lumpers and splitters

Talk on the Wild Side
by Lane Greene
Published 15 Dec 2018

Not to be outdone, a far-right Croatian nationalist called it “a wolf howl of Yugoslav nationalists for their lost country”.2 A declaration of the obvious was now fighting words. Many refused to read it. The Croatian prime minister said “Who in Croatia can support it?” Months later, the answer was in: thousands of people, tired of nationalist posturing, in all the republics. * People who classify and count languages can be broadly categorised as lumpers or splitters. Lumpers, looking at the linguistic facts of Yugoslavia, would insist that there is still a single language, despite the re-naming. (They’d probably also lump Macedonian in with Bulgarian, to the great irritation of the Macedonians.) Splitters observe the fine distinctions, would take account of what the people themselves say and believe, and would be more inclined to grant separate-language status to similar varieties.

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Newspaper stories about the Cornish revival movement are often snide and ill-informed: “Council splashes out £180,000 to try to stop the Cornish language dying out,” read a headline in the Daily Telegraph in 2015, “splashes out” speaking volumes: One splashes out on a silly thing one doesn’t really need. The article concludes with an unintentional insult, in a poll asking “Should the Cornish dialect be revived?” Though there is sometimes no clear-cut line between dialect and language – remember our “lumper” and “splitter” positions – Cornish has no relatives close enough to be a dialect of anything. It is a language. Keeping languages alive may not be strictly useful. Some scholars argue that linguistic diversity is akin to biodiversity, a good thing in and of itself. That metaphor breaks down in critical ways, though.

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Index A abortion debate 187 ad hominem tactic 46–7 adaptation 6, 7, 14, 94, 125 Africa 123–4, 138, 179, 204 African-American English 44, 164, 178–82 agglutinating languages 116, 117, 119–21 Ali, Muhammad 44 ambiguity 6, 7, 10, 29–31, 73–8, 100, 113–14, 211 analytic languages 4, 31, 114–15, 117, 119, 120–21, 125 appropriateness 176, 182, 213 Chapter 6, passim arbitrariness of the sign 17–18 Arnold, Matthew 38 audiovisual isomorphism 24 Austen, Jane 36 Australia 134, 138 automated parsing 70 “awesome” 109–10 B BabelFish 68, 83–4 Bagehot, Walter 36 Baldwin, Daryl 150 Bar-Hillel, Yehoshua 73 bare infinitives 118–19 Basque 138, 139, 151, 155 “be” see “to be” behaviourism 23 Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer 150 “benefits” 189–90 Benefits Street 190 “Berenstain Bears” 167–8 Big Data 83 big languages 5, 11–12, 21–2, 26, 122–5, 136, 149, 177 see also French; German; Russian bilingual countries 81–2, 134, 143–9 Billings, Josh 45 black American English 44, 164, 178–82 Bohr, Niels 62 Borges, Jorge Luis 16–17 Boroditsky, Lera 193, 194, 195 Boyle, Robert 16 Brexit 201–3 Bridge 179 Brigham Young University 159 Broca’s (or agrammatic) aphasia 43 Brown, James Cooke 22–7, 209 Burney, Fanny 37 Bush, George W. 164–5, 183 Bush, Jeb 203 “buxom” 106–9, 159, 187–8 C “can/may” 167–9 Canada 81–2, 134, 138, 143–9, 154, 155, 212 Candide 81–3 Cantonese 139–40 Carroll, Lewis 39 case 3–5, 13–14, 49–52, 61–2, 64, 117, 125, 173 Catalan 138, 139, 147–9, 155 centre-embedded structure 60 chain shift 98–102, 109 Champliaud, Emilie 153 change in language Chapter 4, passim Charles II, King 16 chatbots 66–7, 87 Chesterfield, Lord 111, 112 children metaphor 7–8 Chinese 23–4, 113–15, 121, 122, 138–40, 212 Chomsky, Noam 29 Christianity 15, 19, 111–12, 138, 151 Chubb, Ray 152, 153 clauses 39, 93–4, 113 relative 160–61, 172, 173, 174, 176 subordinate 49, 60 Clinton, Bill 51, 59, 189 code-switching 161, 164, 167, 174, 176, 213 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 38 colonialism 138 Comly, John 37 comma splices 52–3 conciseness 58–60 confirmation bias 194, 197 conjugation 51, 117, 125, 180 conquest theory 4–5 constitutions 134, 139, 143 contrastive analysis 181–2 Coptic 121, 138 Cornish 151–4 Cowan, John 27–8, 30–31 Cratylus 17 creole languages 123–4 Crick, Francis 43 Crystal, David 171 D Danish 123 spelling 102–3 tax 197–8 Dansk Sprognævn 102–3 Dante 136–7 death tax 183–6, 190, 196 “decimate” 108, 112 declension 50–51 deep learning 86–7, 89 Descartes, René 62, 65 descriptivism 5, 40, 41, 52–5, 58, 62, 63, 111 determiners 171–2, 174 dialects 6, 13, 40, 44–5, 127–31, 136, 139, 150, 213 at school 170, 173–82 lumpers and splitters 133 minorities 136, 154–5 diphthongs 127 Dole, Bob 59 Dostert, Leo 68 Dothraki language 20 Dryden, John 157–8, 161 E e-mail 12 Ebonics 179–80 Ecclesiastes 19 ecosystems 94, 95–6, 154, 212 Egyptian 121 Einstein, Albert 43, 45, 46 Eliot, George 38 Elvish language 19–20 Epstein, Joseph 48 Esperanto 10, 20–22, 26–7, 31, 209 Ethnologue 150 etymology 106–10 fallacy 108 folk 17 “Eugene Goostman” 66–7 euphemism treadmill 188 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) 133–4, 139, 152 evolution 6–7, 12, 13, 45, 101, 111, 120, 168 explicit teaching of grammar 89–90 “expresso/espresso” 103, 112 Extemporaneous Formal 164–5 F fake news 45 fake spellings 127 false syntax 37 Faraday, Michael 43 Farage, Nigel 201–3, 205 Faurisson, Robert 46–7 federalism 143, 149 fictitious worlds 19–20 Fielding, Henry 51 “fingered speech” 12 Fowler, H.

The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio
by William J. Bernstein
Published 26 Apr 2002

Would you want to hold a total-market fund in a retirement account? Only, in my opinion, if you want to keep things extremely simple and not have to own more than a few funds. Otherwise, in a retirement account, you’ll want to break the U.S. market into separate parts. Table 13-1. U.S. Total Market Funds Lumpers and Splitters It’s now time to tackle an extremely difficult issue—one that is so thorny that even experts occasionally disagree strongly about it. Namely, is it worthwhile to further break down the U.S. stock market into subclasses, such as small and large, or value and growth? The naysayers (lumpers) have a very simple and powerful argument: because the market is ruthlessly efficient, there are no segments of the market that offer superior long-term expected returns.

