The AnkiDroid Collection (Part 10) – Heuristics, Egalitarianism & Senescence

Ankidroid additions related to Science, History and Philosophy.

Heuristics

Any approach to problem solving that uses a practical method or various shortcuts to provide solutions that may not be optimal but are sufficient given a limited time-frame. Examples that employ heuristics include ‘using trial and error, a rule of thumb or an educated guess‘. Simple heuristics are often developed by professionals who have to function in high-stress, high-uncertainty environments (soldiers, firefighters, health care workers, etc.). Heuristics appear to be an evolutionary adaptation that simplifies problem-solving and makes it easier for us to navigate the world.
One commonly used heuristic from George Pólya’s 1945 book, How to Solve It – If you are having difficulty understanding a problem, try drawing a picture.

Egalitarian

Based on the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.
This reminded me of Jordan Peterson’s comments in many interviews including this one – ‘The more egalitarian your state, the bigger the personality differences are between men and women‘. I always enjoy seeing interviewers reactions such as this one from 3:00 minutes.
You know the mainstream press is a bit cuckoo, when you need a PhD tenured professor to explain that women and men are different, and is still looked at like he’s crazy.

Senescence

Biological ageing or gradual deterioration with age. The loss of a cell’s power of division and growth. But it is also plays an important role during development and wound healing. I got this term from watching the Brett Weinstein podcast with his wife Heather. He studied it during his dissertation work. Here is a short video with more information about it from Brett.

‘George Williams (one of the most esteemed 20th century biologists) recognised that pleiotropic effects..where for any gene the benefit came early in life and the harm came later, selection would tend to favour the gene in spite of the harm. The reason for that is fairly simple, the late life effect of that gene will not be experienced by nearly as many individuals as the early life benefit of the gene because many individuals wont survive to experience it. So the later in life the negative effect happens, the less selection is capable of purging it from our genomes‘.

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“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand