnah helped write Dadabhai’s speech at the 1906 annual session of the Congress, and the theme of national unity present in this address was echoed by Jinnah at every political meeting he attended during the ensuing decade.

In the decade since he had returned from Britian Jinnah had emerged as the hier apparent to the triumvirate of Gokhale, Mehta and Naoroji, he was free from all parochial and provincial prejudice, also in practical terms Jinnah realised that his strength lay in his secular nationalist appeal.

Jinnah was to rise in the Allahabad Congress of 1910 to second a resolution that “strongly deprecates the expansion or application of the principle of Separate Communal Electorates to Municipalities, District Boards, or other Local Bodies.” Paradoxically, Jinnah spoke at the end of his first year as the Muslim member from Bombay.

Jinnah did join the Muslim League in 1913, but he insisted as a prior condition that his “loyalty to the Muslim League and the Muslim interest would in no way and at no time imply even the shadow of disloyalty to the larger national cause to which his life was dedicated.”

Before Gokhale died, he told Sarojini that Jinnah “has true stuff in him, and that freedom from all sectarian prejudice which will make him the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity.” In his late thirties Jinnah seems to have personified that tragically elusive spirit of communal amity.

In 1913, at the Agra session of the Muslim League, Jinnah proposed postponing reaffirmation of faith in the principle of “communal representation” for another year. On this issue majority of  the Muslim League members would long remain at odds with Jinnah.

I will end this section with the first sign of trouble in this garden of eden, and we will note that again and again, trouble for Jinnah, came in the form of the Father of the Nation, for when in January !915 the Gujarat Society, which he led, gave a garden party to welcome Gandhi back to India, Gandhi’s response to Jinnah’s urbane welcome was that he was “glad to find a Mahomedan not only belonging to his region’s Sabha, but chairing it. This was very insulting to Jinnah who prided himself on his Cosmopolitan identity. It also set the tone for his relation with Gandhi…which was lead to much trouble later as we shall see in forthcoming blogs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can the real Indian please stand up...by Munish Alagh

Really let us face upto one fact-your worst enemy can become your best friend and your best friend can become your worst enemy..wasn't it Jinnah who once hailed " the living spirit of patriotism..surging through India's pulse.".."it has taken its rise from a new-born movement in the direction of national unity..brought Hindus and Muslims together involving brotherly service for the common cause."
Let us not be "personality focussed" or leader focussed"...in that case we can make a large list of politicians who should be put behind bars...can we develop a national spirit of unity and move in a positive direction, forgetting the past and focussing on not emotions but tasks...as a secular person i could claim that even Vajpayee is guilty for a lot of things..u can reply by saying that Manmohan, Pawar,Laloo,Mulayam are all guilty...let us develop a culture of accountability not blamibility like Kejriwal...that will be the real Indian Revolution..leading to the "true" Hindu (Growth rate of not less than 10%..but we need to be Arjuns and Lakshmans or atleast Karnas and Hanumaans....)

Gujarat's Growth Story-the true picture, by Dr.Munish Alagh

There has recently been a lot of discussion on Gujarat's growth story...much of it is subjective, what are the relevant objective points...with my training of positive economics i try to have a look below...

Why do we not base our analysis of growth of states on facts rather than being blinded by politics, growth in gujarat needs to be compared like to like...let us just take certain comparable states like Maharashtra(State GDP Growth between 2004-05 to 2011-12=10.01%), Andhra pradesh(State GDP Growth between 2004-05 and 2011-12=8.15%) and Delhi(State GDP Growth between 2004-5 and 2011-12=11.27%)...with that reference Gujarat's growth of 9.2% is not that high...statistics of Gujarat need to be compared with similar income level states...not misinterpreted by adding confusing comparision between Bihar and Gujarat

Reference-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_states_by_GDP

while the contrasting opinion cited in the link below
http://www.firstpost.com/economy/is-the-gujarat-growth-story-for-real-apparently-yes-483390.html
does critique what i have said and what apparently has been observed by business standard editorial before me, the basic point made that growth in maharashtra and andhra pradesh is services oriented
and hence is higher than gujarat's manufacturing growth, infact serves to buttress my point that there is nothing special about the Gujarat story and cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai show a dynamism even more well rounded and multi-faceted than Gujarat cities...these states have made extra effort in services,IT and education and so have reached  where they are...