TIME is somewhat uncritical ( and in the tank?)

http://tinyurl.com/dfawnk

To Our Readers 

Life Cycle by Richard Stengel, Managing Editor April 13,2009

A special issue tracks the planet's vanishing animal species, the science of 

change, and...

Pretty nearly all the animal species that existed during Earth's history are gone ... the more species living in an ecosystem, the healthier it is for all of us. ****Biodiversity may be good for its own sake but blithely to assert that a greater number makes us healthier is questionable. It's not obvious that more bacteria, viruses, insects,spiders, frogs, snakes, rodents etc make it healthier for us.*****

Speaking of change, ... story about how the President and his team are using behavioral science to facilitate change in America. Their strategy is based on the idea that social science can guide people to make better and healthier choices for themselves, ...harnesses some principles that behavioral scientists have known for decades: we're a lot more irrational than we realize...He later discovered that during Obama's election effort, there was a secret consortium of the nation's leading behaviorists who were advising the campaign. Now the Administration boasts a number of senior members--including Budget Director Peter Orszag and regulatory-czar nominee Cass Sunstein--who are using these ideas to help change the economy and our behavior...

****This completely glosses over possible misuse of  behavioral economics. As a description, it is a major advance in understanding; as a normative addition to politics it has potential dangers. It might "guide...to make better...choices" or it might enable the manipulation of choices. Without comment it is cited that there was a "SECRET consortium of the nation's leading behaviorists who were advising the campaign ". If totally benign, why "secret?" It reminds one of the old joke from the USSR: "Comes the Revolution you'll all eat strawberries." "BUT I DON'T LIKE STRAWBERRIES." "Comes the Revolution you WILL like strawberries and you WILL eat them." Goebbels wasn't as scientific but behavior modification and exploitation was his game, too. ****

http://tinyurl.com/cfb7lf

How Obama Is Using The Science of Change It's more than a campaign slogan...employ behavioral economics to promote its agenda --and ...alter the way Americans live...It's hard to get people to alter their behavior but ...these are the best strategies: 1) Make It Clear; 2) Make It Easy; 3) Make It Popular; 4) Make it Mandatory...(About spending now,) The idea, an aide explains, is to manipulate us into spending the extra cash... (Books like PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL )...have chronicled the irrationality of Homo sapiens... (and how to manipulate it in the direction of such preferred policies as )... computerize health-care records...make generic drugs and cost-effective procedures our default treatments. And seniors who don't select health-care or drug plans could be automatically enrolled in low-cost options... "I like nudges, but sometimes we need to do more," says Harvard's Mullainathan. Sometimes we need a shove...Obama has already hiked taxes on cigarettes and wants to end tax breaks for drilling and offshoring...( Obama equates smoking and drilling for oil??? The common element is that he disapproves of both --although evidently still a smoker, himself. And what is the justification for this behavior modification? )...behavioral economics leaves room for government action to help us do what we would really want if we were rational agents...Michelle Obama warned us..."Barack is going to demand that you..."  ****George Orwell is spinning in his grave. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, ...all told people what to do when it was thought to be "good for them". Cost effectiveness recalls NICE,The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence which Daniel Hannan warned about as the worst thing in the National Health Service in the U.K.*****