POPULARITY
Hosted by Tom Chivers
2 episodes with Tom Chivers
3 episodes with Tom Chivers
2 episodes with Tom Chivers
2 episodes with Tom Chivers
2 episodes with Tom Chivers
2 episodes with Tom Chivers
2 episodes with Tom Chivers
2 episodes with Tom Chivers
2 episodes with Tom Chivers
Everything Is Predictable: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World is a book about an 18th century mathematical rule for working out probability, which shapes many aspects of our modern world. Written by science journalist Tom Chivers, the book has made it onto the shortlist for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize. In the lead up to the winner's announcement, New Scientist books editor Alison Flood meets all six of the shortlisted authors.In this conversation, Tom explores the life of Thomas Bayes, the man behind the theorem, and how he had no clue his discovery would have such sweeping implications for humanity. He explains the theorem's many uses, both in practical settings like disease diagnosis, as well as its ability to explain rational thought and the human brain. And he digs into some of the controversy and surprising conflict that has surrounded Bayes' theorem over the years.The winner of the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize will be announced on the 24th October. You can view all of the shortlisted entries here:https://royalsociety.org/medals-and-prizes/science-book-prize/ To read about subjects like this and much more, visit https://www.newscientist.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Royal Society recently announced the shortlist for their annual Science Book Prize – and nominated is science writer and journalist Tom Chivers, author of the book Everything is Predictable. He tells us how statistics impact every aspect of our lives, and joins Marnie as a studio guest throughout the show.A drug – lecanemab – that can slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease has recently been approved for use in the UK, but the healthcare regulator NICE has said that it won't be available on the NHS. But what is behind this decision, and what makes creating an Alzheimer's drug so difficult? Professor Tara Spires-Jones from the University of Edinburgh talks us through the science.And could ‘smart paint' supersize our fruit and veg? Reporter Roland Pease heads over to the experimental greenhouses of Cranfield University's crop science unit to see if the technology works.Thee Paralympic Games are now underway in Paris, with athletes competing across 22 different events. But as competitors have a range of different impairments, how is it ensured that there's a level playing field? Professor Sean Tweedy from the University of Queensland calls in from Paris to explain how athletes are sorted into categories for competition.Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producers: Sophie Ormiston and Ella Hubber Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Andrew Lewis
Tom Chivers is a journalist who writes a lot about science and applied statistics. We talk about his new book on Bayesian statistics, the biography of Thomas Bayes, the history of probability theory, how Bayes can help with the replication crisis, how Tom became a journalist, and much more.BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreonTimestamps0:00:00: Tom's book about Bayes & Bayesian statistics relates to many of my previous episodes and much of my own research0:03:12: A brief biography of Thomas Bayes (about whom very little is known)0:11:00: The history of probability theory 0:36:23: Bayesian songs0:43:17: Bayes & the replication crisis0:57:27: How Tom got into science journalism1:08:32: A book or paper more people should read1:10:05: Something Tom wishes he'd learnt sooner1:14:36: Advice for PhD students/postdocs/people in a transition periodPodcast linksWebsite: https://geni.us/bjks-podTwitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twtTom's linksWebsite: https://geni.us/chivers-webTwitter: https://geni.us/chivers-twtPodcast: https://geni.us/chivers-podBen's linksWebsite: https://geni.us/bjks-webGoogle Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholarTwitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twtReferences and linksEpisode with Stuart Ritchie: https://geni.us/bjks-ritchieScott Alexander: https://www.astralcodexten.com/Bayes (1731). Divine benevolence, or an attempt to prove that the principal end of the divine providence and government is the happiness of his creatures. Being an answer to a pamphlet entitled Divine Rectitude or an inquiry concerning the moral perfections of the deity with a refutation of the notions therein advanced concerning beauty and order, the reason of punishment and the necessity of a state of trial antecedent to perfect happiness.Bayes (1763). An essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London.Bellhouse (2004). The Reverend Thomas Bayes, FRS: a biography to celebrate the tercentenary of his birth. Project Euclid.Bem (2011). Feeling the future: experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of personality and social psychology.Chivers (2024). Everything is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World.Chivers & Chivers (2021). How to read numbers: A guide to statistics in the news (and knowing when to trust them).Chivers (2019). The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy: Superintelligent AI and the Geeks Who Are Trying to Save Humanity's Future.Clarke [not Black, as Tom said] (2020). Piranesi.Goldacre (2009). Bad science.Goldacre (2014). Bad pharma: how drug companies mislead doctors and harm patients.Simmons, Nelson & Simonsohn (2011). False-positive psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science.
The future can be scary, but what if there was a way for us to understand it a little better? Tom Chivers believes there is. His new book Everything Is Predictable explains how Bayes Theorem, a statistical model, can explain the world around us and, in some cases, help us predict the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Back in the 1700s, in a spa town outside of London, Thomas Bayes, a Presbyterian minister and amateur mathematician, invented a formula that lets you figure out how likely something is to happen based on what you already know. It changed the world. Today, pollsters use it to forecast election results and bookies to predict Super Bowl scores. For neuroscientists, it explains how our brains work; for computer scientists, it's the principle behind artificial intelligence. In this episode, we explore the modern-day applications of this game-changing theorem with the help of Tom Chivers, author of the new book "Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World."
✍︎: The Curious Worldview Newsletter - the ultimate compliment to the podcast...Other episode of the podcast that suit this episode...Brian Klaas – Fluke & RandomnessRuss Roberts – EconTalkLuca Dellanna – Ergodicity All The Way DownScott Patterson – Chaos KingsNassim Taleb & Incerto PodcastFollow me on Instagram – @ryanfhoggEverything Is Predictable – Tom ChiversTom Chivers is a prolific science writer whose written for Buzzfeed, The Telegraph, Unherd, published books, written for loads of other publications as well and now writes for Semafor's daily flagship email (something I read everyday)… but here Tom is today to discuss his book about Bayes called… EVERYTHING IS PREDICTABLE: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World and, the lead is not buried in this case, it is a book about Bayes Throerom which to put it simply… is an equation to calculate probability.Now, my Talebian listeners will recognise a contradiction to our worldview in the title here… everything is predictable? how often has Taleb's quotes, how can we predict a future of infinite possibilities based off a finite experience of the past appeared on this podcast? We get into Chivers differences with that Talebian worldview, but as well, there is top to bottom what is Bayes theorem, why does it matter, the role of this theorem at the foundation of all of these LLM's and therefore much of AI. a neat little anecdote of Chivers family member, Sir John Maynard Keynes and plenty more as well!00:00 – Who Is Tom Chivers01:34 – Great Great Uncle John Maynard Keynes08:44 – What's The Point Of Bayes?19:14 – What Is Bayes Theorem?39:34 – Disagreeing With Nassim Taleb 52:24 – Counterintuitive Aspects Of Bayes56:28 – Bayes & LLM's & AI1:15:12 – Serendipity In Tom's Life
In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Tom Chivers about Bayesian probability and the impact Bayesian priors have on ourselves. They define Bayesian priors, Thomas Bayes, subjective aspects of Bayes theorem, and the problematic elements of statistical figures such as Galton, Pearson, and Fisher. They talk about the replication crisis, p-hacking, where priors come from, AI, Friston's free energy principle, and Bayesian priors in our world today. Tom Chivers is a science writer. He does freelance science writing and also writes for Semafor.com's daily Flagship email. Before joining Semafor, he was a science editor at UnHerd, science writer for BuzzFeed UK, and features writer for the Telegraph. He is the author of several books including the most recent, Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World. Website: https://tomchivers.com/ Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe
Agradece a este podcast tantas horas de entretenimiento y disfruta de episodios exclusivos como éste. ¡Apóyale en iVoox! Bienvenidos a otro Podcast sobre novelas de Warhammer 40k en TERRAESCRIBIENTE. Unete como FAN a Terraescribiente! apoya este proyecto, escucha todos los audios y participa en los Sorteos de cada mes! "GALAXIA DE HORRORES". Una antología de Warhammer 40.000 PARTE 2. El 41º Milenio es una era oscura y terrible en la que encontraréis poco consuelo o esperanza. Olvídese del poder de la tecnología y la ciencia. Olvídese de la promesa de progreso y avance. Olviden cualquier noción de humanidad o compasión común. No hay paz entre las estrellas, porque en la sombría oscuridad del futuro lejano sólo hay guerra. Con historias de algunos de los autores más queridos de Black Library, esta enorme colección de cuentos de Warhammer 40,000 es el compañero perfecto para cualquier cruzada justa (o ruinosa) entre las estrellas. LA HISTORIA La galaxia se une a la vida mientras especies incontables luchan, se esconden y huyen para sobrevivir. Desde repugnantes razas xenos hasta los propios engendros del Caos, el 41.º Milenio alberga innumerables horrores que se ganan a duras penas existencias sin sentido, y el dolor y el sufrimiento son cosas incalculables que billones de personas alguna vez conocerán. Pero hay puntos de esperanza entre las estrellas, bastiones de civilizaciones acosados por todos lados, y luchan por la libertad, la gloria, la conquista o la hermandad. Estas historias de heroísmo y horror pintan un panorama oscuro del futuro lejano, en el que hay espacio para una cosa: la guerra. Esta antología contiene: DEFENSORES DEL IMPERIO: – El juicio de Lucille von Shard, de Denny Flowers. – Trasplantes, por Rob Young. – Puño del infierno, de Justin Woolley. – Arenas de sangre, de Victoria Hayward. – La suma de sus partes, de Rhuairidh James. – Menos que humano, por Steve Lyons. SEGUIDORES DEL CAOS: – La ruina del tonto, de Mike Brooks. – Una unión más perfecta, de Rich McCormick. – Odio Sagrado, de David Annandale. – Los mejores y más brillantes, de Mike Brooks. – Sangra, de David Guymer. – Un pequeño engranaje, de Mitchel Scanlon. LA ROSA SANGRIENTA: – Blasfemia de los caídos, de Danie Ware. – La Forja del Cráneo, de Danie Ware. – La naturaleza de la oración, por Danie Ware. GUERREROS DEL ADEPTUS ASTARTES: – Aria Arcana, de Peter Fehervari. – Confesión de dolor, de Jon Flindall. – La recompensa de la lealtad, de Tom Chivers. EL ENEMIGO MAS ALLA: – Las estrellas sangrantes, de Robert Rath. Por favor sigue las redes y grupos: Canal de Whatsapp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaCcO2s1NCrQqLpfFR3u Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerraEscriba Telegram: https://t.me/+62_TRJVg-3cxNDZh Instagram: www.instagram.com/terraescribiente/ Tik tok: www.tiktok.com/@terraescribiente Youtube: www.youtube.com/@Terraescribiente También subscríbete a TERRAESCRIBIENTE en IVOOX, ITUNES Y SPOTIFY! Dale me gusta a cada Podcast y coméntalos! Ayuda mucho! Gracias! Escucha este episodio completo y accede a todo el contenido exclusivo de TERRAESCRIBIENTE. Descubre antes que nadie los nuevos episodios, y participa en la comunidad exclusiva de oyentes en https://go.ivoox.com/sq/747547
