Bayes and the Effects of Bias and Belief
The author begins his article by revealing that in his last post, he explored the realm of statistics to explain why the “five sigma” criterion for a discovery is heavily used in particle physics. As part of his explanation, he quoted a Louis Lyons saying that the five sigma criterion includes a “subconscious Bayes factor”. […]
Popularity in TV Shows
There are thousands of television shows on the air, but only a few can ever become monumentally successful and be constantly renewed at the end of one season. Many shows in fact disappear into obscurity and are cancelled, despite popular support, because numbers are all that matter. Winners of the top 50 shows include Football, […]
Coverage vs Attention
Recently there have been a number of a tragic incidents that have occurred around the world. Two that have received quite a bit of attention have been the attacks in Paris and Beirut – but not for the same reasons. In the hours after the attacks in Paris, there was a huge outpouring of grief from all over […]
Modern Hieroglyphics
As more and more people began communicating through text based systems the lack of emotion became apparent. How is it possible transmit our happiness, sadness, anger and even our hunger without any misinterpretation? How can we ever get past a language barrier? Emotions are universal. A smiley face in English resonates the same meaning in […]
Following the crowd could be dangerous
In our world, we see people following the crowd all the time whether it is due to an informational effect or a direct-benefit effect. However we haven’t really studied the full set of what kind of consequences come from an information cascade. As we will see, following the crowd can actually be a dangerous option […]