On episode 214, we welcome Tom Chivers to discuss Bayesian statistics, how their counterintuitive nature tends to turn people off, the philosophical disagreements between the Bayesians and the frequentists, why “priors” aren’t purely subjective and why all theories should be considered as priors, the difficulty of quantifying emotional states in psychological research, how priors are used and misused to inform interpretations of new data, our innate tendency toward black and white thinking, the replication crisis, and why statistically significant research is often wrong.

Tom Chivers is an author and the award-winning science writer for Semafor. His writing has appeared in The Times (London), The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired, CNN, and more. He is the co-host of The Studies Show podcast alongside Stuart Richie.His books include The Rationalist’s Guide to the Galaxy, and How to Read Numbers. His newest book, available now, is called Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World.

| Tom Chivers |

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► Podcast | https://www.thestudiesshowpod.com

► Everything is Predictable Book | https://amzn.to/3UJTOxD

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