Tag: Blinded by stats
-
Avi does Carver
Avi makes a nice strong Carverian point in this piece. He’s discussing astronomical stuff like gravitational waves and spectral lines. In each case the theoreticians predicted that the signal would never be there, or at best would be ferociously hard to detect among the noise. In each case the signal was perfectly obvious after the…
-
Stacks, not Savannahs
Sharp observation from Gary Smith, discussing the perils of letting stats lead you around by the nose: Our distant ancestors benefitted from noticing that elephants could lead them to water and that wildebeest stampedes might warn them of predators. The best pattern spotters were more likely to survive and reproduce, passing on their pattern-recognition skills…
-
Math random vs real random
This distinction was generally recognized in earlier decades. Now that the Platonists are fully in charge, it seems to have been lost. I recognized it in 2000 when I was designing and running perception experiments. Lately I’ve noticed a couple of older references to the point, indicating that it was common knowledge. (1) Puthoff and…
-
The Endicott experiment
One of the old FOIA files on the Black Vault site is an account of an Air Force experiment in telepathy. The researchers were working out of Hanscom AFB in Mass. They built a complicated set of computing machines in an attempt to eliminate the human judgment factors in the usual JB Rhine picture-drawing experiments.…
-
Permitted concerns
Random thought about media vs experience. The current Officially Permitted Concern is inflation. Politicians and central banks are “responding” to the “public will” on inflation. Does this agree with my experience? No. I’ve never been bothered by inflation. In 1973-74 I was driving long distances for work and pleasure, and I wasn’t bothered by high…
-
Nice graph of Real Value
A beautiful graph from a 1939 book on radio advertising. Verifies yet again the correct picture of the Depression, which is almost always misstated by ShareValue commentators. The boom of the ’20s ran up beyond the realistic capacity of the economy. The collapse from ’29 to ’33 brought the economy down to where it should…
-
Cancelling is hardly new
Among the scattered preserves of OTR is one 1954 Mutual news broadcast by Frank Edwards, at KFWB in Los Angeles. Edwards made a point of NOT insulting the audience. He was clearly trying to tell the truth as he saw it, and understood that normal people are also capable of seeing the truth. In discussing…
-
Economics as a verb (reprint)
Reprint from 2012. = = = = = In any area you examine, our current idiocy stems from the fallacy of reification. In some cases we think of a word as being reality; in others we think of a number as being reality; in others we think of an arbitrary unit of measure as being…
-
Still more Zenith musings
The Zenith memory pulled me back into those first few months after release from prison. I was appreciating freedom, but I was starting out on the wrong track AGAIN. What was the wrong track? COLLEGE, and especially college courses in physics and math. College drove me crazy, drove me into hopeless depression which led inevitably…
-
Sort of halfway self-solving
Wolf’s latest item about credit includes some disheartening stats. Earlier it appeared that Americans were taking advantage of the Federal blood money to reduce their credit card debt. Now they’re doing the opposite. Wolf also includes a simple chart of college debt. Unlike most graphs that go exponential under the demonic influence of the exponential…
-
Reviewing Aberree, part 2/7
Before 1700 there wasn’t a distinction between astrology and astronomy. Stargazers with or without telescopes were doing serious observation and real math and real geometry to determine God’s will. This purpose was especially dominant in Islam, the most scientific religion. Stargazers were seeking long-term patterns that were reflected in human lives and human civilizations. They…
-
Reviewing Aberree, part 7/7
Aberree on experiential education. = = = = = START REPRINT: Alphia Hart constantly recommended examining your own ideas, but he didn’t always succeed in examining his own. Along with a preponderance of powerfully original and unique thoughts, he sometimes let out a standard “liberal” thought, as in this 1957 editorial…. In this case the…
-
Electrotherapy again, soothing (part 3/3)
The Vreeland was a smooth oscillator, but it also had a digital rheostat or current control on the left side. This was not active during therapy; it was set once and left alone. Here’s a clearer picture of the same digital rheostat in use with a forge: = = = = = Jerky current control…
Polistra's Mill 