The Science of Explanation
Lee LeFeverWhy explanations succeed or fail, and what science reveals about how minds process ideas. By Lee LeFever, author of The Art of Explanation.
| Platform |  | Pricing | Only free issues | Publishes | Weekly |
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| Issues | 70 | Founded | 2 years ago | Last Issue | 4 days ago |
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scienceofexplanation.comLatest Issues
The Metaphor that Changed Everything
In the 1950s, psychologists started to notice something remarkable: computers and the human mind can be measured in very similar ways. They both process information that can be measured in “bits”, which I covered in last week’s post on Clau...
The Moment the Mind Became Measurable
Probably the most basic idea in science is measurement. You cannot understand or manipulate something reliably without data. Things like mass and volume are easy to measure. But what about information? Before the 1940s, nobody knew how to m...
How Context Leads to Understanding
In the last post, I shared a few examples of context in action. Next, we’ll see how context shapes how we understand new information.
A One-Way Street?
It’s easy to think of explanation as a one-way street. We understand someth...
Your Mind on Context
In this series, we’re following the path an idea takes from the outside world (a conversation, for example) into the mind, where it becomes a memory. Each step reveals something that helps us become better explainers.
We want to know: what...
Sidebar: How I'm Thinking About, and Using, AI - Spring 2026
Artificial intelligence has become part of my life and a valuable tool for my work. In your shoes, I’d wonder: What comes from AI versus Lee?
I ask this about much of the media I see. In this spirit, I want to share how I’m thinking about...
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Authors
The writers behind this newsletter.
I've been a professional explainer since 2007. I'm the author of The Art of Explanation (Wiley), founder of Common Craft, and helped establish the explainer video genre.
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