Table of Contents Next chapter History began on a small grey ship, alone in the dark corridors of space. It intersected Jupiter’s transit as it hurled itself through the void of Earth’s solar system. Jets of green flame fueled by ultra-efficient propellants followed in its wake. The rumble of its engines reverberated throughout the interior.… Continue reading Eternity’s Foundation: Prologue
Tag: science
Hepatitis C paper published
My day job involves looking at healthcare data and identifying patterns of illness. Recently, I had a paper published on hepatitis C treatment. Thought I'd share for those curious about my non-fictional work. Sustained virological response and costs associated with direct-acting antivirals for chronic hepatitis C infection in Oklahoma Medicaid https://www.jmcp.org/#/doi/full/10.18553/jmcp.2018.24.7.664
When correlation collides with causation
Recently, an article caught my eye (link) entitled "Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?" It discusses the possible deleterious effects that smartphones may have on young people, or those born in the mid-1990s. The unique aspect of this cohort is that they were born after the start of the Internet age. For all their lives, they… Continue reading When correlation collides with causation
Thinking like a Scientist
Would life really be better if everyone thought like a scientist? I don't know and I am uncertain. That's the mark of a scientist. We realize what we don't know and we pursue matters so that we are more certain. But we acknowledge and live with uncertainty. An unyielding curiosity and willingness to see the… Continue reading Thinking like a Scientist
What’s this brain reward system you keep talking about?
Mesolimbic pathway by User:Slashme; Patrick J. Lynch; User:Fvasconcellos licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 In my last post, I talked about the hijacking of the brain's reward system and the role it plays in addiction. I need to expand on that, because this is a lot more complicated than it looks. It is fascinating from a Stoic viewpoint: How much… Continue reading What’s this brain reward system you keep talking about?
What’s up with the p-value?
Some of you may be familiar with this Nature news article describing the effort to lower the threshold of the p-value (from 0.05) for statistical significance. In the wake of major reproducibility crises in psychology and biomedicine, this issue is more pertinent. What's the p-value anyway? In the language of statisticians, it's the probability you… Continue reading What’s up with the p-value?
Stoic Scientist 