3 ms·

I don't think you could've written anything more arrogant if you tried. > the majority of the population lazily look for simple formulas Great! After all, it'

I don't think you could've written anything more arrogant if you tried. > the majority of the population lazily look for simple formulas Great! After all, it's not that different from "a good programmer is a lazy programmer" and "keep it simple, stupid" -- if at all possible, look for simple solutions and quick fixes. > This is typical big media bullshit pandering to the inert. "Epidemiology--is it time to call it a day?" (http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/1/1.full http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/1/1.full), an essay that comes to pretty much the same conclusion as this article, was published in 2001 in the International Journal of Epidemiology. As far as I know the International Journal of Epidemiology is not big media. > I mean come on... How about we don't give up on questions? Rhetorical questions don't count as arguments. > How about we learn to ask the right questions instead? Observational research is intrinsically very, very hard. Statisticians are working at making it more reliable (especially in the context of causal inference: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/miguel-hernan/causal-inference-book/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/miguel-hernan/causal-inference-...), but there's only so much you can do with data that is full of noise and confounders. > How about we spend more time training and studying our own bodies than we spend reading our Facebook feeds? You don't get to decide other people's priorities in life.

hinkley 10y ago
> if at all possible, look for simple solutions and quick fixes. Oh boy. I'm not OP but you and I could easily have the same altercation. Quick fixes and simple solutions are two different tools, and conflating the [two] leads to endless disagreements and hurt feelings. Pascal and de Saint-Exupery both have famous quotes that apply to the distinctions between the two.
- CodeMage 10y ago
  I know I can look those quotes up, but that endeavor will most likely end up ramifying into a lot more procrastination than I can afford right now. Could you post those quotes?
  - hinkley 10y ago
    A letter from Blaise Pascal to a colleague starts, "I apologize for the length of this letter. It would have been shorter if I'd had more time." Exupery has the one about perfection being achieved when there is nothing left to take away. I confess you have to unpack that one a bit to turn it into a commentary on simplicity and how it's challenging to achieve. There's the one attributed to Einstein about 'as simple as possible but no simpler', and for some reason I occasionally swap the two in my head. Any problem is easy to solve if you misunderstand it properly.
DiabloD3 10y ago
>You don't get to decide other people's priorities in life. No, but let's not bullshit ourselves and claim half the population is not dangerously addicted to the mental equivalent of "junk food", ex: Facebook. Don't want to be fat? Then don't be fat. Want to be fat? Wasting hours on Facebook will help you achieve your goal.

hinkley 10y ago

> if at all possible, look for simple solutions and quick fixes. Oh boy. I'm not OP but you and I could easily have the same altercation. Quick fixes and simple solutions are two different tools, and conflating the [two] leads to endless disagreements and hurt feelings. Pascal and de Saint-Exupery both have famous quotes that apply to the distinctions between the two.

CodeMage 10y ago
I know I can look those quotes up, but that endeavor will most likely end up ramifying into a lot more procrastination than I can afford right now. Could you post those quotes?
- hinkley 10y ago
  A letter from Blaise Pascal to a colleague starts, "I apologize for the length of this letter. It would have been shorter if I'd had more time." Exupery has the one about perfection being achieved when there is nothing left to take away. I confess you have to unpack that one a bit to turn it into a commentary on simplicity and how it's challenging to achieve. There's the one attributed to Einstein about 'as simple as possible but no simpler', and for some reason I occasionally swap the two in my head. Any problem is easy to solve if you misunderstand it properly.

DiabloD3 10y ago

>You don't get to decide other people's priorities in life. No, but let's not bullshit ourselves and claim half the population is not dangerously addicted to the mental equivalent of "junk food", ex: Facebook. Don't want to be fat? Then don't be fat. Want to be fat? Wasting hours on Facebook will help you achieve your goal.