If Books Could Kill

Did you know that in the split-second it took you to read the title of this episode, your subconscious already figured out that it was going to be extremely good? Peter and Michael talk about Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink," a book that is mostly cute scientific anecdotes but also indirectly resulted in millions of taxpayer dollars being wasted on fraudulent science. Where to find us:  * Our Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod] * Our merch! [https://ifbookspod.dashery.com/] * Peter's newsletter [https://stringinamaze.net/] * Peter's other podcast, 5-4 [https://www.fivefourpod.com/] * Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase [https://www.maintenancephase.com/] Sources: * Unconscious influences on decision making: A critical review [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/abs/unconscious-influences-on-decision-making-a-critical-review/86885344F7E8A44457C3FC63CFA3F3AF] * Half a Minute: Predicting Teacher Evaluations From Thin Slices of Nonverbal Behavior and Physical Attractiveness [https://kevin.burke.dev/pdf/30_seconds_teacher_quality.pdf] * 'Thin slices' of life [https://www.apa.org/monitor/mar05/slices] * Conditions for Intuitive Expertise: A Failure to Disagree [https://www.agileleanhouse.com/lib/lib/People/DanielKahneman/DanielKahneman2009_ConditionsForIntuitiveExpertise_AFailureToDisagree.pdf] * Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes [https://home.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/readings/482/nisbett%20saying%20more.pdf] * Magic at the marketplace: Choice blindness for the taste of jam and the smell of tea [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010027710001381] * False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797611417632] * Reading Lies: Nonverbal Communication and Deception  [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30609913/] * Behavioral Science and Security [https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg65053/html/CHRG-112hhrg65053.htm] * TSA Should Limit Future Funding for Behavior Detection Activities [https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-14-159.pdf] * TSA Does Not Have Valid Evidence Supporting Most of the Revised Behavioral Indicators Used in Its Behavior Detection Activities  [https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-17-608r] * Telling Lies: Fact, Fiction, and Nonsense [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/201411/telling-lies-fact-fiction-and-nonsense-maria-hartwig] * TSA’s Secret Behavior Checklist to Spot Terrorists [https://theintercept.com/2015/03/27/revealed-tsas-closely-held-behavior-checklist-spot-terrorists] * A Review of 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell [https://newrepublic.com/article/68000/blinkered] Thanks to Mindseye [https://mindseye-music.bandcamp.com/track/the-place-beyond-the-clouds-2] for our theme song!

This is most of the episode but if you want to hear the last 20 minutes, support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod [https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod]

Last episode we met two Princeton political scientists who are bad at virology. Today we learn that they are also bad at political science. Where to find us:  * Peter's newsletter [https://stringinamaze.net/] * Peter's other podcast, 5-4 [https://www.fivefourpod.com/] * Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase [https://www.maintenancephase.com/] Sources: * Lawrence Wright’s “The Plague Year” [https://www.lawrencewright.com/books/the-plague-year-america-in-the-time-of-covid] * Jonathan Howard’s “We Want Them Infected” [https://redhawkpublications.com/We-Want-Them-Infected-p547021769] * How the Pandemic Defeated America [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/] * COVID-19: examining the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions [https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/impact-non-pharmaceutical-interventions-on-covid-19-transmission/covid-19-examining-the-effectiveness-of-non-pharmaceutical-interventions-executive-summary.pdf] * US State Restrictions and Excess COVID-19 Pandemic Deaths [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11282449/] * Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions [https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-024-19799-7] * Policy Interventions, Social Distancing, and SARS-CoV-2 Transmission [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7833753/pdf/main.pdf] * The Impact of Vaccines and Behavior on US Cumulative Deaths [https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/16937-BPEA-BPEA-SP24_WEB-Atkeson-Kissler.pdf] * Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates [https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/05/1059828993/data-vaccine-misinformation-trump-counties-covid-death-rate] * Report for the Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry [https://www.covid19inquiry.scot/sites/default/files/ev-documents/sci-dcrxxx-000001.pdf] * The Effectiveness Of Government Masking Mandates  [https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01072] * School closures during COVID-19 [https://ebm.bmj.com/content/28/3/164] * COVID-19–Related School Closures [https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/1/23-1215_article] * The Effects of School Closures on COVID‑19 [https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40258-021-00702-z.pdf] * Higher COVID-19 Deaths with Later School Closure in the United States [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10275350/pdf/nihms-1854274.pdf] * Reopening America’s Schools [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15582159.2020.1822731] * Reading literacy decline in Europe [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095947522500074X?dgcid=rss_sd_all] * DeSantis vs. Newsom [https://archive.ph/X9pCG#selection-1431.0-1431.19] * Red States Have Seen Less Learning Loss [https://www.educationnext.org/red-states-have-seen-less-learning-loss-post-pandemic-scores-nations-report-card-naep/] * Political partisanship and mobility restriction  [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7437478/] * Republicans Aren’t New To The Anti-Vaxx Movement [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republicans-arent-new-to-the-anti-vaxx-movement/] * KFF poll on anti-vaxx beliefs [https://www.kff.org/health-information-and-trust/poll-finding/kff-tracking-poll-on-health-information-and-trust-january-2025/] Thanks to Mindseye [https://mindseye-music.bandcamp.com/track/the-place-beyond-the-clouds-2] for our theme song!