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Index Note: locators in bold indicate additional display material. 12b-1 fees, mutual funds, 203–205 403(b), 212 401(k) fees and expenses, 211–213 9-10 Decile index, 248 Abuse by brokers, 198 Active fund management failure of, 78-99, 103 index funds, 96-99, 245, 250 mutual funds, 78-99 pension/retirement fund impact, 86 tax consequences, 99 Advisors, investment hiring, 293–294 performance of, 77–78 Akamai Technologies, 152 Allen, Frederick, 189 Allocation (See Asset allocation) Amazon, 56 Ambrose, Stephen, 131 American Century mutual funds, 205 American Funds Group, 216 American Greetings, 33, 244-245 Amortization schedule and death, 230–231, 235 AMP Inc., 151 Annualized stock returns, 26 Annuities historical, 9–13 pricing and risk, 13 variable annuity, 204-205 Arithmetic display, 21–22, Armstrong, Frank, 172 ASAF Bernstein, 216 “Asian Contagion,” 69 Asness, Cliff, 136 Asset allocation, 243–279 about, 243–244 bonds, 257–263, 258, 259 customization, 276–278 defined, 107–108 examples “In-Between Ida,” 266–271 “Sheltered Sam,” 266, 268–269, 271 “Taxable Ted,” 265–266, 267 “Young Yvonne,” 271, 272–274, 275 foreign stocks, 116–120, 255–257, 256 lumpers vs. splitters, 248–255, 251–253 vs. press coverage, 223-224 retirement rebalancing, 291–293 children, teaching, 274 Asset Allocation (Gibson), 225 Asset bloat, mutual funds, 83–85 Asset classes, expected long-term returns, 70, 71 A-T-O Inc., 149–150 Avon, 150 Back-of-the-envelope approach to retirement savings, 230–234, 238–239 Bagehot, Walter, 129 Barber, Brad, 199 Barra/Vanguard asset classes, 249 Baruch, Bernard, 176 Bear market in 1973-1974, 5–6, and retirement, 231–236 young savers, 236–239 (See also Bottom of cycle) Beardstown Ladies, 177 Behavioral finance, xi–xii, 163–188, 296-297 avoid excitement, 183–184 country club syndrome, 178–179, 187 earnings expectations of growth stocks, 173–175 entertainment and, 171–172, 183-184 growth (great) companies, 185 myopic risk aversion, 172-172, 184-185 origins of, 165-166 overall portfolio returns, 186 overconfidence, 167–169, 181–183 patterns vs. randomness in market, 25, 175–177 recency, 170-171 regret avoidance, 177 Berkshire Hathaway, 91, 92 Bernard Baruch (Grant), 224 Bernstein, Peter, 96 Bid/ask spread, 94–95, 195–196 Bills historic returns, vs. other instruments, 20–22, 28–29 and interest rates, historic perspective on, 14–15 as short-term credit, 14–15 (See also U.S.

