“Social science was — it is best to speak in the past tense — a mistake. The dream of a comprehensive science of society, which would elucidate “laws of history” or “social laws” comparable to the physical determinants or “laws” of nature, was one of the great delusions of the 19th century.”
Category: ideas
Dangerous Satire? Americans Know Nothing Of Dangerous Satire
“America simply never had a Werner Finck, and we certainly don’t have a Bassem Youssef, even though we’d like to think we do. It is far safer and easier to canonize Chaplin’s ballet performance [in The Great Dictator] while forgetting the unsafe, uneasy provocations of Finck [and Youssef]. Americans tolerate bullshit even when we know – we know – it’s bullshit. At the best of times, there is something luxurious about this.”
Do Neuroticism And Creativity Go Hand In Hand?
Think of it this way: Reacting to an ambiguous remark from your boss by coming up with crazy, unrealistic scenarios in which you are likely to get fired is, in a very real sense, creative.
Men’s And Women’s Brains Are Indeed Different – But Only A Little
“Two years ago, a study of the differences between male and female brains caused a storm. The researchers, based at the University of Pennsylvania, claimed to have found that, from adolescence onwards, men’s brains have more connections within each hemisphere, whereas women’s brains have more cross-connections between the hemispheres.” Well, they’ve updated their findings.
Finally – An App That Might Make Learning Easier
“As the system learns more about a student, it can automatically recommend the pieces of content that are most likely to help that student improve. In other words, it lifts the burden of those decisions off of the teacher.”
Why Sticking A Pair Of Eyeballs On A Sign Actually Changes Behavior
“One American security sign company, MySecuritySign.com, has even made it a standard feature on their sign templates … This isn’t simply a way for sign companies to make a quick extra buck. There’s actually science to back it up.”
When Freud Meets fMRIs – Neuropsychoanalysis Is Now A Thing
“With their starkly different goals, methods, and cultures, psychoanalysis and neuroscience can appear to be two different species, mutually alienated, as if preoccupied with two altogether different pursuits. But to some, like Solms, they are merely two views of the same object.”
Is Scientific Research Just More Wrong Than It Used To Be?
“By one estimate, from 2001 to 2010, the annual rate of retractions by academic journals increased by a factor of 11 (adjusting for increases in published literature, and excluding articles by repeat offenders) [2]. This surge raises an obvious question: Are retractions increasing because errors and other misdeeds are becoming more common, or because research is now scrutinized more closely?”
A Serpentine Tale: How Snake Oil Came To Be A Byword For Anything Bogus, And Why Real Snake Oil Actually Can Be Good For You
“Despite the quackery and charlatanism associated with snake oil, it’s not always as blatantly ineffective as its reputation suggests – as long as the oil is extracted from the right kind of snake.”
Are The Social Sciences Ultimately Futile? The Problem With P-Values
“In research, the p-value represents the odds that your finding is a fluke, a coincidence, nothing more than a chance occurrence. In p-values, as in golf, lower is better. … And yet it says almost nothing about the size or strength of a result.” If the results of research can always be a fluke, why bother? The problem lies in what we expect from science.