Daniel Lemire's blog
Science and Technology links (December 30th 2023)
1. Parenting does not appear to be able to determine the personality traits of a child.
2. When the last ice age ended, 12,000 years ago, the Sahara was green and full of life. It turned into a desert about 5,500 years ago.
3. Fadnes et al. claim that the UK population could live 10 years older if it changed its eating habits.
4. By studying 175 different populations, You et al. find that meat intake predicts longevity: people who eat more meat live longer.
5. According to an editorial in the journal Nature, scientists who work in industry are more satisfied and better paid than are colleagues in academia. Industry scientists report less bullying and discrimination.
6. The Asch experiment examined the extent to which individuals would conform to the majority view, even when that view was clearly incorrect. The experiment involved a group of participants, one of whom was the actual subject of the experiment, and the rest were people who knew the true purpose of the experiment and acted according to a script. The group was shown a series of images with lines of different lengths and asked to identify which two lines were the same length. The results showed that a significant number of participants conformed to the majority view, even when it was clearly wrong. The Asch experiment is important because it highlights the influence of social factors on individual beliefs. Most people just adopt the prevaling beliefs, even when they are clearly incorrect. In other words, very few people can think for themselves. They just reproduce what they are shown or what they see others doing, like mere monkeys. Unfortunately, the original experiment is robust with respect to replication. We also find that even financial incentive fail to make people more critical.
7. Weather prediction is one of the first application of powerful computers. To this day, we rely on predictions made by specialized services: we don’t generally compute our own weather predictions. Google Deepmind claims to be able to predict the weather accurately on a normal computer using artificial intelligence.
source
Science and Technology links (December 30th 2023)
1. Parenting does not appear to be able to determine the personality traits of a child.
2. When the last ice age ended, 12,000 years ago, the Sahara was green and full of life. It turned into a desert about 5,500 years ago.
3. Fadnes et al. claim that the UK population could live 10 years older if it changed its eating habits.
4. By studying 175 different populations, You et al. find that meat intake predicts longevity: people who eat more meat live longer.
5. According to an editorial in the journal Nature, scientists who work in industry are more satisfied and better paid than are colleagues in academia. Industry scientists report less bullying and discrimination.
6. The Asch experiment examined the extent to which individuals would conform to the majority view, even when that view was clearly incorrect. The experiment involved a group of participants, one of whom was the actual subject of the experiment, and the rest were people who knew the true purpose of the experiment and acted according to a script. The group was shown a series of images with lines of different lengths and asked to identify which two lines were the same length. The results showed that a significant number of participants conformed to the majority view, even when it was clearly wrong. The Asch experiment is important because it highlights the influence of social factors on individual beliefs. Most people just adopt the prevaling beliefs, even when they are clearly incorrect. In other words, very few people can think for themselves. They just reproduce what they are shown or what they see others doing, like mere monkeys. Unfortunately, the original experiment is robust with respect to replication. We also find that even financial incentive fail to make people more critical.
7. Weather prediction is one of the first application of powerful computers. To this day, we rely on predictions made by specialized services: we don’t generally compute our own weather predictions. Google Deepmind claims to be able to predict the weather accurately on a normal computer using artificial intelligence.
source
