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For a while there, many people thought vitamin D was magical—that it could improve bones, the heart, infections, cancer, heart disease, longevity, even mental health. But among people I respect, opinion is now overwhelmingly that taking vitamin D does nothing unless you're severely deficient. The central argument is that while...
1. > It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine—a gun—which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a large extent supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle...
They say you’re supposed to choose your prior in advance. That’s why it’s called a “prior”. First, you’re supposed to say say how plausible different things are, and then you update your beliefs based on what you see in the world. For example, currently you are—I assume—trying to decide if...
In 1963, Mosteller and Wallace published Inference in an Authorship Problem, which used Bayesian statistics to try to infer who wrote some of the disputed Federalist Papers. (Answer: Madison) Anyway, at the end they have a list of "Remarks on Bayesian studies" which is astonishing to read 62 years later:...
Say you’re Robyn Denholm, chair of Tesla’s board. And say you’re thinking about firing Elon Musk. One way to make up your mind would be to have people bet on Tesla’s stock price six months from now in a market where all bets get cancelled unless Musk is fired. Also,...
So you’ve made a thing. I’ll pretend it’s a blog post, though it doesn’t really matter. If people read your thing, some would like it, and some wouldn’t. You should try to make a good thing, that many people would like. That presents certain challenges. But our subject today is...