Lunch at the Labs

Human memory is not like computer memory and is quirky, unreliable and its accuracy cannot be trusted. But in spite of that many people people believe their memory even when it is contradicted by evidence. There is a summary of the psychology of human memory at,

How Memory Works: 10 Things Most People Get Wrong

The ten points given (with my one-line summary) are:

1. Memory does not decay
   Memories remain but they become harder to retrieve.
2. Forgetting helps you learn
   It is easier to learn new information as less relevant information becomes inaccessible.
3. 'Lost' memories can live again
   But even less accessible memories are not gone and can be re-learned more quickly than new information.
4. Recalling memories alters them
   Retrieving a memory makes it stronger but also can result in a false memory due to the reconstruction process.
   Psychologists have experimentally implanted false memories.
5. Memory is unstable
   Because a memory is changed by recalling it.
6. The foresight bias
   It is easy to think you will remember something and then forget it minutes later.
7. When recall is easy, learning is low
   The more work you have to do to remember something the better you will remember it and this is why testing improves learning.
8. Learning depends heavily on context
   Learning improves when done in different ways or contexts.
9. Memory, reloaded
   In the long run (but not the short term) both physical and mental learning is improved when interleaving different things rather than one at a time.
10. Learning is under your control
    With knowledge of how memory works, you memory can improve.

See the above link for more details.
Most false memories are harmless but in some cases people lives have been ruined by them.

For some information about false memories see:

• False Memory Syndrome Foundation
• False Memory Syndrome Facts
• False Memory — Scholarpedia
• Creating False Memories — Elizabeth F. Loftus

A fact is not always a fact. This is not just because someone is being deceitful, but due to the way knowledge is obtained and how the scientific process is suppose to work. The term half-life is the time required for a quantity to fall to half its value and comes from the description of radioactive decay in physics.

In a new book The Half-Life of Facts, applied mathematician and network scientist author Samuel Arbesman explains why everything we know has an expiration date.

The book review at Half of the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong makes these observations:

• half of what physicians thought they knew about liver diseases was wrong or obsolete 45 years later
• a team of researchers over ten years was able to reproduce the results of only six out of 53 landmark papers in preclinical cancer research.
• We persist in only adding facts to our personal store of knowledge that jibe with what we already know, rather than assimilate new facts irrespective of how they fit into our worldview.

In another review at Universe Today it states:

• The half-life of a physics paper is on average 13.07 years, in Math it's 9.17 years, and in Psychology it's 7.15.

Remember this is for science and the situation is worse for areas like politics and economics, etc.

There is a Center for Inquiry podcast interview with the author at Point of Inquiry.

Some web links I found to be of interest:

• The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking — by Oliver Burkeman

  although extreme insecurity is a bad thing, it provides one huge benefit: you cannot be worried about losing your security if you don't have any to lose in the first place. And worries about becoming insecure do seem to be at the root of a lot of anxiety in western societies.

• RationalWiki
  
  1. Analyzing and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement.
  2. Documenting the full range of crank ideas.
  3. Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism.
  4. Analysis and criticism of how these subjects are handled in the media.
  
  
• S.H.A.M.E Project: Shame the Hacks who Abuse Media Ethics

  The S.H.A.M.E. Media Transparency Project takes the war against corporate trolls and media shills to a new and more effective level. Its goal is to expose corrupt media figures, document journalistic fraud and make life a little harder for covert propagandists who manipulate the public, degrade our democracy and help perpetuate oligarchy power.

  Sometimes it seems a bit excessive and unfair to me, but still fun to read their takedowns of some big names.

• thoughtfulPersonals.com
  Free personal ads for people who like the NYT, New Yorker, Harper's, NPR, Atlantic or NYRB

• In Technology Wars, Using the Patent as a Sword — How patents are stifling innovation.

  Last year, for the first time, spending by Apple and Google on patent lawsuits and unusually big-dollar patent purchases exceeded spending on research and development of new products, according to public filings.
  New York Times, October 7, 2012

  And this paper (2012-035) from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis:

  The Case Against Patents
  by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, September 2012

  The case against patents can be summarized briefly:there is no empirical evidence that they serve to increase innovation and productivity, unless the latter is identified with the number of patents awarded – which, as evidence shows, has no correlation with measured productivity. This is at the root of the “patent puzzle”: in spite of the enormous increase in the number of patents and in the strength of their legal protection we have neither seen a dramatic acceleration in the rate of technological progress nor a major increase in the levels of R&D expenditure ...