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John Arnold Made a Fortune at Enron. Now He’s Declared War on Bad Science
Article

John Arnold Made a Fortune at Enron. Now He’s Declared War on Bad Science

Wired, 2017


Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Eye Opening
  • Eloquent

Recommendation

The beauty of science is that it’s transparent and reproducible. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. But according to the Reproducibility Project, only 40% of published study results can be replicated. Today’s science also overemphasizes positive results: Equally relevant insights that you can glean from failed experiments will never make any headlines. Billionaire John Arnold is out to reduce scientific bias using the same healthy respect for data that made him millions of dollars at Enron. getAbstract recommends this summary to scientists and science aficionados.

Take-Aways

  • John Arnold was a billionaire at age 33. He retired at 38, deciding to dedicate the rest of his life to philanthropy.
  • Arnold and his wife Laura created the Arnold Foundation but realized that it was hard to locate the most effective charities, because most charities don’t publish all their data.
  • The Arnolds found that many fields, including psychology, nutrition and pharmacology, prioritize novel and compelling research results while discarding dull but important data.

About the Author

Sam Apple writes for Wired and teaches science writing at the University of Pennsylvania.