I loved this article, because I have a dog in this fight. I am a natural short-sleeper and have been for my entire life. My mom reports that even as an infant I slept very little and never napped. And for my whole adult life (not counting when I was pregnant), 6-1/2 hours is apparently all I need; I wake up without an alarm clock at 5am feeling rested and never feel sleepy during the day.
But the mainstream view is that I may feel fine NOW, but severe consequences (dementia, cancer, early death, what have you) are coming for me down the road, and that everyone who isn’t getting the full 8 hours is damaging their health. But how do they know? Has anyone actually done a longitudinal study of happy and healthy natural short-sleepers, as opposed to people who do need 8 hours but sleep less because of stress or long work hours?
I am left wondering whether the 8-hours-of-sleep rule is like the dictum that we should drink 8 glasses of water and walk 10,000 steps per day. Both of the latter two numbers turn out to have been made up. Why should it be any different with sleep?
The iodized salt comment reminded me of a class I was teaching. I brought out five different kinds of salt for people to taste, for comparison (pink salt, table salt, grey salt, etc.) one of which was iodized. The iodized one smelled *so bad* that not one of my students was willing to taste it. On the other hand, one of the salts was good enough that some people went back for seconds, which was not anticipated.
Wow, funded by Tyler Cowen’s emergent ventures, that alone is a big boost because he only funds the best ideas. I knew this was a good idea! C’mon money people, here’s your chance to be an actual real innovator. I personally think Science House is one of the best ideas I’ve heard in a long time…just that we need a diversity of ways to train creators of new science alone justifies it…then digging into the details of Adam’s thinking on this makes it really exciting. I look forward to interesting and creatively written papers too. So happy the vision is now real.
As a PhD student in my 3rd year with clinical depression (also my work kind of revolves around de-bunking a bullshit Science paper and it's getting exhausting) reading this makes me happy ❤️
I'm all in favor of skepticism, but... I've eaten pasta that's cooked in unsalted water, and it definitely tastes worse than pasta cooked in salted water. Same thing with boiled potatoes.
Really exciting! My assumption is there are people who do have refined enough palette where the cooking of pasta matters (same way your wife can smell egg on a washed plate), but I look forward to reading the post.
"That’s how we can go 1,000 years believing that heavy things fall faster than lighter things"
There is excellent article arguing that we have incorrect view of Aristotle's physics, and that in fact, heavy things do fall faster than lighter things. See https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.4057. Big relevant detail is that Aristotle was modelling motion through air or water, in which case heavier things do fall faster. Aristotle also makes precise predictions that are correct
However, I am keenly aware that by posting this link, I might actually be one of the "perpetual grumps and spiteful debunkers, always ready to kick things over, never brave enough to build anything up." Maybe motivation for me to actually go out and do the experiments!
At a wildlife tracking certification I took a couple of months back, the evaluator observed that a lot of people who come to tracking have a history of having broken ourselves on conventional education. I'd include myself in that, despite having gone on to work in academia for close to two decades before I realized that burnout doesn't have to look spectacular, it can also look like a slowly declining ability to do even the bare minimum.
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that's an activity that requires empiricism, skepticism, and constantly asking questions, and it's remarkable to me how people's curiosity lights up when they're doing it. My takeaway is there's a lot more people interested in this kind of inquiry than we might think, or people who would be if they had an inviting opportunity to engage in it, and I love the whole idea of a Science House.
If there's one thing the world needs at the moment, it's active, vocal bullshit detectors.
I loved this article, because I have a dog in this fight. I am a natural short-sleeper and have been for my entire life. My mom reports that even as an infant I slept very little and never napped. And for my whole adult life (not counting when I was pregnant), 6-1/2 hours is apparently all I need; I wake up without an alarm clock at 5am feeling rested and never feel sleepy during the day.
But the mainstream view is that I may feel fine NOW, but severe consequences (dementia, cancer, early death, what have you) are coming for me down the road, and that everyone who isn’t getting the full 8 hours is damaging their health. But how do they know? Has anyone actually done a longitudinal study of happy and healthy natural short-sleepers, as opposed to people who do need 8 hours but sleep less because of stress or long work hours?
