Having a strong opinion about an issue can make it hard to take in new information about it, or to consider other options when they’re presented. Thankfully, there’s an old rule that can help us avoid ...

First articulated in the 18th century by a hobbyist-mathematician seeking to reason backward from effects to cause, Bayes’ theorem spent the better part of two centuries struggling for recognition and ...

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. It is really, really hard to find stuff to write about other than the C19 pandemic.

Whether in everyday life or in the lab, we often want to make inferences about hypotheses. Whether I’m deciding it’s safe to run a yellow light, when I need to leave home in order to make it to my ...