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Comic strip writer Randall Munroe illustrated some of the failings of this threshold for scientific publication: The comic shows some scientists testing whether jelly beans cause acne. After finding no link, someone recommends they test different colors individually. After going through numerous colors, from salmon to orange, none are found to be related to acne, except for one: The green jelly beans are found to be linked to acne, with a p-value less than 0.05. But how many colors were examined? Twenty. And yet, explaining that this might be due to chance does little to prevent the headline declaring jelly beans linked to acne. John Maynard Smith, a renowned evolutionary biologist, once pithily summarized this approach: “Statistics is the science that lets you do twenty experiments a year and publish one false result in Nature.”
The Half-Life of Facts
Samuel Arbesman
The Man in the Arena Razor
It's easy to throw rocks from the sidelines—it's hard to step into the arena.
It's lonely and vulnerable, but it's where growth happens.
When faced with two paths, choose the path that puts you in the arena—choose the path with real skin in the game.
“Razors” Are Rules of Th...
@SahilBloom on Twitter
33. The Fisher Protocol:
Leaders are often detached from the consequences of their decisions. Roger Fisher suggested implanting the country’s nuclear codes into a volunteer. To launch nukes, the President would have to personally kill the volunteer and thereby confront reality.
My Friends, a New MEGATH...
@G_S_Bhogal on Twitter
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