This week: AI teaching assistant, the limits of data, The Sound of Music nominalism, and more.
C. Thi Nguyen on the limits of data. There are many pieces on this topic, but this is a particularly good example of the type. Would probably be good reading material for undergrads in quantitative courses. Having said that, like all pieces on this topic, it runs up against a fundamental problem. Yes, data has its limits–but ignoring data (or trying to do without data) has its own limits. Like Andrejs Dunkels said, It’s easy to lie with statistics, but it’s hard to tell the truth without it. The linked piece doesn’t deny that, but still.
Andrew Gelman reviews Kate Zernike’s The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science. Interesting to read about the mix of flat-out discrimination, and support from powerful leaders, experienced by the women whose stories the book tells.
Cheap (or free trial) AI teaching assistant easily customizable to your course content. Here’s a short note from one of the creators, regarding the use case. I haven’t tried it yet but plan to give it a look.
This Dan Davies post on deciding what to ignore is brief, and assumes familiarity with his previous writing. So it’s probably not of interest to many of you. But this passage is great:
Of course, a mathematician might say that “deciding what you’re going to ignore” is the same thing as “deciding what to pay attention to”, which is one of those true-but-annoying things that mathematicians say. It is uncomfortable to admit that there are things in the world which are important, but which you’re not going to pay any attention to. It reminds us of our own limited capability, which in turn reminds us of our mortality, which in turn reminds us that one of the things we can choose to ignore is the person who’s making us uncomfortable by saying all these annoying things.
Yup. Everybody ignores all sorts of vitally important stuff, and couldn’t possibly do otherwise. But many people (not including me) hate being reminded of that fact. Especially when they’re trying to get others to stop ignoring something.
And finally, these are a few of my favorite things noministically respectable things. This might be the greatest paper I’ve ever seen.