“And this is where I fell down as a rationalist. I remembered several occasions where my doctor would completely fail to panic at the report of symptoms that seemed, to me, very alarming. And the Medical Establishment was always right. Every single time. I had chest pains myself, at one point, and the doctor patiently explained to me that I was describing chest muscle pain, not a heart attack. So I said into the IRC channel, “Well, if the paramedics told your friend it was nothing, it must really be nothing—they’d have hauled him off if there was the tiniest chance of serious trouble.”″
My own “hold on a second” detector is pinging mildly at that particular bit. Specifically, isn’t there a touch of an observer selection effect there? If the docs had been wrong and you ended up dying as a result, you wouldn’t have been around to make that deduction, so you’re (Well, anyone is) effectively biased to retroactively observe outcomes in which if the doctor did say you’re not in a life threatening situation, you’re genuinely not?
If you read his other posts, I think you’ll find he wasn’t offering any sort of constructive contribution. He was probably laboring under some confusion, if not outright trolling.
“And this is where I fell down as a rationalist. I remembered several occasions where my doctor would completely fail to panic at the report of symptoms that seemed, to me, very alarming. And the Medical Establishment was always right. Every single time. I had chest pains myself, at one point, and the doctor patiently explained to me that I was describing chest muscle pain, not a heart attack. So I said into the IRC channel, “Well, if the paramedics told your friend it was nothing, it must really be nothing—they’d have hauled him off if there was the tiniest chance of serious trouble.”″
My own “hold on a second” detector is pinging mildly at that particular bit. Specifically, isn’t there a touch of an observer selection effect there? If the docs had been wrong and you ended up dying as a result, you wouldn’t have been around to make that deduction, so you’re (Well, anyone is) effectively biased to retroactively observe outcomes in which if the doctor did say you’re not in a life threatening situation, you’re genuinely not?
Or am I way off here?
i seem to recall a link on another page entitled “hindsight bias”.
Huh? What about hindsight bias?
If you read his other posts, I think you’ll find he wasn’t offering any sort of constructive contribution. He was probably laboring under some confusion, if not outright trolling.