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Financial Corporation, 83 CNBC, 219, 224 Coca-Cola, 166 Cohen, Abby Joseph, 169 Coke, 151 College, saving for, 240 Commercial paper, 260 Commissions brokers, 195–202 financial advisors, 293–294 impact on investment, 4, 5 mutual fund costs, 94–95 Common Sense on Mutual Funds (Bogle), 224 Common Stocks as Long Term Investments (Smith), 65 Company characteristics cyclical companies and risk, 64, 277-278 default and bankruptcy, 69–70 great company/great stock fallacy, 173–175 quality and returns, 34–38 size and returns, 32–34 stock buy-backs, 55, 60 Compound interest, 4 “Consols,” Bank of England, 14–16, 17, 19 Contrarian Market Strategy: The Psychology of Market Success (Dreman), 87 Cooley, Philip L., 231 Corporate bonds, high-quality, 260 Country club syndrome, 178–179, 187 Cowles, Alfred III, 76-78, 87 Cowles Foundation, 77 Crash, stock market, benefits of, 61–62, 62, 145–148, 160–161 Credit market, historical perspective, 6–7 Credit Mobilier scandal, 145 Credit risk, 13, 69–70 CRSP 9-10 Decile index, 248 CRSP (Center for Research in Security Prices), 88 Cubes ETF, 217, 254 Currency gold vs. paper, 16–18 volatility of, 71 Cyclical companies and risk, 64 DaimlerChrysler, 150 Dallas Morning News, 222 Danko, William, 239 DCA (dollar cost averaging), 282–283 “Death of Equities,” Business Week, 154–157 Death on (amortized) schedule, 230–231, 235 Default rate, companies, 69-70, 150n1 “Defined benefit” plan, 212 Defoe, Daniel, 135 Deutsche Bank, 210 Devil Take the Hindmost (Chancellor), 224 DFA (Dimensional Fund Advisors), 81, 103, 123, 216, 257 Digital Equipment, 151 Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA), 81, 103, 123, 216, 257 Discount brokerage, 199 Discount rate (DR) and Dow Jones Industrial Average, 48-54 explained, 46–47 Gordon Equation, 53–62 vs. present value, 46–48 stock price, 62–63 “true value” of Dow, 51–53 Discounted dividend model (DDM) Dow Jones Industrial Average, 48–54, 49–50 explained, 43–48 real returns and, 68–69 Disney, 158, 166 Displacement, Minsky’s, 136, 140, 144, 145, 148, 149, 152 Diversification and rebalancing, 287–288 Diversified individual stock portfolio, 99-102 Dividend multiple, 57–58, 60–61 Dividends of Dow, 48-51 Gordon Equation, 54–55 growth and retained earnings, 59–60 and real returns, 67–72 stock market crash, as future possibility, 61–62 Diving engines, mania, 134–135 Dollar cost averaging (DCA), 282–283 Dot-com (See Internet/dot-com) Double dipping (broker), 196 Dow 36,000 (Glassman and Hassett), 53, 264 Dow Jones Industrial Average and discounted dividend model (DDM), 48–54, 49–50 DR [See Discount rate (DR)] Dreman, David, 87 Duke of Bridgewater, 141 Dulles, John Foster, 148 Dunn’s Law, 97–98, 102, 215 Durant, William Crapo, 148 Duration of returns, and retirement planning, 237–239 EAFE (Morgan Stanley Capital Index Europe, Australia, and Far East), 33, 109, 117–119 Earnings expectations of growth stocks, 173–175 retained, 59–60 without dividends, 55 East India Company, 142–143 Easy credit, and bubbles, 136 Econometric Society, 77 Econometrica, 77 Edison, Thomas, 132–133 Edison Electric, 133 Edleson, Michael, 283, 285 Education of brokers, 192, 194–195, 200–201 Efficient market hypothesis, 88 Efficient Solutions (software), 235 Ellis, Charles, 61, 96, 214, 225, 244 EMC Inc., 57 Emergencies, saving for, 240 Emerging markets, 31, 37, 38, 72, 94, 95, 124, 125, 156, 188, 255, 257, 268, 272, 274, 276, 283 England (See Britain) Enron, 161 Entertainment, investment as, 171–172, 183-184 Equities (See Stocks) ETFs (exchange-traded funds), 216, 217, 254, 255 eToys, 57 Euphoria, and bubbles, 136 European interest rates, historical perspective, 8–13 Exchange-traded funds (ETFs), 216, 217, 254, 255 Expected returns growth stocks, 173–175 long-term, 55, 70, 71 myopic risk aversion, 172-173, 184-185 overconfidence, 167–169, 181–183 vs. real returns, 68–69 Expense ratio (ER) in mutual fund costs, 94–95 Expenses (See Fees and expenses) Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (Mackay), 151 Fair value of stock market, 47-53 Fama, Eugene, 37, 88-89, 120-121, 186, 257 Federal Reserve Bank, 146, 152, 159, 176 Fee-only financial advisors, 294 Fees and expenses, 401(k), 211–213 Fees and expenses, mutual funds differences in funds, 209–211 Forbes Honor Roll, 222 front load, 207 index funds, 245, 250, 254 load, 79, 203–205, 216 management fees, 206 no-load, 205–206, 215 Fidelity Capital Fund, 83 Fidelity Dividend Growth Fund, 207 Fidelity Magellan, 91–93, 97 Fidelity mutual funds, 205, 207–209, 210 Fidelity Select Technology Fund, 207–209 Fidelity Spartan funds, 216 Fiduciary responsibility of broker (lack of), 192 Financial Analysts Journal, 244 Financial calculator, 230, 237 Financial goals, 229, 239–240 First Quadrant, 88 Fisher, Irving, 43–48, 56, 229 Folios, 102 A Fool and His Money (Rothchild), 224 Forbes, Malcolm, 87–88 Forbes Honor Roll, 222 Forecasting Cowles and, 76-79, 87 investment newsletters and, 77, 78, 86, 87 Foreign stocks and returns asset allocation in portfolios, 116–120, 255–257, 256 growth vs. value stocks, 36–37 stability, societal, 29–32 tax efficiency of, 264 Fortune, 213, 221 Fouse, William, 95-97 French, Kenneth, 33–34, 35–37, 120 Fuller, Russell, 174 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 148 Gambling, 171–172 Garzarelli, Elaine, 169 GDP (gross domestic product) and technological diffusion, 132-133 GE (General Electric), 33, 244 General Electric (GE), 33, 244 General Motors, 65 Gibson, Roger, 225 Gillette, 151 Glass-Stegall Act, 193 Glassman, James, 53, 264 Global Investing (Brinson and Ibbotson), 225 Global stocks (See Foreign stocks) GNMA fund, Vanguard, 216 Go-Go years (1960-1970), 83, 148–151 Goetzmann, William, 30 Gold, (precious metals stocks), 123–124, 155 Gold mining, 69 Gold standard, 16–18, 145–146 Goldman Sachs Corporation, 147–148, 169 Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation, 148 Gordon Equation, 53–62, 192 Government securities, 259–260 