Paul Smaldino @psmaldino@qoto.org

In four weeks, my book comes out in the US. Insanity. If you're interested, you can pre-order at the usual spots.

PUP: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691224145/modeling-social-behavior

AMZN: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691224145?tag=it_books_com-20

@conjugateprior You reminded me of a great Vonnegut quote from Breakfast of Champions. "The proper ending for any story about people it seems to me, since life is now a polymer in which the Earth is wrapped so tightly, should be that same abbreviation, which I now write large because I feel like it, which is this one: ETC."

@dlakelan Mingus is the best.

@anandphilipc also, to some extent, ALL science is data science 🤷‍♂️

@anandphilipc both are very much about how to draw inferences and make decisions from incomplete and noisy data.

I kind of hate the standard Cognitive Science "hexagon." The disciplines feel totally false to the realities of actually understanding human cognition and behavior. When I teach intro to cogsci, here's the version I present, in case it's useful to anyone.

@GodsoeWilliam chapter by chapter if you have access to jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcm4hnd

@GodsoeWilliam I will admit I mostly use the PDF of it.

@lakens Paperback and hardcover

Diggin’ the way my book looks on the old modelin’ shelf.

My Intro to Cognitive Science students get a surprise lesson in parasitology in Week 2 in order to think about the relationship between cognition and environmental predictability. Trying to fill in some gaps here.

Question about the Trichinella spiralis lifecycle. Specifically: when larval cells are released by females in the intestines, how do they make their way to muscle tissue and encyst there? Is this totally a passive process, or are their catalysts that trigger behavioral responses?

@futurebird the

@bradleveck I agree. I don't have a ready solution for this problem, but I suspect some sort of focused paradigmatic shake-up could be a good thing if done right.

I read an earlier draft of this paper by Francisco Gil-White a few years ago and found it to be a very insightful critique of modern academic institutions. I haven't read the new version, but I imagine it's only gotten better. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4504597

@futurebird a few weeks ago I was at the gym and saw Fox News repeatedly refer to the NYC district attorney as “far left.”

As promised, here's the full album, out today. DAD SONGS is 13 indie/garage/art-rock songs about the milieu of fatherhood. Enjoy.
https://open.spotify.com/album/0fJnZzY6vsdLALXy5XU9tC?si=otWcjuOJQEq7qrCmRiZlhA