Monthly Archives: August 2013

Military Strikes Are An Extremely Cheap Way To Help Foreigners

…at least potentially. Lately a bunch of my Facebook friends have been sharing the Slate article Military Strikes Are An Extremely Expensive Way To Help Foreigners, which is too bad because it’s super super wrong. It is wrong both in … Continue reading

Fake Euthanasia Statistics

I promised I’d write something clearing up statistics on euthanasia in the Netherlands, so let’s start with Anne McTavish: The Netherlands’ Euthanasia Stats Are Appalling. She writes: I want to focus on the doctors and the rest of us who … Continue reading

Fake Consensualism

[A previous version of this essay was posted incomplete. This is the full version] I. Dear friend, have you considered banning health care? Several studies agree that sick people are often treated against their preferences and sometimes against their explicit … Continue reading

Things I Don’t Understand About Genetics (A Non-Exhaustive List)

A couple months ago the Genetic Association Consortium’s study on SNPs for intelligence raised an important question: should all of our genetics studies be performed by organizations whose acronyms are also amino acid codons? And aspartic acid? Really? Kind of … Continue reading

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Fermat’s Last Stand: Soundtrack and Adventure Log

Two years ago an impromptu role-playing group put on a very successful Dungeons and Discourse adventure, complete with several musical numbers. Last week, we completed our first sequel to that adventure, Fermat’s Last Stand. Below is the log and twelve … Continue reading

Extreme Mnemonics

[Very minor Game of Thrones spoilers] From one of my LW comments, discussing how hard it is to learn biochemistry: I’m having the same problem with molecular biology right now, and I agree with the track you’re taking. The issue … Continue reading

Science & Medicine Links for August

Case report from the BMJ that would also make a good Twilight Zone episode: Woman hallucinates ghost children. Husband takes pictures of scene to try to prove that there’s nobody there. Woman sees exact same hallucinations in the photographs. Woman … Continue reading

On first looking into Chapman’s “Pop Bayesianism”

I. David Chapman keeps complaining that “Bayesianism” – as used to describe a philosophy rather than just a branch of statistics – is meaningless or irrelevant, yet is touted as being the Sacred Solution To Everything. In my reply on … Continue reading

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