The cited issue of Nature Physics demands payment to access more than the first editorial provided on this topic, so I stopped after editorial #1.  But if the first editorial is any indication, I think the authors need to do a better job at understanding economics.   For instance, they write "The fundamental theorem of arbitrage-free pricing, for example, had given rise to the Black–Scholes equation for option pricing — a formula easily recognized as a type of diffusion–advection equation."   This is largely nonsense.   The Black-Scholes equation is derived from said rather innocuous theorem (in its simplest form, it is a simple separating-hyperplane argument;, the curious can see Kreps, Microeconomic Foundations I, Proposition 16.8b) applied to the assumption that an underlying asset's price evolves as geometric Brownian motion.  It is the latter assumption---not the so-called fundamental theorem---that is most responsible for the specific conclusion.

This is probably opaque to most of the Ricochetoise (as it seemed to be to most bankers and investors), which may be the point.  If so, the authors have a wry sense of humor, making the point by exhibiting it as appearing to apply to themselves, as well.

I used to teach a course for 1st quarter MBA students at Stanford, in which students each week wrote a three-page essay arguing some point of view.  (We provided source material; they decided which side to take.   Examples:   Should Google pull out of China, given the censorship imposed on them?  How convincing is the evidence produced by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink?)  The point was to "remind" them how one constructs a cogent argument, on paper first and then orally, and how one critiques another's argument (orally only).

About 1/3 of our students come from Stanford or one of the Ivies, but there are students as well from the big state schools, the service academies, small liberal arts schools, and a segment from overseas.

As far as the ability to do what the course required---construct a cogent argument---undergraduate institution was statistically irrelevant.   Major was also irrelevant, with one exception:   Philosophy majors were generally able to do "it."

As a Dartmouth '72, it pains me to say this, but I think the "elite" schools are failing to train/teach this very basic skill.  (Which ought to be learned in HS, but that's another matter.)

It's worked for the 40-odd years that my colleagues and I have used it, albeit with one modification:   Instead of recording the lecture/presentation, it comes out of  a text book.  We tell the students "Read Chapter X, and prepare to discuss Problems X.1, X.2, and X.4."   Or, "Read Chapter X, and apply the ideas presented there in an analysis of the case study Y [which is also supplied on paper]."   

At my school, the deans subjected us to a presentation of "flipping the classroom" by colleagues at Stanford who are deeply (intellectually and financially) invested in on-line teaching and who lectured us on this wonderful pedagogical "innovation."   I had two reactions:  1. Innovative?  Are you kidding?   2.  Why didn't they record a presentation about this and then let us discuss? 

Your italicized verb do needs a definition, but if I substitute use or employ or get anything of value out of it, then:  Not even that.

In some of the previous comments, the suggestion is made that interaction isn't necessary for "formulaic" learning, such as learning calculus.   I disagree.   Learning how to take the derivative of a polynomial or what is L'Hopital's rule can be done by lecture (or in a text).   Learning how and when to use these tools---what they tell you and what they don't---requires that the student engage in active learning, with feedback from peers and/or an instructor.

I teach microeconomics at several levels in a business school, to MBAs who are self-styled poets, to MBAs who majored in economics, and to Ph.D. students.   And I teach executives how to apply bits of microeconomics (although we don't really do the "theory") in exec ed programs.   In all cases, it is the drill of pushing the student (in exec ed, we call them "participants")  to apply and extend what she knows that produces deep and lasting understanding.  That takes interaction.   Which is why just reading the textbook (even if I wrote it) is just a start on what (I hope) goes on in my  classes.

If by "on-line education" you have in mind interacting participants, fine.   I think discussions improve as the participants become more familiar with one another and so feel safer.  Hence I like small-group seminars.   But interaction, even at a distance, can be instructive.  (After all, that's what is going on in this conversation:   Professor Rahe sets out a topic and some basic ideas, and we debate them, helping us all to understand better the issues involved.)

