How To Spot Bad Science
In a digital world that clamors for clicks, news is sensationalized and “facts” change all the time. Here’s how to discern what is trustworthy and what is hogwash. *** Unless you’ve studied it, most …
Science
Advice for Young Scientists—and Curious People in General
The Nobel Prize-winning biologist Peter Medawar (1915–1987) is best known for work that made the first organ transplants and skin grafts possible. Medawar was also a lively, witty writer who penned …
The Disproportional Power of Anecdotes
Anecdotes tend to not be statistically significant, but their added emotional significance leads us to place additional weight on them. *** Humans, it seems, have an innate tendency to overgeneralize …
Half Life: The Decay of Knowledge and What to Do About It
Understanding the concept of a half-life will change what you read and how you invest your time. It will explain why our careers are increasingly specialized and offer a look into how we can compete …
Activation Energy: Why Getting Started Is the Hardest Part
The beginning of any complex or challenging endeavor is always the hardest part. Not all of us wake up and jump out of bed ready for the day. Some of us, like me, need a little extra energy to …
Alexander von Humboldt and the Invention of Nature: Creating a Holistic View of the World Through A Web of Interdisciplinary Knowledge
In his piece in 2014’s Edge collection This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress, dinosaur paleontologist Scott Sampson writes that science needs to “subjectify” …
How To Mentally Overachieve — Charles Darwin’s Reflections On His Own Mind
We’ve written quite a bit about the marvelous British naturalist Charles Darwin, who with his Origin of Species created perhaps the most intense intellectual debate in human history, one which …
The Island of Knowledge: Science and the Meaning of Life
“As the Island of Knowledge grows, so do the shores of our ignorance—the boundary between the known and unknown. Learning more about the world doesn’t lead to a point closer to a final …
What’s So Significant About Significance?
One of my favorite studies of all time took the 50 most common ingredients from a cookbook and searched the literature for a connection to cancer: 72% had a study linking them to increased or …
A Few Useful Mental Tools from Richard Feynman
We’ve covered the brilliant physicist Richard Feynman (1918-1988) many times here before. He was a genius. A true genius. But there have been many geniuses — physics has been fortunate to …
Richard Feynman on Teaching Math to Kids and the Lessons of Knowledge
Legendary scientist Richard Feynman (1918-1988) was famous for his penetrating insight and clarity of thought. Famous for not only the work he did to garner a Nobel Prize, but also for the lucidity of …
Atul Gawande and the Mistrust of Science
Continuing on with Commencement Season, Atul Gawande gave an address to the students of Cal Tech last Friday, delivering a message to future scientists, but one that applies equally to all of us as …
Gary Taubes and the Exquisite Balancing Act of Getting it Right
Last year, the wonderful Gary Taubes, whose ideas about nutrition we have written about before, gave a commencement address to the students of the Schmid College of Science and Technology at Chapman …
Towards a Greater Synthesis: Steven Pinker on How to Apply Science to the Humanities
The fundamental idea behind Farnam Street is to learn to think across disciplines and synthesize, using ideas in combination to solve problems in novel ways. An easy example would be to take …
The Central Mistake of Historicism: Karl Popper on Why Trend is Not Destiny
Philosophy can be a little dry in concept. The word itself conjures up images of thinking about thought, why we exist, and other metaphysical ideas that seem a little divorced from the everyday world. …
The Boundaries Between Science and Religion: Alan Lightman on Different Kinds of Knowledge
“The physical universe is subject to rational analysis and the methods of science. The spiritual universe is not. All of us have had experiences that are not subject to rational analysis. …