I didn’t downvote, but I suspect those who did did so because Oscar listed features of traditional rationality, which he described as being things that scientists (specifically, philosophically-literate ones) did, and Brian interpreted this as a description of Popperianism. Oscar wasn’t trying to describe a philosophy, he was trying to describe the habits of scientists, so a rant about Popper was inappropriate.
Eliezer uses “Traditional Rationality” to mean something like “Rationality, as practised by scientists everywhere, especially the ones who read Feynman and Popper”.
which is why Brian took it to be about Popper and also Feynman
Oscar said that scientists who read Popper did certain things.
Brian wrote 400 arguing that Popper did not do those things, unless he was assuming that Popper fell into the category of “scientists who had read Popper.”
This in no way contradicted anything that Oscar wrote.
Just because someone mentions a noun in their text does not mean they’re writing about that noun. You seem to be suffering from the halo effect; interpreting any negative sentence that mentions Popper as an attack on Popper. Consider; what are the odds that it would be you who would notice that a post had been unfairly downvoted, despite being helpful? Small—LW gets thousands of hits, and hundreds of commenters. On the other hand, your commenting thus was far more likely under the affect heuristic hypothesis.
Although I too have now a sort of negative gut reaction to the defenses of Popper, as a result of reading through the discussions below the recent curi’s posts, I think that this reply is a bit unfair. Saying “scientist who read Popper do X” weakly implies that Popper really suggests X, or at least that it is easy to mistakenly derive X from his work; it certainly is a statement about Popper, even if an indirect one.
This in no way contradicted anything that Oscar wrote.
is literally true, but belongs to the class of literal-interpretation nitpickery so often found in traditional debates. It is logically possible that Popper had in no way suggested the things his followers were doing, but it is not probable and we should not be interested in mere logical possibility.
Although understandable, that was a mistake. It could have been avoided by paying closer attention to the general topic rather than associating concepts based on the previous post. Also, a habit of giving people the benefit of the doubt would have helped prevent interpreting Oscar’s post as, for example, an attack on Popper.
I didn’t downvote, but I suspect those who did did so because Oscar listed features of traditional rationality, which he described as being things that scientists (specifically, philosophically-literate ones) did, and Brian interpreted this as a description of Popperianism. Oscar wasn’t trying to describe a philosophy, he was trying to describe the habits of scientists, so a rant about Popper was inappropriate.
If you would pay attention, Oscar wrote
which is why Brian took it to be about Popper and also Feynman
Oscar said that scientists who read Popper did certain things.
Brian wrote 400 arguing that Popper did not do those things, unless he was assuming that Popper fell into the category of “scientists who had read Popper.”
This in no way contradicted anything that Oscar wrote.
Just because someone mentions a noun in their text does not mean they’re writing about that noun. You seem to be suffering from the halo effect; interpreting any negative sentence that mentions Popper as an attack on Popper. Consider; what are the odds that it would be you who would notice that a post had been unfairly downvoted, despite being helpful? Small—LW gets thousands of hits, and hundreds of commenters. On the other hand, your commenting thus was far more likely under the affect heuristic hypothesis.
Although I too have now a sort of negative gut reaction to the defenses of Popper, as a result of reading through the discussions below the recent curi’s posts, I think that this reply is a bit unfair. Saying “scientist who read Popper do X” weakly implies that Popper really suggests X, or at least that it is easy to mistakenly derive X from his work; it certainly is a statement about Popper, even if an indirect one.
is literally true, but belongs to the class of literal-interpretation nitpickery so often found in traditional debates. It is logically possible that Popper had in no way suggested the things his followers were doing, but it is not probable and we should not be interested in mere logical possibility.
Although understandable, that was a mistake. It could have been avoided by paying closer attention to the general topic rather than associating concepts based on the previous post. Also, a habit of giving people the benefit of the doubt would have helped prevent interpreting Oscar’s post as, for example, an attack on Popper.