The BS asymmetry principle

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Also known as Brandolini’s Law, this is the simple observation that it’s far easier to produce and spread BS, misinformation and nonsense than it is to refute it.

In fact, the iSchool at University of Washington launched a course on Calling Bullshit with the first class being booked up within one-minute of registration. The professors, Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West have since written a book: Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World .

Phil Williamson in Nature also wrote a nice article emphasizing that we should take the time and effort to correct misinformation where we can. In it, he proposed the idea that “The global scientific community could…set up its own, moderated, rating system for websites that claim to report on science. We could call it the Scientific Honesty and Integrity Tracker, and give online nonsense the SHAIT rating it deserves.”

Published 9 Aug 2020

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Nine-enders are people in the last year of a decade, say, 29, 39, 49, 59. Adam Alter and Hal Hershfield, who introduced the term, propose that as we approach the end of a decade we are more likely to do a kind of "meaning audit" of our lives. And in the years just before the end of a decade, if we may have fallen short or feel there’s something else we want to accomplish, we’re much more likely to do it then than in any other year of a decade. In practice, as Dan Pink shared in his book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, these are, therefore, the times when we’re more likely to do something extreme like running a marathon for the first time and, sadly, also committing suicide. Take care out there. Read more in Dan Pink’s Atlantic article: You’re Most Likely to Do Something Extreme Right Before You Turn 30, Dan Pink, The Atlantic Or: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Dan Pink People search for meaning when they approach a new decade in chronological age, PNAS, vol. 111 no. 48, Alter and Hershfield, 2014. This sketch, updated and polished, features with a number of others in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures.…Nine-enders are people in the last year of a decade, say, 29, 39, 49, 59. Adam Alter and Hal Hershfield, who introduced the term, propose that as we approach the end of a decade we are more likely to do a kind of "meaning audit" of our lives. And in the years just before the end of a decade, if we may have fallen short or feel there’s something else we want to accomplish, we’re much more likely to do it then than in any other year of a decade. In practice, as Dan Pink shared in his book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, these are, therefore, the times when we’re more likely to do something extreme like running a marathon for the first time and, sadly, also committing suicide. Take care out there. Read more in Dan Pink’s Atlantic article: You’re Most Likely to Do Something Extreme Right Before You Turn 30, Dan Pink, The Atlantic Or: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Dan Pink People search for meaning when they approach a new decade in chronological age, PNAS, vol. 111 no. 48, Alter and Hershfield, 2014. This sketch, updated and polished, features with a number of others in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures.

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