I am left wondering whether the 8-hours-of-sleep rule is like the dictum that we should drink 8 glasses of water and walk 10,000 steps per day. Both of the latter two numbers turn out to have been made up. Why should it be any different with sleep?
The iodized salt comment reminded me of a class I was teaching. I brought out five different kinds of salt for people to taste, for comparison (pink salt, table salt, grey salt, etc.) one of which was iodized. The iodized one smelled *so bad* that not one of my students was willing to taste it. On the other hand, one of the salts was good enough that some people went back for seconds, which was not anticipated.
I'd love to link to this if you write it up and post it!
Well, I certainly don't know if this is the sort of writeup you were imagining but I wrote this: https://open.substack.com/pub/ontography/p/we-live-in-context?r=lms02&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Amazing! I'll definitely write it up.
Wow, funded by Tyler Cowen’s emergent ventures, that alone is a big boost because he only funds the best ideas. I knew this was a good idea! C’mon money people, here’s your chance to be an actual real innovator. I personally think Science House is one of the best ideas I’ve heard in a long time…just that we need a diversity of ways to train creators of new science alone justifies it…then digging into the details of Adam’s thinking on this makes it really exciting. I look forward to interesting and creatively written papers too. So happy the vision is now real.
Well, I need to thank Myq Kaplan for liking this—it just popped up in my feed.
How about "run your study" as a substitute for "do your own research" ?
As a PhD student in my 3rd year with clinical depression (also my work kind of revolves around de-bunking a bullshit Science paper and it's getting exhausting) reading this makes me happy ❤️
I'm all in favor of skepticism, but... I've eaten pasta that's cooked in unsalted water, and it definitely tastes worse than pasta cooked in salted water. Same thing with boiled potatoes.
Write it up and post it!
Really exciting! My assumption is there are people who do have refined enough palette where the cooking of pasta matters (same way your wife can smell egg on a washed plate), but I look forward to reading the post.
"That’s how we can go 1,000 years believing that heavy things fall faster than lighter things"
There is excellent article arguing that we have incorrect view of Aristotle's physics, and that in fact, heavy things do fall faster than lighter things. See https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.4057. Big relevant detail is that Aristotle was modelling motion through air or water, in which case heavier things do fall faster. Aristotle also makes precise predictions that are correct
However, I am keenly aware that by posting this link, I might actually be one of the "perpetual grumps and spiteful debunkers, always ready to kick things over, never brave enough to build anything up." Maybe motivation for me to actually go out and do the experiments!
(Aaaand I just re-read your post on 'staring directly at the sun' and now feel very silly. I learnt about Rovelli's article from you! Woops...)
Haha I'm glad it stuck! 🙂
Dynamicland in Oakland is working on a communal science project that seems like it might harmonize in powerful ways with the Science House vision.
https://dynamicland.org/2024/The_communal_science_lab.pdf
At a wildlife tracking certification I took a couple of months back, the evaluator observed that a lot of people who come to tracking have a history of having broken ourselves on conventional education. I'd include myself in that, despite having gone on to work in academia for close to two decades before I realized that burnout doesn't have to look spectacular, it can also look like a slowly declining ability to do even the bare minimum.
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that's an activity that requires empiricism, skepticism, and constantly asking questions, and it's remarkable to me how people's curiosity lights up when they're doing it. My takeaway is there's a lot more people interested in this kind of inquiry than we might think, or people who would be if they had an inviting opportunity to engage in it, and I love the whole idea of a Science House.
Regarding adding salt when the water comes to a boil:
salt is corrosive, so adding it earlier might induce a slight metallic taste. Adding it later might not permeate the pasta as well.
The only other explanation I can think of is that salty water has a slightly increased boiling point, which I doubt is relevant.
Why is there so much bad information when there are so many good scientists? Do you guys need a better manager or promoter?
Just messaged you with an idea about funding! ✨
Amazing the stuff they give my tax dollars away for.
Dan davies argues that if we take the "purpose of a system is what it does" view, then peer review acts as an way for university administrators to deny responsibility for icky hiring or firing decisions, in his book The Unaccountability Machine. Page 22 of preview here https://profilebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/wpallimport/files/PDFs/9781788169547_preview.pdf