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A batch of the best highlights from what Fabien's read, .
Bias Against Null Results: Studies that find something surprising are more interesting than studies that don't, so they're more likely to be published. This creates the impression the world is more surprising than it actually is. Also applies to news, Twitter.
My Peoples, the Time Has...
@G_S_Bhogal on Twitter
We tend to place a lot of emphasis on our circumstances, assuming that what happens to us (or fail to happen) determines how we feel. From this perspective, the small-scale details of hw you spend your days aren't that important, because what matters are the large-scale outcomes, such as whether or not your get a promotion or move to that nicer apartment.
Our brain instead construct our world view based on what we pay attention to. If you focus on a cancer diagnosis, you and your life become unhappy, and dark, but if you focus instead on an evening martini, you and your life become more pleasant, even though the circumstances in both scenarios are the same.
"Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love, is the sum of what you focus on"
As Jordan Ellenberg asks in How Not to Be Wrong, have you ever noticed that, among the people you date, the attractive ones tend to be jerks? Instead of constructing elaborate psychosocial theories, consider a simpler explanation. Your choice of people to date depends on two factors: attractiveness and personality. You’ll take a chance on dating a mean attractive person or a nice unattractive person, and certainly a nice attractive person, but not a mean unattractive person. It’s the same as the two-coin example, when you censored tails-tails outcomes. This creates a spurious negative correlation between attractiveness and personality. The sad truth is that unattractive people are just as mean as attractive people—but you’ll never realize it, because you’ll never date somebody who is both mean and unattractive.
The Book of Why
Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie
...catch up on these, and many more highlights
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