The Science of Conspiracy: The 211th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying

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Feb 7, 2024

Guest

Bret Weinstein

Guest

Heather Heying

Evolutionary biologists Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying discuss various interesting topics in this podcast including seasonality, overfitting, the science behind dietary advice, risks of novel technologies, and the tragic situation of orcas trapped in sea ice.

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INSIGHT

Overfitting

Overfitting models incorporate noise, hindering prediction accuracy with new data.
Strive for models that capture important trends and predict novel data, not just match existing ones.

INSIGHT

Shoehorning & Straight-Jacketing

People tend to shoehorn or straight-jacket observations to fit their existing beliefs, especially regarding collusion.
This distorts understanding, as new data is forced into pre-conceived models instead of challenging them.

INSIGHT

Occam's Razor and Collusion

Occam's Razor, while important, can mislead when evidence is incomplete, as in cases of collusion.
When collusion is suspected, relax reliance on simplicity, but treat conclusions with skepticism.

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In this 211th in a series of live discussions with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying (both PhDs in Biology), we talk about the state of the world through an evolutionary lens.

In this episode, we discuss Winter and seasonality, before a longer discussion of overfitting, shoe-horning, and straight-jacketing. How do models, collusion, and Occam’s Razor contribute to how we understand the world? Why are generalists better situated to interpret complexity than are specialists? Then: how good is the science behind the major paper out of The Lancet that assures us that we should not be eating red meat? Answer: not very. Finally, we discuss the orcas who were trapped in sea ice off of Japan, and what it means to be an orca (including mention of the grandmother hypothesis).

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Mentioned in this episode:

The Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr (about Luca Turin): https://www.amazon.com/Emperor-Scent-Story-Perfume-Obsession/dp/0375759816

Willett et al 2019. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Lancet 393, 447–492: https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2818%2931788-4

Stanton 2024. Unacceptable use of substandard metrics in policy decisions which mandate large reductions in animal-source foods. Npj Science of Food 8(10): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41538-024-00249-y

Stanton et al 2022. 36-fold higher estimate of deaths attributable to red meat intake in GBD 2019: is this reliable?. The Lancet, 399(10332), pp.e23-e26.: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00311-7/fulltext

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