Comment author: PhilGoetz 02 November 2011 01:55:26AM 6 points [-]

Or it just seems that way, because the introverts stay at home.

Comment author: moe 09 November 2011 12:02:18PM 1 point [-]

Or it just seems that way, because the introverts stay at home.

doesn't seem internally consistent with

"Why are there 16 personality types when everyone I know is an INTJ?"

I'd be inclined to believe that

"everyone you know" is a nonrandom sample of the population.

is true of everybody.

The numbers I've seen with reference to introvert/extrovert ratios are 1 introvert to every 3 extroverts in the US. Unfortunately I've seen it in several books that don't provide a direct reference for the ratio. It seems to be treated as common knowledge in that way. Anyone know where it came from?

Comment author: DanielLC 21 October 2011 03:28:25AM 2 points [-]

My suspicion is this:

You can learn to appreciate anything that requires creativity if you understand what they're trying to do and stuff like that. It starts out that they're creatively trying to accomplish something, like making a soothing sound in this case. Once people start appreciating it for the art, rather than just sounding nice, people will then create it for the art, rather than to sound nice. After a while, you end up with an art form that's very different than what it started as. It's still good. It's just something completely different, and each will look bad if you don't realize it's what you're looking at. Never read a literary masterpiece if you want a nice story. Never read a popular story if you want a literary masterpiece.

Comment author: moe 21 October 2011 06:02:57AM *  0 points [-]

Once people start appreciating it for the art, rather than just sounding nice, people will then create it for the art, rather than to sound nice.

I'm not sure what "appreciate it for the art" means.

Do you mean "appreciate its intended purpose" (i.e. what an artist is trying to accomplish) rather than "appreciate its expected purpose" (i.e. what you think the artist is trying to accomplish or what you think the artist should try to accomplish or what you know previous artists have tried to accomplish)?

Comment author: moe 19 October 2011 10:14:57PM *  13 points [-]

Hello all,

I've been following discussions on LW for about 6 months now and have been urged by another member of the community to join in commenting. I've been hesitant to join, but now that I've moved to a state in which I don't know a soul, I'm finding myself reading discussions here more than usual.

I think participation in LW can help me do things better at my job (and in life generally). Discussion here seems a good resource for testing out and working through ideas in a non-combative, but rigorous setting.

My field is evolutionary biology and I recently have spent a lot of time thinking about:

1) Whether people "trained" in the sciences believe they are inherently more objective and clear thinking than those in other fields, and as a consequence do not work hard to make sure their thinking and communication IS clear and objective. I'm not sure that all people receiving a science education are actually well trained to think empirically (I include my own education here), but a degree in science gives them the impression that they are.

2) What are the obstacles to understanding evolutionary biology? I find that students, after having taken an evolutionary biology course, STILL fundamentally don't understand. This makes me despair of the general public ever accepting the evolutionary theory that provides them with medical treatment and forensic science.

I'd be interested in discussing the various obstacles to understanding evolution and thinking up streamlined solutions for helping public audiences, high school teachers and undergraduates in particular to overcome those obstacles. Some I've identified in undergraduate classes are:

  • Field specific language that means something totally different in everyday use. Fellow newcomer JesseGalef's post on overcoming the curse of knowledge is relevant.

  • Students don't have a working knowledge of probability, stochastic processes, distributions, and variance.

  • Students can't distinguish between characteristics/predictability of an individual and characteristics/predictability of a distribution.

-Students have trouble considering non-additive effects/interactions.

-Previous miseducation. People have had a cartoonish and inaccurate concept of evolution pounded into their brains by many media sources both friendly and unfriendly to science. Search "Evolution" under Google image and you'll see what I mean.

Anyway. If there's interest, I suppose I'll be around.