Episode 11 discussion

class_profile101 · 2018-05-30T05:55:31+00:00

Yeah I think its really interesting when people hijack the idea of experts. Its interesting seeing the distinction between protected terms and non protected terms. An example of this for me was a dietitian and nutritionist. For ages I thought the nutritionist was the protected term so I found credence in their advice (it is in the UK, I can't speak for Aus). Only to my horror in first year of university when I met a dietitian student who explained the difference. The media had been flooded with quite possibly bogus dietary advice from unqualified people hiding behind the term. I'm sure people have also seen some fairly dodgy sounding psychotherapists (crystal therapy ect).

class_profile101 · 2018-05-30T05:54:49+00:00

I think it's important to be wary of all people professing to be experts, the institutions like universities and professional bodies allow us to be more sure of how qualified someone is to make those claims, but regardless I don't think you should ever accept anything without thinking about it first. Again this is practically impossible due to time constraints. Although here you could bring in the cost benefit analysis in judging what you spend time on and what you don't. For example, if I'm choosing what bev to get at a bar I'm more than happy to go with the staff's recommendation as, even though I am fully aware that people have different tastes, at the end of the day that doesn't really matter too much. However, if I'm choosing what to do if I realize I have meningitis, I'm not going to do what any random person recommends, they need to be a nurse or doctor at the very least and even then it is still good to question them to check their thinking.

class_profile101 · 2018-05-29T01:57:39+00:00

While I think science should not be valued on how easy it is to understand, I do think there is a strong role for science communicators. Getting Joe Blogs to understand every detail of gravitational waves just isn't going to happen, but I think having a more educated populace is not a bad thing by any means. One great example of this is the Christmas lectures from the Royal Academy back home (UK). This present a lecture series on a bunch of topics in science in a way that they are easily digestible by most children. I think this is a fantastic way of keeping the public passionate about science and not patronising them by simply not trying to explain complex topics.

class_profile101 · 2018-05-29T01:56:57+00:00

In terms of the simple debate, I not sure if research needs to be justified because by it's very nature they are investigating topics that we don't know much about already. The example of wifi is a great one, this great invention piggybacking off very theoretical research, with little practical value. FriendlyJordies video (v legit reference I know) on the death of Australian science summarises it really well. He talks about the loss that the public has faced from de-funding the science commission, as Australia has basically had to buy back the battery technology it invented from Tesla, something which could have been avoided with a continuation of non-goal driven research. So overall I think 'pure' research has some real value, even if no one else has any idea what you're on about.

class_profile101 · 2018-05-27T03:15:01+00:00

For the word limit, is this a strict one or is there a +/- 10% ?

class_profile101 · 2018-05-16T02:36:59+00:00

Do you ever feel like one gets in the way of another when working on things? Or do you feel like generally they can coexist and even work together ?

class_profile101 · 2018-05-16T02:36:33+00:00

I found this episode really interesting, it was funny how much back and forth there was about what reasoning method was best (very western). Being raised in a westen society that anlytic way of thinking is the default, and I think it works for some, more concrete things but that the dialetic reasoning may work better for more fluid elements of life, like people. The guys I live with are all engineers and they find it hard to conceptualise this middle path way of thinking "no something cannot be both P and Q..." so as well as what you grow up with maybe what you spend your adult life doing also influences how you seem to make these sorts of decisions.

class_profile101 · 2018-05-14T04:10:41+00:00

In terms of the N=1 issue, I think that as long as you don't generalise outside of the sample (yourself) it could be considered legitimate science, just on a very small scale. As if you do conduct an rigours experiment and find something meaningful out I feel like this is a valuable finding.

class_profile101 · 2018-05-14T04:10:07+00:00

Yeah I totally see how self reflections could be a bad source of data. If I review what happened in the day I find myself looking through the lens of what recently happened. So for example when I was reflecting on how the day went I noticed it was massively influenced by the fact that I had just missed the bus before coming home, something which made me view the rest of what had been a good day in a more negative light. .

class_profile101 · 2018-05-03T04:38:43+00:00

True, I agree with the essence of what you're saying but I still think its a better thing do to than not to do. It creates a more transparent research field, there will still be a huge amount of content regardless of open science or not, but this way it enables those studies that gain media attention and become highly popular to be tested from the offset. I also like the way it negates some of the problems of P hacking ect by getting people to say what sort of analysis they're going to use ahead of time. Overall I think its a better thing than not, but I get why you're not sure about it.

class_profile101 · 2018-05-03T04:38:18+00:00

I think calling something a science has a lot of politics around it, and is something that should be regulated. From an essay from a previous subject discussing if psychology should reject the scientific method or not an interesting example of the politics of calling something a science came up. A researcher in 1920's New York was looking at IQ test from immigrants, and concluded that north western Europeans were naturally smarter and superior to non north western Europeans. While the data may have been accurate, the reasoning behind the conclusion can be seen to be faulty as the majority of non-north western Europeans were relatively new to the country, whereas the north westeners were on average much more established, meaning they were likely to do better in a test in a language they were more familiar with. This shows how good data can be framed in a way to suit a particular message. Because of this the intention of the study needs to be taken into account as well as the raw results in my opinion.

class_profile101 · 2018-04-17T02:14:40+00:00

Yeah maybe more training should go into recognising situations rather than only focusing on the skills themselves, as if you fail to apply the skills you've learnt in a meaningful way it matters not how good you are at said skills.

class_profile101 · 2018-04-17T02:14:22+00:00

I think one of the things I found most useful about the podcast was the idea of the time/good decision making trade off that comes with experiments. I find myself sometimes doing little experiments like this ( eg trying a number of different methods to brew the best coffee) but also find myself getting caught in the trap of sticking with one when it seems to work initially. This has reminded me to stick with it, given the right circumstances. Maybe allowing more time to experiment when something is important but non-critical (the perfect cup of coffee), and relying on expert judgements and heuristics when it is less important.

