This post is really important as a lot of other materials on LessWrong (notably AI to Zombies) really berate the idea that trying out things that haven’t been tested via the Scientific Method.
This sounds to me like a deep misunderstanding of R:A-Z. The whole point of essays like Scientific Evidence, Legal Evidence, Rational Evidence is that there are tons of valid non-scientific forms of evidence. Posts like Einstein’s Arrogance are explicitly about how you can come to high credence in propositions without much scientific evidence.
“berating the idea of trying out things that haven’t been tested via the Scientific Method” really sounds like a hilarious strawman of LessWrong, and if anything the opposite of what the culture of this site usually endorses (including the writing in R:A-Z).
I haven’t checked but believe you that R:A-Z actively argues against that mistake. But DiamondSolstice is correct that there are strains of RCT-or-nothing and if-formal-science-doesn’t-understand-it-it-doesn’t-exist on the site. All the examples on this post are low karma, but I’ve seen them do better elsewhere.
This sounds to me like a deep misunderstanding of R:A-Z. The whole point of essays like Scientific Evidence, Legal Evidence, Rational Evidence is that there are tons of valid non-scientific forms of evidence. Posts like Einstein’s Arrogance are explicitly about how you can come to high credence in propositions without much scientific evidence.
“berating the idea of trying out things that haven’t been tested via the Scientific Method” really sounds like a hilarious strawman of LessWrong, and if anything the opposite of what the culture of this site usually endorses (including the writing in R:A-Z).
I haven’t checked but believe you that R:A-Z actively argues against that mistake. But DiamondSolstice is correct that there are strains of RCT-or-nothing and if-formal-science-doesn’t-understand-it-it-doesn’t-exist on the site. All the examples on this post are low karma, but I’ve seen them do better elsewhere.