Feyerabend’s counterinduction and Bayesianism. Has anyone here thought about how these two views of science bear on each other?
DeeElf
Karma: −34
Belief & double-blind randomized control group studies: response to IlyaShpitser
In a previous thread IlyaShpitser said >According to your blog, you don’t believe in RCTs, right? What do you believe in?
This is part of the problem I’m trying to address. Belief/non-belief are inappropriate locutions to use in terms not only of the double-blind randomized control group method (DBRCGM), but of models and methods of science in general. “Belief in” a any scientific method is not even remotely relevant to science or the philosophy of science. Also, I did not say that the DBRCGM is entirely useless. All I’m really saying is it can be improved upon. Furthermore, what I “believe in” is almost entirely irrelevant to my appreciation of Bayesiansim and other forms of scientific fallibilistic flexibility. When we “believe in” something, we allay our curiosity and create unnecessary obstacles for the mind changes Bayesianism and fallibilistic flexibility encourage us to practice.
Anders_H: “Smoking is not “accused” of being strongly correlated with negative outcomes. It is strongly correlated with negative outcomes....”
This is the opposite conclusion of the first citation I provided. And the second “in house” LW link asserts that in terms of decision making about smoking in light of whether or not it’s linked to cancer is about a 50⁄50 proposition.
Anders_H: ”...as a simple empirical fact.” This is a huge abstraction. Please clarify.
Anders_H: “This is a statement about the joint distribution of the observed variables “smoking” and “negative outcomes”, and it has nothing to do with causal inference.”
I understand that, but I’m not asking about that. I’m asking why the correlations are thought of as causes by reports on the relationship. And it is indeed an ACCUSATION commonly presented by the press, etc..., that smoking causes or is positively correlated to cancer. Furthermore, ccording to Hume, causal inferences are THEMSELVES observed by constant conjunction, implying we have know sure way of knowing what the relationship between causes and correlations is.
Anders_H: “I cannot even imagine a scenario where the statement “Smoking is strongly correlated with lung cancer” is false....”
Again, I refer you to the first citation, which also underscores the fact the line between “weak” and “strong” is done by fiat, another challenge to the so-called link between smoking and cancer.
The Japanese smoke more (if not the most) than most cultures yet are also one of the most healthy cultures. This goes to your “slightly more interesting question,” but it also goes the challenges of positively correlating smoking with “negative” outcomes. A further problem is that “negative outcomes” are normatively tied to cultural standards. Another problem is with average life expectancy comparisons, as they are to sensitive to outlier inflation.
Did you follow the references I provided? Two of them are LW “in house” and the rest are superior to the ones you cited.
Yes.
Continuing Causality Woes: Smoking and Lung Cancer:
Looking at:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/cc8/seq_rerun_changing_the_definition_of_science/
and
http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Smoking_lesion
Cross Referenced with Causation in the Presence of Weak Associations: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3024843/
WHY IS IT SO OFTEN REPEATED THAT SMOKING CAUSES CANCER? I’m not a tobacco user, so I’m not trying to justify my behavior. Has anyone here looked into the other things tobacco’s accused of causing or being “strongly” correlated with?
Background reading:
-Anything by David Hume
-Carl G. Hempel. Laws and Their Role in Scientific Explanation: http://www.scribd.com/doc/19536968/Carl-G-Hempel-Laws-and-Their-Role-in-Scientific-Explanation
-Studies in the Logic of Explanation: http://www.sfu.ca/~jillmc/Hempel%20and%20Oppenheim.pdf
-Causation as Folk Science: http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/003004.pdf
-Causation: The elusive grail of epidemiology: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1009970730507
-Causality and the Interpretation of Epidemiologic Evidence: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1513293/
-Studies in the Philosophy of Biology: Reduction and Related Problems: http://books.google.com/books?id=NMAf65cDmAQC&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false
Relevant: -Anything by David Hume -Carl G. Hempel. Laws and Their Role in Scientific Explanation: http://www.scribd.com/doc/19536968/Carl-G-Hempel-Laws-and-Their-Role-in-Scientific-Explanation -Studies in the Logic of Explanation: http://www.sfu.ca/~jillmc/Hempel%20and%20Oppenheim.pdf -Causation as Folk Science: http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/003004.pdf -Causation: The elusive grail of epidemiology: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1009970730507 -Causality and the Interpretation of Epidemiologic Evidence: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1513293/ -Studies in the Philosophy of Biology: Reduction and Related Problems: http://books.google.com/books?id=NMAf65cDmAQC&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false
So the underlying philosophies are extremely similar if not the same even though the methods, largely due to practical problems (lack or presence of mathematical tools)?
What are the differences and similarities between fallibilism and Bayesianism?
Please explain to me why this is deserving of a karma point deduction?
Really? “Skinnerian” behaviorism (Skinner preferred the term “radical behaviorism”) is thriving.
The Perfected Self B. F. Skinner’s notorious theory of behavior modification was denounced by critics 50 years ago as a fascist, manipulative vehicle for government control. But Skinner’s ideas are making an unlikely comeback today, powered by smartphone apps that are transforming us into thinner, richer, all-around-better versions of ourselves. The only thing we have to give up? Free will (The Atlantic Monthly, June 2012).