But if on-line education means watching a lecture, I don't get it.  Or, rather, I think that all we're talking about is a video equivalent of a textbook.  But is viewing an adequate substitute for reading?   Reading, it seems to me, is less passive---the reader is necessarily more involved (if she is actually reading) than is a viewer---so I believe it is poor substitute for reading.   

Perhaps the best case to be made for viewing lectures is that, in many cases, the taste and skill required to read effectively is diminishing.  But if reading is an acquired taste and skill, maybe educators ought not to give up on compelling students to acquire both.

Perhaps, but giving some spine to Congressional Republicans and/or some caution to those Democrats whose re-election is not a foregone conclusion could help to...moderate what happens.   And, as  Leigh correctly observes, the optimistic take on this is:   The larger the margin of his popular vote victory, the more likely it is that Congress will bend to President Romney's views. 

The outcome of the election is 0-1.   There will be a winner and a loser.   But what follows the election is not 0-1; every vote matters, at least a bit.

More for FloppyDisk90:  "Roughly equal" isn't good enough when, per the sample, virtually every D leans Obama and every R leans Romney (if indeed that is the case, which I don't really believe).

Per exit polls (from CNN! Beware!), in 2008 the split was D 39%, R 32%, and I 29%.   The I's broke 52-44 for Obama (the D's and R's went 90-10 for their guy), giving Obama 53% and McCain 45%.  Suppose the D's and R's continue to go 90-10 for their guy.   Suppose the population splits as before.  But suppose, per this poll, the I's go 54-40 for Romney.   The outcome is 49 for Obama and 48 for Romney.   Now, with only 37 I's, you can't trust the 54-40 split:  sample size is too small.   And turn-out matters:   If D - R = 7% in November, Obama probably wins.   But those I's and how they break matter too.

And, in any case, my original point, reinforced by all the problems with this poll, is that this isn't information; it's propaganda, and Peter R can calm down (if ever he was depressed).

For FloppyDisk90:

The standard error of the estimate on the percentage of independent voters (self identified) that lean Obama should use the n that is the number of independent voters in the sample, not the n that is the entire sample.   We don't know that n for the subsample of likely voters, but since there are 37 independents in the sample of registered voters, I assume that this n is less than 37.   So, taking p = 0.4, the formula gives SQRT((.4)(.6)/37) = 8% or so.  And this is an underestimate, because n < 37.  The standard confidence interval for this sort of poll puts 2.5% in either tail, which is   1.96 standard deviations, or roughly 16%.

For the subsample of republicans, assuming they are something like 45% of the sample (see post 4, with the obvious caveat that that is the percentage in the registered voter sample and not the likely voter subsample), we get a standard error of SQRT((.95)(.05)/(700x.45)) = 1.2%.  My 8 to 1 was based on the ratio of standard errors---where 6.5% comes from is beyond me.

I can't resist, so let me add one more:   Back on page 21, they give 
"sampling error" figures for each column.  In particular, for the column of folks who identified as Democrat, the sampling error is plus/minus 6, while for Independents and Repubs, it is plus/minus 6.5.  

If they have a sample of 700 or so, with something on the order of 5% independents and more than 40% Republicans, and if the Repub sample has over 95% going one way while the independents is a lot closer to 50-50, there is no way that "sampling errors" for the two are the same.   My back of the envelope calculation suggests that the standard error of the percentage estimate for the I's should be around eight times that for the R's.   My back-of-the-envelope may be wrong (it's been a while since I did any statistics).   But they can't be equal or anywhere close.

So (1) ridiculous sample, (2) crazy arithmetic, and now (3) wacky statistics.

But it is CNN.

The first point, about 5% independents, is consistent with the calculation above of 4.2% independents among registered voters.  Whether it is 4% or 5%, it is a ridiculous sample with this as the percentage of independents.    

But the second catch from Flynn is really a killer.   If there are 875 registered voters and they broke 53% for Obama and 45% for Romney, that gives 463 or so Obama voters and 393 Romneys, not the 441/409 numbers reported on page 3.   

