Eliezer, the factor of four between human and chimp brains seems to be to far from sufficient to show that natural selection doesn’t hit diminishing returns. In general I’m complaining that you mainly seem to ask us to believe your own new unvetted theories and abstractions, while I try when possible to rely on abstractions developed in fields of research (e.g., growth theory and research policy) where hundreds of researchers have worked full-time for decades to make and vet abstractions, confronting them with each other and data. You say your new approaches are needed because this topic area is far from previous ones, and I say test near, apply far; there is no free lunch in vetting; unvetted abstractions cannot be trusted just because it would be convenient to trust them. Also, note you keep talking about “verify”, a very high standard, whereas I talked about the lower standards of “vet and “validate”.
Eliezer, the factor of four between human and chimp brains seems to be to far from sufficient to show that natural selection doesn’t hit diminishing returns. In general I’m complaining that you mainly seem to ask us to believe your own new unvetted theories and abstractions, while I try when possible to rely on abstractions developed in fields of research (e.g., growth theory and research policy) where hundreds of researchers have worked full-time for decades to make and vet abstractions, confronting them with each other and data. You say your new approaches are needed because this topic area is far from previous ones, and I say test near, apply far; there is no free lunch in vetting; unvetted abstractions cannot be trusted just because it would be convenient to trust them. Also, note you keep talking about “verify”, a very high standard, whereas I talked about the lower standards of “vet and “validate”.