Correlation vs Causation: What's the Difference?
Correlation means two things move together; causation means one makes the other happen.
Section · 28 articles
Mindset
How we think: biases, mental models, fallacies, numbers that mislead, and how to check what you read before you believe or share it.
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HACKS VITAE ARTWORK (AI-ASSISTED)
Start here Why Mindset Matters: What the Word Means and What the Research Says Mindset · 8 min Mindset · 9 min Mindset · 8 min · 10 points Mindset · 6 min · 7 points Mindset · 13 min · 8 points Mindset · 17 min · 10 points Mindset · 8 min · 9 points Mindset · 12 min · 8 points Mindset · 10 min · 8 points Mindset · 8 min · 6 points Mindset · 10 min · 8 points Mindset · 8 min · 8 points Mindset · 9 min · 12 points Mindset · 6 min Mindset · 2 min · 52 points Mindset · 11 min Mindset · 10 min Mindset · 7 min Mindset · 4 min · 14 points Mindset · 7 min Mindset · 8 min Mindset · 7 min Mindset · 11 min Mindset · 8 min Mindset · 5 min · 14 points Mindset · 4 min · 12 points Mindset · 9 min Mindset · 6 min
Mindset matters because a settled way of seeing a problem can steer what you notice and what you try.
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Randomised Trial vs Observational Study vs Meta-Analysis: What's the Difference?
A randomised trial lets chance decide who gets which treatment; an observational study watches without assigning; a meta-analysis combines the results of existing studies.
Factfulness Summary: The Key Ideas, What Holds Up, and How to Use Them
Factfulness argues that most of us carry an out-of-date, too-gloomy picture of the world, and names ten instincts that keep it that way.
The Shallows Summary: The Key Ideas, What Holds Up, and How to Use Them
Nicholas Carr argues that the internet is changing how we think, training attention to scatter.
Use Emotion Honestly: How Emotional Triggers Work, and How to Spot Them
Emotional triggers such as fear, scarcity, urgency and social proof make you feel something so that you act.
Information Is Power: Who to Listen To, and How to Choose What You Feed Your Mind
Our reading: give most weight to sources that lose something when they are wrong, or have a track record you can check.
The Demon-Haunted World Summary: The Key Ideas, What Holds Up, and How to Use Them
Carl Sagan's 1995 book argues that science is a way of thinking, not just a body of knowledge, and that a public without it is easy prey for pseudoscience.
Why Critical Thinking Matters More in the Age of AI: What the Research Shows, and What It Doesn't
Critical thinking is reasonable, reflective thinking about what to believe or do, and AI raises the stakes because people tend to over-rely on confident machines.
Influence Summary: The Key Ideas, What Holds Up, and How to Use Them
Influence argues that people often say yes on a single cue, and that persuaders lean on six such cues; the 2021 edition adds a seventh, unity.
Mindset by Carol Dweck Summary: The Key Ideas, What Holds Up, and How to Use Them
Mindset argues that people differ in whether they see ability as fixed or as something that grows, and that this belief shapes how they meet setbacks.
Nudge Summary: The Key Ideas, What Holds Up, and How to Use Them
Nudge argues that no choice is ever presented in a neutral way, so whoever designs it can steer people towards better options without banning anything.
Think Again Summary: The Key Ideas, What Holds Up, and How to Use Them
Adam Grant argues that the ability to rethink may matter more than raw intelligence, and that we would do better to treat our views as hypotheses, as scientists do.
Thinking, Fast and Slow Summary: The Key Ideas, What Holds Up, and How to Use Them
Thinking, Fast and Slow describes two ways of thinking, fast and automatic (System 1) and slow and effortful (System 2), which Kahneman presents as a metaphor.
Deciding Under Uncertainty: 7 Famous Decision Tools and Where They Come From
We traced seven tools to where they started; the Kelly criterion began as Kelly's 1956 paper about information, not advice.
Mental Models Cheat Sheet: 52 Thinking Tools, Where They Come From and What the Original Says
Each of the 52 thinking tools gets a verdict and a source: 11 true, 30 partly true, 7 disputed, 2 unverified and 2 myths.
Mental Models from History: 12 Sayings Checked Against the Sources
Several famous stories are not in the sources the way they are told: Cortés wrote that he had his ships beached, not burned.
Mental Models, Checked: 15 Thinking Tools and Where They Really Come From
"Mental models" means two different things: in psychology it goes back to Kenneth Craik (1943), and the self-help sense is Charlie Munger's, from a 1994 talk.
Mindsets, Checked: 7 Popular Ideas and What the Research Actually Found
"Scarcity mindset" mixes two unrelated ideas: a self-help attitude from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and research on how shortage takes up attention.
Cognitive Biases, Checked: 14 Famous Findings and Whether They Held Up
Of the fourteen findings, two held up cleanly, seven are real but smaller or narrower than the famous version, four are genuinely disputed, and one has not been confirmed.
How to Check Something Online Before You Share It: The SIFT Method
Use four moves, called SIFT: Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, and Trace claims to their original context.
How to Read a Study Without a Science Degree: 9 Questions to Ask
Ask nine questions, starting with the methods, not the abstract: study type, peer review, sample size, p-values, effect size, replication, funding and retractions.
How to Spot a Fake Quote or an Invented Source, Including Ones Made Up by AI
Go back to the original: for a quote, search digitised book archives for the earliest dated printing; for a source, check that it exists and says what it is claimed to say.
Logical Fallacies Cheat Sheet: 16 Common Ones, and When They Are Not Fallacies
A fallacy is a flaw in reasoning, not a false conclusion, so naming one never proves the other side wrong.
Numbers That Mislead: 10 Statistical Traps and How to Spot Them
Misleading numbers are usually true figures missing the comparison, base or sample that would change their meaning.
Real or Myth? 14 Popular Claims, Checked
Of fourteen popular claims, nine are myths, three partly true, one cannot be settled and one holds up.
Real or Myth? Animal Mindsets and Shop Tricks, Checked
Of twelve claims, four animal lessons are myths, the boiling frog is disputed, one is a Game of Thrones line, and one shop trick, the 9-ending price, holds up.
Dark Psychology Unveiled: Understanding the Unseen Manipulation
Dark psychology is a popular label for the ways people manipulate and control others, not a research field.
Overcoming Survivorship Bias: Making Impartial Decisions by Understanding the Psychology Behind it.
Survivorship bias is drawing conclusions from the cases that made it through, while the failures have dropped out of view.