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Oct 11 18 tweets 7 min read Read on X
The Nazca Lines are an amazing sight to see.

It took nearly a century to figure out just 430 of these Nazca geoglyphs, but now AI nearly doubled the number overnight, adding 303 new geoglyphs to our knowledge.

AI might've also revealed why the Nazca lines were constructed!🧵 Image
For background, the Nazca lines are a set of exceptionally well-preserved geoglyphs and walking routes that exist in the agriculturally-unsuitable Nazca Pampa region.

The traditionally-known lines seem to depict things that make sense. For example, here's a spider: Image
Line construction is a practice from the region that's at least 2,000 years old and it results in lots of very interpretable pictures, like this monkey: Image
The lines have been classified into many types.

It's believed that the different types are distributed in geographically distinct areas, created in different times, and most obviously, that they have different meanings. Image
The new lines discovered by AI are a bit harder for humans to understand or pick out, but when the AI points them out, it becomes apparent we were overlooking them, perhaps because they're so weird and foreign to us

They're also older and smaller than known ones. Take a look: Image
These newly-discovered Nazca lines depict very figurative rather than literal shapes, but they also depict ritual, and maybe even lawgiving or war.

These lines are weird precisely because they had to be distinct to suit their purpose.

I'll come back to this. Image
The new lines were found by the AI like so.

The AI highlighted certain areas as being particularly 'line-like' (A), and then the researchers visually inspected the photographs the AI had been provided (B).

After the AI pointed it out, it was often clear something was there. Image
This exercise was repeated over and over again throughout the whole region between Lima and Nazca, leading to a lot of new targets. Image
The team then set out on foot and by drone to see if the lines were real, in-person.

Real lines are clearly dug into the ground and often contain artefacts like pottery shards and such.

The AI found them and the humans confirmed them. Image
A very large number of these new discoveries went overlooked for so long because they were reliefs.

Reliefs are less distinct in the landscape, but are still persistent, like the better-known lines. They also depict different things than the lines do: Image
When you look at the reliefs, you'll see evidence of ancient domestication and lawgiving or warring.

The lines, however, more often just depict an animal. Why might they be so different? It's not like the complexity differed all that much. Image
Here's the meat:

What makes these lines so interesting is that the AI makes it clear that they had distinct purposes.

The relief-type lines that show people and such? Well, those mark trail-heads. They're less distinct because you're intended to be close to them! Image
If you wanted to navigate across the region, you could walk until you saw a certain relief, and then you'd know what trail to take!

Critically, this network was informal. The state, however, made a formal network leading to the Cahuachi Pyramids, which were a ceremonial center. Image
The lines rather than reliefs are younger because they're associated with state formation/organization.

The region's state co-opted the informal, cultural practice of making reliefs for navigation in order to set up the line network to get to and be seen from the temple complex! Image
And there we have it! We might now know the purpose of and who funded the Nazca lines. (Thanks, AI!)

To review, there's an old, informal line network used for navigation. You walk up a trail, you see a relief. The number of these known just blew up due to AI.
The old informal line network where you see a relief then you go down the right trail was formalized by the region's state to create massive lines, sharp breaks that are more obvious from a distance

These lead to and support the temple complex, facilitating worship/organization Image
And guess what? With the power of AI, we're just getting started.

The authors of the study said that there are more than 250 additional geoglyphs flagged by the AI, which they didn't have the time to examine in person.

What else will we learn about this ancient civilization? Image
If you want to read the study, you can do so here: pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

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More from @cremieuxrecueil

Oct 11
OK, this is just absurd now. The Biden-Harris administration has attacked three emergency services agencies in a week because apparently these exams are too hard for Black people.

Want to see how hard this exam is? Let's look at some questions.

First up: Image
For the next two questions, you'll have to use the following information that you can reference at any time during the test: Image
Now can you... do basic addition and subtraction?! Image
Read 22 tweets
Oct 9
Lots of people are saying this is frivolous because firefighters should have to pass some test, but let's go ahead and look at some test questions so you can see why this test is just way too hard.

This first one's a doozy:Image
Sorry if you're already struggling, but please know: You're not allowed to use a calculator for this one. Image
Third question: Try not to get too disoriented. Image
Read 22 tweets
Oct 4
Lots of people attacking this decision, but do you think YOU could pass the POST?

Here's a thread of test questions.

Question 1: Image
If you're already struggling, don't worry, just keep plugging in your answers.

For questions 2 and 3 you'll have to do some addition and subtraction: Image
The test might seem too tough for you now, but just wait until you see question number 4: Image
Read 19 tweets
Oct 3
"SAT scores just reflect zip codes" is probably dead.

A new study used a sample of 760,000 military children whose families were randomly assigned to different counties/zips and found living in a +1 SD county or zip code for twenty years upped scores by just 0.05 or 0.19 d:Image
That 1 SD gap between Blacks and Whites? It's not explained by Blacks living in about 0.6 SD worse neighborhoods. Maybe about 10% is.

That's probably to much though, because the instrumental variable analysis suggested the sign of the effect on SAT scores was negative! Image
The authors had this to say on the negative estimated effect on SAT totals:

Looking closely, all of the causal estimates of place effects on SAT scores were at best marginally significant, unlike the effects on attained income, college attendance, and earnings. Image
Read 4 tweets
Sep 25
The College Board just released this year's SAT scores!

I thought I'd go ahead and put everything in familiar terms and make some plots.

This thread will have a lot of pictures. First up: How did everyone do? Image
All of the typical race differences are there. Blacks did roughly 15 IQ points worse, Hispanics did about 10 points worse, Asians did similarly better, etc.

If we scale all that by the sizes of the populations who took the tests, we get this: Image
Another way to look at this data is to stack everyone into a single population, like so: Image
Read 10 tweets
Sep 24
A few days ago, I wrote about evidence that the Counter-Reformation impeded scientific progress in the Catholic world relative to the Protestant one.

The evidence doesn't stop there. Lots of places diverge predictably🧵

First, Catholic and Protestant German cities:
Image
When does Spain fall behind the Netherlands and Britain?

After they got worked up about Protestant cells in the country, leading to a crackdown. Image
When did the Catholic Dutch fall behind the Protestant Dutch?

After the Spanish reasserted themselves in the southern parts of the Low Countries. Image
Read 9 tweets

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