I recently came across the following Nature article, “People systematically overlook subtractive changes.” From the abstract: “Here we show that people systematically default to searching for additive transformations, and consequently overlook subtractive transformations. Across eight experiments, participants were less likely to identify advantageous subtractive changes … Defaulting to searches for additive changes may be one […]

For the past several years, I’ve been trying to get better at research. I’m far from a master, but I’ve learned some strategies that have helped. I’ve done smaller research-driven essays, from looking into explore-exploit tradeoffs, how aging affects learning and whether speed reading works. I’ve also worked on longer efforts that had me reading […]

When I was in my twenties, finding time for learning was easy. Committing to doing the work could be hard, but there was always spare time. Now, as a father and business owner, I can relate to the struggle to find time to learn things. My to-learn list is long and ever-growing. I have dozens […]

Our culture celebrates originality and creativity. We want our students to think for themselves, not blindly follow tradition, authority and received opinion. After all, doesn’t science, art and politics depend on us all coming to our own answers? I definitely support the idea of coming to your own beliefs about things. But the way we […]