I probably do basic sanity checks moderately often, just to see if something makes sense in context. But that’s already intuition-level, almost.
Last time I actually pulled an excel was when Taleb was against IQ and said its only use is to measure low IQ. I wanted to see if this could explain (very) large country differences. So I made a trivial model where you have parts of the population affected by various health issues that can drop the IQ by 10 points. And the answer was yes, if you actually have multiple causes and they stack up, you can end up with the incredibly low averages we see (in the 60s for some areas).
It’s an interesting example because on one hand it sounds trivial: you have shitty living conditions, you end up with shitty results. But on the other hand my mind didn’t want to accept the end result of an under 80 average until I had the numbers in front of me.
Last time I actually pulled an excel was when Taleb was against IQ and said its only use is to measure low IQ. I wanted to see if this could explain (very) large country differences. So I made a trivial model where you have parts of the population affected by various health issues that can drop the IQ by 10 points. And the answer was yes, if you actually have multiple causes and they stack up, you can end up with the incredibly low averages we see (in the 60s for some areas).
I’m glad that I asked the alternative phrasing of my question, because this anecdote is informative!
I probably do basic sanity checks moderately often, just to see if something makes sense in context. But that’s already intuition-level, almost.
If it isn’t too much trouble, can you give four more real examples of when you’ve done this? (They don’t need to be as detailed as your first one. A sentence describing the thing you were checking is fine.)
I probably do basic sanity checks moderately often, just to see if something makes sense in context. But that’s already intuition-level, almost.
Last time I actually pulled an excel was when Taleb was against IQ and said its only use is to measure low IQ. I wanted to see if this could explain (very) large country differences. So I made a trivial model where you have parts of the population affected by various health issues that can drop the IQ by 10 points. And the answer was yes, if you actually have multiple causes and they stack up, you can end up with the incredibly low averages we see (in the 60s for some areas).
It’s an interesting example because on one hand it sounds trivial: you have shitty living conditions, you end up with shitty results. But on the other hand my mind didn’t want to accept the end result of an under 80 average until I had the numbers in front of me.
I’m glad that I asked the alternative phrasing of my question, because this anecdote is informative!
If it isn’t too much trouble, can you give four more real examples of when you’ve done this? (They don’t need to be as detailed as your first one. A sentence describing the thing you were checking is fine.)