The Art of Doing Nothing
It is sunny. And hot. I never knew London could be hot. I was in town teaching a course and had some time to kill before my flight home Monday morning. “But, Erik! We...
Category: Critical Thinking
Learning From Experience
“Much learning does not teach understanding.” -Heraclitus The mind works like a human Bayesian reasoning system. “Dammit! I’m not reading this! BAYES?! DON”T MAKE ME LEARN SOME KIND OF MATH!” Easy, dear internet user....
Because You Know I’m All About That Base
“This is a common pattern: people who have information about an individual case rarely feel the need to know the statistics of the class to which the case belongs.” – Daniel Kahneman I have...
Breaking Down Water to Put Out a Fire
“Thus I saw that most men only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.” – Johann Wolfgang...
Steaming Pile of Research
There is a particular type of study that I really, really hate. It is extremely common and often seen in the physical therapy research. I see it cited time and again by speakers at...
Thinking Critically By Living In Other Worlds
“Thus I saw that most [people] only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.” – Johann Wolfgang von...
Challenging Who You Are
“People learn from people they love and remember the things that arouse emotion.” – Plato Who are you? How do you define yourself? What do you think makes you interesting? What about you gets...
Faith: Humankind’s Worst Trait For Science
“What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are.” – Epictetus Before I head down this road, let me clarify a couple things: I’m not talking...
Science Is Absurd
When I say “absurd” I don’t mean the common usage of the word which means unreasonable or irrational. I mean it more in the philosophical sense. I guess I should have called it “Science Is...
Practice Template
One of the great things about the modern PT student is their level of education. Current programs, with the occasional unfortunate exception, do a pretty good job giving a proper foundation of the scientific...