This entire graph is not the mental picture I had. https://t.co/nEGXLFCrcI
— Lyman Stone 石來民 (@lymanstoneky) September 23, 2020
Monday, October 26, 2020
Data Talks
An Insight
The deep economic pessimism among Gen Z and Millennials that I see so much of these days--on left & right--is just entirely misplaced. The big lousy economic fact of the past 50 years is male pay declines in the '70s, '80s, and early '90s. That hit...the Boomers and Silent Gen. https://t.co/p7vu5Q6yLN
— Scott Winship (@swinshi) September 23, 2020
Brown-eyed Girl in Autumn Landscape, 1920 by Masa Feszty (Hungarian, 1895 - 1979)
Brown-eyed Girl in Autumn Landscape, 1920 by Masa Feszty (Hungarian, 1895 - 1979)
Sunday, October 25, 2020
Mertonian Norms
From Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth by Stuart Ritchie. Page 21.
The above summary is all too brief and general, but essentially every scientific field follows that process in some form. We might ask ourselves whether, after being put through the mangle of peer review, the eventual publication still provides a faithful representation of what was done in the study. We’ll get to that in later chapters. For now, we need to consider something else. What ensures that the participants in the process just described – the researcher who submits the paper, the editor at the journal, the peers who review it – all conduct themselves with the honesty and integrity that trustworthy science requires? There’s no law requiring that everyone acts fairly and rationally when evaluating science, so what’s needed is a shared ethos, a set of values that aligns the scientists’ behaviour. The best-known attempt to write down these unwritten rules is that of the sociologist Robert Merton.
In 1942, Merton set out four scientific values, now known as the ‘Mertonian Norms’. None of them have snappy names, but all of them are good aspirations for scientists. First, universalism: scientific knowledge is scientific knowledge, no matter who comes up with it – so long as their methods for finding “finding that knowledge are sound. The race, sex, age, gender, sexuality, income, social background, nationality, popularity, or any other status of a scientist should have no bearing on how their factual claims are assessed. You also can’t judge someone’s research based on what a pleasant or unpleasant person they are – which should come as a relief for some of my more disagreeable colleagues. Second, and relatedly, disinterestedness: scientists aren’t in it for the money, for political or ideological reasons, or to enhance their own ego or reputation (or the reputation of their university, country, or anything else). They’re in it to advance our understanding of the universe by discovering things and making things – full stop. As Charles Darwin once wrote, a scientist ‘ought to have no wishes, no affections, – a mere heart of stone.’
The next two norms remind us of the social nature of science. The third is communality: scientists should share knowledge with each other. This principle underlies the whole idea of publishing your results in a journal for others to see – we’re all in this together; we have to know the details of other scientists’ work so that we can assess and build “on it. Lastly, there’s organised scepticism: nothing is sacred, and a scientific claim should never be accepted at face value. We should suspend judgement on any given finding until we’ve properly checked all the data and methodology. The most obvious embodiment of the norm of organised scepticism is peer review itself.
Offbeat Humor
Release and Catch pic.twitter.com/74NlVSGQYl
— Steve Inman (@SteveInmanUIC) September 22, 2020
History
Colorized footage of Jerusalem from 1897 pic.twitter.com/Fll9nZS3HW
— Jehad Abusalim جِهَاد أبو سليم (@JehadAbusalim) September 22, 2020
The General serving as Sergeant
From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 61.
A memorable story of an incident that occurred at about this time may or may not be entirely reliable, but portrays vividly the level of tension among the troops and Washington’s own pent-up anger and exasperation. It was told years afterward by Israel Trask, the ten-year-old boy who had enlisted with his father and in whose eyes Washington seemed almost supernatural.A snowball fight broke out on Harvard Yard between fifty or more backwoods Virginia riflemen and an equal number of sailors from the Marblehead regiment. The fight quickly turned fierce, with “biting and gouging on the one part, and knockdown on the other part with as much apparent fury as the most deadly enmity could create,” according to Trask. Hundreds of others rushed to the scene. Soon more than a thousand men had joined in a furious brawl. Then Washington arrived:
I only saw him and his colored servant, both mounted [Trask remembered]. With the spring of a deer, he leaped from his saddle, threw the reins of his bridle into the hands of his servant, and rushed into the thickest of the melee, with an iron grip seized two tall, brawny, athletic, savage-looking riflemen by the throat, keeping them at arm’s length, alternating shaking and talking to them.
Seeing this, the others took flight “at the top of their speed in all directions from the scene of the conflict.” If Trask’s memory served, the whole row, from start to finish, lasted all of fifteen minutes and nothing more came of it.”
Let go of the past. We must only begin.
From The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman.
I am your teacher and you are learning in my school. My aim is to bring you to completion, unhindered, free from compulsive behavior, unrestrained, without shame, free, flourishing, and happy, looking to God in things great and small—your aim is to learn and diligently practice all these things. Why then don’t you complete the work, if you have the right aim and I have both the right aim and right preparation? What is missing? . . . The work is quite feasible, and is the only thing in our power. . . . Let go of the past. We must only begin. Believe me and you will see.—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.19.29–34
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