A marvelous xkcd from a few days ago. This one strip explains the trouble with odds ratios better than hours of premed/med stats 🧪
Frustrating to listen. Yes, well-done RCTs are prohibitively expensive and many good ideas are box-checked to death. The solution isn’t to ration RCTs, but to make them less costly (and not just in money) 🎙
🎙 Out of the two podcasts about randomized controlled trials that came out this week, I much preferred this one. Confirmation bias.
🎙 A fantastic episode of EconTalk this week: Richard Gunderman and Russ Roberts discuss “Master and Man”, Tolstoy’s short story about two men in a snowstorm, but also about capitalism, sociopathy, and religion. This one will easily make it into the year’s top 5.
🧪 Good morning to everyone except to whomever is in charge of the eRA Commons service desk. You’d think that a multi-billion dollar operation like NIH would have a decent answering service, with a call-back option, number in line, etc. ★☆☆☆☆, won’t use again (if only)
“This is the question that haunts me: How much genius are we losing to the compulsive need to scroll just a little bit more?”
Inside the Virus-Hunting Nonprofit at the Center of the Lab-Leak Controversy This gun isn’t smoking, it’s on fire 📰
Putin’s useful German idiots 📰
This is not limited to Putin. Germany has a rich history of enabling petty autocrats world wide, including the Balkans.
A marvelous xkcd from a few days ago. This one strip explains the trouble with odds ratios better than hours of premed/med stats 🧪
Invasion of the Fact-Checkers 📰
An uneducated populace with little capacity for critical thought does need a Ministry of Truth to tell them what to think. But that’s just Orwell’s 1984. Couldn’t possibly happen in the here and now.
Review: Understanding Nonlinear Dynamics 📚 Thought I’d be too old for textbooks, but here we are…