That’s not always the case. Plenty of times competent people are called upon to implement a new method, and want to see for themselves the precise steps that the techniques’ discoverer has gone through. I don’t always have time, and it’s not always instructive to have to fill in the blanks.
andrewc
Karma: 76
Depends on what you bought. More than a few stocks had the last few years of growth wiped off them last year, and that includes many well hedged managed funds. Your youthful assessment of the risks was perhaps better than you give it credit for.
What would the original investment be worth right now had you not cashed it in?
In the words of a well known amateur pianist:
If P is true then Q is true Q is true Therefore, P becomes more plausible.
But Annoyance was talking about logic, not plausible reasoning or probability theory, right? In terms of Aristotelian deductive logic the two errors quoted are pretty much equivalent.
I like the staples—they all have their role to play in pushing the brain where you want it to go. Caffeine enhances concentration—my understanding is that continual small does (e.g. drink tea all day) are better than one big hit.
Alcohol mitigates biases against socially acceptable ideas by reducing inhibition. Think spirited debate over a pint, not all night bender. I find I am more receptive to odd ideas after a couple of beers.
THC (the main active agent in marijuana) is good for flashes of inspiration. I find my software designs when baked are brilliantly out of the box (the code itself usually needs a cleanup the next day). A downside is that it can affect short term memory, which reduces your ability to perform mental accounting. Best for working on large sheets of paper or whiteboards, during the planning/design phase of a project. The brain seems to adapt to it—smoke every day and you just think you’re more inspired...
Dunno the answer to your question but I noted a recent article that linked low carb diets to reduced mental performance discussed in this random medical publication
Cheers for that. I might just look it up when I have some time. Still skeptical but it seems more plausible after reading those quotes. The hypothesis of selection for lactose tolerance seems a good place to start.
… hardly anyone except perhaps Richard Dawkins imagines that by denigrating religion one is advancing science.
--E.T. Jaynes, “Probability Theory”.
I don’t understand your point about levels of abstraction.
The question is: are the ‘tamest’ humans the ones most able to reproduce, and therefore selected for by evolution?
Are the most rockin’ humans the ones most able to reproduce? In the absence of any visible evidence, my answer to both questions is most likely not. Evidence would require a clear definition of tame (or rockin’). We can mostly agree on what a tame fox is but what is a tame human?
It seems to me that essentially random copulation, with some selection/treatment for serious genetic diseases is just fine for maintaining biological humans pretty much as-is. I don’t know enough about mathematical biology to articulate a quantitative argument for this, but I’d like to hear it, for or against.
I don’t understand how you can relate health problems in pure bred dogs usually attributed to in-breeding, to a theory of degeneration of current humans. Mongrels (‘Mutts’ in US English?) have a reputation for being healthier, smarter, and longer-lived than most pure breds, and most of them come about due to random stray boy dogs impregnating random stray girl dogs.
I think it’s simply false that human reproduction now selects for the ‘tamest’ humans, whatever that means. Now, as always, human reproduction selects for those who are most able to reproduce.
Did Dawkins actually articulate an argument like the one you present?
I’d like to see this discussed as a top level post. Care to take a stab at it Smoofra?
I’ve yet to find a bug in the maths, but some people would find the unconventional style of delivery to be monumentally bad for a textbook. Me, I like the conversational, tangent taking, invective filled style, but I can imagine that others associate it with crank-ness.
Yes. Or you can sit in a lit room wearing Blue Blockers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin#Light_dependence
I get the argument, but I assign a high value to self-determination. Like Arthur Dent, I don’t want my brain replaced (unless by choice), even if the new brain is programmed to be ok with being replaced. Which ending did you pick in Deus Ex 2? I felt guilty gunning down JC and his brother, but it seemed the least wrong (according to my preferences) thing to do.
of the 102 people who cared about the ending to 3 Worlds Collide, 68 (66.6%) prefered to see the humans blow up Huygens, while 34 (33.3%) thought we’d be better off cooperating with the aliens and eating delicious babies.
I’m shocked. Are there any significant variations in the responses of babyeaters compared to freedom fighters to other questions?
I choose (b) without the amnesia. Why? Because fuck Ming, that’s why!
Or more seriously, by refusing to play Ming’s bizzare little game you deny him the utility he gets from watching people agonise about what the best choice is. Turn it up to 11, Ming you pussy!
Or maybe I already chose (b) and can’t remember...
I haven’t read Jaynes’s work on the subject, so I couldn’t say.
Point your browser at amazon
Order ETJ’s book.
Wait approx one week for delivery
Read it.
I don’t mean to sound gushing but Jayne’s writing on probability theory is the clearest, most grounded, and most entertaining material you will ever read on the subject. Even better than that weird AI dude. Seriously it’s like trying to discuss the apocalypse without reading Revelations...
These surveys are fun!
Fast food e.g. McDonalds
Concerns about low nutritional value and food safety.
If I have been drinking I will happily enjoy a fast food burger
My son is going to be one of those kids who never gets to go to McDonalds unless its for a birthday party.
No.
N/A
If their reasons seem rational I think that’s cool. If their reasons seem to be founded on a selective evidence and hippy crap I think they are stupid.
Friday nights are the killer, see question 2.
Warm cheeseburgers taste good.
I enjoy organic and free range animals, especially pest game like wild pigs and rabbits. It seems more noble to take animals randomly from the wild like natural predators do. I’m ok with non-cruel farming though.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that bacterial counts can be 26 times higher in cooked food than raw, before it’s detectable by taste or smell; evidently evolution hasn’t had enough time to tune our senses for detecting the quality of cooked proteins!
Sounds suspicious to me. OK, so maybe if you cook your meat in spices, you can’t smell the bugs as easily. But cooking kills bugs, most spices kill bugs, salt stops bugs growing and you don’t keep cooked meat for long enough for the surviving, or new bacteria to multiply to dangerous levels. If you had a credible reference for the claim I wouldn’t be as suspicious.
I’m not sure it’s so clear cut.
They key point is that when you do the p value test you are determining p(data | null_hyp). This is certainly useful to calculate, but doesn’t tell you the whole story about whether your data support any particular non-null hypotheses.
Chapter 17 of E.T. Jaynes’ book provides a lively discussion of the limitations of traditional hypothesis testing, and is accessible enough that you can dive into it without having worked through the rest of the book.
The Cohen article cited below is nice but it’s important to note it doesn’t completely reject the use of null hypotheses or p-values:
.. null hypothesis testing complete with power analysis can be useful if we abandon the rejection of point nil hypotheses and use instead “good-enough” range null hypotheses
It sounded like sarcasm to mine.