The AlphaMind Podcast - Dr Brian Keating: Confirmation Bias and How Evidence Sometimes Loses Out to Emotion.

Dr Brian Keating: Confirmation Bias and How Evidence Sometimes Loses Out to Emotion.

04/29/20 • 65 min

This week’s guest is Dr Brian Keating, Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego.

In this podcast, we interview Dr Keating about some of the connections which bind trading, investing and science. Dr Keating talks about how scientists, despite being held on some sort of an intellectual pedestal, are human, and are just as prone to the foibles and behavioural errors which are common to people in all fields, including trading.

The theme, which resonates throughout this interview, alludes to the meta game of science and trading, something which was captured in a quote by Dr Keating, and which featured prominently in Greg Zuckerman’s 2019 book about the trading legend Jim Simons, ‘The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution.’ The quote is:

‘Scientists are human, sometimes all too human. When desire and data are in collision, evidence sometimes loses out to emotion.’

Amongst main themes explored in this interview are; confirmation bias, ego, and our ability, or even inability, to separate our outcomes from our ego.

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Dr Keating's research area is the study of the cosmic microwave background and its relationship to the origin and evolution of the universe. In 2001 Dr Keating conceived the first Cosmic Microwave Background B-mode observing campaign, called BICEP, which sought to find evidence of what (and how) the universe looked a fraction of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang Explosion.

The BICEP project has been an outstanding success, and is still on-going today, however, it has never quite been able to achieve, unequivocally, its main and original purpose. Had it done so, we would almost certainly be talking to Dr Brian Keating, Nobel Laureate.

Dr Keating is the author of the popular science book ‘Losing the Nobel Prize’, which was selected by Amazon as one of the top science books of 2018.

This week’s guest is Dr Brian Keating, Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego.

‘Scientists are human, sometimes all too human. When desire and data are in collision, evidence sometimes loses out to emotion.’

Amongst main themes explored in this interview are; confirmation bias, ego, and our ability, or even inability, to separate our outcomes from our ego.

Dr Keating is the author of the popular science book ‘Losing the Nobel Prize’, which was selected by Amazon as one of the top science books of 2018.

Previous Episode

#41 Andrew Aziz - Founder of BearBullTraders: The Mind is in The Process

Andrew Aziz is a Retail Trader, Founder of the Bear Bull Community of Traders and is author of Amazon top-selling book, ‘How to Day Trade for a Living: Tools, Tactics, Money Management, Discipline and Trading Psychology’.

Andrew talks about his journey into trading after completing a PhD in Chemical Engineering, then abandoning a career in that field to focus on becoming a trader.

In this excellent interview Andrew opens up and shares his views on a wide range of themes, including how easy it is for traders to access markets but equally how difficult it is for traders due to the lack of mentors and guides, and how little good advice is available, allied to people’s over-optimism with regard to the realities of trading.

Themes discussed in this podcast include self-awareness, and how this leads to greater self-confidence, self-management, growth and progress. We also talk about the dreaded ego enemy and Andrew shares stories of when ego got the better of him in his trading in ways that were to prove extremely costly.

Andrews own humility shines through clearly in this podcast.

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Next Episode

#43 Paul Gordon – Discusses Bitcoin for the Crypto-Curious

Bitcoin, and the world of cryptocurrency, divides opinion. At one end of the scale you’ll find the cynics and sceptics, at the other end those who are fascinated by all things crypto, and in between is everyone else, by varying degrees.

The needle is however moving on this scale: Many cynics are becoming less cynical and more curious, and some of the more curious are starting to dabble in crypto as an investable asset class and a tradable instrument.

In the past week, Paul Tudor-Jones has announced that he has a small proportion of his private assets invested in bitcoin, whilst Renaissance Technologies, the world’s most successful hedge fund, has started exploring the possibility of trading Bitcoin futures.

This week, there is a lot of excitement around the Bitcoin ‘halving’ event, and articles about Bitcoin ‘Stock to Flow’ have recently grabbed a lot of attention.

In this episode, we have conducted our first interview with someone form the crypto world. We talk with Paul Gordon, founder of Coinscrum.

Paul is a former futures trader and broker who worked for major investment banks such as HSBC, and traded for himself. Paul become interested in Bitcoin well ahead of it gaining more widespread interest, and in 2012 founded Coinscrum, the world's first, and still the largest and most active, bitcoin/blockchain networking group. Soon afterwards, he left the world of futures trading to become involved in the world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as an investor, advisor, consultant, and advocate.

There are probably few people in the world who have the combined breadth of knowledge, and experience of markets and crypto that Paul has. He can seamlessly talk about the worlds of trading, broking, market analysis, and Bitcoin, crypto, and blockchain as well as their various technical aspects with a depth which will become clear as you listen to this episode.

Paul talks about the rise of cryptocurrencies, how they derive value, some of the challenges they face in gaining wider acceptance and credibility, and where they are on the journey to becoming more accepted as investable assets and tradable currencies.

Paul shares his knowledge and opinion in ways which will illuminate your understanding of cryptocurrencies in ways that few others can.

This interview has something for the cynical, the curious and everyone in between.

Paul also shares some of his own long-term analysis on the Bitcoin price and where it may be heading, though we would point out that Paul’s analysis and opinions, and those of all of us here at the AlphaMind podcast, do not constitute investment advice and are not to be taken as investment advice.

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