fliglr

I started noticing awhile ago that you seem to have this pipeline in scientific/academic reporting that goes academic paper -> press release -> science journalists -> regular journalists -> Facebook/Reddit.

Even if the original authors never say anything about causation, inevitably the language of correlation (related to, is linked to, associated with, correlated with, coincides with, etc.) will turn into the language of causation (leads to, increases/decreases, has an effect on, causes, etc.) somewhere in this pipeline.

Then suddenly everybody around you is talking about how going to bed with shoes on causes headaches, or goes playing tennis increases longevity. There is some atrocious science journalism out there

I like this article: Does X cause Y? An in-depth evidence review (https://www.cold-takes.com/does-x-cause-y-an-in-depth-eviden...)

They went into finance

I had no idea that cameras were walking the streets and arresting people in America. Only the police should be able to do that. They are clearly far more competent. Oh wait-I just read the article...

How many decades have we been helping Africa for, and for what?

Given what happened this past 2 weeks, I can't imagine that would be so popular right now

I'll no longer misunderestimate AI

Per David Reich: >10-20% of the ancestors of Eurasian people are neanderthal

>West African populations have up to 19% "Ghost DNA", belonging to an extinct species their ancestors interbred with

>Southeast Asians have DNA of the extinct Denisovan species, as much as 3-5% in the aboriginal people of Papua New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines

>These aboriginals also have DNA belonging to a now extinct, but not yet discovered hominid species

I'm sure the implications of all these findings have not yet been discovered but it's exciting to see them explored

Who cares. Do you want them to test on humans?

They didn't measure the values before and after visiting the library so it's useless. "People who enjoy libraries also report enjoying libraries"

Zoom out:

>But in gauging the longer-term trend of what’s really happening with the fires, it’s necessary to go back much further. Data derived from written records from Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service dating back to 1919 show that wildfires, far from increasing, have actually declined over the last 100 years. And in fact the website of the National Interagency Fire Center previously noted that fires were at their very worst a century ago. (See data, research, and methodology for this article.)

>The data on the overall, century-long trend suggest that most of the 20th century represented an unusually low amount of fire, and what we’re seeing now is a return to the “normal” levels of fire of the early 1900s.

https://future.com/why-california-burns-the-facts-behind-the...

Why don't they design the towers so they can be laid down flat and fixed on the ground and then pushed back upright again?

This is just typical for science "journalism".

Take a study that only shows a correlation, and then write a clickbait article about causation.

The actual study says:

>Importantly, our study design has several limitations that limit causal inference and result in the possibility of other explanations, including unmeasured confounding from biological, social, or administrative factors. Firstly and perhaps most importantly, selection bias is possible because individuals who are at higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease may be less likely to enter or remain in memory intensive driving occupations such as taxi and ambulance driving.

>...

And

>Our large scale epidemiological findings raise novel questions about the linkage between taxi and ambulance driving and Alzheimer’s disease mortality. While these findings suggest a potential link between the demands of these occupations and reduced Alzheimer’s disease risk, this study design does not permit interpretation of a causal effect between occupations and risk of Alzheimer’s disease mortality or neurological changes in the hippocampus

I have noticed this for many years that when a study passes from the authors to science journalists to regular journalists to social media, information is lost at each level just like in Chinese whispers.

Why not? It increases supply

None of those people had autism

I can't believe anybody honestly thinks that building a powerful AI is honestly a good thing. It seems that we're all trapped in a "keeping up with the joneses" style race where even if every individual person agrees that building AI is a bad thing, they're not able to stop because they still want to beat the competition and reap the rewards. And once there are millions or billions of these AI agents running around each of whom is smarter than every human on earth, good luck trying to predict or control them..

There is nothing. Nobody has any idea who he is

I feel like people drink with coworkers if they want to accidentally cheat on their partner. Either way I only drink before work