Graham, Benjamin Depression-era mortgage bonds, 185 Hollerith Corporation, later IBM, 78 on income production, 44 on investor’s chief problem, 165 pre-1929 stock bubble, 57 Security Analysis, 157–158 Graham, John, 87 Grant, James, 224–225 Great company/great stock fallacy, 173–175, 185 Great Depression fear of short-term losses, 172–173 Fisher’s gaffe, 43 Graham on, 157–158 impact of, 5–6 manias, history of, 145–148 societal stability and DR, 64–65 Great Man theory, 95–96 Greenspan, Alan, 246 Gross domestic product (GDP) and technological diffusion, 132–134 Growth stocks (“good” companies) asset allocation, 247, 248–255, 251–253 earnings expectations of, 173–175 Graham on, 158 returns of, 34-38 “Gunning the Fund,” 207-209 Halley, Edmund, 138 Hammurabi, 7 Hard currency (gold), 16-20 Harrison, John, 142–143 Harvey, Campbell, 87 Hassett, Kevin, 53, 264 Hedge funds, 178–179 Herd mentality and overconfidence, 166-176, 181, 182 Hewlett-Packard, 158 High-quality corporate bonds, 260 High Yield bonds, 69–70 “Hindsight bias,” 8 History of investing and returns (Pillar 2), 127–162 about, xi, 296 ancient, 6–9 bonds, 13–22 European, middle ages to present, 9–13 on risk, 11-13, 22-29, 38-39 stocks investing in U.S., 4–6 outside U.S., 29–32 prior to twentieth century, 20 twentieth century, 20–22 summary on risk and return, 38-39 Treasury bills in twentieth century, 20–22, 23 Hollerith Inc., later IBM, 78 House, saving for, 240 Hubbard, Carl M., 231 IAI, 211 Ibbotson, Roger, 225 IBM (International Business Machines), 78, 83, 150, 151 Immediate past as predictive, behavioral economics, 170–171 “Impact cost,” mutual funds, 84, 85, 92, 94, 208, 211 Impatience, societal, and discounted dividend model (DDM), 46 “In-Between Ida,” asset allocation example, 269-271 Income production and discounted dividend model [discounted dividend model (DDM)], 43–73 Index fund advantages of, 95-105 bonds, 257–263, 258–259 defined, 97 exchange-traded funds (ETFs), 216, 217, 254, 255 performance and efficient market hypothesis, 95–98, 102–104 vs. performance of top 10% funds, 81 sectors in portfolio building, 122–124, 250, 251–253 tax efficient, 99 INEPT (investment entertainment pricing theory), 172 Inflation bond performance, 16-20 and gold standard, 16–18 government response to, 19–20 inflation risk, 13 and stocks, 20, 24 Inflation-adjusted returns earnings growth, 60 stocks, bonds and bills, 19, 20–22 young savers, 237–239 Inflation risk, 13 Information speed of transmission, 131 and stock prices, 89–90 Initial public offering (IPO), 134, 172 In Search of Excellence (Peters), 64 Instant gratification and discounted dividend model (DDM), 46 The Intelligent Asset Allocator (Bernstein, W.), vii, 110 Interest-rate risk, 13 Interest rates in ancient world, 6-8 annuity pricing, 10-12, 13 and bond yields, 10, 16-20 bonds and currency, changes from gold to paper (1900-2000), 17–19 as cultural stability barometer, 8–9 European, 8-13 Fisher’s discount rate (DR), 46–47 historic perspective on bills and bonds, 9-15 risk, 13 International Business Machines (IBM), 78, 83, 150, 151 Internet Capital Group, 152 Internet/dot-com as bubble, 151–152, 153, new investment paradigm, 56–58 Invesco mutual funds, 205 Investment vs. purchase, 45 vs. saving, 134, vs. speculation, 44, 157 Investment advisors (See Advisors, investment) Investment and Speculation (Chamberlain), 157 Investment Company Act of 1940, 161, 203, 213, 217 Investment entertainment pricing theory (INEPT), 172 Investment newsletters, 77, 78, 87 Ip, Greg, 167 IPO (initial public offering), 134, 172 iShares, 251-253, 257 Japan dominance in late 1970s, 66–67, 181–182 technical progress and diffusion, 132 Jensen, Michael, 78–80, 214 Johnson, Edward Crosby, II, 83, 91 Johnson, Edward Crosby, III (“Ned”), 194, 207, 208, 210 Jorion, Phillippe, 30 Journal of Finance, 80, 225 Journalist coverage, 219–225 JTS (junk-treasury spread), 70 Junk bonds, 69–70, 150n1, 260, 263, 283, 288-289 Junk-treasury spread (JTS), 70 Kahneman, Daniel, 166 Karr, Alphonse, 162 Kassen, Michael, 207, 219 Kelly, Walt, 179 Kemble, Fanny, 143 Kemper Annuities and Life, 205, 210 Kemper Gateway Incentive Variable Annuity, 205 Kennedy, Joseph P., Sr., 147 Keynes, John Maynard, 41-42, 18, 221 Kindleberger, Charles, 136–137 Kmart, 34–35 Ladies Home Journal, 65 Large company stocks asset allocation, 244–255, and Fidelity Magellan Fund, 92 rebalancing, 289–290 returns, 32-34, 38, 72 Law, John, 137–138 Leinweber, David, 88 Leveraged buyouts, 150n1 Leveraged trusts, 147–148 Lipper, Arthur, 83 Litton, 149–150 Load funds fees, mutual funds, 79, 196, 203–205, 216 Long Term Capital Management, 129, 179 Long-term credit (See Bonds) Long-term returns asset classes, 16-39 bonds, in asset allocation, 113–114 expected, in asset classes, 70, 71 Gordon Equation, 53–62, 192 stocks, 20-39 LTV Inc., 83 Lumpers vs. splitters in asset mix, 247, 248–255, 251–253 Lynch, Peter, 91–93 Mackay, Charles, 151 Malkiel, Burton, 55, 224 Management fees, mutual funds, 206, 209-211 Manhattan Fund, 83–84 Manias, 129–152 about, 129–130 bubbles (See Bubbles) identification, 153 Internet, 151–152, 153 Minsky’s theory of, 136, 140 new technology, impact of, 130–134 1960-1970 (Go-Go years), 148–151 railroads, 143-145, 158, 159–160 Roaring Twenties, 145–148, 153 space race, 149–150 Margin purchases, 147–148 Market bottom, 153–162 about, 153–154 as best time to invest, 66 buying at, 283 “Death of Equities,” 154–157 Graham on Great Depression, 157–161 panic, 161–162 Market capitalization, 33, 123, 245 Market impact, mutual fund costs, 82, 94–95, 208 Market strategists, 87, 169, 176, 186, 219 Market timing, 87–88, 108, 220 Market value formula, 52 McDonald’s, 150, 158 Mean reversion, 170 Mean variance optimizer (MVO), 108 Media, 219–225 Mellon Bank, 96 Mental accounting, 177, 186 Merrill, Charles Edward, 193–194, 213 Merrill Lynch, 88, 193–194, 200 Microsoft, 59, 166, 185 Miller, Merton, 7 “Millionaire,” origin of term, 138 The Millionaire Next Door (Stanley and Danko), 239 Minding Mr.

