Three reasons to be cautious when reading data-driven “explanations”

September 10, 2023

Photo by Sunder Muthukumaran on Unsplash

Did you know that fairly often, there will be multiple extremely different stories you can tell about identical data, none of which are false? In other words, the mapping from statistical results to true stories about those results is not unique. This leads to a lot of confusion, and it also implies that claims about "the reason" behind a complex social phenomenon should be interpreted with caution. Here are 3 common situations of this happening, each illustrated with realistic political ...

How to avoid feeding anti-science sentiments

August 13, 2023

A major mistake scientists sometimes make in public communication: they state things science isn't sure about as confidently as things it is sure about. This confuses the public and undermines trust in science and scientists. Some interesting examples: 1) As COVID-19 spread early in the pandemic, epidemiologists confidently stated many true things about it that were scientifically measured (e.g., rate of spread). Some of them were also equally confidently stating things that were just spec...

Dealing with chronic pain: it’s in the way you move

August 7, 2023

Image made by Spencer using Midjourney in the style of Leonardo da Vinci

I've come to think that you can somewhat reduce your chance of chronic injury (and improve chronic pain you already have) by learning to notice and pay close attention to pain right at the moments when it crops up. By doing so, you can learn to immediately adjust how you move to take the pain into account (not avoiding the action, but changing the way you engage in the action). The goal is to make your movements as smooth and natural as possible. If avoiding the pain is causing you to make l...

Paving the road to hell with good intentions: four examples of good actors screwing things up

August 5, 2023

Good things often get taken too far. They can take on a life of their own through self-perpetuation, get over-zealously applied, or become hijacked. This often turns good things into mixed things and sometimes even corrupts them into bad things. Here are four interesting examples: (1) Zoning laws in the U.S. helped solve problems (like keeping pollution-spewing factories away from people’s homes and helping keep cities pleasant). Later, they got used in a way that increased ...

Six fresh takes on wisdom to help you become wiser

August 1, 2023

Becoming wiser seems like one of the most important things we can aim for. Yet, there's something extremely odd about wisdom: nobody agrees on what it means. Here are six thought-provoking definitions of wisdom that l find it useful to reflect on: 1) Wisdom as self-consistency: Wisdom is an equilibrium where you find alignment between all combinations of your: • values • beliefs • actions Inspiration: Justin Shovelain and Elliot McKernon 2) Wisdom as cau...

False Beliefs Held by Intellectual Giants

July 15, 2023

Even many of the smartest people that have ever lived convinced themselves of false things (just like the rest of us). Here are some fun and wild examples: (1) Linus Pauling won TWO Nobel prizes - one in peace and one in chemistry. Unfortunately, he eventually became obsessed with and widely promoted the false (and sometimes still repeated) idea that high-dose vitamin C cures many diseases, including HIV and snakebites. (2) Isaac Newton, who co-invented calculus and discovered t...

If you think technological progress is inevitable, you’re mistaken

July 8, 2023

Some people claim that the idea of technology or science being slowed down is ridiculous - that they march forward at their own pace. But this is not always true - there are a number of interesting examples of tech, tech adoption, and science being greatly slowed down: 1) Psychedelics: In 1966, LSD was banned in CA, and in 1968, a U.S. law came out banning psilocybin (the chemical in "magic mushrooms"). Since then, the study of these compounds and the development of related ones has been inc...

Seven of the greatest academic works of satire of all time

May 26, 2023

1) What do you do when a predatory journal keeps spam emailing you to get you to make a submission? Submit this paper to their journal: 2) To succeed in academia, you need lots of publications. But the order of authors' names on a paper impacts who gets the credit. Thankfully, there's a technological solution to make every author the first author: 3) As much an insightful look at academic practice as it is a work of satire, this paper&nbsp...

Five metaphorical tools to help you climb your personal mountains

May 19, 2023

You're on a mountain range, trying to reach the highest mountain peak you're capable of reaching. That peak reflects the total sum of your achievements according to your intrinsic values. This may include, for instance, your happiness, the happiness of your loved ones, your positive impact on the world, living virtuously, achieving your deeply meaningful goals, and so on. Unfortunately, the mountains you face are foggy as hell. Plus, they have dense forests, huge boulders, and bra...

Four types of “designers” for software start-ups

May 17, 2023

I've often heard software/start-up folks say they need a "designer." Few realize how hopelessly vague this is. I think there are at least four different (unrelated) start-up "design" skills that are rarely all found in one person. Four types of "designers" for software start-ups: 1) Artist Designers (a.k.a., Graphic Designers) They usually know Adobe Illustrator, can draw by hand beautifully (and perhaps also animate), and often have gone to art school. If you want custom art, logos, ...