Jonathan Baron

In vaccine challenge trials with a placebo condition, the subjects have a big chance of COVID-19. Following a suggestion of Andrew Gelman, how about doing these with no placebo but with a bunch of different vaccines, all of which have worked in monkeys? We learn what works better

Politicians Want to Change the Internet’s Most Important Law. They Should Read It First. nyti.ms/2YnRfG9 - Indeed. The arguments here apply as well to the 25-year-old jdm-soceity mailing list. We started moderating it several years ago because of abusive posts.

Finally! "The Art and Science of Making Up Your Mind" by (my father) Rex Brown, edited by @jonbaron1944 and myself. A guide to using science to make good decisions. tinyurl.com/y4ajt8c7 Thanks to @RoutledgePsych and @Ceri_McLardy for ushering it through a winding process.

Want to Fix Presidential Elections? Here’s the Quickest Way. politi.co/2vDG5NK via @politicomag

UN waters down rape resolution to appease US's hardline abortion stance theguardian.com/global-develop… - U.S. policy now: No abortion after rape in war.

US threatens to veto UN resolution on rape as weapon of war, officials say theguardian.com/world/2019/apr…

Nuclear Power Can Save the World nyti.ms/2G3JUlk

I scored 92% on the "Can We Guess Your Education Level By Your Biblical Knowledge?" quiz. How will you do? topixoffbeat.com/quiz/18829?utm… via @TopixOffbeat

Petition: Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/2415… To all my friends in the UK. :)

Who’s Afraid of Budget Deficits? foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-… via @ForeignAffairs

British 2nd vote? politico.eu/article/theres… Seems to me that it should have 3 options: no Brexit, current deal, no deal. If none gets a majority, those who chose the loser have their 2nd choices counted. This is not as hard for voters to grasp as some have suggested.

Start Making Sense: Comments at NTA plenary session on fiscal policy a... danshaviro.blogspot.com/2018/11/commen…

2018: What really happened? - Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science andrewgelman.com/2018/11/10/201…

Analysis | Why it can be rational to vote wapo.st/2yMclQw?tid=ss…

Outside prosecutor argues why she would not ... charge Kavanaugh wapo.st/2RgegEu?tid=ss… The "preponderance of the evidence standard", which Mitchell says is not met, is that p(Ford's claim)>.5. Mitchell fails to ask what alternative could explain Ford's testimony.

Trump Administration Prepares a Major Weakening of Mercury Emissions Rules nyti.ms/2Qkv6kr Fallacious reasoning on a massive scale. When making a decision, ignore consequences that are "side effects" (whatever that might mean). Doctrine of the Double Effect?

theregreview.org/2018/06/25/par… Bad scholarship at work. The irony is that Congress is happy to nit-pick any study that says we need to worry about climate change.

And the challenge to the threshold assumption seems like an excuse to avoid low levels of pollution. I suspect that most pollutants are not anywhere near "threshold" because they add to the effects of other influences already present.

theregreview.org/2018/06/18/sci… So many questions. Will they be answered here or in the comments to EPA? I'm particularly worried about the massive number of old but critically important studies that were done before this rule change, most of which can never become public.

Evaluating the New US Pass-Through Rules @SSRN papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… High priority for "fixing" the new tax law.