Austrian Faith
For those who were surprised by Milton Friedman’s advocacy of Quantitative Easing, here is another extract from his 1999 interview: I think the Austrian business-cycle theory has done the world a great...
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A weird dad
Why do people believe weird things? The easy answer is: because they are dumb or, more politely, irrational. But one doesn’t need to be particularly intelligent to avoid weird beliefs. And weird...
View ArticleTrue or False
I don’t just believe, I know – said Arthur Conan Doyle in his impassioned defence of Spiritualism. Beliefs are the result of an evidential tug of war, where none of the two sides manages to prevail on...
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Dead certain
How’s this for conclusive evidence? Mr Shimkus, a Republican from rural Illinois, is not just staunchly pro-industry, anti-regulation and sceptical of claims that man’s activities menace the planet. He...
View ArticleAustrian Truthers
Great piece by Noah Smith on Austrian Faith, impermeable to any contrary evidence and unashamedly clinging to its priors, like 9/11 truthers or – he might have added – Efficient Market theorists: The...
View ArticleOut of where?
Once they figure out the pointlessness of why-chains, children learn to accept local explanations and move on. Explanations are stories that satisfy us and stop us from asking further questions. Most...
View ArticleReading and writing
While he considered self-evident that everything has a cause, Laplace knew that causes themselves are not self-evident. Events do not come with their causes and effects attached. We are not demons: we...
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What the heck
‘What the heck is he talking about?’ is an entirely legitimate reaction to reading my latest posts. So let me explain. The overarching theme in my blog is the relationship between beliefs and evidence,...
View ArticleLeibniz and Baloo
‘Ok, I get it (sort of). But what I really mean is: Who cares?‘ Which of course is a curt rendering of the second solution to thaumazein. In Baloo‘s immortal words: Forget about your worries and your...
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Up on the roof
Back to PO=LR∙BO. Whether we accept or reject a hypothesis, i.e. decide whether a claim is true or false, depends on all three elements. Posterior Odds. The minimum standard of proof required to accept...
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