What of the Biggest Mistakes Other Scholars Make?

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Most scholars are primarily about career advancement, says Anne Elling. People usually only read within their field of study and focus on disciplinary boundaries. Human personality is really important explains a lot of things about the world - it's like becker and stigler tried to go and kill each other. Personied psychologists have documanted very strong differences in human tastes. So you're all worth reading for at least a week depending upon what you're working on.

"No single paper is that good", says Bryan Caplan. To really understand a topic, you need to read the entire literature in the field. And to do the kind of scholarship Bryan's work requires, you need to cover multiple fields. Only that way can you assemble a wide variety of evidence into useful knowledge.

But few scholars ever even try to reach the enlightened interdisciplinary plane. So how does he do it?

Tyler explores Bryan's approach, including how to avoid the autodidact's curse, why his favorite philosopher happens to be a former classmate, what Tolstoy has that science fiction lacks, the idea trap, most useful wrong beliefs, effective altruism, Larry David, what most economics papers miss about the return to education, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded April 17th, 2018 Other ways to connect

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