Top all-time · #18874
Pedro De Bruyckere
Personal blog · theeconomyofmeaning.comscience
Pedro De Bruyckere writes From experience to meaning..., a personal blog at theeconomyofmeaning.com about science. Since 2016, 4 different Hacker News readers have linked it 4 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Cited by HN commenters as a source on education and psychology claims: the Flynn effect, a learning-pyramid claim, and a grade-scale story about Einstein. The posts examine popular science myths.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Discover daily posts by Pedro De Bruyckere on education and research. Evidence-informed insights, critical reflections, and accessible writing on teaching, learning, and educational myths.
What Hacker News says?
I suggest reading the summary of https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Learning-Pyramid%3... which I was pointed towards by https://theeconomyofmeaning.com/2016/07/08/an-update-to-the-...
Comment linking /2016/07/08/an-update-to-the-learning-pyramid/
on “I will now send this to beginner programmers”Submitted Study where faking a smile makes you happy is irreproducable as a story · 6 points
HN discussionFlynn effect didn't slow down. It actually reversed. https://theeconomyofmeaning.com/2015/11/12/new-study-shows-r... It's like https://xkcd.com/603/ , except White Hat is is wrong on most accounts.
Comment linking /2015/11/12/new-study-shows-reversed-flynn-effect-no-more-rising-iqs/
on “Average IQ scores seem to have been falling and population ageing may be why”This is an Urban legend. Whoever did the original research missed the fact that the grade scale reversed between the time Einstein was a student and when they checked. The grade scale was 1 highest to 6 lowest when Einstein was a student, but had changed to 6 being highest to 1 lowest after he moved on. https://theeconomyofmeaning.com/2013/07/27/science-myths-did...
Comment linking /2013/07/27/science-myths-did-einstein-failed-his-fourth-grade-math-class/
on “Astonishing regularity in learning rate among college students”