This "extremely small" argument falls flat, as is well known, pre-industrial levels were < 0.05 ug/dl. That said, I agree the result is suspiciously strong.
Uhhh, are you sure about that? My ten dollar sleep mask from walgreen doesn't touch my eyes, I don't think it even touches my lashes. Meanwhile every mask I've tried buying online has fit terribly.
In retrospect, I've been leveraging this effect constantly since early high school. I suspect this explains many people's poor sleep habits. Anyone else?
Regardless of the exact reasons why plasticity declines with age, it's obvious that any fix is a long way off. I wouldn't take this news as positive, rather negative, actually, since it just means we have yet more work to do
Like, instead of saying "I always lamented the idea that as we grew older we generated less and less neurons" the GP can now say "I always lamented the idea that [other unknown mechanism behind declining plasticity]". Hardly good news.
The difference is when you call something a "red herring" you also point out why. Or if you invoke "occam's razor" you simultaneously propose a simpler explanation. Whereas Hanlon's razor comments like the one above literally do nothing except say "Hanlon."
Anyway, I don't think me and GP are alone in being irrationally annoyed by this cliche.
I don't understand why people make these Hanlon's razor comments. This doesn't put forth any argument or new information, it just mentions the name Hanlon. As if the fact a pithy saying exists gives it authority in itself. Maybe we should start reminding people to consider Nolnah's razor as well.
But where do intrinsic merits come from? Prenatal nutrition, genetics, role models who taught you "critical thinking" and good character? It's not controversial so much as incoherent.
I still fear the potential censorship response to these russian bots a lot more than the bots themselves. After a few more years of these articles, who knows what people will sign off on?
It's just a 100% empty comment. Literally every time something like this comes up, someone has to pipe up, "Hanlon's razor!" without any reference to actual details of the situation. Like, you are not smarter for knowing the phrase "Hanlon's razor," Hanlon's razor is not some deep piece of wisdom about the world, its literally just a catchphrase that takes 0 brainpower to repeat.
OP forgets that Kary Mullis did most of his acid binging in the 70's and invented PCR in the 80's. So even if it did turn him into a crackpot, it didn't prevent him from doing useful work.
It's like Moody's. More political than educational. Downgrading the US may be fair, but the main purpose it serves is driving clicks. More to the point, the fact they downgraded the US shouldn't tell the average HN reader anything they don't already know. Contrast to say, S&P.
Edit: By the way, look at the way the top of the "Flawed Democracies" cluster under 8.00! I can totally believe some tweaking went on here.
When is perjury not transcribed anyway?