Prediction wunderkind Nate Silver gives a taste of his new book, The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail but Some Don’t, at Authors @ Google – absolutely fascinating.
sociology
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In the Middle Ages monastic life largely shaped when people ate, says food historian Ivan Day. Nothing could be eaten before morning Mass and meat could only be eaten for half the days of the year. It’s thought the word breakfast entered the English language during this time and literally meant “break the night’s fast”.
A brief history of breakfast, lunch and dinner.
It has to do with adaptability. Women, Rosin argues, are like immigrants who have moved to a new country. They see a new social context, and they flexibly adapt to new circumstances. Men are like immigrants who have physically moved to a new country but who have kept their minds in the old one. They speak the old language. They follow the old mores. Men are more likely to be rigid; women are more fluid.
This theory has less to do with innate traits and more to do with social position. When there’s big social change, the people who were on the top of the old order are bound to cling to the old ways. The people who were on the bottom are bound to experience a burst of energy. They’re going to explore their new surroundings more enthusiastically.
David Brooks on Hana Rosin’s new book, The End of Men.
Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.
British polymath Francis Galton and the science behind the wisdom of crowds, explained by none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson
A basic element of human nature is that people feel compelled to belong to groups and, having joined, consider them superior to competing groups.
E. O. Wilson in The Social Conquest of Earth.
At least one study suggests that 10 percent of communication between spouses is deceptive. Another has found that 38 percent of encounters among college students contain lies. However, researchers have discovered that even liars rate their deceptive interactions as less pleasant than truthful ones. This is not terribly surprising: We know that trust is deeply rewarding and that deception and suspicion are two sides of the same coin. Research suggests that all forms of lying — including white lies meant to spare the feelings of others — are associated with poorer-quality relationships.
For both men and women, becoming an entrepreneur was associated with social skills and entrepreneurial intentions expressed at age 16. In addition, we found gender-specific pathways. For men, becoming an entrepreneur was predicted by having a self-employed father; for women, it was predicted by their parents’ socioeconomic resources. These findings point to conjoint influences of both social structure and individual agency in shaping occupational choice and implementation.
34-year longitudinal study of an international sample examines who becomes an entrepreneur
In our literature, any story of the complete isolation, either physical or psychological, of a man from his fellowman, such as the story of Robinson Crusoe before he found a human footprint on the beach, is regarded as essentially a horror story.
A brief history of the “extraordinary social experiment” of living alone and the changing cultural attitudes towards the stigma of singledom.
The distribution of chronotypes, a measure of internal time, across the population.
You can calculate your chronotype by dividing your average sleep duration by two and adding the resulting number to your average bedtime on free days, meaning days when your sleep and waking times are not dictated by the demands of your work or school schedule. For instance, if you go to bed at 11 P.M. and wake up at 7 A.M., add four hours to 11pm and you get 3 A.M. as your chronotype.
Despite its prevalence, living alone is one of the least discussed and, consequently, most poorly understood issues of our time.
Going Solo – a brief history of the rise of living alone and the enduring social stigma around singletons
Over-giving is not quite the same thing as generosity. Generosity is neither entangling nor aggressive, because the generous person doesn’t expect anything in return.
The over-giver doesn’t expect anything in return either — except to be petted and feted and praised and loved unconditionally for the rest of time (and I was) — so that’s not emotionally loaded. Nothing toxic there!
Confessions of an over-giver from the ever-brilliant Elizabeth Gilbert.
Also see the story of George Price and his quest for the origin of altruism.
