moe

Karma: 22

moe 9 Nov 2011 12:02 UTC
2 points
in reply to: PhilGoetz’s comment on: Myers-Briggs / MLPTI personality-type conversion chart

Or it just seems that way, because the introverts stay at home.

doesn’t seem internally consistent with

“Why are there 16 personality types when everyone I know is an INTJ?”

I’d be inclined to believe that

“everyone you know” is a nonrandom sample of the population.

is true of everybody.

The numbers I’ve seen with reference to introvert/extrovert ratios are 1 introvert to every 3 extroverts in the US. Unfortunately I’ve seen it in several books that don’t provide a direct reference for the ratio. It seems to be treated as common knowledge in that way. Anyone know where it came from?

moe 21 Oct 2011 6:02 UTC
0 points
in reply to: DanielLC’s comment on: Things you are supposed to like

Once people start appreciating it for the art, rather than just sounding nice, people will then create it for the art, rather than to sound nice.

I’m not sure what “appreciate it for the art” means.

Do you mean “appreciate its intended purpose” (i.e. what an artist is trying to accomplish) rather than “appreciate its expected purpose” (i.e. what you think the artist is trying to accomplish or what you think the artist should try to accomplish or what you know previous artists have tried to accomplish)?

moe 19 Oct 2011 22:14 UTC
20 points
on: Welcome to Less Wrong! (2010-2011)
Hello all,

I’ve been following discussions on LW for about 6 months now and have been urged by another member of the community to join in commenting. I’ve been hesitant to join, but now that I’ve moved to a state in which I don’t know a soul, I’m finding myself reading discussions here more than usual.

I think participation in LW can help me do things better at my job (and in life generally). Discussion here seems a good resource for testing out and working through ideas in a non-combative, but rigorous setting.

My field is evolutionary biology and I recently have spent a lot of time thinking about:

1) Whether people “trained” in the sciences believe they are inherently more objective and clear thinking than those in other fields, and as a consequence do not work hard to make sure their thinking and communication IS clear and objective. I’m not sure that all people receiving a science education are actually well trained to think empirically (I include my own education here), but a degree in science gives them the impression that they are.

2) What are the obstacles to understanding evolutionary biology? I find that students, after having taken an evolutionary biology course, STILL fundamentally don’t understand. This makes me despair of the general public ever accepting the evolutionary theory that provides them with medical treatment and forensic science.

I’d be interested in discussing the various obstacles to understanding evolution and thinking up streamlined solutions for helping public audiences, high school teachers and undergraduates in particular to overcome those obstacles. Some I’ve identified in undergraduate classes are:
- Field specific language that means something totally different in everyday use. Fellow newcomer JesseGalef’s post on overcoming the curse of knowledge is relevant.
- Students don’t have a working knowledge of probability, stochastic processes, distributions, and variance.
- Students can’t distinguish between characteristics/predictability of an individual and characteristics/predictability of a distribution.
-Students have trouble considering non-additive effects/interactions.

-Previous miseducation. People have had a cartoonish and inaccurate concept of evolution pounded into their brains by many media sources both friendly and unfriendly to science. Search “Evolution” under Google image and you’ll see what I mean.

Anyway. If there’s interest, I suppose I’ll be around.