I have long quipped that, “humans are so good at seeing patterns that we find them where none exist.” But it wasn’t until sometime in graduate school that I learned the technical term for it: “apophenia.” (A visual apophenia is a pareidolia.) I still share this one with my students at some appropriate juncture almost…
Continue ReadingI wear only four different pairs of shoes: muffy house slippers for around the house (except when, being an absent-minded professor, I forget to change before going out), New Balance running shoes that I try to put a few miles on each day, Birkenstocks for the summer, and for everything else, my cowboy boots. Now…
Continue ReadingMaybe the most difficult issue faced by social scientists is the perception that, somehow, what we do is not “science.” Although, in fairness, it doesn’t seem as widespread or blatant now as when I first got into the game; it is almost unthinkable now that a business, agency, or organization would implement a new policy…
Continue ReadingAs an academic type, I’ve always considered the end of summer the beginning of a new year: preschool, primary school, secondary school, college, graduate school, and now, entering my 13th year as a teacher of college students. My whole life has been lived according to the rhythms of the academic calendar. Now, by the precedent…
Continue ReadingI am now officially a proud member of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists! The LFHCfS is a project of Improbable Research, which also publishes the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and sponsors the annual Ig Nobel Prizes, among many other worthwhile endeavors promoting “research that makes people laugh and then think.” I am…
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