[vmurthy]

- The scientific method. It has served us well broadly speaking over the last 3 centuries

- Humans oscillating between greed and fear. Has happened for the last few millennia :-)

- Showing up on time , being reliable and doing your best leading to good outcomes

I usually base my decisions around these 3..

[natalyarostova]

Scientific method is undergoing intense changes in methodology. I suspect in 50 years the way causal inference is done will in many areas be radically different.

[suifbwish]

Oh absolutely. I often read scientific journal articles which make suggestions of direct relations between different factors when it’s very likely they are correlational.

Example: being overweight increases risk of heart disease.

Alternate Possibility: being inactive/not exercising increases risk of heart disease and being overweight tends to co-occur with not exercising.

In the above example it’s possible that an inactive person who is not overweight has similar liklihood of heart disease.

[nikolasn]

Thank you, those are some nice suggestions. I particularly like the idea of staying true to the scientific method, showing up on time, being reliable, doing your best, and optimizing for the best outcome. It often seems like the simplest things are the most important.