Not even the flu can keep Producer Pat from finally bringing you this week’s episode of TRC! First, Darren explores whether or not encouraging people to follow their passion when choosing a career is sage advice. Next, Cristina takes on a listener’s suggestion and points a skeptical lense at the weather forecasts made by the Farmer’s Alamanacs. Finally, Adam checks into whether or not the claim that Subway has Halal-only restaurants is fact or fiction.
Download direct: mp3 file
If you like the show, please leave us a review on iTunes!
Should You Follow Your Career Passion?
Reference Book: Doing Good Better by William MacAskill
Farmer’s Alamanac
Popular Mechanics: Why You Shouldn’t Trust the Farmer’s Almanac’s Prediction of a Brutal Winter
Discovery: Farmer’s Almanacs: Right as Rain or 3 Dollar Bills?
NPR: Decoding The Allure Of The Almanac
Neurologica Blog: The Old Poor Richard’s Farmers’ Almanac
Office of the Washington State Climatologist
Huff Post: Cold And Snow Predicted By Old Farmers’ Almanac
The Vane: The Weather Forecasts in the Old Farmer’s Almanac Are a Bunch of Malarkey
Slate: A Very Early Yet Highly Accurate Guide to This Coming Winter
The Vane: ‘Godzilla El Niño’ Coming to Raid Your Fridge, Teach Your Kids Bad Words
Climate.gov: August 2015 El Niño update: Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious
Subway Becoming Halal
UK: Subway caves to Muslim demands, removes pork, sells only halal meat – Jihad Watch
Subway Removes Pork Products from Their Menu? – Snopes
Stop Halal meat replacing the British traditions in Subway. – Change.org
Love the podcast!
But I was listening to your farmers almanac segment when I heard a bit of surprising woo from you! A statement was made that a 50% correct prediction rate was no better than flipping a coin. What? you guys are into statistics and should know better than that.
Simple example – if I roll a die, odd are I can correctly predict the outcome 1 out of 6 times by chance. If in fact I correctly predict the outcome 50% of the time, that is MUCH better than chance.
It depends on the metric for the weather prediction, but it is rarely binary as with flipping a coin. There are many factors involved, and many possible outcomes (like the die) so that a 50% correct prediction should indicate much better than chance.
-Dan Kuchta
A motivating discussikn is definitely worth comment.
I believe that you ought to publis more on this
topic, it might not be a taboo matter buut typjcally people don’t talk about such issues.
To the next! Cheers!!