Two political scientists look back at a deadly pandemic and ask, "could we have done even less?" Where to find us:  * Peter's newsletter [https://stringinamaze.net/] * Peter's other podcast, 5-4 [https://www.fivefourpod.com/] * Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase [https://www.maintenancephase.com/] Sources: * Lawrence Wright’s “The Plague Year” [https://www.lawrencewright.com/books/the-plague-year-america-in-the-time-of-covid] * The 2019 WHO report [https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/329438/9789241516839-eng.pdf?sequence=1]                 * 30‐day mortality following COVID‐19 [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9115089/] * COVID-19: examining the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions [https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/impact-non-pharmaceutical-interventions-on-covid-19-transmission/covid-19-examining-the-effectiveness-of-non-pharmaceutical-interventions-executive-summary.pdf] * Policy Interventions, Social Distancing, and SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in the United States [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7833753/pdf/main.pdf] * What we can learn from Sweden [https://science.orf.at/stories/3229029] * A review of the Swedish policy response to COVID-19 [https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/62153886C92EE99336895AFA16D71B48/S1744133121000256a.pdf/soft-law-and-individual-responsibility-a-review-of-the-swedish-policy-response-to-covid-19.pdf] * How Sweden approached the COVID‐19 pandemic [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9538368/] * The first eight months of Sweden’s COVID‐19 strategy [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7537539/] * The Swedish COVID-19 Response Is a Disaster [https://time.com/5899432/sweden-coronovirus-disaster/] * Excess mortality in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic  [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11293825/] * Comparing drivers of pandemic economic decline 2020 [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7687454/] * How Sweden approached the COVID-19 pandemic [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.16535] * Comparisons of all-cause mortality between European countries and regions [https://www.ons.gov.uk/Peoplepopulationandcommunity/Birthsdeathsandmarriages/Deaths/Articles/Comparisonsofallcausemortalitybetweeneuropeancountriesandregions/Datauptoweekending3september2021] * Jonathan Howard’s “We Want Them Infected.” [https://redhawkpublications.com/We-Want-Them-Infected-p547021769] * Deaths: Leading Causes for 2021 [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr73/nvsr73-04.pdf] * Stay-at-home orders associate with subsequent decreases in COVID-19 cases and fatalities in the United States [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34111123/]  * Did the Timing of State Mandated Lockdown Affect the Spread of COVID-19?  [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8357543/pdf/jpmph-21-071.pdf] * US State Restrictions and Excess COVID-19 Pandemic Deaths [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11282449/] Thanks to Mindseye [https://mindseye-music.bandcamp.com/track/the-place-beyond-the-clouds-2] for our theme song!

By popular demand we are releasing last month's Patreon bonus episode on the main feed! We chart the transformation of the lab leak from an unfounded theory promoted by right-wing cranks to an unfounded theory promoted by liberal journalists. Where to find us:  * Peter's newsletter [https://stringinamaze.net/] * Peter's other podcast, 5-4 [https://www.fivefourpod.com/] * Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase [https://www.maintenancephase.com/] Thanks to Mindseye [https://mindseye-music.bandcamp.com/track/the-place-beyond-the-clouds-2] for our theme song!