At the end of a year, people like to make lists of top movies, books, etc. What I plan to do instead is write about the things I learned each year. So, here are some brief highlights of things I learned in 2011: Epigenetics, toolkit genes, genetic switches and how most conversations about heritability are [...]
Archive for December, 2011
What I learned in 2011
Posted in behavior, rationality, philosophy, politics, religion, science, statistics, tagged aggression, crime, epigenetics, evolution, heritability, parasites, philosophy on December 22, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Identity crisis
Posted in Uncategorized on December 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Based on sexual body size dimorphism, humans are somewhere between a tournament species and a pair-bonding species. In tournament species, there is a large amount of variability in male reproductive success (the big dude gets the chicks). For example, an alpha male chimpanzee might sire 30% of the offspring. In pair-bonding species, there is much [...]
What others are like
Posted in behavior, rationality, cognitive biases, tagged stereotypes on December 17, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Robin Hanson observed: Lower “working” class cultures tend to talk more overtly. Insults are more direct and cutting, friends and co-workers often tease each other about their weaknesses. Nicknames often express weakness – a fat man might be nicknamed “slim.” Upper class culture, in contrast, tends more to emphasize politeness and indirect communication. This helps [...]
Zimbardo’s bad science
Posted in Uncategorized on December 7, 2011 | 3 Comments »
What can we learn from the Stanford Prison Experiment? Nothing, besides how not to do research. Brian Dunning did an excellent job of pointing out some of the study’s flaws. Here are a few of them: First, the issue of selection bias… In this case, Zimbardo advertised to students to participate in an experiment about [...]
When congratulate?
Posted in Uncategorized on December 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Why do people congratulate you for buying a new car? I find it odd. So I thought I’d look at the kinds of things people tend to get congratulated for (and not get congratulated for): I think the most common thing to get congratulated for is an accomplishment, where you used some set of skills [...]