Agradece a este podcast tantas horas de entretenimiento y disfruta de episodios exclusivos como éste. ¡Apóyale en iVoox! Bienvenidos a otro Podcast sobre novelas de Warhammer 40k en TERRAESCRIBIENTE. Unete como FAN a Terraescribiente! apoya este proyecto, escucha todos los audios y participa en los Sorteos de cada mes! "GALAXIA DE HORRORES". Una antología de Warhammer 40.000 PARTE 1. El 41º Milenio es una era oscura y terrible en la que encontraréis poco consuelo o esperanza. Olvídese del poder de la tecnología y la ciencia. Olvídese de la promesa de progreso y avance. Olviden cualquier noción de humanidad o compasión común. No hay paz entre las estrellas, porque en la sombría oscuridad del futuro lejano sólo hay guerra. Con historias de algunos de los autores más queridos de Black Library, esta enorme colección de cuentos de Warhammer 40,000 es el compañero perfecto para cualquier cruzada justa (o ruinosa) entre las estrellas. LA HISTORIA La galaxia se une a la vida mientras especies incontables luchan, se esconden y huyen para sobrevivir. Desde repugnantes razas xenos hasta los propios engendros del Caos, el 41.º Milenio alberga innumerables horrores que se ganan a duras penas existencias sin sentido, y el dolor y el sufrimiento son cosas incalculables que billones de personas alguna vez conocerán. Pero hay puntos de esperanza entre las estrellas, bastiones de civilizaciones acosados por todos lados, y luchan por la libertad, la gloria, la conquista o la hermandad. Estas historias de heroísmo y horror pintan un panorama oscuro del futuro lejano, en el que hay espacio para una cosa: la guerra. Esta antología contiene: DEFENSORES DEL IMPERIO: – El juicio de Lucille von Shard, de Denny Flowers. – Trasplantes, por Rob Young. – Puño del infierno, de Justin Woolley. – Arenas de sangre, de Victoria Hayward. – La suma de sus partes, de Rhuairidh James. – Menos que humano, por Steve Lyons. SEGUIDORES DEL CAOS: – La ruina del tonto, de Mike Brooks. – Una unión más perfecta, de Rich McCormick. – Odio Sagrado, de David Annandale. – Los mejores y más brillantes, de Mike Brooks. – Sangra, de David Guymer. – Un pequeño engranaje, de Mitchel Scanlon. LA ROSA SANGRIENTA: – Blasfemia de los caídos, de Danie Ware. – La Forja del Cráneo, de Danie Ware. – La naturaleza de la oración, por Danie Ware. GUERREROS DEL ADEPTUS ASTARTES: – Aria Arcana, de Peter Fehervari. – Confesión de dolor, de Jon Flindall. – La recompensa de la lealtad, de Tom Chivers. EL ENEMIGO MAS ALLA: – Las estrellas sangrantes, de Robert Rath. Por favor sigue las redes y grupos: Canal de Whatsapp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaCcO2s1NCrQqLpfFR3u Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerraEscriba Telegram: https://t.me/+62_TRJVg-3cxNDZh Instagram: www.instagram.com/terraescribiente/ Tik tok: www.tiktok.com/@terraescribiente Youtube: www.youtube.com/@Terraescribiente También subscríbete a TERRAESCRIBIENTE en IVOOX, ITUNES Y SPOTIFY! Dale me gusta a cada Podcast y coméntalos! Ayuda mucho! Gracias! Escucha este episodio completo y accede a todo el contenido exclusivo de TERRAESCRIBIENTE. Descubre antes que nadie los nuevos episodios, y participa en la comunidad exclusiva de oyentes en https://go.ivoox.com/sq/747547
For the first ever episode of The Mater Podcast, Tom Chivers and Dr Claire Harris come together to speak about The Thames Foreshore. Hosted by Maddie Rose Hills. Tom Chivers is a writer, publisher and arts producer from South London. He has released two full collections of poetry, and his debut novel London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City, was published in 2021. The book journeys through personal, historical, mythic & geological tales of London beneath our feet. Tom writes that the book ‘is partial, subjective and incomplete; I am neither historian nor geographer, but write with a poet's compulsion for rumor and conjecture'.Tom is currently researching a phd entitled In the Flow of Things: Encounters with the Mudlarks of the Thames Foreshore.We also spoke with Dr Claire Harris, who is a palaeolithic and community archeologist. Currently in a position at the Museum of London Archeology as a member of the Thames Discovery Programme. Claire has previously worked as a curator and researcher at the British Museum, and is a research associate with the Pathways to Ancient Britain project. Previous collaborative projects have included ‘Neanderthals in Hackney: Exploring North London's stone age past'.We spoke about what is going on down on the Thames Foreshore in London. The materials down there - sand, mud, silt, clay, human detritus.. We spoke about mudlarking, and the history that is visible when you are on the foreshore. We spoke about deep time, and palaeolithic London.. Community Archeology and finding a sense of belonging through sites such as these in the busy cityFind Tom Chivers' Soundcloud with Thames sounds hereFollow Tom on InstagramFind more work by Claire hereClaire on LinkedInA few notes about mudlarking and the foreshore: Anyone searching the foreshore in any way for any reason requires permission from the Port of London Authorityhttps://pla.co.uk/thames-foreshore-permitsThere are plenty of safety precautions to consider when on the foreshore, so make sure to do research this before visiting.Follow Mater here: mater________ and mater.digital Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Book review: Everything Is Predictable, published by PeterMcCluskey on May 27, 2024 on LessWrong. Book review: Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World, by Tom Chivers. Many have attempted to persuade the world to embrace a Bayesian worldview, but none have succeeded in reaching a broad audience. E.T. Jaynes' book has been a leading example, but its appeal is limited to those who find calculus enjoyable, making it unsuitable for a wider readership. Other attempts to engage a broader audience often focus on a narrower understanding, such as Bayes' Theorem, rather than the complete worldview. Claude's most fitting recommendation was Rationality: From AI to Zombies, but at 1,813 pages, it's too long and unstructured for me to comfortably recommend to most readers. (GPT-4o's suggestions were less helpful, focusing only on resources for practical problem-solving). Aubrey Clayton's book, Bernoulli's Fallacy: Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science, only came to my attention because Chivers mentioned it, offering mixed reviews that hint at why it remained unnoticed. Chivers has done his best to mitigate this gap. While his book won't reach as many readers as I'd hoped, I'm comfortable recommending it as the standard introduction to the Bayesian worldview for most readers. Basics Chivers guides readers through the fundamentals of Bayes' Theorem, offering little that's extraordinary in this regard. A fair portion of the book is dedicated to explaining why probability should be understood as a function of our ignorance, contrasting with the frequentist approach that attempts to treat probability as if it existed independently of our minds. The book has many explanations of how frequentists are wrong, yet concedes that the leading frequentists are not stupid. Frequentism's problems often stem from a misguided effort to achieve more objectivity in science than seems possible. The only exception to this mostly fair depiction of frequentists is a section titled "Are Frequentists Racist?". Chivers repeats Clayton's diatribe affirming this, treating the diatribe more seriously than it deserves, before dismissing it. (Frequentists were racist when racism was popular. I haven't seen any clear evidence of whether Bayesians behaved differently). The Replication Crisis Chivers explains frequentism's role in the replication crisis. A fundamental drawback of p-values is that they indicate the likelihood of the data given a hypothesis, which differs from the more important question of how likely the hypothesis is given the data. Here, Chivers (and many frequentists) overlook a point raised by Deborah Mayo: p-values can help determine if an experiment had a sufficiently large sample size. Deciding whether to conduct a larger experiment can be as ew: Everything Is Predictablecrucial as drawing the best inference from existing data. The perversity of common p-value usage is exemplified by Lindley's paradox: a p-value below 0.05 can sometimes provide Bayesian evidence against the tested hypothesis. A p-value of 0.04 indicates that the data are unlikely given the null hypothesis, but we can construct scenarios where the data are even less likely under the hypothesis you wish to support. A key factor in the replication crisis is the reward system for scientists and journals, which favors publishing surprising results. The emphasis on p-values allows journals to accept more surprising results compared to a Bayesian approach, creating a clear disincentive for individual scientists or journals to adopt Bayesian methods before others do. Minds Approximate Bayes The book concludes by describing how human minds employ heuristics that closely approximate the Bayesian approach. This includes a well-written summary of how predictive processing works, demonstrating ...
Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Book review: Everything Is Predictable, published by PeterMcCluskey on May 27, 2024 on LessWrong. Book review: Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World, by Tom Chivers. Many have attempted to persuade the world to embrace a Bayesian worldview, but none have succeeded in reaching a broad audience. E.T. Jaynes' book has been a leading example, but its appeal is limited to those who find calculus enjoyable, making it unsuitable for a wider readership. Other attempts to engage a broader audience often focus on a narrower understanding, such as Bayes' Theorem, rather than the complete worldview. Claude's most fitting recommendation was Rationality: From AI to Zombies, but at 1,813 pages, it's too long and unstructured for me to comfortably recommend to most readers. (GPT-4o's suggestions were less helpful, focusing only on resources for practical problem-solving). Aubrey Clayton's book, Bernoulli's Fallacy: Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science, only came to my attention because Chivers mentioned it, offering mixed reviews that hint at why it remained unnoticed. Chivers has done his best to mitigate this gap. While his book won't reach as many readers as I'd hoped, I'm comfortable recommending it as the standard introduction to the Bayesian worldview for most readers. Basics Chivers guides readers through the fundamentals of Bayes' Theorem, offering little that's extraordinary in this regard. A fair portion of the book is dedicated to explaining why probability should be understood as a function of our ignorance, contrasting with the frequentist approach that attempts to treat probability as if it existed independently of our minds. The book has many explanations of how frequentists are wrong, yet concedes that the leading frequentists are not stupid. Frequentism's problems often stem from a misguided effort to achieve more objectivity in science than seems possible. The only exception to this mostly fair depiction of frequentists is a section titled "Are Frequentists Racist?". Chivers repeats Clayton's diatribe affirming this, treating the diatribe more seriously than it deserves, before dismissing it. (Frequentists were racist when racism was popular. I haven't seen any clear evidence of whether Bayesians behaved differently). The Replication Crisis Chivers explains frequentism's role in the replication crisis. A fundamental drawback of p-values is that they indicate the likelihood of the data given a hypothesis, which differs from the more important question of how likely the hypothesis is given the data. Here, Chivers (and many frequentists) overlook a point raised by Deborah Mayo: p-values can help determine if an experiment had a sufficiently large sample size. Deciding whether to conduct a larger experiment can be as ew: Everything Is Predictablecrucial as drawing the best inference from existing data. The perversity of common p-value usage is exemplified by Lindley's paradox: a p-value below 0.05 can sometimes provide Bayesian evidence against the tested hypothesis. A p-value of 0.04 indicates that the data are unlikely given the null hypothesis, but we can construct scenarios where the data are even less likely under the hypothesis you wish to support. A key factor in the replication crisis is the reward system for scientists and journals, which favors publishing surprising results. The emphasis on p-values allows journals to accept more surprising results compared to a Bayesian approach, creating a clear disincentive for individual scientists or journals to adopt Bayesian methods before others do. Minds Approximate Bayes The book concludes by describing how human minds employ heuristics that closely approximate the Bayesian approach. This includes a well-written summary of how predictive processing works, demonstrating ...
On episode 214, we welcome Tom Chivers to discuss Bayesian statistics, how their counterintuitive nature tends to turn people off, the philosophical disagreements between the Bayesians and the frequentists, why “priors” aren't purely subjective and why all theories should be considered as priors, the difficulty of quantifying emotional states in psychological research, how priors are used and misused to inform interpretations of new data, our innate tendency toward black and white thinking, the replication crisis, and why statistically significant research is often wrong. Tom Chivers is an author and the award-winning science writer for Semafor. His writing has appeared in The Times (London), The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired, CNN, and more. He is the co-host of The Studies Show podcast alongside Stuart Richie.His books include The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy, and How to Read Numbers. His newest book, available now, is called Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World. | Tom Chivers | ► Website | https://tomchivers.com ► Twitter | https://x.com/TomChivers ► Semafor | https://www.semafor.com/author/tom-chivers ► Podcast | https://www.thestudiesshowpod.com ► Everything is Predictable Book | https://amzn.to/3UJTOxD Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment ► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast
Dr. Arturo Casadevall from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health talks about a potential fungal epidemic in his new book, "What if Fungi Win?"Then, what if there was one overarching theory that could help explain much of our modern-day daily lives? Science journalist Tom Chivers explores the concept of the predictability of everything, based on a theorem developed by Thomas Bayes, an 18th-century Presbyterian minister and statistician.
Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World by Tom Chivers https://amzn.to/3wxZAKu A captivating and user-friendly tour of Bayes's theorem and its global impact on modern life from the acclaimed science writer and author of The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy. At its simplest, Bayes's theorem describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. But in Everything Is Predictable, Tom Chivers lays out how it affects every aspect of our lives. He explains why highly accurate screening tests can lead to false positives and how a failure to account for it in court has put innocent people in jail. A cornerstone of rational thought, many argue that Bayes's theorem is a description of almost everything. But who was the man who lent his name to this theorem? How did an 18th-century Presbyterian minister and amateur mathematician uncover a theorem that would affect fields as diverse as medicine, law, and artificial intelligence? Fusing biography, razor-sharp science writing, and intellectual history, Everything Is Predictable is an entertaining tour of Bayes's theorem and its impact on modern life, showing how a single compelling idea can have far reaching consequences.
At its simplest, Bayes's theorem describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. But in Everything Is Predictable, Tom Chivers lays out how it affects every aspect of our lives. He explains why highly accurate screening tests can lead to false positives and how a failure to account for it in court has put innocent people in jail. A cornerstone of rational thought, many argue that Bayes's theorem is a description of almost everything. But who was the man who lent his name to this theorem? How did an 18th-century Presbyterian minister and amateur mathematician uncover a theorem that would affect fields as diverse as medicine, law, and artificial intelligence? Fusing biography and intellectual history, Everything Is Predictable is an entertaining tour of Bayes's theorem and its impact on modern life, showing how a single compelling idea can have far reaching consequences. Tom Chivers is an author and the award-winning science writer for Semafor. Previously he was the science editor at UnHerd.com and BuzzFeed UK. His writing has appeared in The Times (London), The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired, CNN, and more. He was awarded the Royal Statistical Society's “Statistical Excellence in Journalism” awards in 2018 and 2020, and was declared the science writer of the year by the Association of British Science Writers in 2021. His books include The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy: Superintelligent AI and the Geeks Who Are Trying to Save Humanity's Future, and How to Read Numbers: A Guide to Stats in the News (and Knowing When to Trust Them). His new book is Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World. Shermer and Chivers discuss: Thomas Bayes, his equation, and the problem it solves • Bayesian decision theory vs. statistical decision theory • Popperian falsification vs. Bayesian estimation • Sagan's ECREE principle • Bayesian epistemology and family resemblance • paradox of the heap • Reality as controlled hallucination • human irrationality • superforecasting • mystical experiences and religious truths • Replication Crisis in science • Statistical Detection Theory and Signal Detection Theory • Medical diagnosis problem and why most people get it wrong.
SummaryTom Chivers discusses his book 'Everything is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World' and the applications of Bayesian statistics in various fields. He explains how Bayesian reasoning can be used to make predictions and evaluate the likelihood of hypotheses. Chivers also touches on the intersection of AI and ethics, particularly in relation to AI-generated art. The conversation explores the history of Bayes' theorem and its role in science, law, and medicine. Overall, the discussion highlights the power and implications of Bayesian statistics in understanding and navigating the world. The conversation explores the role of AI in prediction and the importance of Bayesian thinking. It discusses the progress of AI in image classification and the challenges it still faces, such as accurately depicting fine details like hands. The conversation also delves into the topic of predictions going wrong, particularly in the context of conspiracy theories. It highlights the Bayesian nature of human beliefs and the influence of prior probabilities on updating beliefs with new evidence. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the relevance of Bayesian statistics in various fields and the need for beliefs to have probabilities and predictions attached to them. Takeaways Bayesian statistics can be used to make predictions and evaluate the likelihood of hypotheses. Bayes' theorem has applications in various fields, including science, law, and medicine. The intersection of AI and ethics raises complex questions about AI-generated art and the predictability of human behavior. Understanding Bayesian reasoning can enhance decision-making and critical thinking skills. AI has made significant progress in image classification, but still faces challenges in accurately depicting fine details. Predictions can go wrong due to the influence of prior beliefs and the interpretation of new evidence. Beliefs should have probabilities and predictions attached to them, allowing for updates with new information. Bayesian thinking is crucial in various fields, including AI, pharmaceuticals, and decision-making. The importance of defining predictions and probabilities when engaging in debates and discussions.
We're talking big moves and Big Oil as earnings season continues. At (00:21) Jason Hall and Deidre Woollard break down Peloton's CEO shift and Big Oil's big profits. At (16:40) Tom Chivers, author of Everything Is Predictable, explains how the Bayesian theorem underlies much of modern life and investing. Companies discussed: PTON, SHEL, XOM, COP Host: Deidre Woollard Guests: Jason Hall, Tom Chivers Producer: Ricky Mulvey, Chace Przylepa Engineers: Dan Boyd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Summary: The episode discusses the 10,000 year dilemma, which is a thought experiment on how to deal with nuclear waste in the future. Today's episode is hosted by guest host David Gibson, who is the founder of the Ray Kitty Creation Workshop. (Find out more about the Ray Kitty Creation Workshop by clicking here). Gabriel and Autumn are out this week, but will be returning in short order with 3 separate interviews with authors of some fantastic popular science and math books including: The Gravity of Math: How Geometry Rules the Universe by Dr. Shing-Tung Yau and Steve Nadis. This book is all about the history of our understanding of gravity from the theories of Isaac Newton to Albert Einstein and beyond, including gravitational waves, black holes, as well as some of the current uncertainties regarding a precise definition of mass. On sale now! EVERYTHING IS PREDICTABLE: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World by Tom Chivers. Published by Simon and Schuster. This book explains the importance of Baye's Theorem in helping us to understand why highly accurate screening tests can lead to false positives, a phenomenon we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic; How a failure to account for Bayes' Theorem has put innocent people in jail; How military strategists using the theorem can predict where an enemy will strike next, and how Baye's Theorem is helping us to understang machine learning processes - a critical skillset to have in the 21st century. Available 05/07/2024 A CITY ON MARS: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through? by authors Dr. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith. Zach Weinersmith is the artist and creator of the famous cartoon strip Saturday Morning Breaking Cereal! We've got a lot of great episodes coming up! Stay tuned.
Everything is Predictable: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World. That's the new book—out on April 25 in the UK and May 7 in the US—by our very own Tom Chivers!In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart cover some of the historical sections of the book, and talk about where some of our basic ideas about probability come from (it turns out to be a weird combination of inveterate gamblers and Presbyterian ministers).The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress Magazine - the best place online to find deep discussions of the ideas that have driven human progress, and that might drive it even further in future. The latest issue of Works in Progress is available right now, at worksinprogress.co. Show notes* The only citation that matters this week: Tom's new book, Everything is Predictable. It's available NOW for pre-order in the UK, and in the US. * And for those reading this on Substack, here's the rather lovely front cover:CreditsThe Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe
We speak to Abi Palmer, author and reader of Sanatorium, about how the book (and subsequent edition audiobook) came to be. She describes the 'piecing together' of the text as 'forensic', after the original research was done as video collection rather than as writing, a lot of the first narration being recorded verbally before it was ever on paper. She talks about her mentors in the process, including Tom Chivers of Penned in the Margins which is now on an indefinite hiatus.
Tom Chivers is a writer, publisher and Mudlark (someone who searches for objects on the banks of the River Thames). In 2021, Tom wrote ‘London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City', which was described by Becky Wragg Sykes as “an intoxicating voyage into urban time and place, revealing the city's geological skeleton...”. During the episode, Tom and I discuss ‘London Clay,' his passion for Mudlarking, and the significant role it plays in his life, and the lives of others. For more on Tom, visit: https://thisisyogic.com/ (Recorded June 2023)
With Covid cases on the rise in Britain, how worried should we be about its resurgence? Tom Chivers, science writer for the i, joins Ros Taylor to discuss the latest uptick in coronavirus cases, what we know about the new variants and the role Covid could play in our lives in the years ahead. “Vaccines are significant when protecting against severe disease, but not reinfection.” “The virus doesn't have to change very much to avoid your antibody immunity.” “We'll still get the virus periodically, but our body will become better at fighting it off.” “We've only had two winters of covid so far, by 2030 it may well become part of the normal cycle.” https://www.patreon.com/bunkercast Presented by Ros Taylor. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Lead Producer: Jacob Jarvis. Producers: Jacob Archbold, Jelena Sofronijevic and Alex Rees. Assistant Producer: Kasia Tomasiewicz. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. The Bunker is a Podmasters Production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Should we take steps to guard our genetic security? Is wind power overpriced? And why are so many of us turning off the news? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Arion McNicoll, Tom Chivers and Kate Samuelson
https://www.metaculus.com/notebooks/9826/renewables-forecasting/ Published by RyanBeck on Feb 14, 2022. In a recent article about solar power, Tom Chivers described how growth in solar power has outpaced many forecasts, as well as the challenges involved in accurately forecasting trends in solar power. Making accurate forecasts about the future of solar is important for understanding what future CO₂ emissions may look like and what our chances of mitigating the effects of climate change are. In this essay I attempt to estimate the bounds of solar and wind growth. Pieces of the puzzle The first stage of putting together an energy forecast is to understand the relevant background information. What the different units mean, how different energy types can be compared directly, and what the previous trends look like are all essential if we want to understand the future of electricity generation. Power and energy When electricity generation is talked about it can be easy to confuse power and energy. Power is a measure of the rate at which work is being done. Power is commonly measured in watts when discussing electricity generation. Energy is how much work has been done, or the amount of power exerted over time. It is commonly measured in watt-hours, as it is the amount of power (watts) multiplied by the amount of time that power was exerted (hours). We can imagine power as the rate of water flowing out of a hose, while energy is the amount of water in the bucket that the hose is filling after a given period of time. These are important concepts when talking about electricity generation. When a new power plant is installed it's usually described in terms of either its power or its capacity. But discussions about what a power plant produces are in terms of energy–such as descriptions of how much energy the plant generated in a given year.
In this podcast episode, we sat down with Tom Chivers—author, journalist, and science writer for The i—to have a conversation on forecasting and the news media. We talked about his background in the media industry, his frustrations with mainstream news and its lack of nuance, his views on forecasting and prediction markets in media, and more. Tom previously wrote for BuzzFeed UK, served as the science editor for UnHerd, and has bylines with New York Times, Guardian, New Scientist, and The Telegraph. He often writes data-driven rebuttals to topics that are being primarily depicted in one way in the media, interjecting nuance into the conversations. In many ways, the same exercise as distinguishing signals from noise. Conducting journalism with a forecaster's mindset. He's also written two books, The AI Does Not Hate You in 2019 and How to Read Numbers in 2021, and writes about similar topics discussed in our communities, including effective altruism, rationality, and forecasting. To our knowledge, Tom is one of the most prominent journalists writing about and covering quantified forecasts. In June of last year, Tom assembled a panel of superforecasters for an article on whether China will invade Taiwan and has started to make his own predictions too! You can follow Tom on Twitter: @TomChivers.
