Good reference classes should be uncontroversial—most people will agree about what constitutes “mainstream scientists”, but you’ll probably get more disagreement about which parts of science are highly politicized.
Would that not bias the results? Category like “mainstream science” bundles together chemistry with virtually impeccable record, and psychology with highly dubious one. Using category like that we’ll greatly underestimate certainty of chemical predictions, and greatly overestimate certainty of psychological ones.
What I wanted to say is that we move from supporters and opponents arguing about particulars of a situation to supporters and opponents arguing about proper reference class. Which might be an improvement, but it doesn’t solve the issue.
Would that not bias the results? Category like “mainstream science” bundles together chemistry with virtually impeccable record, and psychology with highly dubious one.
You can put something in multiple categories, like I said before, and like cousin_it also said.
The fact that mainstream science covers fields of widely-varying veracity just means that it has a near-unity Bayes factor. The reason that chemistry is so much more credible is that it’s also in several other high-Bayes-factor reference classes. (ETA: e.g., “theories on which products in daily use are predicated”)
There seems to be a halo bias going on in some commenters here. You can put something in a low-credibility class and still consider it high credibility—for example, if it belongs to other classes with a high Bayes factor. So you can consider e.g. evolutionary biology to be politicized, but still credible because its other achievements outweigh the discount from politicization.
Agreeing with something doesn’t mean saying only positive things about it.
I’m pretty sure that if you compare track record of any field of psychology with track record of chemistry, it will be highly unflattering for the former. I did not wish to imply that psychology is entirely without results, just that it compares rather poorly with hard science.
People who agree with a political bias generally don’t believe there’s a bias. Witness all the academic “liberals” who accept global warming, CFC fearmongering, overpopulation, and resource exhaustion without question and attack people who question any of these received wisdoms.
Good reference classes should be uncontroversial—most people will agree about what constitutes “mainstream scientists”, but you’ll probably get more disagreement about which parts of science are highly politicized.
Would that not bias the results? Category like “mainstream science” bundles together chemistry with virtually impeccable record, and psychology with highly dubious one. Using category like that we’ll greatly underestimate certainty of chemical predictions, and greatly overestimate certainty of psychological ones.
What I wanted to say is that we move from supporters and opponents arguing about particulars of a situation to supporters and opponents arguing about proper reference class. Which might be an improvement, but it doesn’t solve the issue.
You can put something in multiple categories, like I said before, and like cousin_it also said.
The fact that mainstream science covers fields of widely-varying veracity just means that it has a near-unity Bayes factor. The reason that chemistry is so much more credible is that it’s also in several other high-Bayes-factor reference classes. (ETA: e.g., “theories on which products in daily use are predicated”)
There seems to be a halo bias going on in some commenters here. You can put something in a low-credibility class and still consider it high credibility—for example, if it belongs to other classes with a high Bayes factor. So you can consider e.g. evolutionary biology to be politicized, but still credible because its other achievements outweigh the discount from politicization.
Agreeing with something doesn’t mean saying only positive things about it.
Clinical psychology, sure. But psychology in general, i.e. cognitive science, umm, no.
I’m pretty sure that if you compare track record of any field of psychology with track record of chemistry, it will be highly unflattering for the former. I did not wish to imply that psychology is entirely without results, just that it compares rather poorly with hard science.
People who agree with a political bias generally don’t believe there’s a bias. Witness all the academic “liberals” who accept global warming, CFC fearmongering, overpopulation, and resource exhaustion without question and attack people who question any of these received wisdoms.