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Category Archives: Bayesian Reasoning
Happy Daylight Saving Time Day
Not! (Hey, if we can’t get our corrupt and lazy lawmakers to end daylight saving time, then at the very least let’s change the name of Daylight Saving Time Day to “Path Dependence Day.” In the meantime, can you think … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, History
2 Comments
Role reversal experiment: what if The Donald were a Donalda?
He would have still won the election! Maria Guadalupe and Joe Salvatore, professors at NYU, conducted an ingenious experiment (see video below) and found some surprising results. Happy International Women’s Day and be sure to check out the video below (hat tip: … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Current Affairs, History, Politics
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Artist in Chief
Have you seen fugitive war criminal George W. Bush’s collection of oil paintings of veterans? (See fragment below.) These remarkable portraits are assembled in his new book Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors. This series … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Bayesian Reasoning, Uncategorized
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The End of Risk-Taking?
Our friend and colleague Tyler Cowen has just published a new book with a catchy title: The Complacent Class. At the risk of over generalization (pun intended), Professor Cowen’s book claims that North Americans are becoming intellectually lazy and spiritually complacent–more … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Economics, History
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Type I or Type II error?
Was this situation a false positive or a false negative?
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Questions Rarely Asked
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Why are abstracts of law review articles so damn long?
Years ago, we blogged on the state of legal scholarship by posing the following question: why are modern law reviews so dull, tedious, and boring? The problem is that most law review articles today are way too long and have … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Bayesian Reasoning, Game Theory, Law
3 Comments
Statutes as lemons (critique of Kavanaugh, 2016)
We have just finished reading Brett Kavanaugh’s highly original essay “Fixing Statutory Interpretation” in the Harvard Law Review, vol. 129 (2016), pp. 2118-2163. (Kavanaugh, who we shall now refer to as “K-1”, is a federal appellate judge on the D.C. … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Game Theory, Language, Law
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Virtue signalling in the age of Trump
As libertarians, we have always supported open borders as a matter of principle, but we are somewhat amused though not surprised by all the virtue signalling and moral grandstanding being displayed by our academic colleagues against Trump’s new immigration policy. … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Ethics, Law
6 Comments
Featured Syllabus: Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data
This course is being taught by professors Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin West. Here is a link to their syllabus, which itself has links to all the assigned readings. (Props to Jason Kottke for the pointer.) Update (1/26): Here is another promising syllabus–an upper-level … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Bayesian Reasoning
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The Ethics of Facebook Live
What legal or ethical obligations, if any, do social media companies like Facebook owe to the public at large? Last year, for example, at least 57 violent or illegal acts—including shootings, burglaries, and beatings—were transmitted via live-video platforms like Facebook Live. According to Mary Anne Franks, a law … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Ethics, Law, Web/Tech
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prior probability 