However, I’m not sure this is the sort of thing Jaynes had in mind—the old ideas are shaping which data gets collected, so it’s not an example of re-examining the same data set. On the other hand, no amount of study of inmates in prisons and insane asylums could have established that there were homosexuals living ordinary lives.
No, I think this is right on target, and it reminds me of Yvain’s post on “disease”.
Cataloging a particular behavior as a pathology leads to “hidden inferences”, and no amount of new data can lead to correct conclusions without first challenging those among such hidden inferences which happen to be false. We could ask, “what data are we failing to collect on causes of obesity owing to our prevailing model of obesity”?
(http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/204/81-Words): For some time, the only homosexuals who were studied were in prison or insane asylums. It took a good bit of work and some risk to get the word out that there were homosexuals living non-pathological lives.
However, I’m not sure this is the sort of thing Jaynes had in mind—the old ideas are shaping which data gets collected, so it’s not an example of re-examining the same data set. On the other hand, no amount of study of inmates in prisons and insane asylums could have established that there were homosexuals living ordinary lives.
No, I think this is right on target, and it reminds me of Yvain’s post on “disease”.
Cataloging a particular behavior as a pathology leads to “hidden inferences”, and no amount of new data can lead to correct conclusions without first challenging those among such hidden inferences which happen to be false. We could ask, “what data are we failing to collect on causes of obesity owing to our prevailing model of obesity”?
We could also ask “what data are we failing to collect about the risks of intentional weight loss because of our prevailing model of obesity?”.