How to Read a Paper: The Basics of Evidence-Based Medicine
by Trisha Greenhalgh
Published 18 Nov 2010

In other words, most of the ‘incompatibility’ in the results of these trials can be explained by the fact that embarking on a strategy (such as a special diet) that successfully reduces your cholesterol level will be substantially more likely to prevent a heart attack if you are 45 than if you are 85. This, essentially, is the essence of the grievance of Professor Hans Eysenck [21], who has constructed a vigorous and entertaining critique of the science of meta-analysis. In a world of lumpers and splitters, Eysenck is a splitter, and it offends his sense of the qualitative and the particular (see Chapter 12) to combine the results of studies that were performed on different populations in different places at different times and for different reasons. Eysenck's reservations about meta-analysis are borne out in the infamously discredited meta-analysis that demonstrated (wrongly) that there was significant benefit to be had from giving intravenous magnesium to heart attack victims.

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Index absolute risk reduction (ARR) absolutism absorptive capacity (organisations) academic detailing accessible standards ‘accountability culture’ accuracy ACP PIER additional risk adult learning advertising, DTCA advice for patients AGREE instrument allocation concealment, CONSORT checklist analysis of variance anecdotes DTCA anti-inflammatory drugs, non-steroidal anticoagulant therapy applicability clinical guidelines appraisal, critical, see critical appraisal ARR (absolute risk reduction) aspirin, meta-analyses assessment ‘blind’ clinical guidelines methodological quality needs assumptions, unquestioned avoidable suffering baseline data, CONSORT checklist baseline differences behavioural learning bias expectation selection systematic work-up (verification) biological markers of disease ‘blind’ assessment blinding, CONSORT checklist blobbogram, see forest plot bluffing, deliberate boundaries fuzzy organisational break-even point browsing, informal Caesarean section, see induced delivery CardioSource care, quality of care pathways, integrated (critical) case systematic bias case reports case studies ‘caseness’ causation tests for CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) CHAIN (Contact, Help, Advice and Information Network) ‘champions’ cheating with statistical tests checklist CONSORT context-sensitive QADAS systematic reviews data sources choice, informed cholesterol hypercholesterolaemia Cinderella conditions citation chaining classical management theory clinical applicability clinical decision-making clinical disagreement clinical evidence clinical freedom clinical guidelines implementation clinical heterogeneity clinical prediction rules ‘clinical queries’ clinical questions clinical trials non-randomised controlled RCT, see randomised controlled trials CME (continuing medical education) Cochrane, Archie Cochrane Collaboration Cochrane EPOC, see EPOC group cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) cohort studies systematic bias collection of data collective knowledge common sense comparable groups COMPASEN format completeness of follow-up complex interventions complexity theory confidence intervals diagnostic tests conflict of interest consistency CONSORT statement RCTs Contact, Help, Advice and Information Network (CHAIN) context context-sensitive checklist context-specific psychological antecedents quality improvement case studies receptive context for change continuing medical education (CME) continuous results control group controlled clinical trials, non-randomised controlled trials, randomised, see randomised controlled trials correlation correlation coefficient Pearson cost analysis cost cost-minimisation ‘cost per case’ counting-and-measuring perspective covariables criteria, stringent critical appraisal pre-appraised sources qualitative papers critical care pathways cross-sectional surveys cumulative meta-analyses current practice cut-off point DALY (disability-adjusted life year) data baseline collection dredging paired pooled skewed databases DARE EPOC primary studies systematic reviews TRIP see also sources, resources decision-making evidence-based evidence-based practice shared therapy deduction deep venous thrombosis (DVT) deliberate bluffing delivery, induced design complex interventions RCT research studies ‘detailers’ detailing, academic diabetes qualitative research shared decision-making yoga control diagnosis diagnostic sequence diagnostic tests validation ‘dice therapy’ dichotomy qualitative direct costs direct-to-consumer-advertising (DTCA) disability-adjusted life year (DALY) disagreement, clinical discourse analysis ‘doing nothing’ Donald, Anna ‘dose dredging, data ‘drug reps’ drug treatments drugs, see also therapy, treatments duration of follow-up DVT (deep venous thrombosis) DynaMed EBM, see evidence-based medicine economic analyses editorial independence education for patients educational intervention, specific effective searching efficacy analysis eligibility criteria embodied knowledge endpoints, surrogate epilepsy EPOC Group ethical considerations drug trials QALYs RCTs ethnography Evans, Grimley evidence application on patients formalisation hierarchy of level of ‘methodologically robust’ evidence-based decision-making evidence-based guidelines evidence-based medicine (EBM) criticisms essential steps reading papers web-based resources ‘evidence-based organisation’ evidence-based policymaking evidence-based practice expectation bias ‘expert opinion’ harmful practices explanation of results surrogate endpoints explanatory variables explicit methods explicit standards external validity ‘eXtra’ material Eysenck, Hans F-test falsifiable hypotheses federated search engines ‘female hypoactive sexual desire’ focus groups focusing, progressive follow-up forest plot formalisation of evidence formulation of problems freedom, clinical fuzzy boundaries ‘geeks’ general health questionnaire, SF-36 general psychological antecedents generalisability CONSORT checklist GIDEON (Global Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Network) GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) GOBSAT (good old boys sat around a table) ‘gold standard’ test good clinical questions Google Scholar Grimshaw, Jeremy Grol, Richard group relations theory groups comparable focus subgroups guidelines as formalised evidence implementation practice SQUIRE guiding principles Guyatt, Gordon hands-on information hanging comparative harmful practices ‘expert opinion’ health professionals evidence-based practice shared decision-making health-related lifestyle Helman, Cecil ‘here and now’ heterogeneity hierarchy of evidence pharmaceutical industry traditional histogram holistic perspective human factor human resources HYE (Healthy Years Equivalent) hypercholesterolaemia ‘hypoactive sexual desire’, female hypothesis, null ‘illness scripts’ implementation clinical guidelines guidelines IMRAD format inadequate optimisation inception cohort incremental cost independence, editorial indirect costs individualised approaches induced delivery inductive reasoning industry, pharmaceutical, see pharmaceutical industry infertility informal browsing information ‘jungle’ information needs informed choice ‘informed consent’ intangible costs integrated care pathways ‘integrated’ EBM teaching inter-rater reliability internet-accessible format interventions complex CONSORT checklist cost analysis effect of meta-analyses organisational simple specific educational interview qualitative research see also questionnaire invited review items (questionnaire) iterative approach journalistic review ‘jungle’, information Kappa score knowledge, collective knowledge managers laboratory experiments learning organisation least-squares methods ‘length of stay’ level of evidence lifestyle, health-related likelihood ratio nomogram literature searching long-term effects longitudinal survey looking for answers ‘lumpers and splitters’ mammogram management theory, classical Marinker, Marshall marketing masking, see blinding Maskrey, Neal McMaster Health Utilities Index Questionnaire mean inhibitory concentration (MIC) mean (statistical) measurements mechanistic approach mediator/moderator effect medicine evidence-based, see evidence-based medicine ‘narrative-based’ Medline systematic reviews meta-analyses aspirin interventions methodological quality assessment problematic descriptions systematic reviews ‘methodologically robust’ evidence mixed method case study motorcycle maintenance multiple interacting components n of 1 trial ‘narrative-based medicine’ narrative interview NAHA (National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts) National Guideline Clearinghouse needs assessment negative predictive value ‘negative’ trials neonatal respiratory distress syndrome NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) NNT (number needed to treat) nomogram, likelihood ratio non-diseases non-medical factors non-medical treatments non-normal data, see skewed data non-parametric tests non-randomised controlled clinical trials non-significant results, relevant non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) normal distribution ‘normal range’ normative orientation Nottingham Health Profile null hypothesis 30 objective of treatment one-stop shopping online material online tutorials, effective searching operational orientation opinion leader opportunity samples, questionnaire research option grids organisation, evidence-based organisational boundaries organisational case studies organisational interventions original studies original study protocol CONSORT checklist OSIRIS patient trial other-language studies outcome measures ‘outcomes research’ outliers p-value paired data papers economic analyses guidelines meta-analyses methodological quality qualitative research quality improvement case studies questionnaire research reading rejection systematic reviews ‘trashing’ participants qualitative research spectrum of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) patients advice or education for evidence application patient’s perspective ‘typical’ viewpoint withdrawal from studies Pearson correlation coefficient peer review per-protocol analysis personal digital assistants (PDAs) personal experiences perspective counting-and-measuring holistic patient’s researcher’s pharmaceutical industry evidence-based practice ‘grey literature’ pharmacokinetic measurements pharmacotherapy (PHA), see drug treatments philosophical-normative orientation PIER, see ACP PIER pilot trial piloting, questionnaire research ‘placebo’ effect clinical research studies methodological quality point-of-care resources policymaking evidence-based pooled data populations cohort studies guidelines qualitative research questionnaire research sub- positive predictive value post-test probability postal questionnaire practical-operational orientation practice, evidence-based practice guidelines pre-appraised sources pre-test probability precision prediction rules, clinical preliminary statistical questions prenatal steroid treatment press cutting prevalence primary studies PRISMA statement probability pre-/post-test problem formulation process evaluation professional behaviour prognosis progressive focusing PROMs (patient-reported outcome measures) prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test protocols original study protocol per-protocol analysis protocol-driven approach Psychiatry Online psychological antecedents, context-specific psychometric studies psychometric validity PubMed purposive sample Q-TWIST QADAS (Quality in Diagnostic and Screening tests) checklist QALY (quality-adjusted life year) QOF (Quality and Outcomes Framework) qualitative research quality methodological trial design quality improvement case studies quality improvement cycle ‘quality of care’ quality of life PROMs ‘queries’, clinical questionnaire ‘questionnaire mugger’ questionnaire research SF-36 general health questions good clinical preliminary statistical QUORUM statement quota sampling frame r-value random samples, questionnaire research randomised controlled trials (RCTs) checklist CONSORT statement cumulative meta-analyses hierarchy of evidence systematic bias rating scale measurements reading papers ‘real-life’ circumstances receptive context for change recruitment dates, CONSORT checklist reflexivity regression (statistical) rejection, papers relevant non-significant results reliability, inter-rater reporting format, structured reports, case reproducible tests research design ‘outcomes’ qualitative questionnaire research question researcher’s perspective secondary resources, Point-of-care respiratory distress syndrome, neonatal response rate retrospective subgroup analysis reviews clinical guidelines peer systematic Richard, Cliff risk, additional risk risk difference, see absolute risk reduction role preference safety improvement case studies sample size CONSORT checklist sciatica scientific jargon screening mammogram tests SD (standard deviation) search engines, federated searching effective literature secondary research clinical guidelines selection bias semi-structured interview sensitivity sensitivity analysis sequence generation, CONSORT checklist SF-36 general health questionnaire shared decision-making significance, statistical simple interventions skewed data snowball samples, questionnaire research social cognition social movement ‘social stigma’ ‘soft’ science Someren, Van sources pre-appraised synthesised specialised resources specific educational intervention specificity spectrum of participants ‘splitters and lumpers’ sponsors and stakeholders SQUIRE guidelines stages of change models stakeholders standard current practice standard deviation (SD) standard gamble measurements standardisation standards, explicit and accessible statin therapy statistical questions, preliminary statistical significance statistical tests appropriate evaluation statistics STEP (safety, tolerability, efficacy, price) steroid treatment, prenatal stratified random samples stringent criteria stroke anticoagulants meta-analyses methodological quality structured reporting format studies case cohort design in-/exclusion of participants organisational case original protocol other-language ‘patients’ primary process evaluation psychometric research question (un)original validation withdrawal of patients subgroups, complex interventions retrospective analysis subjective judgements subpopulations surfactant treatment surrogate endpoints surveys cross-sectional literature longitudinal Swinglehurst, Deborah synopses synthesised sources systematic bias systematic reviews databases evaluation evidence-based practice systematically skewed samples t-test table, two-by-two tails target population target variable X2-test tests diagnostic ‘gold standard’ non-parametric PSA reproducible screening statistical theoretical sampling therapy anticoagulant CBT decision-making ‘dice’ NSAID statin see also treatments therapy studies, trial design thrombosis, DVT time trade-off measurements traditional hierarchy of evidence transferable results ‘trashing’ papers Treasury’s viewpoint treatments drug non-medical objective of prenatal steroid see also therapy trials design n of ‘negative’ non-randomised controlled clinical pilot randomised controlled, see randomised controlled trials triangulation TRIP tutorials, online TWIST two-by-two table ‘typical’ patients underfunding ‘unoriginal’ studies unquestioned assumptions validation clinical guidelines diagnostic tests validity external psychometric variables explanatory statistical regression verification bias viewpoint of economic analyses ‘washout’ periods web-based resources, EBM Whole Systems Demonstrator work-up bias WTP/WTA (Willingness to Pay/Accept)

