I’ve been playing a lot of Snakes and Ladders these past few days. I know it’s a game of pure chance, but I feel I’ve been getting quite good at it. I find this type of graphic helpful: Basically, it means that you’re always increasingly likely to win the more […]
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My kingdom for a zorse (kind of)
Say hello to Ippo. No, not the Japanese manga boxer (after whom he’s no doubt named), but this little fella: He’s a zonkey. Or a zebroid. Or a zorse. Or a zony. Or a zemule. Or a zebonkey. Or even a zebronkey. Or a zebadonk. Or a donkra. Or…wait for it… …a horbra! (Just don’t say that one out loud). […]
»Yuletide Archive: “Insert Yuletide Pun Here”
»ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 2011 [Note: Some years back I served a year as president of the Psychological Society of Ireland. As well as presiding over psychologists, I had the task of producing a monthly column for the Irish Psychologist, the Society’s house journal. The following is my column from the […]
Favourites List (29.11.13)
The week in six bits: 1. Self-tickling is impossible even if you think someone else is doing it. Allowing me to break new ground by posting a picture of a cat on the internet. 2. Evolution Doesn’t Look Like You Think It Does. This has always annoyed me too. This, and […]
Correlation? Causation? YOU decide! (It’s as good an approach as any…)
So, I’ve concluded that we might as well give up on trying to spread the word about the correlation-causation fallacy. People just don’t seem to be getting it. I do appreciate that there are complexities (after all, causality causes, and is therefore correlated with, correlation, but correlation does not cause […]
Chief Scientific Advisor gets the chop: Getting DNA backwards not the reason
I have been reading a lot recently about the Irish Government’s decision to get rid of its Chief Scientific Adviser. My fellow blogger Maria Delaney has covered this well both on her award-winning Science Calling! blog and on Journal.ie. The story is that, due to budgetary cutbacks, the supposedly independent Adviser […]




