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Category Archives: Ethics
p-hacking primer
Via io9, John Bohannon explains how fake science works, specifically, the problem of “p-hacking”:
Posted in Cheating, Deception, Ethics
3 Comments
How are big box stores like Wells Fargo?
Lots of big box retailers like Walmart and Home Depot are ramping up their use of self-scanners in order to reduce their labor costs. That is, instead of waiting in a long line to have a cashier ring up your purchases, you can save … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Deception, Ethics, Game Theory, Law, Probability, Web/Tech
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Cheating pays … Just ask Wells Fargo execs
What’s up with Wells Fargo’s CEO? According to the N.Y. Times, “Wells Fargo was flowing with regrets …, taking out ads in nearly a dozen newspapers saying the bank took ‘full responsibility’ for creating sham bank accounts without its customers’ … Continue reading
Posted in Cheating, Current Affairs, Deception, Ethics, Law
2 Comments
“Sit with Us”
That is the name of a cool new App created by Natalie Hampton, a teenager from Sherman Oaks, California. Her App helps school kids navigate what one blogger (Maddy Myers) calls “the politics of the lunch table.” According to Ms Myers, “kids who … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Ethics, Web/Tech
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Cars kill more people than guns
Claudia Dreifus, a writer for the NY Times, recently interviewed Edward Humes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. The subject of the interview is Humes’s latest book (pictured below) on the deadly dangers of automobiles. The book is titled “Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Ethics, Law, Probability
4 Comments
Necessity as a conjecture (post 5 of 5)
In our previous post (9/6), we referred to the work of legal scholar Giorgio Agamben, and we presented our own pragmatic or “common sense” view of the doctrine of necessity: necessity as a safety valve or gap-filling device for unforeseeable or … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Law, Philosophy
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Necessity: a third view
Note: this is the fourth of five posts on the doctrine of necessity. In our previous posts (9/1, 9/4, and 9/5), we referred to the work of legal scholar Giorgio Agamben (in particular, his beautiful book State of Exception), and … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Law, Philosophy
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Necessity as a source of law
Note: this is the third of five posts on the law and morality of necessity. My wife and I have been watching season 2 of Narcos on Netflix this Labor Day weekend. Narcos revolves mostly around Pablo Escobar, a notorious … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Law, Philosophy
4 Comments
Necessity as an ex post exception
Note: this is the second in a series of five posts on the common law doctrine of necessity. In our previous post (9/1), we presented three general theories of the legal doctrine of necessity. Here, we consider the first of … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Law, Philosophy, Uncategorized
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Three theories of necessity (Post 1 of 5)
In our previous post, we compared and contrasted the standard version of the Trolley Problem with Lon Fuller’s “Case of Speluncean Explorers.” Another possible commonality between both hypotheticals is the legal theory of necessity. Since both cases involve thought experiments that present … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Law, Uncategorized
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prior probability 