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries
by Kory Stamper
Published 14 Mar 2017

This is one (now infamous) definition of “hotel” found in Webster’s Third: a building of many rooms chiefly for overnight accommodation of transients and several floors served by elevators, usually with a large open street-level lobby containing easy chairs, with a variety of compartments for eating, drinking, dancing, exhibitions, and group meetings (as of salesmen or convention attendants), with shops having both inside and street-side entrances and offering for sale items (as clothes, gifts, candy, theater tickets, travel tickets) of particular interest to a traveler, or providing personal services (as hairdressing, shoe shining), and with telephone booths, writing tables and washrooms freely available Dancing compartments! Travel tickets! Candy! Where are these hotels today? Lexicographers tend to fall into one of two categories when it comes to writing definitions: lumpers and splitters. Lumpers are definers who tend to write broad definitions that can cover several more minor variations on that meaning; splitters are people who tend to write discrete definitions for each of those minor variations. This seems to be a natural inclination: lumpers have a very hard time teasing out the micro-meanings covered by their broad definitions, and splitters have a very hard time collapsing their incredibly concise definitions into one.

…

This seems to be a natural inclination: lumpers have a very hard time teasing out the micro-meanings covered by their broad definitions, and splitters have a very hard time collapsing their incredibly concise definitions into one. Emily and I are splitters; Neil is a lumper; Steve can do both, though the more he defines, the more he tends toward lumping. That definition of “fishstick” was written by a lumper; that definition of “hotel” was definitely written by a splitter. The definition of “hotel” highlights one of the biggest problems in writing definitions: things change, and you are a lexicographer, not a clairvoyant. Back in the 1950s, when this definition for “hotel” was written, places that called themselves hotels did have some (or all) of these amenities.

The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move
by Sonia Shah

His benefactors were impressed.13 “I don’t believe,” one wrote, “there was a man so learn’d in all parts of natural history as he; and that not superficial, but to the bottom.” In any discipline that attempts to create order from a confusion of data, there are what Charles Darwin would later call “lumpers” and “splitters.” The splitters focus on differences between the data points, cleaving them into as many categories as necessary to distinguish each from the other based on their distinctions, however minute. Lumpers attempt to discern underlying similarities within the disparate data points, grouping as many together based on unifying commonalities.

