John Tierney hits a home run with this fantastic column about a recent paper by Keith Chen (whose work on capuchin monkeys has previously caught our attention). The Monty Hall problem is as follows: You are chosen to compete on Let’s Make a Deal. There are three curtains. Behind one of the curtains is something wonderful like a new car. . . .
When it comes to saving the environment, things are often not as simple as they seem at first blush. Take, for instance, the debate about paper bags vs. plastic bags. For a number of years, anyone who opted for plastic bags at the grocery store risked the scorn of environmentalists. Now, it seems that the consensus has swung the other . . .
John Tierney has writen an interesting column about competing online dating sites and the squabbles between them over whose matchmaking algorithm is more scientific. A recently divorced friend of mine just dipped her toes into the online dating world for the first time. She entered her information: lives in a large city, late thirties, divorced, well-educated, loves to dance, etc. . . .
Are there more people living on Earth today than at all other times combined? Nope. The British Medical Journal is very critical of the international publishing company Reed Elsevier: “While promoting world health through its publications, including the Lancet, Reed Elsevier also organises international trade fairs for the arms industry. By facilitating the sale of armaments, Reed Elsevier is directly . . .
There’s a new John Tierney column out today, a good one, on doomsday predictions (mostly concerning biological weapons), and who’s backing up their predictions with cash (including Tierney) on LongBets.org. There’s more information on Tierney’s blog, including a link to this interesting essay by Steven Pinker about the overall decline of violence in modern times.
John Tierney wrote a great New York Times column in response to the Maass article on Peak Oil in the Sunday NY Times Magazine that I criticized. Tierney and Matthew Simmons, who is the point man for the Peak Oil team, made a $10,000 bet as to whether in 2010 oil would be above or below $200 a barrel (adjusted . . .