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Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
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Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
@SpencrGreenberg
A psychology researcher/mathematician/entrepreneur. I tweet about psychology, society, rationality, science, and philosophy. My book: 12leversbook.com
New York
spencergreenberg.com
Joined December 2011
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  • Pinned
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    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    Nov 16, 2020
    Each week I send One Helpful Idea via email (a 30 second read aiming to help you understand the world or improve your life), along with a new Clearer Thinking podcast episode where I discuss 4 or 5 "ideas that matter" with a brilliant guest. Sign up here:
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    One Helpful Idea - Subscribe | Clearer Thinking
    From clearerthinking.org
  • user avatar
    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    Jun 26, 2020
    The seven deadly sins, updated: 1. Envy: Instagram 2. Sloth: Netflix 3. Greed: Amazon 4. Lust: Pornhub 5. Pride: LinkedIn 6. Gluttony: Grubhub 7. Wrath: Twitter
  • user avatar
    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    Aug 11, 2024
    Does astrology work? We tested the ability of 152 astrologers to see if they could demonstrate genuine astrological skill. Here is how the study was designed and what we found (including a result that really surprised me): ๐Ÿงต
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    6.2M06.2M
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    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    Jul 31, 2023
    We got this extremely interesting set of responses from an applicant for a software engineer job opening. Spot anything odd about it?
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    1.4M01.4M
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    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    May 18, 2024
    Before Twitter locked down its API, I started an analysis to figure out (empirically) "the 'greatest' tweets ever from intellectuals." Here's an abbreviated version based on the analysis I was able to do: [24 'greatest' tweets from intellectuals megathread] ๐Ÿงต
    3.3M03.3M
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    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    May 18, 2024
    Replying to @SpencrGreenberg
    6) ๐Ÿฅ‡ Award for the best "hilarious textbook reference" goes to @quantian1
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    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    May 18, 2024
    Replying to @SpencrGreenberg
    1) ๐Ÿฅ‡ Award for the best "adorable personification of an animal" goes to @juliagalef
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    217K0217K
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    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    Aug 11, 2024
    Replying to @SpencrGreenberg
    In conclusion, despite believing they could do it, the 152 astrologers seemed to lack any ability to match people to their astrological charts. You can learn a lot more about the study (including its limitations and how we sought to address them) here:
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    Study Report: Can astrologers truly gain insights about people from entire astrological charts?
    From clearerthinking.org
    251K0251K
  • user avatar
    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    May 18, 2024
    Replying to @SpencrGreenberg
    2) ๐Ÿฅ‡ Award for the best "self-improvement insight" goes to @jeanqasaur
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    221K0221K
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    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    Aug 11, 2024
    Replying to @SpencrGreenberg
    We can compare how frequently astrologers got different numbers of questions correct to how often we'd expect them to get different numbers correct if they were all guessing totally at random with no skill. The two distributions match very closely.
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    1.2M01.2M
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    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    Nov 12, 2024
    Statistics is hard enough for most people as it is; please stop using the phrases "type I" and "type II" errors. Unless, of course, your goal is to confuse people - in which case, congrats - you've succeeded! Just say "false positive" and "false negative" instead.
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    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    Aug 11, 2024
    Replying to @SpencrGreenberg
    So, how did astrologers do overall? If they'd gotten even 23% of questions right (slightly above the 20% of random guessing), the study would have come out in favor of astrology. But astrologers as a group performed indistinguishable from random guessing, getting < 21% right.
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    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    Aug 11, 2024
    Replying to @SpencrGreenberg
    But perhaps the less experienced astrologers were just dragging down the performance of the group? We looked at how performance varied based on astrological experience. More experienced astrologers did not do better than less experienced ones despite being far more confident.
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    Spencer Greenberg ๐Ÿ”
    @SpencrGreenberg
    Aug 11, 2024
    Replying to @SpencrGreenberg
    Much to my surprise, astrologers had very low agreement with each other on the chart for each person. If astrologers picked charts at random, they would agree with each other 20% of the time. In our study, even the most experienced astrologers only agreed 28% of the time.
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