GavinThink

Scott Sumner has a very interesting take on why we spend so much time arguing over the little stuff and ignoring the big stuff: I would li...

I wrote last week about upgrading my DSL service, and finished with a sarcastic "what if I can't get on the Internet at all. Nah, t...

The last time I got really worked up over a presidential election was 1984, when Ronald Reagan was re-elected president. I was a freshman i...

I've been thinking a lot about central planning versus spontaneous order lately, and wondering if my personal preferences are clouding m...

The economists at George Mason University take people to lunch and then ask them " What's your most absurd belief ?" What a g...

If you're up for some brain-stretching exercise, listen to Robin Hanson talk with Russ Roberts about signalling . Our old house in Madis...

I really like this quote from Steven Novella on the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe (my favorite podcast these days): "Attach your...

Jeff Blaustein points out that one of the rational reasons we might want to spend money on something (like War Memorial pool) is to keep our...

I just started reading Predictably Irrational , by Dan Ariely, and I'm already impressed. Professor Ariely does behavioral economics re...

I just finished reading SuperCrunchers , by Ian Ayres, and the big lesson I took away from it was that we're all more confident in our o...

There aught to be a marketing firm for Science. If there was, I think the first thing they'd suggest is that scientists stop using the ...

I'm deeply skeptical of people who are absolutely, positively convinced that they're right. If you're intellectually honest, th...

In a previous blog post, I said that Guilford Mooring is my favorite Town employee . I think the entire Public Works department deserves pr...

The New York Times magazine has an article today entitled "Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy? (read it here) " I'm impre...

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. -- Benjamin Disraeli Sometimes when I use statistical arguments the person...

From John McCarthy , on ideology: For many politically active people, perhaps most, fighting evil is perceived as more important than doing ...

I ran across two other computer geeks with very interesting ideas today on my daily wandering around the Internet. Robin Hanson is a former...

I'm a Skeptic. If you want to convince me of something, show me logic, or numbers, or a double-blind, placebo-controlled scientific stu...

Amazing presentation by Hans Rosling of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden on the state of the world.

When thinking about solutions to problems, there are three interesting numbers: zero, one, and infinity. Take the issue of gay marriage. In...