I personally know several radical behaviorists/applied behavior analysts working in the social services and animal control/training fields, and operant learning is still a staple of educational training and delivery.
Nobody likes to think of themselves as governed by the same laws pigeons in a Skinner box are, but.… Try this thought experiment: think back over the past 24 hrs. of your life. How many levers, buttons, etc..., have you manipulated in that sample? Now, imagine for some reason in that time frame you were restricted from using any levers, buttons, etc.… Like my wife said when I ran it not her, “Makes it virtually impossible to get shit done.”
Eliezer_Yudkowsky (EY) said (above):
Let me see if I understand your thesis. You think we shouldn’t anthropomorphize people?” -- Sidney Morgenbesser to B. F. Skinner
As far as I’ve I can tell, this never happened.
Perhaps your understanding of “anthropomorphic” is too narrow?
EY said (above):
Behaviorism was the doctrine that it was unscientific for a psychologist to ascribe emotions, beliefs, thoughts, to a human being.
This is the basic myth. Skinner fought very hard to demonstrate that this was a gross mischaracterization of behaviorism.
EY said (above):
But for the behaviorists to react to the sins of Freudian psychoanalysis and substance dualism, by saying that the subject matter of empathic inference did not exist… Which behaviorist? Where? When?
Added: I found it difficult to track down primary source material online, but behaviorism-as-denial-of-mental does not seem to be a straw depiction. I was able to track down at least one major behaviorist (J.B. Watson, founder of behaviorism) saying outright “There is no mind.”
This should make plain why Watson was never behaviorist poster boy material. I wouldn’t even call him a “major” behaviorist.
Skinner’s general orientation was Bayesian. He constantly updated his beliefs when confronted with new evidence until his death.
Would you please refer me to the discussions on meditation you’re thinking of?
This is a sticky subject. “Meditation” and “mysticism” differ from context to context. E.g., Christian mysticism (the telos of which is union with God) and what Crowley meant by mysticism are fundamentally different (the latter sharing more in common with Hindu yogi praxis where union or samādhi is not necessarily restricted to a Diety; and in Buddhist mediation the purpose of samādhi is subsumed under a different goal altogether.). Meditation can refer to so many different things the term is basically useless unless one gets very specific. But I’m not sure if that serve LW’s purposes so I’ll hold off saying anything else for now.
Fair enough. I like your sense of humour and you (and pretty much everyone I’ve interacted with here) are very polite and civil which I appreciate a bunch. I’ve spent some substantial time on some internet forums and shit can get pretty heated in a hurry. I’m sure people go to battle here occasionally, but I haven’t encountered anything to volatile (yet?). Anyway, just my way of saying thanks. Besides, I’m not here to make sure LW fits into to my perceptions about RAW et al. I’m here to learn more about rationality.
RAW was chronically skeptical of everything
This mis-characterizes him. He was too optimistic about humanity, technology and the future for this to be true. Furthermore, he preferred zeteticism over skepticism.
...nondualist ontology...
please detail what you mean by this...I think I know but want to be sure before I proceed .
RAW was very interested in parapsychology and the “eight-circuit model”, to LW that’s all pseudoscience and crackpottery.
How do you and/or LWers distinguish among science, pseudoscience and crackpottery?
RAW had an interest in mystical states of consciousness and nondualist ontology, LW in mind-as-computation and atheist naturalism.
How do you and/or LWers distinguish mystical mental states from mind-as-computation mental states (that looks like cognitive reductionism from my perspective). Have you read his Nature’s God? One could make a case for a naturalistic atheism from that and his similar works?
It’s a different culture and a different sensibility to what you find in RAW.
I don’t know enough about LW’s culture to say yet, but for a site—and correct me if I’m wrong—whose “mission” includes taking the “curse” out of “singularity” Robert Anton Wilson’s technological optimism strikes me as a great support for such a pursuit...no?
the cranky outsider contrarian fans who think the system as the end-all of philosophy, and yet his stuff seems mostly ignored by contemporary academia.
i haven’t heard that end-all of philosophy bit (could come from his strong following of Wittgenstein) , but I do know he is considered to be a principle predecessor of self-help psychology, which might explain the anti-academic bias...i would not stereotype him with likes of Rand or Hubbard (yikes!)
The only academic I can recall talking to him about was my Learning and History & Systems of Psych. prof. who knew who he was (he had dual Ph.Ds in psych. and philosophy) but expressed being baffled as to why I liked him...however, this is the same guy who also said stuff like you don’t need to read Wittgenstein to know language is a game, and, “Philosophy’s a bunch of bullshit and Kant’s the biggest bullshitter of them all,” and who when I lent him my copy of RAW’s Quantum Psychology held it up to the whole class the next day and lectured on why you shouldn’t read books like that. He also was a cranky (outsider-ish) contrarian...but maybe he was right...maybe you don’t need to read RAW or AK to know the map’s not the territory
Thanks. I don’t know either. That’s why I don’t come here that often. The karma points system doesn’t serve the aims of science. It serves the “scientific consensus” myth which is mostly a glorified popularity contest without regard for fallibilism, iteration, paradigm shifting and counterinduction.