Yes, I’m a Popperian. Yes, people should make testable claims and other people should test them. That’s how everything is supposed to work. All right so far.
As to the nature of my complaint… Here’s a non-trivial question: how do we rigorously test Kaj and Eby’s assertions about akrasia? I took Vassar’s words very seriously and have been trying to think up an experiment that would (at least) properly control for the belief effect, but came up empty so far. If I manage to solve this problem, I’ll make a toplevel post about that.
Why is it so difficult? Even a head to head test between PJ’s magic and an arbitrarily selected alternative would provide valuable information. Given the claims made for, as you pointed out, first percentile utility, it seems that just a couple of tests against arbitrary alternatives should be expected to show drastic differences and at least tell us whether it is worth thinking harder.
Yes, I’m a Popperian. Yes, people should make testable claims and other people should test them. That’s how everything is supposed to work. All right so far.
As to the nature of my complaint… Here’s a non-trivial question: how do we rigorously test Kaj and Eby’s assertions about akrasia? I took Vassar’s words very seriously and have been trying to think up an experiment that would (at least) properly control for the belief effect, but came up empty so far. If I manage to solve this problem, I’ll make a toplevel post about that.
Why is it so difficult? Even a head to head test between PJ’s magic and an arbitrarily selected alternative would provide valuable information. Given the claims made for, as you pointed out, first percentile utility, it seems that just a couple of tests against arbitrary alternatives should be expected to show drastic differences and at least tell us whether it is worth thinking harder.