And 709 breaking 52% for O and 46% for R would be 368 for O and 326 for R, not (as Flynn points out) the 351 and 340 numbers reported on page 3.

So added to the charge of stacking the sample, to get the results they wanted, we can add a charge of doing some very strange arithmetic, once they got their stacked sample.   

Maybe someone should ask them to try again?

That's registered voters, not likely.   But let's go with those figures.   The total sample size of registered voters is 875.   If 441 are democrats and 397 are republicans, that leaves 37 independents.  So their sample of registered voters was 50.4% democrat, 45.4% republican, and 4.2% independent.  Really?   Compare this with the figures quoted in Diane Ellis' post above.

And if I apply the conditionals from page 20 to this percentage breakdown, I get 51.4% for Obama and 47% for Romney.   Back on page 2, they say that the registered voter preference is 53% for Obama and 45% for Romney.   It's possible, I guess, that the conditionals among registered voters is that different from the conditionals for likely voters, but this whole poll...gives off an odor.

By coincidence, I was just at lunch with Peter R, where I asked him about membership levels.   I leave it to him and the other poobahs to decide what they want to have in the public domain, but it turns out that there a lot, lot, lot more lurkers than members.   And it isn't those two little bricks, in  Peter's opinion, that keeps folks from joining, but instead the intimidation of putting your thoughts out there on a website that features the active participation of ... I guess the term I want is "giants" ... such as Richard Epstein and Paul  Rahe.   (At least, I find those two intimidating.)    

For any lurkers who read this and think, "Yeah, that's me," come on it.  The intellectual waters are fine, once you take the plunge.

Another variation is the centipede game.   Start with a stack of 100 $1 bills (or, if you have a rich patron, 100 $20 bills, or $100 bills).  One bill is put on the table and the first participant can "wait" or "take."   If she waits, another bill is put on the table and the other participate can "wait" or "take."   If he "waits," a third bill is put on the table and she chooses again, and so forth.    If ever someone "takes," that person gets everything on the table, and the game is over.   On the final turn (when the last bill is put on the table), the second participant chooses between "take it all" or "split."    Clearly, both players want to "wait" for a while, so that the stakes build up.   But suppose there are, say, 90 bills on the table.   The end is near.   Will you "wait" or "take"?   

This adds a lot of nonverbal communication:   What would you do if, say, there were 70 bills on the table, and your rival just took a long time deciding whether to take or wait and finally said "wait"?

Technically, this is not the classic PD.   In the classic PD, you are worse off if you split and the other person steals than if both steal.   Here, you get 0 in both cases.   Imagine that the two players have to pay an entry fee of, say, $1000 to play.  If both steal, both get their entry fee back.  But if you split and your rival steals, you get no prize and forfeit your entry fee.   Would it make a difference?

I've staged this game, that is, the proper PD, (with as much pre-play communication as the participants desire) with many generations of Stanford MBAs and Exec Ed participants.   Even in a one-shot game, they cooperate (split) at least 80% of the time, because they have to live with the "reputation" this creates.   (Also, the stakes are much, much lower.)   Repeated play gets more cooperation.   But the killer is a variation where there is repeated play (same two people play over and over, with an indefinite final stage) with noise---there is a small chance that what you want to play is not what you do play.    It makes for some fascinating conversations and dynamics.

If there is no functional difference between a tax and this mess, then let Congress do it the other way.  "But"  you respond, "that would be a more difficult sell politically."   Probably so.   One reason why the Government is limited to certain enumerated powers is to make it difficult, politically as well as functionally, to do stuff.  

(Not to hijack this thread, but what about the distinction between broccoli and health care; viz.,  if I don't buy health insurance, I make it more expensive for my neighbor?   In a general-equilibrium sense, that is also true of any good or service with high fixed costs.   So does the Krugman extend his basic argument to:  The government should also have the power to compel me to buy a Volt, since the fixed cost involved in, say, setting up a network of charging stations, is high.)