Category Archives: Science

IS BEAUTY TRUTH, TRUTH BEAUTY?

IS BEAUTY TRUTH, TRUTH BEAUTY? Philip Ball writes about scientists who consider that beauty—rather than experimental results—is evidence of a theory’s truth. He cites Einstein’s comments after an experiment by Arthur Eddington in 1919 had provided evidence for Einstein’s general … Continue reading

Posted in Literature, Science | Leave a comment

CONCEPTUAL ART AND SYMMETRY.

CONCEPTUAL ART AND SYMMETRY. I commented in this post about LEGOS AND CONCEPTUAL ART that: “A lot of conceptual art bears only a few moments of looking. If you watch people at an exhibit of conceptual art, they will glance … Continue reading

Posted in art, Science | Leave a comment

CHEESE CONSUMPTION AND DEADLY BEDSHEETS.

CHEESE CONSUMPTION AND DEADLY BEDSHEETS. Tyler Cowen at the Marginal Revolution blog links to a website devoted to spurious correlations. The website says that the server attempts to find a new correlation every 60 seconds. Here are some examples. The … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Science | 1 Comment

SMALL SAMPLE PROBLEMS—AND MONEYBALL.

SMALL SAMPLE PROBLEMS—AND MONEYBALL. The article by Jerry Adler reports that Joseph P. Simmons—who calls for much stricter standards for psychology experiments—had “at one point recommended requiring a minimum sample size of 20, but has since walked back from that … Continue reading

Posted in Baseball, Science | Leave a comment

THE FILE DRAWER EFFECT.

THE FILE DRAWER EFFECT. Simmons, Nelson, and Simonsohn describe in their article (here) some of the degrees of freedom that researchers use in collecting and analyzing data. They list some of the choices researchers have to decide: “Should more data … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Leave a comment

WHAT THE “WHEN I’M 64” EXPERIMENT WAS DESIGNED TO SHOW.

WHAT THE “WHEN I’M 64” EXPERIMENT WAS DESIGNED TO SHOW. Of course, the experiment was not designed to show anything about the power of “When I’m 64″. The result is funny, but the other two songs were, I assume, also … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Leave a comment

HOW THE EXPERIMENT WAS DONE.

HOW THE EXPERIMENT WAS DONE. Adler describes what Simmons and his colleagues (Leif D. Nelson and Uri Simonsohn) did: They divided their sample of 34 undergraduates into three groups and played for each group one of three songs. They found … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Leave a comment

A PRANK ON PSYCHOLOGY THAT FOLLOWED THE SOKAL HOAX.

A PRANK ON PSYCHOLOGY THAT FOLLOWED THE SOKAL HOAX. I posted on the Sokal Hoax here. In 1996 Alan Sokal submitted to a prominent journal of cultural studies an article entitled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Leave a comment

HOW THE DIALECT QUIZ WORKED FOR ME.

How THE DIALECT QUIZ WORKED FOR ME. I took the dialect quiz (Harvard Dialect Survey)—there is a link here—and I think it did a pretty good job.. The quiz identifies three cities that are supposed to have a dialect most … Continue reading

Posted in Science, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

WHICH DIALECT DO YOU SPEAK?

WHICH DIALECT DO YOU SPEAK? This article at the boingboing site by Maggie Koerth-Baker, tells about a quiz which will let you find out what dialect you speak. More accurately, it will help you determine the sources of your ideolect—your … Continue reading

Posted in Science, Uncategorized | 2 Comments