Insights
Why Some Ducklings Seem Ugly
Why do some research subfields seem to get all the media and social love? Physicist Chad Orzel puts out some answers in his Substack, Counting Atoms. (I recommend it.) Physics’ version of this ugly duckling lament
Boost the Evident Signals, Call Out the Bad Days
It’s tough being a public expert. That’s because being a good public expert isn’t just about having good communications skills — i.e., about being an expert who feels comfortable in public. Being a good public expert
Pandemic Information Exhaustion & Eric Topol’s Ground Truths
Let’s just say — hypothetically — that you’re over the pandemic. Being “over the pandemic” also means that you’re over being meticulously and incrementally informed about the pandemic. Over being sideswiped by public health agency proclamations.
Create the Infrastructure of What You Don’t Know
In movies about saving the world (except for Don’t Look Up), science traditionally plays a pivotal role: There’s a threat to humanity with a lot of unknowns; The scientist characters progress from uncertainty to knowledge about
Your Paper is a Brick in a Wall
Wharton’s Ethan Mollick is one of my favorite Twitter follows, and I’m hardly alone — Mollick summarizes tons of interesting papers that I would have otherwise missed. Like these two: For Mollick, the upshot of these
Why Official Expertise Sucks (And Why That’s OK)
Public expertise on the pandemic from officials (e.g., WHO’s Maria Van Kerkhove) and official bodies (e.g., WHO, CDC, FDA) has pretty much sucked. Most people agree with this statement. Most also agree: These officials and official