Free Online Course on Rationality, AI Antibiotics, Science in Tabloids, Robots
The peer-reviewed journal Cell published a paper about the use of machine learning to identify new antibiotics. The approach used was to train a deep learning model using the ZINC15 database which contains millions of compounds. The algorithm found 23 potential antibiotics, eight of which were structurally different from any known antibiotics. One of them named halicin which worked when tested on mice.
Weekly News Update – 17th February
We’re starting a new section on this blog to include interesting news we’ve stumbled upon over the last week. It will all be related to science or critical thinking and we’ll try to keep cat and puppy videos to a minimum.
Boris Johnson and the Angry Guardian Readers
On the premise that, if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, if we’re anyway about to open a can worms, we’ll go for the biggest one on the shelf. What we wanted to do is some primary research around reader comments on online newspapers so we went for an article by John Crace entitled “Boris Johnson doesn’t let detail stand in way of latest vanity projects”, published on 11th February 2020 in the online edition of The Guardian.
The Science Behind “You’re Fired!”
Employee performance evaluations – they should occur regularly (e.g. yearly), they should be in line with a company’s expectations for each job level and apply fairly to everyone. We didn’t include “in an ideal world” because some companies actually get close to such an ideal already.
Research and Study Types
Perhaps the most relatable example of how the scientific method is applied in real life is the process of drug development and certification. The Multiple Sclerosis Trust in the UK provides a step-by-step description of the 10-15 years it takes for a drug to reach the medicine cabinet. A key part of this process is made of the clinical trials.
Truth Decay – Book Review
We truly enjoyed this book and would like to highlight a few aspects and how they relate to many of the objectives of the Argumentful tool. In fact, the authors themselves propose harnessing new technologies as a research route to champion facts and analysis over opinion and experience (Table 6.4, section 4.E).
Choosing a Diet? Critical Thinking!
Although we’re posting this while many are in the midst of or have just abandoned dry January, Veganuary or other New Year’s resolutions, the thinking behind the argument map below has been started many years ago. We’ve attempted to develop transparent criteria for assessing diets and have chosen one as the best match.