People’s preferences for complex explanations (new study)

Those who are keen on the principle of Occam’s Razor [“Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate” or “Plurality is not to be posited without necessity” or “Keep it simple”] may be surprised, perhaps even dismayed, by a new research project which hints at its unpopularity. “[…] we find that people have a preference for complex […]

Politicians R 2 Simple, explain 2 Ig Nobel winners

Politicians are too simple. Two Ig Nobel Prize winners — both, as it happens, professors at Stanford University — each gives part of the explanation. (As with many simple facts, the explanation is a bit complex.) Politicians’ simple debates Professor John Perry, a philosopher, looked at politicians’ televised debates. In an essay for the New […]

Ig Nobel winner looks back at his Stanford Prison Experiment

Phil Zimbardo, who shared the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize in psychology for his study report “Politicians’ Uniquely Simple Personalities” (which was published in the journal Nature), looks back on the 40th anniversary of the earlier experiment that made him famous. The BBC reports: Stanford prison experiment continues to shock Forty years ago a group of students […]