Ideas & Reasoning

Explanations, reasoning tools, cognitive pitfalls, and reusable intellectual habits Gavin wants to keep available as part of the learning curriculum.

Topics

Feynman-Style ExplanationThe useful habit associated with Richard Feynman is simple: try to reconstruct an idea in plain language rather than hiding behind familiar words. When the explanation breaks, becomes circular, or depends on unexplained jargon, you have found a gap in your understanding.
Survivorship BiasSurvivorship bias occurs when the cases you can observe are a filtered subset of the cases that originally existed, and you forget to reason about what is missing.
The Scientific MethodThere is no single universal sixstep scientific method that every scientist follows. Real science includes experiments, natural observations, simulations, historical reconstruction, instrument building, model comparison, and exploratory work.