Top all-time · #851
Cosma Shalizi
Personal blog · cscs.umich.edumathscienceai
Cosma Shalizi's personal blog at cscs.umich.edu covers math, science and ai. Since 2007, 79 different Hacker News readers have linked it 122 times, most often “A Detailed Review of Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Most-linked posts?
- A Detailed Review of Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"16 people · 18 mentions · first linked 2007-09-25
- So You Think You Have a Power Law — Well Isn't That Special?8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2011-03-17
- General factor of intelligence g, a Statistical Myth8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2007-12-11
- /~crshalizi/weblog/520.html5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2008-05-13
- G (ie IQ), a statistical myth3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2009-06-07
- /~crshalizi/weblog/520.html3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2007-11-20
- What Is Intelligence? (Review of "Beyond the Flynn effect", 2009)3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2011-05-19
- Stephen Wolfram, A New Kind of Science3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-07-13
- The Singularity in Our Past2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-11-28
- Cosma Shalizi on causal inference in social networks (and why it is hard)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-06-03
What Hacker News says?
The author raises a number of interesting questions after citing several path-breaking research studies. Why, indeed, aren't school systems adopting some of these techniques known to improve children's learning and problem-solving ability? Quite a few mathematicians have written critiques of United States practice in teaching primary and secondary school mathematics, informed by practice in other countries, for exam…
Comment linking /~crshalizi/reviews/flynn-beyond/
on “You can increase your intelligence”Submitted Scientific Community to Elsevier: Drop Dead as a story · 106 points
HN discussionSee also, this classic review: "A Rare Blend of Monster Raving Egomania and Utter Batshit Insanity" http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/ (originally at http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/ )
Comment linking /~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/
on “A Mind is Born”Submitted Bertrand Russell, "On Sales Resistance" as a story · 87 points
HN discussionThis is a wonderful comment. However, what psychologists know as g is the result of over-interpretation of a descriptive method known as factor analysis (which is very similar to principal components analysis). http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/flynn-beyond/ Major thanks to Cosmo Shalizi who opened my eyes to these issues. Also, the SAT grew from IQ tests, so it really isn't surprising that the two measures a…
Comment linking /~crshalizi/reviews/flynn-beyond/
on “Why Smart People Are Stupid”Submitted The Singularity in Our Past as a story · 62 points
HN discussionWolfram is damn smart. I'll give him that. He also made a pile of money on Mathematica. I'll give him that as well. It was classic "solve your own problem" entrepreneurship. He needed a better computer algebra program, so he wrote one, then started selling it.[1] But he's a crank. He wrote a couple good papers in the 80s, then hasn't done anything decent since. He published A New Kind Of Science in 2002, which was s…
Comment linking /~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/
on “"You Don't Understand Ordinary People" - Feynman Gives Advice to Wolfram”Submitted Richard Dawkins: Viruses of the Mind as a story · 60 points
HN discussionThe scientific debate is much more complex than you give it credit for. Yes, there really are people who believe that IQ, or (to be more sophisticated) g, really has validity. I personally view it as convenient shorthand, but not real. However this is not a universal position. For a take on why it is probably not valid, see http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/523.html . But whether or not you accept that IQ is m…
Comment linking /~crshalizi/weblog/523.html
on “Shit HN Says”Submitted On Academic Talks: Memory and Fear as a story · 52 points
HN discussionA great post about the same problem but from a Math/CS perspective, and as fun to read: http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/918.html [Cosma Shalizi's "In Soviet Union, Optimization Problem Solves You]
Comment linking /~crshalizi/weblog/918.html
on “On being the right size (1928)”Submitted General factor of intelligence g, a Statistical Myth as a story · 42 points
HN discussionTwo wonderful companions to this article are "Thinking Intelligence is Innate Makes You Stupid" http://lemire.me/blog/archives/2007/12/03/thinking-intellige... and (especially) Cosma Shalizi's article on the malleability and heritability of IQ http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/520.html
Comment linking /~crshalizi/weblog/520.html
on “Flynn’s IQ”Submitted Chris Anderson: Aware of All Statistical Traditions as a story · 39 points
HN discussionI saw this link here on HN a short while ago from a person more passionate than me when it comes to IQ: Spearman's g, a statistical myth http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/523.html
Comment linking /~crshalizi/weblog/523.html
on “You are Probably Mis-Diagnosing People as Stupid”Submitted Cosma Shalizi - A Fermi Problem in Western Pennsylvania as a story · 33 points
HN discussionTry reading this, by Cosma Shalizi: http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/523.html
Comment linking /~crshalizi/weblog/523.html
on “You are Probably Mis-Diagnosing People as Stupid”Submitted Refuting the "Power Law for Serial Killer Behavior" study as a story · 32 points
HN discussionCosma Shalizi will handle this one for me: http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/520.html Let me sum up. 4. Now that people are finally beginning to model gene-environment interactions, even in very crude ways, they find it matters a lot. Recall that Turkheimer et al. found a heritability which rose monotonically with socioeconomic status, starting around zero at low status and going up to around 0.8 at high statu…
Comment linking /~crshalizi/weblog/520.html
on “Why it's expensive to be poor”Submitted The Distribution of Library Book Circulation Is Not a Power Law as a story · 30 points
HN discussionDawkins is perfectly aware of this. In fact, he gives arguments of your flavor in The God Delusion. See also http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind... He is aware that his approach is not optimal in terms of changing people's minds, but I'm not so sure he cares. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2xGIwQfik
Comment linking /~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html
on “Richard Dawkins: A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy”Submitted Noam Chomsky on Post-Modernism as a story · 12 points
HN discussionI certainly don't know anything about this from firsthand knowledge. The credit you cite in ANKOS happened long after their lawsuits and falling out, so there's no way of knowing how things would have transpired if Cook just went along with things. I had read this well known review: http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/ "The real problem with this result, however, is that it is not Wolfram's. He didn't i…
Comment linking /~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/
on “Computable Document Format”Submitted Viruses of the Mind - Richard Dawkins on Religion as a story · 8 points
HN discussionReverse-engineering from the article, the original statistical result was probably something like, "Variations among managers in technical skill account for very little of the variations among managers in performance reviews." One way to get that result would be for technical skill to be unimportant. Another way would be for the variations in technical skill within the sample to be much smaller than other relevant v…
Comment linking /~crshalizi/weblog/520.html
on “Google’s Quest to Build a Better Boss”Submitted The secret of my success as a story · 8 points
HN discussionIt may not be obvious to every reader, but Berkelee school would actually be classes prepa here, as it is one of the most prestigious music school in the world. What Sivers talks about here is to go much beyond that. I would not put "classes prepa" in the challenging category. It is actually rather dull 2/3 years where you learn not so much about the material, but learn how to solve many exercices (I like the exampl…
Comment linking /~crshalizi/reviews/fragile-objects/
on “There's no speed limit (2009)”Submitted Minimal Advice to Undergrads on Programming as a story · 6 points
HN discussionIt's probably an example of the exploration exploitation strategy. When young figure shit out, when older further develop the knowledge and expertise you started on while young. This is only a partial explanation, of course. Exploration and Exploitation in Evolutionary Algorithms: A Survey http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~shliu/pub/EE_ACM_FINAL_b.pdf http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~pjlamber/Complexity%20Course_file...
Comment linking /~pjlamber/Complexity%20Course_files/exploration_exploitation.pdf
on “Things I Despised About My Education”Submitted Bayesianism Not Banned in Britain as a story · 5 points
HN discussion
