Correlation is not causation

Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum
A famous slogan in statistics is that correlation does not imply causation. We know that there is a statistical correlation between eating ice cream and drowning incidents, for instance, but ice cream consumption does not cause drowning. Where any two factors – A and B – are correlated, there are four possibilities: 1. A is a cause of B, 2. B is a cause of A, 3. the correlation is pure coincidence and 4., as in the ice cream case, A and B are connected by a common cause. Increased ice cream consumption and drowning rates both have a common cause in warm summer weather.

Illuminating the Mediterranean’s pre-history

By Cyprian Broodbank

It’s no wonder that the Mediterranean basin—centered on the world’s largest inland sea, blessed by a subtropical climate, and host to nurturing rivers—gave birth to several ancient civilizations. What many don’t realize, however, is that the Mediterranean’s pre-classical history was just as rich as its geography, and just as instrumental in priming the region for success.

Jazz, the original cool

Jazz is a genre of music that is rich in history and cultural influences. When you think of jazz music, a massive list of other phenomenal artists may come to mind including Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Billie Holiday. In the nineteenth century, the music was birthed from ragtime and evolved into the blues, followed by swing Music and jazz, creating genres of music influenced by a myriad of styles and sounds.

Picturing printing

By Ian Gadd
No visit to the Sheldonian Theatre would be complete without craning your neck to admire Robert Streater’s painted ceiling. Entitled Truth Descending upon the Arts and Sciences and comprising thirty-two panels, the painting was completed in Whitehall in 1668–9 and shipped to Oxford by barge. We don’t know the terms of the commission but Streater’s personification of Truth triumphing over Envy, Rapine, and Ignorance fitted well with a University looking to reassert its cultural ambitions in the aftermath of the Civil Wars and Interregnum.

Israel’s strategic nuclear doctrine: ambiguity versus openness

By Louis René Beres
Israel’s nuclear posture is always closely held. This cautious stance would appear to make perfect sense. But is such secrecy actually in the long-term survival interests of the Jewish State? The answer should be based upon a very carefully reasoned assessment of all available options.

Seamus Heaney: The last word

By Denis Sampson

Noli temere, Seamus Heaney texted to his wife in his last hours of life, ‘Have no fear’.

The “brave” old etymology

By Anatoly Liberman
One of the minor questions addressed in my latest “gleanings” concerned the origin of the adjective brave. My comment brought forward a counter-comment by Peter Maher and resulted in an exchange of many letters between us, so that this post owes its appearance to him. Today I am returning to brave, a better-informed and more cautious man.

Q&A on Saint Augustine with Miles Hollingworth

After meeting this summer, the OUP Blog suggested Miles Hollingworth, author of Saint Augustine of Hippo: An Intellectual Biography, catch up with fellow Augustinian scholar Todd Breyfogle about the timeliness and relevance of Augustine in order to celebrate the saint’s birthday, 1,659 years to the day later.

When did Oxford University Press begin?

By Ian Gadd
Determining the precise beginning of Oxford University Press is not as easy a question as it may seem. It’s not enough to brandish triumphantly the first book printed in Oxford, Expositio in symbolum apostolorum, as all that proves is that there was a printing press in Oxford in 1478…

Foreign direct investment, aid, and terrorism

By Subhayu Bandyopadhyay, Todd Sandler, and Javed Younas
In recent years, developing nations have been major venues of terrorism. One significant problem caused by terrorism in developing nations is the reduction of foreign direct investment (FDI) into these nations as potential investors seek safer locations.

The playing place

By David Constantine
In Cornish towns and villages you may find a street or a district called Plain-an-Gwarry. The name (in the old tongue plân-an-guare), means ‘a playing place’, and it commemorates the former existence of a round, or small amphitheatre, in which entertainments of one sort and another – including the miracle plays – were staged and public meetings held.

Shanghai rising

By Kandice Rawlings
The port city of Shanghai is poised to become another major center of the global art world, possibly even displacing Beijing as China’s artistic capital. Since founding a biennial and art fair in 1996 and 1997, respectively, major institutions supporting the visual arts have sprung up or expanded.

A gentleman’s tour of Regency London prisons

By Nicola Phillips

In eighteenth and early nineteenth-century England prisons were popular tourist sites for wealthy visitors. They were also effectively run as private businesses by the Wardens, who charged the inmates for the privilege of being incarcerated there. Indeed prisoners from the higher ranks of society, who had the means to pay for better accommodation, routinely expected to be treated better than lower class or “common” criminals.

Before Caxton? Claiming Oxford as England’s first printing city

By Ian Gadd
‘This Lane is commonly called Pie Lane, but I will call it Winking Lane’. So noted the Christ Church canon, Leonard Hutten, in his perambulatory Antiquities of Oxford, written at some point in the early seventeenth century.

Johann van Beethoven’s last hurrah

By Ian Woodfield
Fathers do not always receive the kindest press, but any man who unwittingly produces an icon of western culture will find his parental techniques under an especially harsh spotlight. Such was the fate of Johann van Beethoven, a singer of modest achievements, who ended up dividing his time unequally between the Bonn Hofkapelle and the local taverns.

Depression in older adults: a q&a with Dr. Brad Karlin

On Veterans Day, the Journal of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological and Social Sciences published “Comparison of the Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression among Older Versus Younger Veterans: Results of a National Evaluation” co-author Bradley E. Karlin joins us to discuss the evaluation’s promising results. Why do older adults utilize mental health services at […]