Replication Markets: Can You Predict Which Social Science Papers Will Replicate?

What are Replication Markets? Replication Markets are a type of prediction market, mechanisms that enable individuals to bet on the outcome of events. Just as financial markets efficiently…

Radical Educational Meritocracy: An Ethical and Empirical Defense

“The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What…

Control of Cheaters in the Transition to Multicellularity

Kin Selection for Alarm Calling Behavior in Rodent Species

In the presence of predators, animals such as the Belding’s ground squirrel (Spermophilus beldingi) will often emit distinct types of vocalizations called “alarm calls” by naturalists (Dunford, 1977,…

How Much Does Intelligence Matter for Creative Achievement and Professional Success?

Longitudinal studies of the highly intelligent demonstrate the importance of IQ for creative and professional achievement. The Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY), started in the early 1970’s…

The Science of Mindfulness: Behavioral Outcomes, Neural Substrates, and Inflammation

Here’s my slideshow for a presentation I gave on the science of mindfulness meditation in 2018. Below I’ve attached the audio from the presentation, but beware, the quality…

Boy and the Ball: My Adolescent Obsession with Basketball

I used to sleep with my basketball. Michael Jordan did too. On one level, I knew it was absurd. But then again, why not? Maybe having the ball…

Searching for the Self: Predictive Processing and the Evolution of Subjectivity

The precursor to this essay, written around a year earlier, can be found here. Physicalism satisfyingly explains much of how reality works. We readily accept the explanation that…

Credit: PBS ( http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/theres-hope-for-fmri-despite-major-software-flaws/)

Using Neuroimaging to Predict Recidivism and Identify Psychopaths

(My rudimentary thoughts on neuroimaging research and its applications, c. 2016, when I knew very little about the field—and very little about machine learning.) Last year, I took…

A Brief History of Intelligence Research

The first post in a series on the psychology of intelligence. Intro Humans are intelligent in a variety of ways. We communicate abstract ideas through language, recognize patterns…

Embrace Your Suffering and Make Art

Oftentimes when we feel a strong emotion—anger at a friend who stabbed us in the back, pain from the death of a family member, joy from doing well…

Idea Dump: How Life Began, Groups Formed and Morality Developed

This is an idea dump, a place where you can peek into my mind and toy with the half-baked ideas I’ve been playing with lately. It’s messy, purposely…

What to Do With Your Twenties

My 19-year-old self’s attempt at giving myself advice, c. 2017. Your twenties are some of the most formative years of your life. You’re unshackled from the chains of…

Why Depression Might Be Adaptive

A brief review of some of the evolutionary literature on depression: Major depressive disorder is the most common psychiatric disorder in the United States, affecting 18% of adults…

The Biggest Question of Them All: A Theory of Everything

The Problem to Solve: A (Very) Brief Sketch In the late 19th century, physicist Ludwig Boltzmann showed that systems tend towards entropy; that is, towards states of minimal…