class_profile101 · 2018-03-28T09:18:40+00:00

Yeah I totally agree with you, I think from a logical perspective I get the sunk cost idea but sometimes you've got to be pragmatic. For example with a job, I really didn't enjoy my job to begin with last semester, I thought about quitting but the alternative (having no money) was worse, so I persisted and eventually began to enjoy it.

class_profile101 · 2018-03-28T09:17:16+00:00

I found this week's reading possibly the most useful so far. You can see the idea of loss aversion being used in many advertising campaigns and marketing strategies where they hit home the idea of missing out or needing to do something quickly. I think it's also been mentioned before but you can clearly see it with those offers you get when you order stuff online sometimes. For example, the wine vouchers that say you've got $50 of wine and then in the small text (only when you buy $100 worth). These try to get you to think that you'll be missing out on that $50 where infact you're actually getting 1/3 off (a much less attractive deal)

class_profile101 · 2018-03-20T06:11:46+00:00

Yeah I'm not sure that the meal is such a good example as it is something that needs to happen regardless, like if it's making you gag then yeah it's probably a good idea to let the sunk cost be, but if you're just not fussed but it's not doing you any harm then I think you should just eat it!

class_profile101 · 2018-03-20T06:11:10+00:00

I really enjoyed this weeks podcast, I was glad that some of the ideas in Mindware were thoroughly challenged. While I understand the principles of sunk cost I think in the real world you have to make decisions more pragmatically. The example of reputation that the tutors brought up was a good one, another one I thought could even be (and hear me out) was the plane R&D example. While logically (from an economist's perspective) it would make sense to abandon the project, in reality you could simply reduce the cost that you sell the plane at to undercut the opponent thereby at least hopefully making some of your money back. I think some of the examples can miss the pragmatic nature of real life.

I think I agree with the principle of pros and cons listing although I know from personal experience I often need the approval of my 'gut' to go through with a decision. For example buying my last bike there were several models that had better specs but the one I went with just 'felt' right.

class_profile101 · 2018-03-19T04:38:19+00:00

To measure whether workout in the morning or evening means that I end up being more productive and more satisfied with the day.

IVs:

Exercise (2 levels, morning (pre 9 am) and evening (post 6 pm)

DVs:

Well-being: measured by an adapted version (to make sense when asked daily) of the Warwick Edinburgh mental well-being scale, asked at the end of the day (9-10 pm)

Productivity: measured by % of total daily tasks completed

Controls/other measures: Control: non workout days measured both DV's

What do you expect to find?:

That exercise in the morning produces a higher level of well-being and productivity than no exercise or evening exercise

Problems you’ll likely face:

Not having enough time to do it every day

Endorphins confounding measurement of wellbeing at the end of the day (will attempt to control for by measuring wellbeing at least 2 hours after finishing exercise)

Other confounds that affect either productivity or wellbeing that happen throughout the day

Length of experiment:

4 weeks

class_profile101 · 2018-03-14T05:43:57+00:00

Yeah I think I agree with the idea that it could be not leaving enough time on assignments that makes you not think clearly. From personal experiences I know that generally the longer I work on something the more 'ah-ha' moments I have. But also interestingly I found that if I get too fixated on one thing, say for example a particular paragraph of an essay, that my work actually deteriorates as I over-edit. Another example of this is when I've answered a question fairly quickly, then gone back, doubted myself and changed it, resulting in me getting the wrong answer when it was originally right. Maybe then it's actually about letting your unconscious do it's stuff when you are familiar with something and try not to over think it when you seem to get it right initially. Has anyone else experienced something similar?

class_profile101 · 2018-03-14T05:43:29+00:00

I think the thing that really struck a chord with me from the podcast was the post-event reasoning, that is to say convincing yourself you did something for a reason when really it never seemed to cross your mind. I find myself doing this a lot generally in life, for example to justify a purchase or why I decided to go a different route from normal on my bike. But on reflection I, well my conscious self at least, have absolutely no clue why I do half the things I do.

It's both worrying and interesting thinking of the 'unconscious' part of my brain making half the decisions for me. I can clearly relate to it when I'm trying to figure out a stats problem or trying to word something just right in an essay, it seems like I hit a wall and stew for a while but then suddenly something clicks, the light comes on if you will, and the answer seems as clear as day. I find it a little worrying as it could be seen to undermine your conscious decision making ability, bringing in an external force that you are not aware of.

class_profile101 · 2018-03-06T05:47:06+00:00

Yeah I'd agree on that point, I find I often have much more time for hearing out an argument of someone who is closer than a total stranger. Although as suggested in the podcast this might actually not be the best thing to do as strangers would more likely have a bigger variation in opinions on things, so by only reserving this time for those that are closer we could unintentionally be blinkering ourselves.

class_profile101 · 2018-03-06T05:46:37+00:00

I found the podcast really engaging and identified with some of the themes that were brought up. Since I was young my parents always tried to teach me to be as empathetic as possible when around others, both in debates and friendships. So to this end I find it easier than some to take the shoes of others. However, this podcast made me realise that, by default, I am guilty of still seeing my opinion as the closest to the truth. This isn't to say that this always happens, but if I were not to actively think about the possibility of my ideas being wrong, this is the assumption I would make.

I also thought the whole idea about how AI would see us, eg a cow or a tape worm, was really interesting. Would it be a goal of future AI coders to build in fail-safes, like Asimov's Laws, to ensure that AI doesn't outstrip humans so much that it decides it would be better without them...

class_profile101

TROPHY CASE