Morality is a function of the brain. When we make a distinction between matters of the heart and head, we are in fact distinguishing two modes of thinking that take place in our brains: System 1 thinking, which is fast, emotional, and intuitive (heart), and System 2 thinking, which is slow, rational, and deliberative. Daniel […]

On the home page of my website, I quote the mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead who said, “Seek simplicity and distrust it.” This is wise advice. We want to keep things as simple as possible, but we should never oversimplify to the point of losing essential complexity. As data visualization has become increasingly popular […]

In recent years we’ve become increasingly aware of abundant errors in scientific research, many of which stem from bad statistics. Many of the ways in which these studies fail statistically are encouraged by academic journals. The way in which p-values are relied on excessively but almost routinely misused is a common example. Even though researchers […]

Perhaps you’ve heard that a large proportion of published scientific research findings are false. If anyone qualified took the time to validate them, up to half or more could be exposed as erroneous at the time of publication. Most of the errors are due to bad research methodology. Most of the bad research methodology is […]