Here is a new experiment – I’m trying a podcast This is an interview with two of my colleagues at The Unjournal, David Reinstein and David Jintcharadze. The Unjournal is a US non-profit exploring alternatives to traditional academic peer review and journal publication. In this podcast, we range over the problems with traditional peer review, ways t…

The challenges Is it OK to smack, spank or physically punish your children? Billions of parents care deeply about this question. But answering it is very difficult, because it comes with horrible methodological problems. Obviously, there is a huge problem of reverse causality. Suppose children who are regularly spanked are naughtier. Did the punish…

I’ve been away for a while. While I write something more serious, here’s a snack: ten passages that struck me while reading, with no particular theme. Voylà pourquoy, en cette incertitude et perplexité que nous aporte l'impuissance de voir et choisir ce qui est le plus commode, pour les difficultez que les divers accidens et circonstances de chaque…