Inside A Mountain: walking real and imaginary landscape with Charlie Lee-Potter
EPISODE 6 Tom Chivers' book London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City is erudite and meticulously researched, but it's also funny, poetic and at times very moving. Tom digs down below the surface of the city to find its ancient, lost rivers, whilst also examining his own past. The book is part geological, part historical, and part reflective. In this episode, Tom and Charlie explore an ancient, subterranean Roman temple, go mudlarking, and find treasure. The Temple of Mithras (3 AD) 7 metres below ground level Mudlarking with Tom Chivers on the foreshore of the River Thames Tom Chivers, London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City (Doubleday, 2021) Produced, edited, written and presented by Charlie Lee-Potter
Read the full transcript here. What is a "wamb"? What are the differences between wambs and nerds? When is it appropriate (or not) to decouple concepts from their context? What are some common characteristics of miscommunications between journalists and writers / thinkers in the EA and Rationalist communities? What are "crony" beliefs? How can you approach discussions of controversial topics without immediately getting labelled as being on one team or another? What sorts of quirks do members of the EA and Rationalist communities typically exhibit in social contexts?Tom is a freelance science writer and the science editor at UnHerd.com. He has twice been awarded a Royal Statistical Society "statistical excellence in journalism" prize, in 2018 and 2020, and was declared the science writer of the year by the Association of British Science Writers in 2021. His first book, The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy: Superintelligent AI and the Geeks Who are Trying to Solve Humanity's Future (originally titled The AI Does Not Hate You), was declared one of the Times's science books of 2019. He worked for seven years at the Telegraph and three years at BuzzFeed before going freelance in 2018, and was once described by Sir Terry Pratchett as "far too nice to be a journalist". Find out more about Tom on Twitter, UnHerd, and tomchivers.com. [Read more]
Read the full transcriptWhat is a "wamb"? What are the differences between wambs and nerds? When is it appropriate (or not) to decouple concepts from their context? What are some common characteristics of miscommunications between journalists and writers / thinkers in the EA and Rationalist communities? What are "crony" beliefs? How can you approach discussions of controversial topics without immediately getting labelled as being on one team or another? What sorts of quirks do members of the EA and Rationalist communities typically exhibit in social contexts?Tom is a freelance science writer and the science editor at UnHerd.com. He has twice been awarded a Royal Statistical Society "statistical excellence in journalism" prize, in 2018 and 2020, and was declared the science writer of the year by the Association of British Science Writers in 2021. His first book, The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy: Superintelligent AI and the Geeks Who are Trying to Solve Humanity's Future (originally titled The AI Does Not Hate You), was declared one of the Times's science books of 2019. He worked for seven years at the Telegraph and three years at BuzzFeed before going freelance in 2018, and was once described by Sir Terry Pratchett as "far too nice to be a journalist". Find out more about Tom on Twitter, UnHerd, and tomchivers.com.
What is a "wamb"? What are the differences between wambs and nerds? When is it appropriate (or not) to decouple concepts from their context? What are some common characteristics of miscommunications between journalists and writers / thinkers in the EA and Rationalist communities? What are "crony" beliefs? How can you approach discussions of controversial topics without immediately getting labelled as being on one team or another? What sorts of quirks do members of the EA and Rationalist communities typically exhibit in social contexts? Tom is a freelance science writer and the science editor at UnHerd.com. He has twice been awarded a Royal Statistical Society "statistical excellence in journalism" prize, in 2018 and 2020, and was declared the science writer of the year by the Association of British Science Writers in 2021. His first book, The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy: Superintelligent AI and the Geeks Who are Trying to Solve Humanity's Future (originally titled The AI Does Not Hate You), was declared one of the Times's science books of 2019. He worked for seven years at the Telegraph and three years at BuzzFeed before going freelance in 2018, and was once described by Sir Terry Pratchett as "far too nice to be a journalist". Find out more about Tom on Twitter, UnHerd, and tomchivers.com.
In this episode we visit London in 62 AD, barely twenty years after it was first established by the Romans, to traverse its lost landscape and hidden waterways. When we think of London, we usually think of a sprawling urban metropolis: glass and steel, terraced houses, every imaginable form of transport and noise. We don't often think about the natural landscape that lies beneath it all. And yet, our guest today argues, it is London's geology that has been a crucial force in the shaping of the city over the last two thousand years. Tom Chivers is a writer, publisher and arts producer from south London. He is also an award-winning poet who has published two pamphlets and two full collections of his poetry. London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City is his non-fiction debut and it's been described by critics as “entertaining, enlightening and deeply moving.” As ever, much, much more about this episode is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com. Click here to order London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City. Show Notes Scene One: 62 AD. The river Walbrook. Scene Two: 62 AD. The Westminster Delta. Scene Three: 62 AD. The Rockingham Anomaly, in Southwark, to meet Harper Road Woman. Memento: A shoe. “I like the idea of the wearer's footprint being retained in the soft leather, and also to imagine what kind of ground the sole has stood on/walked across.” People/Social Presenter: Artemis Irvine Guest: Tom Chivers Production: Maria Nolan Podcast partner: Unseen Histories Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_ Or on Facebook See where 62 AD fits on our Timeline
Tom is science editor for the digital news magazine UnHerd. His writing has featured in The Guardian, Telegraph, New Scientist and BuzzFeed. He covers an array of subjects, mostly science, but he also delves into politics, foreign affairs, sport, culture wars - pretty much anything that piques his interest. He's won two statistical excellence in journalism awards from the Royal Statistical Society, but he's not stopping there. He wants all journalists and consumers of news to share his appreciation for numbers and to learn how to use them. In this episode of Research Comms Tom Chivers talks about the media during the pandemic, about the pre-requisites for journalism and the tension between attracting a readership and writing serious news stories and he discusses his book How to Read Numbers: A Guide to Statistics in the News (and Knowing When to Trust Them) Presented by Peter Barker Produced by Orinoco Communications www.orinococomms.com --------- LINKS Tom's website Tom's work on UnHerd How to Read Numbers: A Guide to Stats in the News (and Knowing When to Trust Them)
Tom Chivers joins Neil to talk about walking the historical strata of London and it's hidden rivers, in his new book London Clay. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
The machine journalist "BIS" interviews Tom Chivers, Author and Science Editor at UnHerd. His latest book: "How to Read Numbers: A Guide to Statistics in the News" https://www.amazon.com/-/pt/dp/1474619967 https://tomchivers.com/ Support the machine: https://www.patreon.com/carneesperta Subscribe so you don't miss new interviews: #carneesperta #smartmeat https://twitter.com/carneesperta https://www.instagram.com/carneesperta https://open.spotify.com/show/2H7YXepIPLgRGlam0SUkCY https://podcasts.apple.com/pt/podcast/carne-esperta/id1528942902 https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8zMmM1YTk5MC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw== To suggest a guest: https://bit.ly/carneespertaguests
Heat pumps, net zero, decarbonisation, the Paris agreement. With less than 2 weeks to go until Cop26, we're being deluged with detail and jargon. But how much do you actually understand about climate change? Do you even know what COP actually stands for? (It's Conference of the Parties if you don't). Katie Razzall asks what role the media has in educating us about climate change. Maybe you feel hectored rather than informed? Or maybe you think the media isn't going far enough; if we now face an existential crisis, should journalists dispense with the notion of objectivity and become activists in the fight to save the planet? Guests: Daniela Chiaretti, environment reporter at Brazil's biggest financial newspaper Valor Econômico, Natasha Clark, environment correspondent for The Sun, Tom Chivers, science editor for UnHerd, and Wolfgang Blau, co-founder of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network. Presenter: Katie Razzall Studio engineer: Tim Heffer Producer: Richard Hooper
This special episode draws on our conversation with Tom Chivers, author of ‘London Clay', examining the role of places and locations in literature and how they should be treated as characters in their own right. Here we display the importance of writing for all of the senses, we explore the interconnectedness of the past and the present, and we explain how memories and emotions influence the way we experience a place. We end with a 60 second soundscape to showcase how visceral the experience of location can be. If you'd like to take part in the Behind The Spine writing competition, you can find all the details on our website.
Beneath London, within its walls, down its secret passageways and ancient riverbeds is a rich and complex history. The city's past influences its present - even those parts which are long forgotten or out of sight. Our guest today is Tom Chivers, author of London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City. The book reads like a detective story, examining London through its geology, its hidden landscape and the ghosts of its past. In this episode we discuss the powerful role of senses in evoking your readers' emotions, we explore how intimately connected places and events can be, and we learn how to better appreciate the world around us. Behind The Spine is the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon - you can sign up to the newsletter here.
Tom Chivers is a poet and publisher who has long been fascinated by London, the city he grew up in and continues to call home. His fascination is not with the landmarks and monuments that are easy to spot but with what lies underneath the city: the hidden and submerged past that is buried below its streets. He speaks to Georgina Godwin about his new book ‘London Clay'. Combining history, geology and memoir, it takes us on eight fascinating journeys in the depths of the city.
On this week's episode, Kate Andrews argues that the government's social care reform plans simply don't add up (00:55). Mary Wakefield makes the case for church doors to reopen (06:55) and Caroline Crampton reviews Tom Chivers's new book, London Clay (13:25).
Science writer Tom Chivers is the author of How To Read Numbers: A Guide To Statistics In The News (And Knowing When to Trust Them) which he co-wrote with his cousin, the economist David Chivers. He came to Meghan's attention recently because of an article he wrote for the British publication, UnHerd, where he serves as science editor. That article, entitled Twitter Trolls Mentally Ill?, was a response to a widely circulated statement by the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who wrote about defamation she'd experienced from a former student and about how the language of empathy and self-care is now often repurposed as a cudgel. Tom's piece expanded on some of these ideas, suggesting that mental health struggles and personality disorders have become engines of social media and that the kind of behavior that's rewarded on places like Twitter is sometimes the same behavior that's associated with diagnoses like Borderline Personality Disorder. Tom spoke with Meghan about this article and about related ideas in his book, including the ways misperceptions of harm can turn people into catastrophists. Relevant links: Are Twitter Trolls Mentally Ill? https://unherd.com/2021/06/are-twitter-trolls-mentally-ill/ It Is Obscene by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie https://www.chimamanda.com/news_items/it-is-obscene-a-true-reflection-in-three-parts/ Guest Bio: Tom Chivers is science editor at UnHerd and the co-author with David Chivers of How To Read Numbers: A Guide To Statistics In The News (And Knowing When to Trust Them). He is a two Tim winner of the Royal Statistical Society's “statistical excellence in journalism” award.
The ability to properly get to grips with numbers has never been more vital, not least in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. In this episode, Tim Bale is joined by Tom Chivers and Sonia Sodha to discuss the importance of understanding the numbers we're presented with in the news and in our own lives. They discuss what journalists - and the sources they rely on - get right and wrong, and what we can all do to ensure we better understand the data we're exposed to in media each and every day.
In this episode I talk to two guests about the risks of alcohol use and attempts to communicate these via the UK's recommended guidelines of 14 units a week. Firstly I talk to Tom Chivers, science editor at UnHerd and author. We talk about how the risks of alcohol use can or should be evaluated and communicated. Tom recently co-authored a book How to read numbers which includes a Statistical Style Guide for journalists. Next I speak to Colin Angus, a Senior Research Fellow in the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group within ScHARR. We talk about the science and development of the UK's 14 units a week recommended guidelines.
Unherd science editor Tom Chivers asks if we're ignoring the destruction wrought by personality disorders through our obsession with destigmatizing mental illness. Article discussed: https://unherd.com/2021/06/are-twitter-trolls-mentally-ill/ Media glamorize and glorify “facial feminization surgery”; a young British man gets his eyes contorted to match his “authentic Korean identity”. Democratic lawmakers in Ohio scream and pound their desks to drown out a Republic Representative trying to save women's sports from incursions by men who claim they're women. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The UK's Covid cases are still rising and Scotland is being hit particularly hard - so are we speeding up our vaccination programme in response? Will many of the UK's coastal towns, not to mention central London, be underwater in the next few years? Do the country's poorest households really pay more than half their income in tax? What are the top five places with the best vaccination rates in the world? The answers may surprise you. We speak to Tom Chivers, a science journalist who has written a book called “How to Read numbers” with his cousin the economist David Chivers.
In episode thirteen of Making Common Ground, Alfred Landecker fellow Catherine Neilan speaks to science journalist Tom Chivers about why it pays people to express views they don't necessarily hold, and how mainstream media interacts with social media.
