Sunday, February 26, 2006

"The real surprise came when the researchers distracted the participants with anagram puzzles for 4 minutes before asking for their choices. More than half picked the best car." Article regarding Ap Dijksterhuis, et al, "On Making the Right Choice: The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect"- Science Magazine full text

"As Coleman emphasized, the link from micro to macro has been the main intellectual hurdle for the development of sociological theory. " Analysis of best-seller experiment by Peter Hedström- Science Magazine full text

"Increasing the strength of social influence increased both inequality and unpredictability of success.... (Also,) the best songs rarely did poorly, and the worst rarely did well, but any other result was possible." Matthew J. Salganik, et al, "Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market"- Science Magazine abstract

"I think that we're now inescapably in an age where the large statements of mathematics are so complex that we may never know for sure whether they're true or false. That puts us in the same boat as all the other scientists.” Article on the difficulty of verifying modern mathematical proofs- New Scientist