If the material from some prominent pop-science book were rearranged into something written in a similar style but in fact completely wrong and nonsensical and signed by an equally high-status author, how many readers of these books would realize that something's wrong?
By checking multiple sources, like I always do.
In any case, what exactly are these more accurate predictions about the world that pop-physics enables you to make?
My statement was about pop-evolution, but for starters...
My (mostly) non-mathematical understanding of contemporary physics allows me to understand, for example, that the most popular expression of quantum physics — the Copenhagen interpretation — is probably incorrect. This allows me to avoid confusions that may result from taking Copenhagen seriously, for example thinking that probability is in the world.
My non-mathematical understanding of contemporary physics also allows me to see that the "same atoms" account of personal identity is incoherent, which in turn increases my probability that I could survive cryonic preservation and revival, which informs my decision of whether or not to sign up for cryonics.
My non-mathematical understanding of contemporary physics allows me to see how the majority of scientists can be wrong about something because they're carrying along outdated philosophical assumptions (verificationism) and don't see why Bayesianism and Solomonoff's lightsaber outperform the qualitative approach to scientific explanation.
I get these benefits and more because I read great explanations of contemporary physics, even though they didn't include all the math you would prefer to include.
If the material from some prominent pop-science book were rearranged into something written in a similar style but in fact completely wrong and nonsensical and signed by an equally high-status author, how many readers of these books would realize that something's wrong?
By checking multiple sources, like I always do.
This reply seems to make more sense if I assume that lukeprog cut and pasted the 'would' over the 'many' while reading. I suspect the answer to the actual question to be along the lines of "Probably relatively few, but lukeprog would be among them, he always checks multiple sources!".
Richard Dawkins
My private school taught biology from the infamous creationist textbook Biology for Christian Schools, so my early understanding of evolution was a bit... confused. Lacking the curiosity to, say, check Altavista for a biologist’s explanation (faith is a virtue, don’t ya know), I remained confused about evolution for years.
Eventually I stumbled across an eloquent explanation of the fact that natural selection follows necessarily from heritability, variation, and selection.
Click. I got it.
Explaining is hard. Explainers need to pierce shields of misinformation (creationism), bridge vast inferential distances (probability theory), and cause readers to feel the truth of foreign concepts (quantum entanglement) in their bones. That isn’t easy. Those who do it well are rare and valuable.
Textbook writers are often skilled at explaining complex fields. That’s why I called on my fellow Less Wrongers to name their favorite textbooks (if they had read at least two other textbooks on those subjects). The Best Textbooks on Every Subject now gives 22 textbook recommendations, for fields as diverse as scientific self-help and representation theory.
Now I want to jump down a few levels in granularity. Let’s pool our knowledge to find great explanations for each important idea (in math, science, philosophy, etc.), whether or not there is equal value in the rest of the book or article in which each explanation is found.
Great explanations, in my meaning, have four traits:
A great explanation does more than report facts; it uses analogy and rhetoric and other tools to make readers feel the target idea in their bones.
A great explanation is not a single analogy nor a giant book. It is, roughly, between 2 and 100 pages in length.
A great explanation is comprehensible at best to a young teenager, or at least to a 75th percentile college graduate. (There may be no way to seriously explain string theory to an average 13-year-old.)
A great explanation is exciting to read.
By sharing great explanations we can more often experience that magical click.
List of Great Explanations
I’ve barely begun to assemble the list below. Please comment with your own additions!
(The list below is exclusive to written explanations, but feel free to share your favorite explanations from other media. My favorite explanation of BASIC programming is a piece of software from Interplay called Learn to Program BASIC, and of course many people love Khan Academy’s videos and The Teaching Company’s audio courses.)
Epistemology
Aumann’s agreement theorem: Landsburg, The Big Questions, chapter 8.
Occam’s razor: Yudkowsky, Occam’s razor.
Math and Logic
Physics
Special relativity: Wolfson, Simply Einstein, chapters 2–12.
General relativity: Hawking, The Universe in a Nutshell, chapters 1–2.
Infinite, flat universe: Greene, The Hidden Reality, chapters 1–3.
Timeless reality / block universe: Greene, The Fabric of Reality, chapter 5.
Inflationary cosmology: Greene, The Hidden Reality, chapter 3.
Rainbows: Dawkins, The Magic of Reality, chapter 7.
Biology
Psychology
Anchoring: Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, chapter 11.
Availability heuristic: Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, chapters 12–13.
Prospect theory: Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, chapters 25–26.
Modularity of mind: Kurzban, Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite, chapters 1–4.
Economics