13 June 2023

Science and the Dumpster Fire

I’ve been in my current job since 2015. (previously) When I auditioned for this job, I said I would do it because it is a chance to work on research infrastructure and meta-science. I said the status quo is the biological and behavioral sciences is terrible. It makes little sense to invest in ambitious research projects when a typical researcher has no ability to define a non-null model of a phenomenon, to explore the implications of such a model, and to evaluate those implications with evidence. Success in the sciences does not, in the present day, depend upon those skills. But we should fix the foundations before wasting more public money.

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19 September 2022

The Problem With Cultural Evolution

I will now roast myself and my scientific field. This is therapy designed to elicit self-criticism in myself and in my colleagues. The themes are real though. I have heard variations of them from diverse colleagues. This post coincides with this year’s annual Cultural Evolution Society meeting in Aarhus. I hope it incites some animated discussions.

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13 September 2022

The Quality of Quantitative Analysis

I was asked by a colleague here in Leipzig to participate in a panel discussion of “What unites quantitative and qualitative research approaches?” I don’t have well-formed opinions on this topic, and I’ve never written about it. So naturally I immediately agreed to participate.

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29 June 2021

Regression, Fire, and Dangerous Things (3/3)

Thinking Like a Probability Distribution

Hyakujō’s Fox is a classic Zen kōan attested from the year 1036 CE [link]. It is surely much older. It gives the story of a monk who is transformed into a fox, because he denies that an enlightened person is subject to cause and effect. He is later freed when he realizes his error.

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