That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
- Christopher Hitchens
- Christopher Hitchens
Saturday, July 8, 2017
Friday, July 7, 2017
The Two Problems With Science
On the one hand, we have outright fraud – i.e. making up data, or otherwise lying, breaking the basic rules of science.
On the other hand we have questionable practices such as: publication bias, p-value fishing, the File Drawer, sample size peeking, post-hoc storytelling, and all of the other dark arts that can lead to false positive science. These are permissible, even encouraged, by the current rules of doing and publishing science.
These two problems are similar in some ways – they’re both “bad science”, they both lead to failures to replicate, etc. – but in underlying essence they’re very different, so much so that I’m not sure they can be usefully discussed in the same breath.
Fraud and questionable practices are different in terms of their harms. Fraud is a more serious act and it causes local harm, introducing major errors into the record. But in terms of its overall effects, I believe questionable practices are worse, as they systematically distort science: ensuring that, in some cases, it is difficult to publish anything but errors.
[---]
In finance, you have some people who break the rules. Bernie Madoff is the current poster boy for this. Such people harm others by outright criminal acts. But then we have the people who play by the rules, and still cause harm. The global financial crisis was in essence caused by all of the major American banks going all-in on a bet, and losing. Yet no-one broke the rules: the regulations allowed banks to gamble. The problem was not rule-breaking, but the rules (or lack thereof).
Here’s the curious thing: the financial crisis did more harm than Madoff’s scam, even though what Madoff did – theft by fraud – was more immoral than what the bankers did – gambling unwisely.
That’s confusing to our ethical sense and our emotions (who should we feel more angry at? Who’s ‘worse’?) but it’s really no surprise: precisely because what the banks did was above board, everyone did it so the damage was huge. If it had been illegal for banks to gamble all their money at once, individual banks might still have broken that rule, locally, but it’s unlikely that the system would have been threatened.
Maybe you can see where I’m going with this: everyone following bad rules is often worse than individuals breaking good rules.
- More Here
On the other hand we have questionable practices such as: publication bias, p-value fishing, the File Drawer, sample size peeking, post-hoc storytelling, and all of the other dark arts that can lead to false positive science. These are permissible, even encouraged, by the current rules of doing and publishing science.
These two problems are similar in some ways – they’re both “bad science”, they both lead to failures to replicate, etc. – but in underlying essence they’re very different, so much so that I’m not sure they can be usefully discussed in the same breath.
Fraud and questionable practices are different in terms of their harms. Fraud is a more serious act and it causes local harm, introducing major errors into the record. But in terms of its overall effects, I believe questionable practices are worse, as they systematically distort science: ensuring that, in some cases, it is difficult to publish anything but errors.
[---]
In finance, you have some people who break the rules. Bernie Madoff is the current poster boy for this. Such people harm others by outright criminal acts. But then we have the people who play by the rules, and still cause harm. The global financial crisis was in essence caused by all of the major American banks going all-in on a bet, and losing. Yet no-one broke the rules: the regulations allowed banks to gamble. The problem was not rule-breaking, but the rules (or lack thereof).
Here’s the curious thing: the financial crisis did more harm than Madoff’s scam, even though what Madoff did – theft by fraud – was more immoral than what the bankers did – gambling unwisely.
That’s confusing to our ethical sense and our emotions (who should we feel more angry at? Who’s ‘worse’?) but it’s really no surprise: precisely because what the banks did was above board, everyone did it so the damage was huge. If it had been illegal for banks to gamble all their money at once, individual banks might still have broken that rule, locally, but it’s unlikely that the system would have been threatened.
Maybe you can see where I’m going with this: everyone following bad rules is often worse than individuals breaking good rules.
- More Here
Quote of the Day
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
- Albert Einstein
- Albert Einstein
Thursday, July 6, 2017
Quote of the Day
10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.
- Susan Sontag
- Susan Sontag
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Quote of the Day
The next time that you want to motivate yourself to go for a run or pick up the weights, try making up your own ritual that you perform every time you begin.
- Dan Ariely
- Dan Ariely
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Quote of the Day
It’s a self-organizing process, by which selection will arrive at some standard of beauty all by itself, in the absence of any adaptive benefit—or, indeed, despite maladaptive disadvantage.
- The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World and Us by Richard Prum
- The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World and Us by Richard Prum
Monday, July 3, 2017
Quote of the Day
Epictetus told his students, when they’d quote some great thinker, to picture themselves observing the person having sex. It’s funny, you should try it the next time someone intimidates you or makes you feel insecure. See them in your mind, grunting, groaning, and awkward in their private life—just like the rest of us.
- Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage
- Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage
Saturday, July 1, 2017
Wisdom Of The Week
Cyber warfare makes things even worse for would-be imperialists. As recently as the days of George W. Bush, the U.S. could wreak havoc in far-off Fallujah while the Iraqis had no means of retaliating against San Francisco. But if the U.S. now attacks a country possessing even moderate cyber warfare capabilities, malware and logic bombs could stop air traffic in Dallas, cause trains to collide in Philadelphia and bring down the electric grid in Michigan.
In the great age of conquerors, warfare was a low-damage, high-profit affair. At the battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror gained the whole of England in a single day for the cost of a few thousand dead. Nuclear weapons and cyber warfare, by contrast, are high-damage, low-profit technologies. You could use such tools to destroy entire countries, but not to build profitable empires.
Hence in a world filling up with saber-rattling and bad vibes, perhaps our best guarantee of peace is that major powers aren’t familiar with any recent example of a successful war. While Genghis Khan or Julius Caesar would invade a foreign country at the drop of a hat, present-day strongmen talk loud but are very careful about actually launching wars. Of course, if somebody does find a formula to wage successful wars under twenty-first-century conditions, the gates of hell might open with a rush. This is what makes the Russian success in the Crimea a particularly frightening omen. Let’s hope it remains an isolated example. Though, even if it is impossible to wage successful wars in the twenty-first century, that does not give us an absolute guarantee for peace. We should never underestimate human stupidity.
- Why It’s No Longer Possible for Any Country to Win a War by Yuval Noah Harari
In the great age of conquerors, warfare was a low-damage, high-profit affair. At the battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror gained the whole of England in a single day for the cost of a few thousand dead. Nuclear weapons and cyber warfare, by contrast, are high-damage, low-profit technologies. You could use such tools to destroy entire countries, but not to build profitable empires.
Hence in a world filling up with saber-rattling and bad vibes, perhaps our best guarantee of peace is that major powers aren’t familiar with any recent example of a successful war. While Genghis Khan or Julius Caesar would invade a foreign country at the drop of a hat, present-day strongmen talk loud but are very careful about actually launching wars. Of course, if somebody does find a formula to wage successful wars under twenty-first-century conditions, the gates of hell might open with a rush. This is what makes the Russian success in the Crimea a particularly frightening omen. Let’s hope it remains an isolated example. Though, even if it is impossible to wage successful wars in the twenty-first century, that does not give us an absolute guarantee for peace. We should never underestimate human stupidity.
- Why It’s No Longer Possible for Any Country to Win a War by Yuval Noah Harari
Quote of the Day
If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.
– General Erick Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army
– General Erick Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army
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