QTRS July 10, 2025
Graphs, commentary, and interesting content for the curious
As I see it…
Anyone in the higher education ecosystem knows full well that favoritism for minority hires exists, and favoritism for one group is discrimination against another. Proof of this is hard to come by, but it appears that my local Ivy, Cornell, has a whistleblower. (6/27/2025)
In the first whistleblower email, dated Dec. 2020, the STEM department chair begins with explaining their conversations with a DEI dean and “our hoped-for diversity hire” and how they want to do something “a little out of the ordinary.”
It goes on to state “the best is to invite just one person” and “…not have that person in competition with others.”
The second whistleblower email is dated Dec. 2022. It states: “As pre-planned as a best practice, we first did a prescreening of just the DEI statements submitted by the candidates.”
It then goes on to state a “substantial majority of the full committee was in favor of not considering … substantially more advanced candidates, partly for reasons of equity, and this was the implemented outcome.”
My point here, though, is not to argue the merits of this case or DEI in general.
As I see it, if you feel your side is justified in breaking the law for whatever reason, the right side of history or whatnot, then how exactly do you condemn the other side for doing the same thing using the same type of reasoning? And if you are caught, accept the consequences, and start putting your effort into changing the law you don’t like.
I cannot recall the exact quote, but it states that convincing someone with a Ph.D. that they are wrong is one of the hardest things to do. The higher education bubble is full of people who think they're always correct and, of course, on the right side of history.
Think about it. If you feel justified in breaking the law, then why isn’t everyone? If the rule of law is something both sides feel justified in ignoring, then I don’t see that ending well.
The future of team D
Zeihan does a terrific job of explaining how the minority majority isn’t working for the Democrats (7/10/2025). If you are a political junkie or generally interested in demographics and culture, it is worth 7 minutes of your time. Here are two excellent quotes that convey broadly transferable thoughts:
Number one, politics evolve. Remember, this isn't the first form the Democrats have been in. I believe this is the fourth. And to think that it is static for all times is silly.
Almost nothing remains static, and sooner or later, tomorrow will not simply be an extension of today.
First, those liberal, coastally educated, urban living elites, they're not nearly as united as you might think. And more importantly, they have a hard time resonating their ideas with the rank and file of the United States. Most Americans do not own six figures. Most Americans have not graduated from graduate programs. And so, the sort of tunnel vision that you can get if you're a part of this coastal elite just doesn't really carry out to others.
Related to the bubble in the intro above.
Country income and graph issues
Both graphs here come from the World Bank article Understanding country income: World Bank Group income classifications for FY26 (July 1, 2025–June, 2026) (7/1/2025)
We start out with a map classifying countries into one of four income groups. This seems innocent enough, and it does reveal geographical patterns relative to income per capita. If your knowledge of income is limited, you might not give this graph much thought.
There is another graph to illustrate the (only) four countries that changed their income categories. If you look at the graph quickly, you might think the four income categories are roughly the same range, but they aren’t. The x-axis is a log scale, and I understand why they used it here, but maybe they shouldn't have, as I’m not sure most people would notice and even fewer would really understand it.
Consider the high-income category. You get into that category by earning more than $14,000 per capita. The top country in the category (the graph is interactive, and you can hover over the dots) is Bermuda at $140,280. This represents a significant disparity within the same category.
The original map should include more than four categories. One way to do this is to use the four colors in a light-to-dark gradient for each one. Or, just use one continuous color scheme.
Immigration and citizenship
From Pew (7/10/2025).
Not surprisingly, the last question largely has a Democrat-Republican split, with 74% of Democrats saying people born in the U.S. to parents who immigrated illegally should be citizens, while it is 25% for Republicans. They did not provide a breakdown by education, which I think would be fascinating. The good news is that teams D and R agree on the first two questions.
Data centers
I know, I seem obsessed with them, but if you are a regular reader, are you surprised by this?
Surging data center demand exposes limits of renewables and risks grid outages, DOE claims (7/9/2025)
The Department of Energy (DOE) has released a new report warning that if retirement schedules and incremental additions of power generation assets remain unchanged, the US power grid will be unable to meet the projected demand from AI, data centers, and other large loads.
The Report on Evaluating US Grid Reliability and Security revealed that retirements plus load growth would increase the risk of power outages by 100 times by 2030
Data centers are one of the big energy stories.
Also probably not surprised by this either:
Do you want to limit CO₂ or do you want your data centers?
The spinning CD
Before getting to the video, note this from In fascinating study, neuroscientists reveal the unique impact of nostalgic music on the brain (3/25/2025)
A new study published in Human Brain Mapping has found that music which evokes nostalgia activates a unique network of brain regions tied to memory, self-reflection, and emotion. Researchers discovered that self-selected nostalgic songs triggered more brain activity than familiar or unfamiliar non-nostalgic music in both younger and older adults. Notably, older adults showed even stronger activation in key nostalgia-related areas, suggesting nostalgic music may play a special role in memory and emotional processing later in life.
This suggests I should be posting older songs, but I’d like to think of these as songs that will be nostalgic in 20 years. I also wonder whether a new song from an old band would count as nostalgic.
Please share and like
Sharing and liking posts attracts new readers and boosts algorithm performance. I appreciate everything you do to support Briefed by Data.
Comments
Please let me know if you think I expressed something incorrectly or misinterpreted the data. I would rather know the truth and understand the world than simply be correct. I welcome comments and disagreement. I encourage you to share article ideas, feedback, or any other thoughts at briefedbydata@substack.com.
Bio
I am a tenured mathematics professor at Ithaca College, holding a PhD in math (stochastic processes), an MS in applied statistics, an MS in math, a BS in math, and a BS in exercise science. I consider myself an accidental academic (opinions are my own). I am a gardener, drummer, rower, runner, inline skater, 46er, and R user. I’ve written the textbooks “R for College Mathematics and Statistics” and “Applied Calculus with R.” I welcome any collaborations, and I’m open to job offers.