Tag Archives: lw

Studies On Slack

I. Imagine a distant planet full of eyeless animals. Evolving eyes is hard: they need to evolve Eye Part 1, then Eye Part 2, then Eye Part 3, in that order. Each of these requires a separate series of rare … Continue reading

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Confirmation Bias As Misfire Of Normal Bayesian Reasoning

From the subreddit: Humans Are Hardwired To Dismiss Facts That Don’t Fit Their Worldview. Once you get through the preliminary Trump supporter and anti-vaxxer denunciations, it turns out to be an attempt at an evo psych explanation of confirmation bias: … Continue reading

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Map Of Effective Altruism

In the spirit of my old map of the rationalist diaspora, here’s a map of effective altruism: Thumbail – click to expand Continents are cause areas; cities are charities or organizations; mountains are individuals. Some things are clickable links with … Continue reading

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Book Review: Human Compatible

I. Clarke’s First Law goes: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Stuart Russell is only 58. But what … Continue reading

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Assortative Mating And Autism

Introduction Assortative mating is when similar people marry and have children. Some people worry about assortative mating in Silicon Valley: highly analytical tech workers marry other highly analytical tech workers. If highly analytical tech workers have more autism risk genes … Continue reading

SSC Meetups Everywhere Retrospective

Slate Star Codex has regular weekly-to-monthly meetups in a bunch of cities around the world. Earlier this autumn, we held a Meetups Everywhere event, hoping to promote and expand these groups. We collected information on existing meetups, got volunteers to … Continue reading

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Mental Mountains

I. Kaj Sotala has an outstanding review of Unlocking The Emotional Brain; I read the book, and Kaj’s review is better. He begins: UtEB’s premise is that much if not most of our behavior is driven by emotional learning. Intense … Continue reading

Autism And Intelligence: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

[Thanks to Marco DG for proofreading and offering suggestions] I. Several studies have shown a genetic link between autism and intelligence; genes that contribute to autism risk also contribute to high IQ. But studies show autistic people generally have lower … Continue reading

Building Intuitions On Non-Empirical Arguments In Science

I. Aeon: Post-Empirical Science Is An Oxymoron And It is Dangerous: There is no agreed criterion to distinguish science from pseudoscience, or just plain ordinary bullshit, opening the door to all manner of metaphysics masquerading as science. This is ‘post-empirical’ … Continue reading

Book Review: Ages Of Discord

I. I recently reviewed Secular Cycles, which presents a demographic-structural theory of the growth and decline of pre-industrial civilizations. When land is plentiful, population grows and the economy prospers. When land reaches its carrying capacity and income declines to subsistence, … Continue reading