In this week's episode of the Science Focus Podcast, editor Daniel Bennett speaks to Tom Chivers and David Chivers.Tom is a veteran science journalist and author and David is lecturer in economics at the University of Durham. As well as a surname, they share a passion for statistics, or more precisely for the way that numbers are used and presented in the media. Together they’ve written a new book: How to Read Numbers: A Guide to Statistics in the News and Knowing When to Trust Them.They talk to Daniel about how to understand the sometimes confusing stats surrounding health and risk, how to spot a suspicious claim when you see one, and how to think about the current concerns surrounding the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, OvercastRead the full transcription of this episode [this will open in a new window]Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:Sir David Spiegelhalter: There's no such thing as Blue MondayMatt Parker: What happens when maths goes horribly, horribly wrong?Hannah Fry: How much of our lives is secretly underpinned by maths?Prof Linda Scott: Why is there still economic inequality between men and women?Hannah Fry: What's the deal with algorithms?Robert Elliott Smith: Are algorithms inherently biased? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Is the human race on the verge of extinction? That's the jaw-dropping claim made in Professor Shanna Swan's new book ‘Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race'. According to the book, sperm counts have dropped almost 60% since 1973 and suggests that they could reach zero by 2045, which would mean no more reproduction and no more babies.This is a worrying discovery, particularly as one of the central drivers of this trend is modernity itself; Swann argues that chemicals, ranging from ATM receipts to Tupperware plastic, in the modern environment are altering —and endangering — human sexual development, and is getting worse by the year.Even if you find this argument a little too extreme (as UnHerd columnist Tom Chivers does), Prof Swan is certainly worth listening to. Having devoted over 20 years of her career to the study of sperm, the epidemiologist is about as well-credentialed as they come and has made a fascinating contribution to the debate. We thank Prof Swan for her time and hope you enjoy the discussion. Key quotes below:On plummeting sperm count:What we found was that sperm count had to climb dramatically over the preceding 40 years, and was at a point where nearly half of men would be entering that range of sperm count, which is associated with sub-fertility at least. We didn't see any indication that the slope of that line had levelled off, so that when we looked at the data restricting it to the past 30 years, 20 years, 10 years, you might hope that it would be flattening out. But we didn't see any indication of that, which is alarming, because if it were to continue on its present course — that's a difficult thing to project — but just mathematically, if you've extended the line, it does hit zero in 2045. So that's the median sperm count, that means half of men would have no sperm. On declining population figures:It is true that the being below replacement, the value of 2.1 children per couple is more common in Western countries. And in Asian countries, that's where it's most severe. The lowest point I believe, has been reached at 1.0 children in Korea, just recently. But, that's the rate of decline. Since 1960, of the most populous countries has been greatest, they are also declining, and declining faster. So it's going on everywhere and it's a problem. On phthalates (a group of chemicals):Phthalates are interesting because they have the ability to lower testosterone. They're called anti-androgens: they lower the androgens and testosterone is one of those. And so if the pregnant woman is exposed to phthalates in early pregnancy, these phthalates can reduce foetal testosterone at a critical time for male genital sexual development. This was first shown in rodents, and it was so striking that it was named the phthalate syndrome. On where these chemicals are found:These chemicals affect the body's hormones. Phthalates affect androgens, and bisphenols, which makes plastic hard and line tin cans — they are oestrogenic, which also affects reproductive function. There are other chemicals; for instance, we showed in our study that men with exposure higher levels of pesticides, in mid Missouri had much poor semen quality. Other chemicals set in flame retardants in your Teflon pan, in lots of things in your home, your wall coverings and floor coverings. And food is a really major source. On transitioning:It feels like there's an increase, but we don't have that data. So in the past it could have been there and completely unrecognised and un-talked about. What we do say is that disorders of sexual development, the actual alterations in the genitals — those are caused by environmental chemicals. And there's many examples of that in rodents, fish, and frogs. So many species have, for example, ovaries and testicles in the same organism, right? So there's no question that chemicals can change and make these developments atypical, but what the animals would prefer, what gender they would choose, if they could — how would we know that? On how to limit chemical exposure:You could choose products that are stored in glass. And I would recommend that you not store them in your home in plastics. And certainly you do not heat them in plastics. Heat and plastic is a really bad no, no. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Tom Chivers, The AI Does Not Hate You: Superintelligence, Rationality and the Race to Save the World (2019); alternative title The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy: Superintelligent AI and the Geeks Who Are Trying to Save Humanity’s Future Follow Tom on Twitter @TomChivers Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014) Toby Ord, The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity (2020) Eliezer Yudkowsky, Rationality: From AI to Zombies (2015) Fantasia(1940) - The Sorcerer's Apprentice, First Part - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VErKCq1IGIU Fantasia(1940) - The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Second Part - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcesnqVF0us Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (1973) Stuart J. Russell, Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control (2019) LessWrong https://www.lesswrong.com/ Astral Codex Ten (substack.com) https://astralcodexten.substack.com/ Timestamps 05:23 Why the AI threat is more like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice than The Terminator 15:13 What does it mean to be intelligent? 18:57 “The map is not the territory.” 21:53 Judging veracity based on psychology not facts, the rationalists 28:51 Why the singularity would be so uniquely dangerous 41:41 Utilitarian approaches to suffering 53:50 What the rationalists are like in person
Science writer Tom Chivers joins Martin and Steve to talk about covering the scientific twists and turns of the pandemic and what impact it has had on how the media and wider society think about science.
For more on Michael visit: https://michaelwstory.com/ Follow Michael on Twitter @MWStory Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner, Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction (2015) Tom Chivers, The AI Does Not Hate You: Superintelligence, Rationality and the Race to Save the World (2019) Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—but Some Don't (2012) James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few (2005) Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (1974) Metaculus: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/ Timestamps 03:43 The process of superforecasting with the example of predicting how long it would take to develop a coronavirus vaccine 12:50 The wisdom of crowds 18:04 The inside vs. outside view, anchors and base rates 23:15 The foxes versus the hedgehogs 29:39 The conjunction fallacy 37:15 Accountability, falsifiability, Brier scores 46:54 Loss of institutional credibility: a problem or an opportunity? 01:02:05 The importance of A/B testing 01:06:36 Back of the envelope (Fermi) calculations 01:12:11 Psychological characteristics of superforecasters, caring about being wrong
At the weekend, the New York Times published a long awaited article about one of the world's most celebrated blogs, Slate Star Codex, a central node of the influential rationalist community. Called 'Silicon Valley's Safe Space', it was widely criticised as an inaccurate hit piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/te... This is an interview with Tom Chivers, the writer of 'The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy', on the backstory to the controversy. What does this say about the ongoing crisis of journalism, and tensions with the tech sector. The New Yorker wrote a more well-received piece on SSC here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/ann...
This week we have a guest! Tom Chivers, the author of The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy. It's a really fantastic look at how a small AI-obsessed internet community has grown out into both a modern techno-fascist movement AND an extremely dense blog that everyone in Silicon Valley is obsessed with. Why are we talking about this? Because of a very controversial New York Times piece that dropped this week. It's all very confusing, but we promise it's interesting! Also, this week, Ryan and Luke talk about the Joker for a little while.
Science writer Tom Chivers discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Science writer Tom Chivers discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Tom Chivers is science editor at UnHerd.com. His second book, How To Read Numbers: A Guide to Statistics in the News (and Knowing When to Trust Them), will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in March 2021. He is a two-time winner of the Royal Statistical Society's Statistical Excellence in Journalism award, and was once told by Terry Pratchett that he was "far too nice to be a journalist". Goodhart’s Law https://unherd.com/2020/04/we-cant-put-too-much-faith-in-covid-19-statistics/ Kill Team https://www.goonhammer.com/getting-started-kill-team/ and https://unherd.com/2020/03/self-isolation-is-feeding-my-warhammer-addiction/ Selection bias https://unherd.com/2019/09/statistically-you-shouldnt-believe-the-news/ Red kite https://unherd.com/2019/11/let-loose-the-lynxes/ Coordination games https://unherd.com/2020/03/would-you-take-a-coronavirus-risk/ Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series https://www.npr.org/2016/06/14/481391755/temeraire-and-laurence-at-peace-at-last-in-league-of-dragons This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm
Daniel Finkelstein - sitting in for Matt Chorley - speaks to authors Tom Chivers and Jamie Susskind about how data and algorithms are being used to shape politics and policy. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
This week The Turing Podcast welcomes our second external guest interviewee: Tom Chivers. Tom is a science writer and journalist who has previously worked for the Daily Telegraph and Buzzfeed UK, but now writes for the online publication UnHerd. His writing often focusses on topics such as rationalism and Artificial Intelligence and he has authored a popular science book titled: "The AI Does Not Hate You: Superintelligence, Rationality and the Race to Save the World". In this episode, the discussion revolves around the media coverage Covid19 pandemic, Tom's experience as data-savvy journalist and the challenges of accurately reporting on rapidly evolving science, at a time when public hunger for information is high and misinformation abounds! You can keep up with Tom’s writing here: https://unherd.com/author/tom-chivers/ or follow him on twitter: @TomChivers
A reckoning is afoot, as Jesse finally confronts Katie over her abusive managerial style. After the hosts get that out of the way, they proceed into a discussion about The New York Times' decision to publish the famed rationalist blogger Scott Alexander's full name -- and the rather effective-seeming countermeasure Alexander pulled in response. Then they move onto a broader conversation about journalistic ethics with regard to naming subjects against their will, and Katie talks about the time she was publicly shamed for trying to defend someone against a public shaming. In the second segment, the hosts discuss a New York Times story about a Minneapolis neighborhood's difficulties living up to its stated values, and, by working through about their own views about when to call the police, establish the podcast's formal Cop Policy. Show notes/Links: Amazon: The AI Does Not Hate You: Superintelligence, Rationality and the Race to Save the World by Tom Chivers - https://www.amazon.com/Does-Not-Hate-You-Superintelligence-ebook/dp/B07K258VCV (https://www.amazon.com/Does-Not-Hate-You-Superintelligence-ebook/dp/B07K258VCV) Slate Star Codex: NYT Is Threatening My Safety By Revealing My Real Name, So I Am Deleting The Blog - https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-safety-by-revealing-my-real-name-so-i-am-deleting-the-blog/ (https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-safety-by-revealing-my-real-name-so-i-am-deleting-the-blog/) Slate Star Codex (archive): I Can Tolerate Anything Except For The Outgroup - http://archive.is/https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ (http://archive.is/https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/) Slate Star Codex (archive): Sort by Controversial - http://archive.is/https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/ (http://archive.is/https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/) Twitter: @keikoinboston on Karlos Dillard's scam: https://twitter.com/keikoinboston/status/1276780086545592320 (https://twitter.com/keikoinboston/status/1276780086545592320) The New York Times: A Minneapolis Neighborhood Vowed to Check Its Privilege. It’s Already Being Tested. - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/minneapolis-george-floyd-police.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/minneapolis-george-floyd-police.html) The Stranger: A Slur, a Suicide Attempt, and Guns Akimbo - https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/02/25/42967202/a-slur-a-suicide-attempt-and-guns-akimbo (https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/02/25/42967202/a-slur-a-suicide-attempt-and-guns-akimbo) Amazon: Self-Care: A Novel by Leigh Stein - https://www.amazon.com/Self-Care-Novel-Leigh-Stein/dp/0143135198/ref=tmmpapswatch0?encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= (https://www.amazon.com/Self-Care-Novel-Leigh-Stein/dp/0143135198/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) Eventbrite: EXTREMELY ONLINE conversation for Self-Care - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/extremely-online-conversation-for-self-care-tickets-109886766276 (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/extremely-online-conversation-for-self-care-tickets-109886766276)
