The Pattern Problem

The 'Invisibilia' podcast episode 'The Pattern Problem' explores the human tendency to seek patterns in behavior and the question of whether past patterns can predict future actions. The narrative centers on Tara Simmons, a woman with a troubled past, including drug addiction and criminal behavior, who seeks to become a lawyer. Her journey to the Washington State Supreme Court, where her future hinges on whether the court believes she can break from her past patterns, is paralleled by her lawyer, Sean Hopwood, who himself has a past as an armed bank robber but has since become a law professor. The episode delves into Tara's life, from her difficult childhood to her transformative experience in prison, and her subsequent success in law school.

The episode also introduces a massive pattern-finding competition orchestrated by Princeton professors Matt Salganik and Sara McLanahan. They use a rich dataset from the Fragile Families study to challenge data scientists to predict individual outcomes, such as a child's GPA, using machine learning. Despite the high hopes for the predictive power of patterns, the competition reveals that the models are far less accurate than expected, suggesting that individual lives may contain more randomness than previously believed.

The core theme of the episode is the tension between the human desire for predictability and the inherent unpredictability of individual lives. It examines the implications of this tension in the context of the criminal justice system and social science research, asking whether we can ever truly escape our pasts or if we are doomed to repeat them.