Critical Thinking

What are confounding factors (and how does it skew our opinions about stuff)

Many people try to warn us about our diets.

But:

In almost every case, they use confounding factors as a crutch to prove that they have a superior diet than ours. This “confounding factors logical fallacy” uses a loose association to confirm a diet’s benefits.

Confounding bias occurs when our results mislead us to think that one testing variable causes an outcome… but it was really a third test variable that caused a result…

And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, correlation is not causation.

This is an excellent short video showing a confounding factors example. We see why drinking coffee might have nothing to do with developing lung cancer:

This video goes broader and more into the weeds of broader logical fallacy – selection bias:

Punchline: I am SUPER leery of epidemiological, statistical or association study results when choosing the right diet for me. Instead, I dig hard to find scientific, randomized controlled studies that skip any confounding factors or selection biases.

Do we really have freedom of speech here in the good ol’ USA?

All my life, I have been told we can say anything we want – without worry:

… a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.

Freedom of speech is the main tenant of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.

Yet:

If we have an opinion that butt hurts a financial guru, we get this situation:

I hope Kevin Paffrath (the defendant in this cease and desist order) realizes that this Dave Ramsey legal demand is probably an empty threat. And I hope Kevin keeps his original video online… here it is:

Even better, I hope this triggers the Streisand effect:

The Streisand effect is a phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet.

I am doing my part. And I encourage you to spread this far and wide, too.

This simple stroll might help us be more creative in life

This Stanford University study (from 2014) finds taking a walk is a surefire way to be more creative:

The overwhelming majority of the participants in these three experiments were more creative while walking than sitting, the study found. In one of those experiments, participants were tested indoors – first while sitting, then while walking on a treadmill. The creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when the person was walking, according to the study.

I agree with this study. Walking does get my creative juices flowing…

However, I find driving my car (with the radio off) exponentially boosts my creative flow.

Culture Creation Industry – introducing the men (and women) behind the curtain

I got “hip” to the term “the culture creation industry” after listening to this Alan Watt interview on April 8, 2008:

Much of what was predicted in this short interview is indeed happening today.

And understanding and “over”standing how the culture-creation industry works has SIGNIFICANTLY improved the quality of my life.