Monthly Archives: April 2014

The Control Group Is Out Of Control

I. Allan Crossman calls parapsychology the control group for science. That is, in let’s say a drug testing experiment, you give some people the drug and they recover. That doesn’t tell you much until you give some other people a … Continue reading

Stop Confounding Yourself! Stop Confounding Yourself!

As a perk of my job, I get a free subscription to the American Journal of Psychiatry. I am still not used to this. No enraging struggles with paywalls. No “one year embargo on full text”. I just come home … Continue reading

Metaphors Be With You

People link to this list of 27 funny metaphors all the time. But that’s been around for years, and no one has ever tried to expand it. The only other effort I’ve seen to collect good rhetorical language has been … Continue reading

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Friendship Is Countersignaling

Yesterday I talked about countersignaling in the context of some controversial and complicated ideas. Maybe I should have started with some examples where I’m more certain countersignaling is at work, just to drive the concept home. How about slagging? I … Continue reading

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Right Is The New Left

[Content warning: some ideas that might make you feel anxious about your political beliefs. Epistemic status: very speculative and not necessarily endorsed. This post is less something I will defend to the death and more a form of self-therapy.] I. … Continue reading

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The Economics Of Art And The Art Of Economics

Here in Detroit, there is debate and concern over the possibility that the city’s bankruptcy might obligate it to sell off masterpieces in the local art museum. Is solving a temporary financial problem really worth the cultural impoverishment of the … Continue reading

Plutocracy Isn’t About Money

Two political science articles I read recently have surprisingly dissonant conclusions. Gilens and Page’s study “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” is very interesting. You may have spotted it in the news media under any … Continue reading

Confounder Of The Day: How Sexy Your Parents Were

One of the more interesting mental health results is the differing prevalence of psychiatric disorders depending on the age of the patient’s parents. This month’s JAMA Psychiatry includes a study from Denmark that conducts one of of the largest and … Continue reading

Someone Writes An Anti-Racist FAQ

The Anti-Racialist Q&A – inspired by my own Anti-Reactionary FAQ and written by blogger The Prussian on SkepticInk – is an astounding essay. It’s astounding because it is a piece of writing about race that is so good that I … Continue reading

Do You Believe Me, Doc?

[Content warning: psychiatrists having ethically complicated conversations with patients] I recently attended the Michigan Psychiatric Society conference. It was all downhill after I heard the name of the first poster presentation. The study – investigating the tendency of anti-Parkinsons medication … Continue reading

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