It’s a standard conversational shorthand to just say “Frodo Baggins” instead of “Frodo Baggins from the Lord of the Rings”. Going “ha ha! I didn’t really mean THAT Frodo!” is a sophomoric word game, and completely unrelated to the topic of fictional evidence.
You might find some of Gerd Gigerenzer’s work interesting (just google his name, he has a lot of it online). He has a similar opinion of many of the classic experiments in heuristics and biases.
It’s a standard conversational shorthand to just say “Frodo Baggins” instead of “Frodo Baggins from the Lord of the Rings”. Going “ha ha! I didn’t really mean THAT Frodo!” is a sophomoric word game, and completely unrelated to the topic of fictional evidence.
I agree with your point, but all you really do is describe the idea. http://lesswrong.com/lw/1lw/fictional_evidence_vs_fictional_insight links to two other posts on this topic already, one of which is part of the Sequences, and this post doesn’t really seem to add anything new.
You might find some of Gerd Gigerenzer’s work interesting (just google his name, he has a lot of it online). He has a similar opinion of many of the classic experiments in heuristics and biases.