What, Why & How do we Know ?
Little did I know when I made a passing reference to the Beard vs Taleb spat on Twitter in my previous post (the one before that actually) that it would turn into a full international incident. Nassim Nicholas Taleb holding-up Mary Beard – and her baying mob of PC-supporters – as all that is wrong with … Continue reading “More Heat Than Light”
I often remark that the fashion of demanding “show me the evidence” is really just a fetish. Another adage many bandy about is “correlation is not causation“. The point is evidence is neither causation nor necessarily a relevant fact either. Causation is understanding of relevant processes and applicability of relevant evidence, if any. Where there … Continue reading “Evidence-Based Fetish”
I’m fond of saying that humans ARE special, humanity IS special. That is technically we are a species, as distinct as any other, and in practice we are the most highly developed intelligent life and culture to have evolved in the universe we know. That is not exceptionalism in any unique or exclusive sense. We … Continue reading “Physical Inevitability of Intelligent Life”
Variations on this graphic are much shared in the wake of terror events, as part of reassuring people that we have more important risks to worry about than terrorism. Public reassurance is good, genuinely valuable, but the relative risk implied is massively wrong, when it comes to planning appropriate actions – allocating resources and time to … Continue reading “Statistics as Fake-News”
Skin in the Game (SITG) is the 5th Volume of @NNTaleb’s Incerto (work in progress), Incerto being the umbrella name for the @NNTaleb books, another “trilogy in five parts” it seems: Incerto: Fooled by Randomness – The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (2004) The Black Swan – The Impact of the … Continue reading “Incerto #5 – Skin in the Game”
Interesting find on Nautilus by Jorn Barger “7 Major Experiments That Still Haven’t Found What They’re Looking For” Not digested the quality of the piece yet, but an important clue to the limits of science, to “complete” a “consistent” world-view. [BTW Jorn – the original blogger – is typically sparse on Twitter, his Google+ remains on-line as … Continue reading “Limits to Science?”
What actually happened was Trump watched a “fake” news item on Fox. Sure Sweden has taken a lot of refugees and immigrants displaced from Islamic cultures, Sure it has it’s share of problems, and surely Islam has it’s own share too. Don’t we all? But rather than “last night”, the news story was a misrepresentation … Continue reading “What happened in Sweden last night? Memetics won.”
Wow that’s made my day (decade?) a mention of @frankieboyle liking a @nntaleb post. All things are possible when such stars align? https://t.co/xhApSQ8z1B — Ian Glendinning (@psybertron) February 19, 2017 Nassim Taleb Excellent on Umberto Eco:pic.twitter.com/dQZ1LYq3vP@nntaleb — Paul Holdengraber (@holdengraber) May 7, 2016 The Paul Holdengraber tweet came into my feed because it was liked … Continue reading “Sustainable Reading – Antilibrary requires no apology.”