A reckoning is afoot, as Jesse finally confronts Katie over her abusive managerial style. After the hosts get that out of the way, they proceed into a discussion about The New York Times' decision to publish the famed rationalist blogger Scott Alexander's full name -- and the rather effective-seeming countermeasure Alexander pulled in response. Then they move onto a broader conversation about journalistic ethics with regard to naming subjects against their will, and Katie talks about the time she was publicly shamed for trying to defend someone against a public shaming. In the second segment, the hosts discuss a New York Times story about a Minneapolis neighborhood's difficulties living up to its stated values, and, by working through about their own views about when to call the police, establish the podcast's formal Cop Policy. Show notes/Links:Amazon: The AI Does Not Hate You: Superintelligence, Rationality and the Race to Save the World by Tom Chivers - https://www.amazon.com/Does-Not-Hate-You-Superintelligence-ebook/dp/B07K258VCV Slate Star Codex: NYT Is Threatening My Safety By Revealing My Real Name, So I Am Deleting The Blog - https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-safety-by-revealing-my-real-name-so-i-am-deleting-the-blog/ Slate Star Codex (archive): I Can Tolerate Anything Except For The Outgroup - http://archive.is/https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ Twitter: @keikoinboston on Karlos Dillard's scam: https://twitter.com/keikoinboston/status/1276780086545592320 The New York Times: A Minneapolis Neighborhood Vowed to Check Its Privilege. It’s Already Being Tested. - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/minneapolis-george-floyd-police.html Slate Star Codex (archive): Sort by Controversial - http://archive.is/https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/ The Stranger: A Slur, a Suicide Attempt, and Guns Akimbo - https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/02/25/42967202/a-slur-a-suicide-attempt-and-guns-akimbo Amazon: Self-Care: A Novel by Leigh Stein - https://www.amazon.com/Self-Care-Novel-Leigh-Stein/dp/0143135198/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Eventbrite: EXTREMELY ONLINE conversation for SELF CARE - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/extremely-online-conversation-for-self-care-tickets-109886766276 This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.blockedandreported.org/subscribe
When football introduced the Video Assistant Referee, better known as VAR, fans thought it would cut out bad refereeing decisions but, as we limp toward some conclusion of this Covid-19 interrupted season, many now want to see the pitch referee back in charge. In 'Life, Uncertainty and VAR', the writer, blogger and journalist Tom Chivers argues that as in football, so in life and society; promises to eliminate uncertainty are liable to end in disappointment. Worse, the better we get at revealing truth, for example weather forecasts, the more furious we become about the sliver of unknown which remains. So, what to do about uncertainty - reject it or live with it? This programme began with a Twitter thread from a West Ham fan, Daisy Chistodoulou, at the London stadium where play was on hold waiting for the VAR to declare if a goal had been scored. Daisy Chistodoulou's day job is measuring attainment in education. In her experience the tools we use to measure progress can become ends in themselves. As with VAR, the question is when does measurement conflict with meaning - it was a great goal; what has a big toe, forensically snapped breaking a line a minute before, halfway up the pitch, got to do with it? And if you can't tell what just happened, how are we meant to cope with figuring out what might? How are we to act when, as with the Covid-19 crisis, we have a paucity of data that changes rapidly? In search of answers as to how we should cope with uncertainty, Tom speaks to a man whose life's work has being trying to help people understand the risks we face in everyday life , Professor David Spiegelhalter - author of the Art Of Statistics and to Jennifer Rodgers of the medical statistics consultancy Phastar, who interprets data from pharmaceutical trials. We hear from Michael Blastland, journalist and author of The Hidden Half: How The World Conceals Its Secrets, a book about how we don't know half of what we think we do but still manage to struggle on; and finally, Michael Story, a man so good at predicting the future he runs a consultancy called Maybe! Presenter Tom Chivers Producer Kevin Mousley
On this edition of the Sky News Daily podcast with Dermot Murnaghan, we examine the Government's apparent indecision during the pandemic as it drops plans for all primary school children to return to classrooms in England before the summer break.We are joined by our chief political correspondent Jon Craig and headteacher Jo Young from Leighton Academy and Nursery in Crewe. Plus, UnHerd's science columnist Tom Chivers discusses how scientific advice has also changed during the pandemic as we look at the 2-metre rule.Credits:Producer - Annie JoyceProduction support - Sabah ChoudhryInterviews guests - Oli Foster
As contact tracing apps roll out we ask if they will be a way out of coronavirus lockdown. A trial of the UK's contact tracing app is being carried out on the Isle of Wight, and we find out from residents there how they feel about it. Such apps have led some to express concerns about privacy, and we discuss the issue with Lilian Edwards, professor of law, innovation and society at Newcastle University in the UK, who sits on the ethics advisory board for NHSX, which is developing the UK's app. We get an alternative perspective on the issue from Tom Chivers of Pro Privacy. And we hear from Milo Hsieh, student at the American University in Taiwan, how in that country, which was a contact tracing app pioneer, opting into the service was not really optional. Also in the programme, as lockdowns start to ease in many countries, and a tentative return to work begins, many employees are worried about how safe offices will be. The BBC's Jane Wakefield takes us through some of the fears and discusses possible ways to mitigate them. Plus, we look at the economic costs to football clubs of the coronavirus pandemic, with Mark Palios, who owns Division 4 Tranmere Rovers in the UK.
On this edition of the Sky News Daily podcast with Dermot Murnaghan, we examine the Government's response to the coronavirus pandemic.We are joined by Sky's Katie Spencer and Isla Glaister along with science writer Tom Chivers - plus we speak to the Medical Detection Dogs charity and oncologist Prof Karol Sikora about dogs being trained to detect the virus in people.Check out @medicaldetectiondogs on Instagram to meet the special recruits. Image credit: Nigel Harper Photography.
After years of rubbishing expertise, politicians are now turning to science in humble desperation. Buzzfeed and Telegraph science writer TOM CHIVERS, author of The AI Does Not Hate You, talks to Ian Dunt about the uneasy alliance between science and politics… why immunity passports are probably a non-starter… and why we should have a sliver of sympathy for Matt Hancock and even Boris Johnson. “The hardest thing in writing about science? Explaining uncertainty.”Presented by Ian Dunt. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producer Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Science writer Tom Chivers joins the show to discuss ways of getting safe groups of the population out of the house. Meanwhile news.com.au's Samantha Maiden discusses the latest political moves around the outbreak. Get all the latest at heraldsun.com.au See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
This week on the Good Practice Podcast, Ross D is joined by Owen and Gent Ahmetaj to dig into the latest research report from Emerald Works — Back to the Future: Why Tomorrow's Workforce Needs a Learning Culture. We discuss: the purpose of the Learning Health Check the top-line takeaways from the report the practical implications for L&D Show notes If you're interested in reading the report for yourself, you can download a copy at: https://emeraldworks.com/resources/research-and-reports/strategy/back-to-the-future The LinkedIn thread about the need for an L&D 'revolution' can be found at: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6636178119965454336/?actorCompanyId=468788 Tom Chivers' Twitter feed, including his thoughts on COVID-19, can be found at: https://twitter.com/TomChivers Gent's book recommendation was Crystallizing Public Opinion by Edward Bernays, and it can be found at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crystallizing-Public-Opinion-Edward-Bernays/dp/1684113040/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3QA437F7TFVD1&keywords=crystallizing+public+opinion&qid=1583836784&sprefix=crystalizing+public+opinion%2Caps%2C234&sr=8-1 If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter: Ross Dickie @RossDickieEW Owen Ferguson @owenferguson Gent Ahmetaj @GentAhmetaj
The boss of Ryanair has been criticised for saying that airport security checks should focus on Muslim men who are travelling alone, because they pose the biggest terror threat. The Muslim Council of Britain said Michael O'Leary's comments were "racist and discriminatory". Profiling is the practice of categorising people and predicting their behaviour on the basis of particular characteristics. We're profiled all the time by businesses and insurance companies with the help of computer algorithms. That same technology has been piloted by police and will now be used to identify low-level offenders who are deemed likely to go on to commit "high-harm" crimes, perhaps involving knives and guns. Is it right to target specific groups on the theory that they are statistically more likely to commit certain crimes? Civil liberty watchdogs argue that such ‘pre-crime’ profiling not only violates everyone’s civil rights, but fosters alienation and hostility in marginalised communities. Supporters of ‘data analytics’ believe that, on the contrary, it can eliminate all bias and human error from these judgments. There’s a wider debate about the balance between public safety and trust. Should we worry that these preventative measures are eroding our goodwill towards authority and each other? There are proposals to introduce airport-style security checks in ever more areas of our lives, from concert halls to places of worship. Security campaigners say it’s a necessary step towards making us all that little bit safer. Libertarians call it an over-reaction to a statistically-negligible threat. It is, they say, allowing the criminals to dictate how we live our lives. With Nick Aldworth, Tom Chivers, Dr Adam Elliott-Cooper and Tom McNeil. Producer: Dan Tierney.
On this week’s show Matt interviews 77diamonds.com‘s MD Tobias Kormind. Chris also talks about his latest read, Tom Chivers’ The AI Doesn’t Hate You.
How will Artificial Intelligence affect our lives? How should we respond? In conjunction with Reform Scotland, the Futures Forum held a seminar with writer and journalist Tom Chivers to discuss how artificial intelligence is developing and changing our lives and the way we should approach it as citizens and how the Scottish Parliament can respond as a legislature. Tom worked for the Daily Telegraph from 2007 to 2014, and was a science writer at BuzzFeed UK from 2015 to 2018. He has received several awards for his journalism, including the ‘Explaining the facts' category in the Royal Statistical Society's Statistical Excellence in Journalism awards, and he is the author of the recent book “The AI Does Not Hate You”. Find out more on the Scotland's Futures Forum website.
Dominic Cummings: Is he, as some suggest, the disruptor's disruptor - a strategically single minded and ideologically iconoclastic man? Or is he an unelected foul mouthed liability who has no place at the heart of a conservative Downing Street? On this week's episode of TheJournal.ie, we look at Boris Johnson's special adviser and his career. To help make some sense of Cummings and his very important and strategic role, presenter Sinéad O'Carroll is joined in studio by our Brexit reporter Grainne Ni Aodha, and Dr Kevin Cunningham, TU Dublin politics lecturer. We also chat to Tom Chivers, science writer and journalist, to get his thoughts on what makes Cummings tick.
Mark Pack goes full on cheerleading for Remain. Stephen Tall responds with half a bucket of cold water. Show notes: Beatrice Wishart wins in Shetland. Reasons to doubt the Boris Johnson / Dominic Cummings strategy. The public doesn't like prorogation. Tom Chivers on Dominic Cummings and a game of chicken. Charles Moore's biography of Margaret Thatcher. The Led By Donkeys anti-Breixt campaigners. Come and watch us record a special episode: "Is Dominic Cummings a genius?".
We chat with Tom about whether psychology has a conflict-of-interest problem and how to best define such conflicts. Links and other stuff we cover... Tom's article (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02041-5) on conflicts of interest in psychology How can we define a conflict an interest without falling down a rabbit hole? Communication statistics to the layperson How science journalism focuses on single studies rather than the larger story Tom’s new book: The AI does not hate you (https://www.amazon.com/Does-Not-Hate-You-Superintelligence-ebook/dp/B07K258VCV) Win Tom’s book! Tweet your favourite Hertz episode and we’ll pick one at random, who'll get sent Tom's book How do journalists go about hearing from new voices for story comments? What has Tom changes his mind about? Tom’s book recommendation: Galileo's Middle Finger (https://www.amazon.com/Galileos-Middle-Finger-Heretics-Activists/dp/0143108115) Other links - Dan on twitter (www.twitter.com/dsquintana) - James on twitter (www.twitter.com/jamesheathers) - Everything Hertz on twitter (www.twitter.com/hertzpodcast) - Everything Hertz on Facebook (www.facebook.com/everythinghertzpodcast/) Music credits: Lee Rosevere (freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/hertzpodcast) and get bonus stuff! $1 a month or more: Monthly newsletter + Access to behind-the-scenes photos & video via the Patreon app + the the warm feeling you're supporting the show $5 a month or more: All the stuff you get in the one dollar tier PLUS a bonus mini episode every month (extras + the bits we couldn't include in our regular episodes) Episode citation and permanent link Quintana, D.S., Heathers, J.A.J. (Hosts). (2019, August 5) "Conflicts of interest in psychology (with Tom Chivers)", Everything Hertz [Audio podcast], DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/F9WBM (https://osf.io/f9wbm/) Special Guest: Tom Chivers.