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Park Service opposition to, here Allee, Warder Clyde, here Allee effect, here, here American Eugenics Society, here American Museum of Natural History, here, here, here, here, here Americas, supposed degeneration of life in, here animals exotic, European explorers’ collection and display of, here sensing of impending environmental disturbances, here See also DNA, animal; migration of animals anti-immigration movement in Europe, here mass murders by supporters of, here anti-immigration movement in United States, here defeat of legal status for migrants, here groups allied with, here organizations in, here outdated science embraced by, here overpopulation concerns and, here, here racist beliefs of, here, here Trump administration and, here Arab Spring, here, here author alienation as Indian American, here, here comfort in universality of migration, here family history of, here parents’ migration to United States, here residence in Australia, here as volunteer to aid refugees, here Baartman, Saartjie, here Bannon, Steve, here, here, here barriers to animal migration border walls and fences as, here geographical barriers, here, here, here human infrastructure as, here beehives, expulsion of excess bees from, here Benga, Ota, here, here biogeography, here birds in Great Chain of Being, here and seed dispersal, here, here birds, migration of, here, here, here, here, here discovery of, here, here early explanations of, here tracking of, here birthright citizenship (jus soli) Dominican Republic’s revocation of, here in English common law, here Trump’s hope to revoke, here The Black Stork (film), here Boas, Franz, here, here, here Border Patrol establishment of, here number of attacks on agents, here, here borders as arbitrary, invisible lines, here need for opening of, here as recent innovation, here Borjas, George, here Brigham, Carl, here Britain, and anti-immigrant backlash, here, here Bronx Zoo and eugenics, here exhibition of African man, here, here Brower, David, here, here, here Buffon, George-Louis Leclerc, comte de, here, here, here, here on constant change in nature, here on genital flap, here on hierarchy of racial groups, here Histoire naturelle by, here, here Linnaeus and, here, here, here, here on origin of racial groups, here, here renown as scientist, here on shared lineage of all humans, here butterflies, migration of, here, here, here See also checkerspot butterflies Calhoun, John B., here, here The Camp of the Saints (Raspail), here Canada criteria for accepting immigrants, here flight of migrants in United States to, here Cann, Rebecca, here Carr-Saunders, Alexander, here Carson, Johnny, here Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca, here, here, here Center for Immigration Studies, here cephalic index, here checkerspot butterflies, here early research on population decline in, here Ehrlich’s research on, here, here, here habitat destruction and, here migration of, here, here chestnut blight, here cities, migration to, here, here Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S., here, here, here civil rights activists opposition to Coon’s racial theory, here support for immigration, here, here climate change as continual and ongoing, here cyclical, due to wobbles in Earth’s orbit, here damage already done by, here and extinctions, here Himalayas and, here and northward migration of species, here, here, here climate change, next great migration caused by, here, here, here, here complex factors in, here false notions creating fear about, here in-place adjustments as alternative to, here and labeling of migrant species as invasive, here legal barriers to, here needed measures to facilitate, here recasting as opportunity, here types of disruptions and, here warnings of destruction from, here, here, here Clinton, Bill, here, here, here Cold War fear of destructive migrations after, here and U.S. immigration race restrictions, here colonialism Linnaeus’s taxonomy and, here, here nineteenth-century race theory and, here continental drift theory, here, here Cook, James, here, here Coolidge, Calvin, here, here Coon, Carleton, here Cordell, Susan, here, here Cuvier, Georges, here, here Darién Gap, migration through, here, here Darwin, Charles Descent of Man, limited influence of, here on global migration of species, here and human evolution, here, here on human racial groups, here natural selection theory, poor reception of, here Origin of Species, here, here psychological stress of, here Darwin, Leonard, here, here data, lumpers vs. splitters of, here Davenport, Charles, here, here, here, here Davis, Kingsley, here, here, here deforestation, here, here demographic transition theory, here, here Denisovan DNA in modern humans, here Department of Homeland Security, here disease genetic, persistence of, here migrants as source of, here and origin of xenophobia, here DNA, animal genetic diversity through migration, here interaction with environment, here DNA, human complex effects on body and behavior, here evolution to accommodate migration, here and genetic disease, here interaction of genes, here, here, here interaction with environment, here and methylation, here small differences between humans, here, here, here small number of genes in, here, here DNA evidence of human migration in ancient petrous bones, here, here on continuous migration, here, here Human Genome Project and, here on mingling with now-extinct humanoid species, here mitochondrial DNA evidence, here opposition to, here on “Recent Out of Africa” theory, here and small genetic differences in humans, here, here DNA evidence of plant and animal migration, here Dobzhansky, Theodosius, here, here drought, migrations caused by, here Earth 2100 (TV special), here Ehrlich, Anne, here, here Ehrlich, Paul attacks on, for population growth views, here campaign against population growth, here, here, here checkerspot butterfly research, here, here, here interest in population growth issues, here on overcrowding and antisocial behavior, here on population growth in India, here on U.S. removal of immigration restrictions, here See also The Population Bomb (Ehrlich) Ellis Island, here, here, here, here Elton, Charles Sutherland assumption of stasis in nature, here, here on danger of invasive species, here, here desire to revolutionize natural history, here funding by New York Zoological Society, here influence of work by, here, here lemming research by, here, here, here and migration research, here enemy-release hypothesis, here environmentalists and population control movement, here, here, here, here, here, here support for immigration restrictions, here Eritrea migrants from, resettled in United States, here migration from, here, here eugenics American, Nazi admiration of, here and concern about immigrants’ inferior traits, here decline in popularity in 1930s, here early twentieth-century support for, here and Pioneer Fund, here rationale for, here Second International Congress of, here Europe, flow of migrants into, here crime attributed to migrants, here, here efforts to deter, here, here fear-based response to, here media dehumanization of migrants, here migrant suffering and deaths in, here, here number of migrants, here, here political backlash against, here residents’ overestimate of, here European exploration biodiversity discovered in, here collection and display of exotic specimens, here human diversity discovered in bizarre accounts of, here and denial of common human origin, here extinctions, climate change and, here fear of migrants.

Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis
by Tao Leigh. Goffe
Published 14 Mar 2025

It is acknowledged that his system falls apart with what we now understand of genomics. Animal and plant taxonomy have never been an exact science either. Among taxonomists, there are endless debates about what constitutes a new species. Taxonomists themselves fall into two general categories: lumpers and splitters, derived from what Darwin described as “hair-splitters.”[8] Sean explained to me that lumpers tend to embrace difference as being less important than signature similarities, while splitters tend to emphasize precise definitions and designations in an effort to assign new subspecies. This is the logic of racial thinking, too.

Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
by Nicholas A. Christakis
Published 26 Mar 2019

The most famous tension, to which we shall return, revolves around the relative contributions of nature and nurture as explanations for human experience. Those advocating for the existence of universals are generally seen as belonging to the nature camp. Another tension arises between “lumpers” and “splitters.” Lumpers seek to group similar things together; splitters identify fine distinctions in the natural world.16 Still another tension is between those focusing on the average tendency of a phenomenon (such as the average price of a house in a market) and those interested in its variation (for instance, the range of house prices and the forces that contribute to inequality in prices from place to place).

The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission
by Jim Bell
Published 24 Feb 2015

By my reckoning (and I’m a bit of a weirdo among my astronomy friends for this), our solar system has about thirty-five known planets so far, and it’s likely that dozens more will be discovered over the coming decades. Let’s celebrate those numbers and the diversity of planetary characteristics within our cosmic neighborhood rather than splitting them up into categories implying substandard status, such as “moon” or “dwarf planet.” I’m a lumper rather than a splitter. SOLAR WIND Although astronomers and planetary scientists don’t yet know exactly how far toward the nearest stars the sun’s gravitational influence extends (it’s probably somewhere near a half to two-thirds of the way), they have been expecting over the past decade or so that far-flung spacecraft like Voyager should soon be able to find the edge of the sun’s nongravitational influence on the solar system.

This Is Service Design Doing: Applying Service Design Thinking in the Real World: A Practitioners' Handbook
by Marc Stickdorn , Markus Edgar Hormess , Adam Lawrence and Jakob Schneider
Published 12 Jan 2018

” — Arne van Oosteroom Other names Listen in on a group of service design practitioners – whether they consider themselves “designers” or not – and you will hear two types of conversation when it comes to terminology. Just like when paleontologists discuss taxonomy, you will find the “splitters” and the “lumpers.” The splitters will talk about the differences between service design, experience design, design thinking, holistic UX, user-centered design, human-centered design, new marketing, and even more. The lumpers will point out that these approaches have far more in common than they have differences, and suggest that names matter far less than the principles that these practices all share.

Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
by Michael Shermer
Published 1 Jan 1997

But, they continue, "the major stereotypes, all based on skin color, hair color and form, and facial traits, reflect superficial differences that are not confirmed by deeper analysis with more reliable genetic traits and whose origin dates from recent evolution mostly under the effect of climate and perhaps sexual selection" (p. 19). Traditional popular racial categories are literally skin deep. But aren't races supposed to blend into one another as fuzzy sets, while retaining their uniqueness and separateness (see Sarich 1995)? Yes, but how these groups are classified depends on whether the classifier is a "lumper" or "splitter"—seeing similarities or differences. Darwin noted that naturalists in his time cited anywhere from two to sixty-three different races of Homo sapiens. Today there are anywhere from three to sixty races, depending on the taxonomist. Cavalli-Sforza and his colleagues conclude, "Although there is no doubt that there is only one human species, there are clearly no objective reasons for stopping at any particular level of taxo-nomic splitting" (1994, p. 19).

The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
by Richard Dawkins
Published 1 Jan 2004

Of approximately 270 surviving species of marsupial in the world, about three-quarters are Australinean (the rest are all American, mostly opossums plus a few other species such as the enigmatic Dromiciops, the monito del monte). The 200 Australinean species (give or take a few depending on whether we are lumpers or splitters)* have branched to fill the whole range of 'trades' formerly occupied by the dinosaurs, and independently occupied by other mammals in the rest of the world. The Marsupial Mole's Tale goes through some of these trades, one by one. The Marsupial Mole's Tale There is a living to be made underground, a living which moles (family Talpidae) have made familiar to us in Eurasia and North America.

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Geological evidence indicates that it is only about 100,000 years old. It is home to a huge number of endemic cichlid (pronounced 'sick-lid') fish. Endemic means that they are found nowhere else than in Lake Victoria, and presumably evolved there. Depending on whether your ichthyologist is a lumper or a splitter, the number of species of cichlid in Lake Victoria is somewhere between 200 and 500, and a recent authoritative estimate puts it at 450. Of these endemic species, the great majority belong to one tribe, the haplochromines. It looks as though they all evolved, as a single 'species flock', during the last hundred thousand years or so.

Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else
by Jordan Ellenberg
Published 14 May 2021

The first person to teach me geometry was Eric Walstein, who died of COVID-19 in November 2020. I wish he could have taught more kids math. One more thing I’d like to acknowledge is all the things it would have been great to write about in a book about geometry, but aren’t here, because I ran out of time and space. I had meant to write about “lumpers and splitters” and the theory of clustering; Judea Pearl and the use of directed acyclic graphs in the study of causality; navigation charts of the Marshall Islands; exploitation versus exploration and multi-armed bandits; binocular vision in praying mantis larvae; the maximum size of a subset of the N by N grid with no three points forming an isosceles triangle (let me know if you solve this actually); much more on dynamics, starting from Poincaré and going through billiards, Sinai, and Mirzakhani; much more on Descartes, who launched the unification of algebra and geometry and somehow ended up nearly absent here; and much more on Grothendieck, who took that unification much farther than Descartes could have dreamed and somehow ditto; catastrophe theory; the tree of life.

Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences
by Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star
Published 25 Aug 2000

Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences (Inside Technology)
by Geoffrey C. Bowker
Published 24 Aug 2000

The Cancer Chronicles: Unlocking Medicine's Deepest Mystery
by George Johnson
Published 26 Aug 2013

But the closer you look, the more elaborate these mechanisms appear. They are the outgrowth of a long chain of evolutionary accidents, a history that might have spun a different way. Theoretical physics rewards those who simplify—glossing over details and exceptions and explaining everything in terms of a few big ideas. The lumpers instead of the splitters. The last time I saw Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist, he was speculating on extraterrestrial biology. More recently he and an astrobiologist, Charles Lineweaver, have been playing with the notion that the human genome carries inside its coils an “ancient genetic toolkit”—long buried routines that primitive cells used to form colonies—early precursors to multicellular life.

A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
Published 5 May 2003

Yet there is surprisingly little agreement on how many phyla there are or ought to be. Most biologists fix the total at about thirty, but some opt for a number in the low twenties, while Edward O. Wilson in The Diversity of Life puts the number at a surprisingly robust eighty-nine. It depends on where you decide to make your divisions—whether you are a “lumper” or a “splitter,” as they say in the biological world. At the more workaday level of species, the possibilities for disagreements are even greater. Whether a species of grass should be called Aegilops incurva, Aegilops incurvata, or Aegilops ovata may not be a matter that would stir many nonbotanists to passion, but it can be a source of very lively heat in the right quarters.

Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past
by David Reich
Published 22 Mar 2018

The extraordinary diversity of Native American languages had been noted as early as the seventeenth century, with some European missionaries attributing it to the devil’s efforts to resist the conversion of Native populations by making the language that missionaries needed to learn to proselytize to one population useless for proselytizing to the next. Linguists can be divided into “splitters,” who emphasize differences among languages, and “lumpers,” who emphasize their common roots. One of the most extreme splitters was Lyle Campbell, who divided about one thousand Native American languages into about two hundred families (groups of related languages), sometimes even localized to particular river valleys.32 One of the most extreme lumpers was Joseph Greenberg, who argued that he could group all Native American languages into just three families, the deep connections of which he could trace.

Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic
by David Quammen
Published 30 Sep 2012

For a while the Lyme-bearing tick became known as Ixodes dammini, until further taxonomic scrutiny invalidated that distinction, in 1993, and restored it to Ixodes scapularis. This back-and-forthing was merely a matter of taxonomic practice, reflecting the chronic tension between splitters (who like to delineate many species and subspecies) and lumpers (who prefer fewer). The splitters won a temporary victory; the lumpers prevailed. A second sort of confusion, more consequential, derived from uncertainty over the tick’s less formal label. As Ixodes scapularis, it had been familiarly known as the blacklegged tick. When it was mistakenly split off into a new species, it received also a new common (but not very common) name, “Dammin’s northeastern deer ixodid.”

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
by David Graeber and David Wengrow
Published 18 Oct 2021

The Gene: An Intimate History
by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Published 16 May 2016

The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times
by Giovanni Arrighi
Published 15 Mar 2010

In order to bring my leaner version of Braudel’s vessel to the far shores of the late twentieth century, I had to vow to keep out of the debates and polemics that raged in the islands of specialized knowledge that I visited and raided. Like Arno Mayer, “I freely admit to being an ardent ‘lumper’ and master builder rather than an avid ‘splitter’ and wrecker.” And like him, all I ask is “a patient hearing’ and that [the] book be ‘taken and judged as a whole’ and not only in its discrete parts” (Mayer, 1981: x). The idea that I should write a book about the long twentieth century was not mine but Perry Anderson’s.