Most New Psychology Findings Can’t Be Replicated. So Now What?
Simon Oxenham, Big Think | Neurobonkers, 2015/09/15

If you can get away with it, print this statement out and past it to your manager or CEO's office door: "Whenever you hear the words 'new study,' alarm bells should ring. It isn’t new studies that you should base your opinions on; it is old studies that have been replicated again and again." Also this: "The simplest way to avoid being misled is to stop getting your psychology and science news from, well, the news."

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Against Intellectualist Theories of Belief
Jack Marley-Payne, Minds Online, 2015/09/15

"Intellectualism is the view that the connection between belief and speech (and also conscious judgement) is to be prioritized." It is a popular position, especially among educators. I have sometimes referred to this view as 'cognitivism' (though there are some differences) and argued against it. This paper is a sustained and largely effective argument against it; the two commentators agree, and as a relatively clearly written paper it thus stands as representative of a general line of argument. The alternative is one in which "one on which all sufficiently sophisticated states with the appropriate action guiding role count as beliefs" - that is, we can have a belief, even if we cannot say what it is or represent it in some way, so long as it is evidence-sensitive and in some way regulates behaviour. Recognition is a classic instance of non-intellectual belief. Anyhow, like I say, this is a good clear read and will clean out your philosophical sinuses.

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Yes, There Is a War on Advertising. Now What?
Maureen Morrison, Tim Peterson, Ad Age, 2015/09/15

Probably one of the most unloved industry on the planet is the advertising industry. Sure, it's a $58.6 billion business. But public opinion is firmly on the side of the consumers as advertisers ponder lawsuits, cartels, dire warnings, and anything else they can imagine to force people to view ads. They're currently trying to attack ad blockers - but that's just going to make consumers more irate. "We can block the ad blockers, but technology always finds another way," says Joe Marchese from Fox Networks Group. "It isn't a long-term solution. It's incumbent on us to find better answers and fix the relationship."

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