Last month, Oxford University was given £150m by a US billionaire, Stephen A. Schwarzman, to study the ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence. In the announcement, he warned that technology left unaffected would “trample over certain aspects of human behaviour and human opportunities”, before setting out the potential to “reaffirm western values” and “help the world adjust to changing times.” Which raises the question: whose values exactly would we be reaffirming? We commissioned this week's Artificial Intelligence special to explore this question, and others surrounding ethics and AI. In particular, we asked four writers to reflect on what the Bishop of Oxford has suggested is the deep question of our age: “What does it mean to be a human?” We also feature an extract from a new book by Tom Chivers, who spent months with some of those who have long worried about the existential threat posed by AI. In this podcast, Madeleine Davies talks to him about how worried we should be. Tom's book, The AI Does Not Hate You: Superintelligence, rationality and the race to save the world, is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson at £16.99 (CT Bookshop £15.30).
All the best bits from the past week on Monocle 24 presented by Markus Hippi and Fernando Augusto Pacheco. This week: surf’s up! Big-wave rider Laird Hamilton shares some of the insights he’s learned on the waves. Plus: science journalist Tom Chivers talks us through his book ‘The AI Does Not Hate You: Superintelligence, Rationality and the Race to Save the World’; and we meet Felicia Pennant, editor in chief and founder of ‘Season’, a beautiful title dedicated to women’s football and fashion.
Click here to buy: https://adbl.co/2ElYNP7 'The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made of atoms which it can use for something else' This is a book about AI and AI risk. But it's also more importantly about a community of people who are trying to think rationally about intelligence, and the places that these thoughts are taking them, and what insight they can and can't give us about the future of the human race over the next few years. It explains why these people are worried, why they might be right, and why they might be wrong. It isn't, on the other hand, a book about the future - it doesn't try to guess how many of us are going to be put out of work by AI, or what the operating system in your house might be able to do ten years hence. Instead, this is a book about the cutting edge of our thinking on intelligence and rationality right now by the people who stay up all night worrying about it. Along the way, we discover why we probably don't need to worry about a future AI resurrecting a perfect copy of our minds and torturing us for not inventing it sooner but we should be concerned about paperclips destroying life as we know it; how Mickey Mouse can teach us an important lesson about how to programme AI; and why Spock is not as logical as we think he is. (p) Orion Publishing Group Ltd 2019
In this week's podcast, Ayesha Hazarika is joined by science writer and author, Tom Chivers, and political journalist Jane Merrick, to discuss under-reported stories from across the week. Tom highlights the subject of his recent piece for UnHerd: the risk posed by AI becoming competent. Jane raises the issue of sugar and asks, are we worrying about it too much? The panel also discuss their hero of the week, Margret Hodge MP and their villain, Julian Smith MP.
Tom Chivers is a writer, who specialises in the intersection of science, philosophy and politics. He was a former staff writer at BuzzFeed UK and an assistant comment editor at the Telegraph. He's currently writing a book about Artificial Intelligence. In this episode, he talks about atheism, the value of truth and verification. He also talks about attaining truth through scientific methods, taking principles from both classical philosophy and computer science to interrogate the hard questions. Finally, he talks about the UK's media environment, and how best to handle an altercation on Twitter. The episode also features Nick Spencer, who talks about his upcoming conversation with Stephen Pinker, and his review of the writer John Gray's "Seven Types of Atheism", which is now available on the Theos website. You can follow Theos at @theosthinktank and you can follow Elizabeth at @theoselizabeth on Twitter.
In UnHerd's second Head to Head, Nigel Cameron and Tom Chivers debate the question "Is social media the new plague".
This week on the GoodPractice podcast: Owen, James and Ross discuss 'micro learning'. According to Donald Taylor's 2016 L&D Global Sentiment Survey, micro learning was set to be a hot topic over the past year. But has it had an impact on our industry or is it just another in a long line of fads? If you'd like to share your thoughts on the show, you can find us on Twitter @RossGarnerGP, @owenferguson and @jamesmcluckie. You can also tweet @GoodPractice or @GoodpracticeAus. You can find out more about GoodPractice by visiting our website: goodpractice.com. This week, the following blogs and articles were referenced: Tom Chivers, 'A Mindset "Revolution" Sweeping Britain's Classrooms May Be Based On Shaky Science' (14 January 2017). Available at: https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/what-is-your-mindset?utm_term=.xpD1GPpGAv#.oo6nXaoXqA Donald Clarke, 'Micro-learning: trend, fad or retred?' (1 February 2016). Available at: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=micro+learning Donald Taylor, 'Micro learning: Advance or fantasy?' (6 January 2017). Available at: href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/micro-learning-advance-fantasy-donald-h-taylor?published=t Will Thalheimer, 'Definition of MicroLearning' (13 January 2017). Available at: http://www.willatworklearning.com/2017/01/definition-of-microlearning.html With apologies to all the dietitians out there, who Owen referred to as 'nutritionists'.
Is Iceland the best football team in the world per capita? England suffered a 2-1 defeat to Iceland in the European Football Championship in France. This was embarrassing for England when you consider its population is 163 times bigger than Iceland’s. We take a look at whether Iceland is now the best performing football team in the world if you compare UEFA ranking to the size of each country’s population. Plus, we take a look at the chances of a young man in Iceland and in England getting to represent their country on the pitch. Old versus young Brexit voters Many media outlets have reported that it was predominantly the older generations in the UK who voted to ‘Leave’ the EU in a recent referendum, while those under 25 were keenest to ‘Remain’. It has prompted many listeners to ask whether a referendum on this topic might yield a different result if held in a few years’ time as the electorate changes. We attempt some back of the envelope calculations with Tom Chivers from Buzzfeed. But actually – how good is the data available? How do we know how people voted or how they would vote in the future?
In today’s What Next? podcast, journalist, producer and Spitalfields Music audience member Tom Chivers asks ‘What next for audiences and social media?’ Click play below to listen to Tom’s thoughts (or if you’re viewing this on email, head over to the blog to hear the podcast): We’ll be releasing podcasts each day throughout the Summer Festival available here, our website and on iTunes from 8.30am. The…
In this week's Telegram Lord Tebbit and Tom Chivers debate the moral and practical realities of allowing an individual to decide when their life should end. Lord Tebbit foresees an explosion of financially motivated "suicides", while Tom Chivers insists that with the right safeguards, people should be allowed to die with dignity. Also: Ed Miliband's euro gamble. Dan Hodges and John McTernan argue whether it's Labour or the Tories who are now confused about Europe.
Dirk Gently (TV series) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: , Dirk Gently Titlescreen of series 1, based on Gently's painted whiteboard. Genre / Created by () Written by Howard Overman Jamie Mathieson Directed by Damon Thomas Starring Composer(s) Country of origin United Kingdom Language(s) English No. of series 1 No. of episodes 3 (+ pilot) () Production Executive producer(s) Howard Overman Saurabh Kakkar () Brian Minchin () Eleanor Moran (BBC - Pilot) Jamie Laurenson (BBC - Pilot) Producer(s) Chris Carey Editor(s) Matthew Tabern Cinematography Ole Bratt Birkeland Camera setup Running time 60 minutes Production company(s) The Welded Tandem Picture Company Distributor Broadcast Original channel (repeats) Picture format Audio format Original run 16 December 2010 – 19 March 2012 Chronology Related shows External links Dirk Gently is a comedy detective drama TV series based on characters from the Dirk Gently novels by . The series was created by and stars as detective and as his Richard MacDuff. Recurring actors include as MacDuff's girlfriend Susan Harmison, as Dirk's nemesis DI Gilks and as Dirk's receptionist Janice Pearce. Unlike most detective series Dirk Gently features broadly comic touches and even some themes such as and . Dirk Gently operates his Holistic Detective Agency based on the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things", which relies on methods to uncover connections between seemingly-unrelated cases. He claims that he follows the principles of , and although the majority of his clients suspect he may be a conman he often produces surprising results. With the help of his assistant, Richard MacDuff, Dirk investigates a number of seemingly unrelated but interconnected cases. An hour-long loosely based on plot elements from Adams' 1987 novel was broadcast on on 16 December 2010 and was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Critical reception was generally positive. A full series of three one-hour episodes was subsequently commissioned in March 2011 and was broadcast on BBC Four in March 2012. The series is the first continuing drama series produced for the digital channel. The series is produced by and The Welded Tandem Picture Company for and shot in . The pilot was written by Howard Overman and directed by Damon Thomas. The full series was written by Overman, and Jamie Mathieson and directed by . The series along with the pilot episode was released on DVD on 26 March 2012 by ITV Studios Home Entertainment. An original television soundtrack album featuring music from the series composed by was released by 1812 Recordings on 5 March 2012. Contents Production Background The novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency has its origins in the incomplete 1979 television serial , featuring as the . Location filming in Cambridge had been completed, but a studio technicians' dispute at the BBC meant that studio segments were not completed, and the serial was never transmitted. As a result of the serial's cancellation, Adams reused a number of ideas from this script and his other Doctor Who scripts as the basis for a new novel, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, published in 1987. Adams published another, in 1988 and at the time of his death in 2001 was working on a third installment to be titled , fragments of which were published posthumously. Each novel features new characters and scenarios, although Dirk (real name Svlad Cjelli), his "ex-secretary" Janice Pearce and Sergeant, later Inspector, Gilks recur in each. The first Gently novel had previously been adapted into a stage play, and a BBC Radio 4 series by which was first broadcast in October 2007 and featured comedian in the title role. According to James Donaghy, Douglas Adams was frustrated that his Dirk Gently novels were never adapted for the screen. Announcement During - a convention - Ed Victor, a literary agent who represents Adams's estate announced that a television adaptation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was in production. was announced to be playing Gently, with as MacDuff and as Susan. It is the first television adaptation of Adams' Dirk Gently series, although characters from the books had appeared in a 1992 episode of . Shooting on the pilot commenced early in October 2010 in Bristol. The director was Damon Thomas and the producer was Chris Carey. Although it was commissioned by the BBC, it was produced by with The Welded Tandem Picture Company. The pilot was first broadcast on on 16 December 2010 and was repeated a number of times during the next month. The pilot gained a commission on 31 March 2011 for a three-part series of one hour-long episodes broadcast on BBC Four in March 2012. The series is the first continuing drama series commissioned by BBC Four. Adaptation The screenplay of the pilot by is not a direct adaptation of the novel, but uses certain characters and situations from the novel to form the basis of a new drama centred around Dirk. Speaking about his interpretation, Howard Overman stated in an interview with Benji Wilson "I'm not even going to try to adapt the book: you can't adapt this story. Especially not on a BBC Four budget. We made the deliberate decision not to do a straight translation of the books. If we'd done that the fans would have felt badly let down, because you can never portray that world on the screen as well as it's been done in people's own imaginations...If you just do a straight adaptation like , people are always going to be quite brutal about it because it's never going to live up to their expectations." Dirk drives an old brown in the production. Stephen Mangan, writing a BBC blog on the programme stated "In my opinion, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul are unfilmable as written...too much happens, there are too many ideas". The pilot concentrates on two relatively minor plot strands in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: the disappearance of a cat, and the simultaneous disappearance of millionaire Gordon Way. Although time travel is involved in the solution, the novel's entire St Cedd's College / Electric Monk / Coleridge strand is omitted, although key words relating to these elements do appear on Dirk's whiteboard when it is first seen, though they are never subsequently referred to. Other elements from the book, such as the trapped sofa, are also absent and the setting is updated to 2010, with and replacing the answering machine messages in the book. There are changes to the characters too, one notable one being that Susan is Gordon's