Pure Pedantry

Reality is always more complicated than you think.

Profile

Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.

Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.

Jake is joined periodically by two wonderful guest bloggers: Kara Contreary and Kate Seip. See the About Page.

DISCLAIMERS: 1) Jake Young is not a licensed physician (yet). He is merely a medical student. The information published on this site is not intended for use in medical decision making. Please seek advice from a licensed, medical professional before making any health decisions. 2) The opinions expressed are my own or those of my co-bloggers. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments we currently attend.

Search this blog

Game Theory:

Game Theory and The Dark Knight

I suspect that many of you got a chance to see The Dark Knight movie this weekend. Just as an aside, I will say that I thought that the movie was sweet. Definitely the best Batman movie, maybe one of...

Read on »

Posted on July 21, 2008 4:02 PM • 81 Comments •

Game Theory and the Super Delegates

Jay Cost at RCP uses a prisoner's dilemma game to show why the absense of institutional structures is likely to yield a socially inefficient result in the Democratic primaries. He looks at the super delegates' behavior in terms of what...

Posted on February 29, 2008 10:01 AM • 0 Comments •

Men with high testosterone more likely to reject gifts in ultimatum game (comments by both Jake and Kara)

One of the ways that scientists study human decision making is through the study of behavior in simple games -- loosely lumped into a field called game theory. Some of the most interesting and revealing findings involving such games is...

Read on »

Posted on July 11, 2007 11:14 AM • 2 Comments •

"Generalized reciprocity" present in rats

Rats show a type of "generalized" altruism: Rats that benefit from the charity of others are more likely to help strangers get a free meal, researchers have found. This phenomenon, known as 'generalized reciprocity', has only ever been seen before...

Read on »

Posted on July 3, 2007 9:47 AM • 4 Comments •

Paul Rubin on the Evolution of Conflict

Paul Rubin has an editorial in the Washington Post about how evolution may result in a proclivity towards economic and social conflict: Conflict was common in the environment in which humans evolved. As primates, which are a very social order,...

Read on »

Posted on May 15, 2007 9:45 AM • 3 Comments •

Goethe was a Game Theorist

A favorite professor of mine once told me that it's always impressive to start with an example from the 18th century. So in deference to him and with a nod to Jonah Lehrer's forthcoming book, I'd like to mention Goethe's...

Read on »

Posted on December 6, 2006 3:27 PM • 3 Comments •

Cooperation without cognition

How does cooperation evolve? It is in an organism's best interest to screw its competitors in order to best convey its genes to the next generation, yet we see a variety of human and animals examples of cooperation. The answer...

Read on »

Posted on June 29, 2006 8:48 PM • 4 Comments •