I’m curious as to whether Wegener’s theory of continental drift works as a case where a Bayesian model would have done better than Science. The coincidences, paleontogical, biological, and geological, between South America and Africa—how they fit together in so many ways—should have been seen as convincing evidence for continental drift, even before plate tectonics was invented to provide a mechanism....or am I overidealizing the past?
lowasser
Karma: 6
I am trying to win an argument, and I am having trouble defeating the following claim:
It can, under certain scenarios, be instrumental (in the sense of achieving values) to believe in something which is false—usually by virtue of a placebo effect. For example: believing you are more likely to get a job offer than you really are, so you are confident at the job interview.
The counterargument I want to make, in my head, is that if you have the ability to deceive yourself to that extent—to make yourself believe something that is false—then you have the ability to believe that you won’t get the job interview, but pretend that you think you will. I don’t feel like that’s a very solid or reassuring argument, though.