First, we have a big announcement in EID. I mentioned last week that Keith was stepping
down as site manager and overall critical resource. It will be really hard to replace him, but we
have a candidate willing to take on the role.
Please help me in welcoming France Jackson. She will be posting an introduction to
herself on the site so I won’t steal any of her thunder by doing it here.
Now – On to the weekly recap.
Three of the four articles this week involved cognitive
science. The one I found most
fascinating is the piece on all of the different kinds of mental simulation by
the team at Harvard. It makes total
sense that these would all happen in the same brain areas. It also goes a long way to explaining
consciousness – which is the grand challenge of both psychology and philosophy. If you have any interest in philosophy of consciousness,
read this one!
The one that got the most interest was the piece on the Dunning-Kruger effect. It explains a lot
of the politicians in Washington I am sorry to say. The basic idea is that people who are
completely ignorant wind up being the most confident that they are
correct. It crops up in school, finance,
medicine, and yes, unfortunately, politics.
The exception was the piece on the usability of legal documents that apply to everyday users who generally have no clue what most of
it means. In many cases, it never comes
back to haunt us. Unless you are a
victim of credit card theft, fraudulent charges, or outright identity theft,
many of the details in your credit card agreement don’t apply. Except of course for the interest rate, which
is the one datum that we do notice right away.
But the importance of these agreements is for those times when they do
matter. And then, the fact that we never
read them can come back to haunt us.
