Category Archives: psychology

True Meaning

Posted on 2013-05-20 by TJ

A friend recently used the acronym “SMH” and I had no clue what it meant, so I looked it up via one of those search engine thingies all the cool kids are talking about. It linked me to an entry … Continue reading →

Posted in epistemology, politics, psychology, religion | Leave a comment

More Things That Are Not Arguments

Posted on 2013-04-22 by TJ

I recently had some interactions with anti-gun-control people (there is a lot of that about) in which one of them offered the following statement (which is not an argument): “if someone is really intent on hurting someone, even if they … Continue reading →

Posted in epistemology, probability, psychology, religion, science | Leave a comment

Supernatural Explanations

Posted on 2013-04-01 by TJ

Before talking about supernatural explanations, it’s a good idea to say something about explanations in general. An explanation is a causal account of a particular situation based on general principles, laws or abstractions. Causal accounts are general, explanatory accounts are … Continue reading →

Posted in epistemology, god, probability, psychology, quantum, religion, science | Leave a comment

Why Isn’t the Germ Theory of Disease Mentioned in Scripture?

Posted on 2013-02-24 by TJ

My text for the day will be the Gospel According to Lister, in which he recounts the revelation God gave to His beloved prophet, Pasteur: And in those days there was a great sickness in the land, and the people … Continue reading →

Posted in epistemology, god, history, life, psychology, religion, science | Leave a comment

Blur

Posted on 2013-02-05 by TJ

Science is the discipline of publicly testing ideas by systematic observation and controlled experiment. There is a lot of stuff entailed by that claim: the whole of actual scientific practice, in fact. The specific sciences and subdisciplines all have their … Continue reading →

Posted in epistemology, psychology, religion, science | Leave a comment

Risk and the Price of Books

Posted on 2013-01-30 by TJ

I’m reading Alan Schom’s utterly brilliant biography of Napoleon at the moment, and noticed the price tag: about thirty bucks. Considering what I pay for other forms of entertainment, this is astonishingly low. I’ve already got dozens of hours out … Continue reading →

Posted in economics, marketing, prediction, psychology, writing | Leave a comment

Robust Relationships

Posted on 2013-01-18 by TJ

Robustness is the property of being able to deal with unexpected situations without things falling apart. The opposite of robustness is fragility. Fragile things have to be handled with extreme care. In my algorithm development business I pay a lot … Continue reading →

Posted in life, psychology | Leave a comment

How Not to be a Science Writer

Posted on 2013-01-04 by TJ

The state of science reporting has always been pretty dismal, with a few major luminaries outshining the combined light of their lesser colleagues. I suspect that the science desk is the place where novices and interns get parked until they … Continue reading →

Posted in politics, psychology, science, writing | Leave a comment

Some Notes on Reviews

Posted on 2012-12-13 by TJ

Carrie sometimes reminds me that my problems are other people’s dreams, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have problems. In the present instance, I’ve got the problem of figuring out what to read, and I find myself facing a problem … Continue reading →

Posted in bayes, economics, life, marketing, psychology, review, writing | 2 Comments

Love, Money and the Double Coincidence of Wants

Posted on 2012-11-23 by TJ

Toy-model economic discussions tend to critique the barter economy as dysfunctional due to the problem of the “double coincidence of wants”. In a barter economy, so the story goes, if Bob has a widget and wants a cow he must … Continue reading →

Posted in economics, life, psychology, sailing | 2 Comments