ex-girlfriend rather than his sister. Several additional elements from Adams's novels, in particular St Cedd's College, were later to appear in the full series. Interviewed about the series, Stephen Mangan noted that "All three episodes are very different in tone and you get a different Dirk with each one...He's on the run from the police in one of them and in another there's a bit of romance in the air, which for Dirk is a surprise because he's probably the most asexual character on TV... There seems to be a vogue for dark, realistic, gritty detective series, apart from perhaps . Dirk has so much humour in it. How many other detectives mix detection with quantum mechanics or drive a 30-year-old brown ?" Each episode of series one was written by different writers, who are mostly known for their contributions to science fiction and fantasy programmes; series creator Howard Overman also created and has written for , has previously written the Doctor Who stories ""/"" and wrote the film and has written scripts for . Cast , best known for his role in the television series , and subsequently , was cast in the main role as holistic detective . Mangan already knew the novel and the author's works, stating in a press release "I've been a fan of Douglas Adams ever since the Hitchhiker's radio series which I used to record as a child and listen to over and over again in my bedroom. It's such a thrill to now be playing one of his brilliant characters. Dirk is a chaotic, anarchic force of nature with a totally unique take on the world. He is described as 'lazy, untidy, dismissive and unreliable'. I've absolutely no idea why they thought I'd be right for the role." Cast alongside him were and , both of whom had previously worked with Mangan in Green Wing and respectively. Darren Boyd and Helen Baxendale returned for the full series, with the character of Richard MacDuff becoming Dirk's "partner/assistant" for each of the episodes. Other regular cast members are as Detective Inspector Gilks and as Dirk's secretary Janice Pearce. The programme pilot featured appearances from , , , . Episode one saw guest appearances by , , Ken Collard, and . Episode two featured roles for , , , Andrew Leung, and Bethan Hanks. Episode three features and . Filming at the was used as the fictional . Although the series is set in the London boroughs of and , the series was shot entirely in . Areas and buildings featured in the programme included the Guildhall, the Bottle Yard, St Thomas Street and the Greenbank area. The second series episode also featured extensive filming around the , with doubling as the fictional Cambridge College . The production's location manager, Rob Champion, noted that each location had to be chosen carefully to avoid featured giveaway clues to Bristol, in particular any building made of the local building material, limestone. He noted that "Episode 2 was the greatest challenge as it included two days material in a Robotic Laboratory. Bristol has such a thing...a joint venture between the two universities, with a very helpful professor, but its landlord was an American corporation with the most unimaginably anal restrictions on access. They basically didn't want us there and took the best part of two weeks to say so...We eventually settled upon a brand new building at the Bristol-Bath Science Park where they could not have been more helpful. All this on a BBC4 budget." Music The series's soundtrack was composed by . In creating the distinctive sound for the main titles and incidental music, Pemberton made use of a , a which is a cross between a and a piano. These instruments were produced in America between 1927 to 1972. The soundtrack also mixes in a harpsichord, synth, bass guitar and drums. A soundtrack album featuring music from the series was released by 1812 Recordings on 5 March 2012. Plot Dirk Gently (real name Svlad Cjelli) operates a Detective Agency based on the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things". To solve cases, Dirk relies on methods for example " navigation" (following people or vehicles who look like they know where they are going, in the hope that they will lead somewhere you want to be) or throwing a dart at a board of words to select the direction of his detection. By following up on apparently random occurences and whims, Dirk discovers connections between seemingly unrelated cases and often produces surprising results. He claims that he follows the principles of (although it is implied when he speaks to an expert in these fields that he doesn't really understand them); most people suspect he is just a conman and he rarely gets paid by clients and is therefore in almost permanent financial difficulty. In the pilot episode, Dirk bumps into a former university friend, Richard MacDuff, who has been made redundant from a job at an electricity board, and takes on a case for him. During the course of his investigation, Dirk hypnotises MacDuff and persuades him into investing his £20,000 redundancy money in his failing detective agency. MacDuff therefore becomes Dirk's partner in the business and "assistant" on investigations. Richard MacDuff's girlfriend, Dr Susan Harmison, was also at university with the pair and is deeply sceptical about Dirk's abilities. Also present at the Agency is Dirk's receptionist Janice Pearce, whom Dirk has not paid for years and who therefore refuses to do any work. Episodes No.TitleDirectorWriterViewing figuresOriginal air date 0 "" Damon Thomas 943 000 16 December 2010 When sets out to solve an apparently simple and harmless disappearance of a cat from an old lady's house, he unwittingly uncovers a double murder which, in turn, leads to a host of even more extraordinary events. 1 "Episode 1" Howard Overman 844 000 5 March 2012 Dirk discovers the connection between two unrelated cases - a client who believes are trying to kill him and another whose horoscopes appear to be coming true. 2 "Episode 2" Tom Shankland 561 000 12 March 2012 Dirk is called back to his old university to protect a valuable robot but within 24 hours it has been stolen and a dead body discovered, with Dirk and MacDuff the prime suspects. 3 "Episode 3" Tom Shankland Jamie Mathieson 592 000 19 March 2012 Dirk's old clients are being randomly murdered with Dirk as the only link. Rather than talk to the police, Dirk elects to leave the country but is waylaid by a series of seemingly unconnected events. Reception Pilot Stephen Mangan plays the titular holistic detective in the series. The pilot episode gained 1.1m viewers (3.9% share) on BBC Four, which was over three times the channel's slot average. Critical reception for the pilot was largely positive. Several mentioned that it was only a loose adaptation of the novel, although the general consensus was that the essence of the original was maintained. Sam Wollaston in stated "Coming to it fresh, it's a neat story about aforementioned missing cat and time travel, with a smattering of quantum physics and the fundamental connectedness of things. With a lovely performance from Doreen Mantle as the old lady/murderer. Stephen Mangan's good in the title role, too – a teeny bit irritating perhaps, but then Mangan is a teeny bit irritating. So is Dirk Gently, though – it's perfect. Funny too. Quite funny." James Donaghy, also writing in The Guardian stated "Personally I hope Dirk Gently gets made into a full series. The programme shows promising glimpses, has a strong cast and Misfits already proves Overman can write. And a BBC4 adaptation feels like a good fit – Gently being exactly the kind of playground-of-the-imagination curio the BBC made its name indulging." published two reviews. Alice-Azania Jarvis was extremely positive, writing "...there wasn't very much you could fault about the production at all. Right down to the quirky camerawork and youthful, poppy soundtrack (who would have thought the Hoosiers could be so right in any situation?), the director, Damon Thomas, got it pretty spot-on. The result was a pleasingly festive-feeling adventure; part , part , part . And the best thing? There wasn't a Christmas tree in sight. Douglas Adams once claimed that Gently would make a better film character than his more famous hero, . Based on last night's experience, he may well have been right." John Walsh's review for was cooler about the adaptation, although he praised Mangan's performance: "Given the talent and style on display, it should have been a scream. In fact it all seemed a little moth-eaten. Though set in the modern day, it was staggeringly old-fashioned...You could overlook these faults, however, for the joy of Stephen Mangan's performance as the titular gumshoe. With his alarmed-spaniel eyes and jutting-jawed stroppiness, his geography teacher elbow-patches and Medusan hair, he radiates mess...His ineptness as a sleuth provided some fine comic moments. Paul Whitelaw in was also positive, although he noted "At times it felt forced, with a sense of trying slightly too hard when a touch more subtlety would have brought out the essential Adamsian eccentricity." Dan Owen of Obsessed with Film noted that the adaptation played with the idea of inexplicable situations: "Purists may grumble this isn't the Dirk Gently they wanted to see, but it's more accessible and practicable. And while Dirk Gently is certainly another gimmicky detective series (yawn), its details are unique and engrossing enough to shrug off the genre's clichés. In some ways it's a pastiche of whodunits, taking the genre's often tenuous explanations to an outrageous extreme." Paul Whitelaw in noted that "Although Adams's more ambitious concepts are sidelined in favour of a more prosaic - if nonetheless enjoyable - sci-fi mystery, Overman captures at least some of the wit and whimsy of his distinctive comic voice" going on to suggest "This modestly-budgeted pilot suggests potential for a series, so the deviation from Adams's originals makes sense. It also adds yet another very British oddball to the pantheon currently occupied by and . Series One Critical opinion to the full series was mildly positive. The adaptation from the Adams' novels was the focus of several reviews. Jane Simon, writing in The Mirror stated "It's just a shame creator Douglas Adams isn't around to see how Howard Overman has transferred Dirk to the screen. He'd definitely approve. Mark Braxton in the Radio Times likewise agreed that "Overman has plucked the comic essence of Adams from his novel...and worked it into a digestible, enjoyably eccentric format." AA Gill writing in the Sunday Times March 11, 2012 wrote 'Who'd have guessed that this would ever get recommissioned?...It has to get a nomination as the greatest waste of the most talent for the least visible purpose or reward." Others complained that the series was not an exact adaptation of the novels. Nigel Farndale in The Telegraph stated "I struggled with Dirk Gently...It had nothing to do with Stephen Mangan's considerable comedic talents, still less with Darren Boyd who plays MacDuff, the Dr Watson to Dirk's Holmes. It is more to do with my devotion to Douglas Adams, upon whose comic novel this series is based...in Douglas Adams, 90 per cent of the pleasure is in the prose, the narration, the felicities of language." Tom Sutcliffe in The Independent felt that the programme's qualities were "spread a little too thinly over a nonsensical thriller plot' and that "laughs... were far too widely spaced in a script that could have done with a lot more editing." Several critics compared the production with the big-budget BBC One detective series Sherlock, the second series of which was broadcast in January 2012. Writing in Metro, Keith Watson said "There's no doubt Sherlock has raised the detecting duo bar on TV...it's more than a match for Sherlock on the dialogue front, neatly catching the surreal humour that was the Adams trademark...but there was no disguising the fact that Dirk Gently was a five-star script being filmed on a one-star budget, making it look like a designer label knockoff when set against the production values lavished on Sherlock. Stuart Jeffries in , meanwhile, found a comparison between the tone of the series and 1960s spy/detective ; "Never since has there been anything so unremittingly silly on British television as Dirk Gently...Dainty harpsichord music tells us we're back in an era of TV misrule, in whose glory days John Steed, Mrs Peel and played fast and loose with viewers' intelligences." The first episode had 737,000 viewers and a 3% audience share but this fell to 415,000 and 2% share for the second episode.[] Series one, including the pilot episode, was released on DVD on 26 March 2012 by ITV Studios Home Entertainment. References ^ James Donaghy "", The Guardian, 16 December 2010 ^ Helena Cole, , SFX, 17 February 2012 ^ "", BBC Press Release, 31 March 2011 ^ Jason Deans, "", The Guardian, 31 March 2011 ^ "", BBC Cult, accessed 19 March 2012 ^ Chris Harvey, "", Daily Telegraph, 16 December 2010 . Retrieved 14 August 2007. News and New Projects page July 2007 of radio version Rob Hastings, "", The Independent, 6 October 2010 at the listing . 6 October 2010. Retrieved 10 October 2010. ^ . Retrieved 10 October 2010. ^ Benji Wilson, , The Telegraph, 5 March 2012 Mangan, Stephen (16 December 2010). . . Retrieved 20 December 2010. ^ Tom Chivers, "", Daily Telegraph, 17 December 2010 ^ "Stephen Mangan speaks about the return to our screens of Dirk Gently", Northampton Chronicle & Echo, 8 March 2012 Helena Cole, "", SFX, 17 February 2012 ^ , British Comedy Guide , Bristol Film Office, accessed 18 March 2012 , Bristol Film Office, accessed 18 March 2012 ^ , thecallsheet.co.uk, accessed 19 March 2012 , Daniel Pemberton's Twitterfeed, accessed 22 March 2012 ^ Stuart Jeffries, "", The Guardian, 5 March 2012 , accessed 22 March 2012 ^ , BBC Four, accessed 19 March 2012 . BARB. Retrieved 4 April 2012. Sam Wollaston "", The Guardian, 16 December 2010 Alice-Azania Jarvis "", The Independent, 17 December 2010 John Walsh, "", The Independent, Sunday, 19 December 2010 Keith Watson, "", Metro, 16 December 2010 Dan Owen, "", Obsessed with Film, 17 December 2010 Paul Whitelaw, "", The Scotsman, 13 December 2010 Jane Simon, "", The Mirror 12 March 2012 Mark Braxton, Radio Times, 5 March 2012 Nigel Farndale, , Daily Telegraph, 9 March 2012 Tom Sutcliffe, " ", The Independent 6 March 2012 Keith Watson, , Metro' 6 March 2012 , Digital Spy, 7 March 2012 External links , at the at the British Comedy Guide
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
