by david allan van nostrand | Dec 30, 2019 | Items in the News, Voodoo Statistics
Last week the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece that has Harry Anslinger grinning in his grave. They included the oft-cited statistic so old it has whiskers: 95% of heroin users began by smoking marijuana. This is a textbook example...
by david allan van nostrand | Dec 23, 2019 | Items in the News, Young moderns
Young Moderns have had it with the dreary old decorations of the past and think it’s time to move on. One great way to make your Christmas yard display stand out is by featuring an inflatable Hidden Valley Ranch bottle, a Taco Bell sauce packet, and a giant bag of...
by david allan van nostrand | Dec 16, 2019 | Human Behavior, Items in the News, Young moderns
We were the first to have a gen-name. Now everyone has one and some have two. Regardless of what they call themselves, our term for the latest group at front and center of deciding everything for everybody else is Young Moderns. Nitpickers will say hey, what about the...
by david allan van nostrand | Dec 9, 2019 | Human Behavior, Young moderns
One by one, hundreds of college students were asked to be alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes – no phones, no books, no pens for doodling – nothing. They were asked only to stay awake, be quiet, and sit idly in their seats. Before beginning, students...
by david allan van nostrand | Dec 2, 2019 | Gatekeepers, Misinformation traps, Research
The department chairman said to be fair to all students, he would start our postgraduate statistics course from the very beginning, as if none of us had any prior knowledge at all. With my heavy quant background, I figured this course would be a breeze. Forty-five...
