Also this week: the phylogenetics of geometry, and more. Only a few links this week, but the average quality is higher than usual.
Jessica Hullman points us to an old paper by Tukey and Cornfield on “the two spans of statistical inference.” This is a very good metaphor for the role of statistics in solving real world problems. I’m going to share it with my intro biostats undergrads later this semester.
Baumol’s cost disease is a standard economic explanation for why certain goods and services tend to rise in price relative to others over time. Classic examples of Baumol’s cost disease include orchestras and university educations. Now, in a very insightful post, Dan Davies points out a more subtle cost disease. Among other things, it explains why AI–like remote work, the internet, and even Excel before it–is not going to broadly increase the productivity of office work.
The origin story of the cover of Ambika Kamath & Melina Packer’s forthcoming Feminism In the Wild. It’s a nice cover! I read its origin story with interest, because I am currently thinking up cover ideas for my own forthcoming book. I hope that, like Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer, I can help the publisher come up with a cover image that both encourages readers to buy the book, and that I personally like and find meaningful (even if it’s for reasons that readers won’t even be aware of).
And finally: “There’s a maximum likelihood that I’m doing phylogenetics wrong.” 🙂