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Excellent sentences
To think more objectively, become less allied.
That is Robin Hanson, the rest of the post is interesting as well. Don't forget that: "people ignore info more when they feel powerful."
I also like this (older) sentence from Megan Non-McArdle:
Once you believe your opponents are disproportionately powerful liars, you have completed the Devil Shift.
Here is more.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 7, 2008 at 11:26 AM in Philosophy | Permalink
Comments
Aphorisms are fun:
One takes an obscure and inexplicable thing more seriously than a clear and explicable one.... A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.
the vowel challenged Nietzsche
Posted by: Bababooey at Mar 7, 2008 12:09:00 PM
On a related topic, try to have strong opinions on fewer things.
Posted by: bartman at Mar 7, 2008 12:09:57 PM
The fewer allies you have, the less data you attract. So you can think more objectively about the three datapoints you have, but you don't have the support of a wide range of values of your key IVs.
Posted by: Alison at Mar 7, 2008 12:56:50 PM
I have a bone to pick with Overcoming Bias. I think they are correct to try to analyze the biases that we hold, but I think there are huge problems with their approach.
People are allied to positions. Let's take Tyler for example. Tyler is a libertarian, but if the evidence were to show that Social Democracy is superior, he would be happy to switch on purely pragmatic grounds. But what doesn't change is his utilitarian morality which is used to weigh both systems. More generally, Tyler and others have positions to which they really are strongly allied. The right for same sex couples to marry without state interference, for example. What if the research were to show that children raised by same sex couples are worse off than children raised by married, biological parents? Would Tyler be equally happy to create laws banning same sex marriage? What if the research shows that divorces from low-conflict marriages are bad children, even beyond any pre-existing problems in the marriage? Would Tyler would to abandon no-fault divorce?
I'm not interested in engaging the empirical research on these points, I'm observing that we cannot act "unallied" from the views that we hold. In fact, overcoming bias may lead to more problems than it solves. It can become a non-falsifiable method of making people feel that their views are more objectively held than they really are. It reminds me of the debates over whether newspapers should be objective or partisan. I personally prefer it when people freely disclose their bias, and then make their case.
A better approach is to recognize that we are all deeply allied to our causes, but then try and train ourselves to honestly assess the strength of our opponents arguments, even if that means modifying our initial allegiances.
Posted by: Justin at Mar 7, 2008 2:10:15 PM
"A professor shutting down a grad student in a group, simply by disagreeing with them. People tend to assume that the professor is right 100 percent of the time, and the student 0 percent. A more accurate breakup in my experience is 60/40."
I'd say 40% is a bit optimistic for the prof ;)
Besides, it's probably more like 10/10/80, where 80 is both being wrong. Bias is essentially the major reason for the scientific method it seems to me. I.e., no science by anecdote, consensus, etc. Science by demonstrable, repeatable facts.
Posted by: Andrew at Mar 7, 2008 4:26:59 PM
To be less powerful, become less allied.
Posted by: ef at Mar 7, 2008 11:02:04 PM
I like Justin's comments above.
My thoughts:
Would that include becoming less allied to "thinking objectively"?
If so, we have:
"To think more objectively, become less allied to thinking objectively."
If not, then we have to ask whether wisdom and virtue may suffer from being overly allied to "thinking objectively."
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Mar 8, 2008 1:46:12 AM
