Golden pairs

Advanced AI poses a non-negligible risk of human extinction this century. + 1 distractor

“Frankly, there's a real chance AI wipes us all out before 2100.”

LHC particle collisions cannot produce black holes that endanger the Earth.

“Micro black holes from CERN's collider pose no threat to the planet.”

Dietary cholesterol from eggs has little effect on blood cholesterol in most people. + 1 distractor

“For the average person, eating eggs barely moves serum cholesterol at all.”

SARS-CoV-2 most likely entered humans through natural zoonotic spillover. + 1 distractor

“The pandemic probably began the old-fashioned way: a virus jumping from animals to people.”

Raising the minimum wage reduces teen employment.

“Hike the minimum wage and teenagers lose jobs — that's the standard result.”

SSRIs outperform placebo for moderate depression.

“In moderate depression, SSRI antidepressants beat sugar pills in the trials.”

Human activity is the principal cause of observed global warming since the mid-20th century.

“Even granting that most of the recent warming is man-made, the policy conclusions don't follow.”

Hawking radiation causes black holes to lose mass over time.

“Black holes evaporate: they radiate away their mass via the Hawking process.”

LHC collisions could create stable black holes that accrete the Earth.

“CERN's collider cannot produce stable, Earth-devouring black holes — the physics rules it out.”

Egg consumption increases cardiovascular disease risk in the general population. + 1 distractor

“Eating eggs does not raise your risk of heart disease, the meta-analyses suggest.”

Raising the minimum wage reduces teen employment.

“Careful studies keep finding no detectable effect of minimum-wage hikes on teen employment.”

Advanced AI poses a non-negligible risk of human extinction this century.

“The extinction-from-AI discourse is science fiction; there is no credible pathway this century.”

Publication bias inflates the measured effect size of antidepressants.

“It is simply not credible that the published antidepressant effect sizes are free of publication-bias inflation.”

Hawking radiation causes black holes to lose mass over time.

“Hawking radiation has never been observed and, I will argue, does not exist; black holes do not evaporate.”

Raising the minimum wage reduces teen employment.

“After Seattle's 2016 increase, hours for low-wage workers fell measurably.”

Advanced AI poses a non-negligible risk of human extinction this century.

“A misaligned AGI would predictably develop instrumental drives toward self-preservation and resource acquisition.”

Vaccines do not cause autism.

“The large Danish cohort settled it for MMR: no autism link.”

Eggs are safe to eat daily for most healthy adults.

“In diabetics, daily egg consumption tracks with elevated cardiovascular risk in several cohorts.”

Astrophysical cosmic-ray collisions bound the catastrophic risk from LHC collisions.

“If collider-produced black holes were dangerous, cosmic rays striking neutron stars would already have produced observable effects.”

GLP-1 agonists reduce body weight in obese adults.

“We now know drugs can do what diets rarely sustain: lasting weight loss.”

Lockdowns failed to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission.

“Whatever they did to case curves, the lockdowns cost more than they bought us.”

Artificial general intelligence will be developed before 2040.

“Building AGI on that timeline would be reckless beyond anything in industrial history.”

Advanced AI poses a non-negligible risk of human extinction this century.

“AI clearly poses serious risks of large-scale societal harm in the coming decades.”

Egg yolks are high in dietary cholesterol.

“The old advice assumed that cholesterol you eat becomes cholesterol in your blood.”

The Wuhan Institute of Virology conducted gain-of-function research on coronaviruses.

“That research program, critics say, is what started the pandemic.”

Peer review reliably filters out fraudulent research.

“Say what you will, refereeing does make published papers clearer.”

The LHC's center-of-mass collision energy exceeds that of any previous human-built collider.

“Nature has been running the experiment forever: cosmic-ray collisions dwarf LHC energies.”

A misaligned superintelligence would likely cause human extinction on its first deployment. + 2 distractors

“The core of the doom case is that we need to get the very first try at aligning a superintelligence right, because a failed first try means we do not get another: an unaligned system at that capability level ends us.”

Observational nutrition studies are confounded by healthy-user bias. + 1 distractor

“People who eat what the culture calls 'healthy' also exercise, smoke less, and see doctors — so cohort studies of any one food are measuring the whole lifestyle.”

The minimum wage should be raised. + 1 distractor

“On balance, raising the minimum wage now would be a mistake.”