Vladimir_Nesov comments on The usefulness of correlations - Less Wrong

13 Post author: RichardKennaway 04 August 2009 07:00PM

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Comment author: orthonormal 11 August 2009 05:25:18PM 2 points [-]

OK. Well, I've read the paper now, and I find that I strongly disagree with a key component of Marken's methodology, and that I think this zeroes in on the cause of our argument here about what kind of experimental evidence counts for PCT. Frankly, though, I don't want to spend time arguing against it only for you to say "OK, maybe Marken is a crank, but that doesn't say anything against other PCT researchers". So if it's not too much trouble, could I ask you to read the (short) paper and tell me:

  1. Are the methods in Section 4 and 5 standard for PCT research?
  2. Do the results in Section 4 constitute evidence that control theory is a good model for prescription errors?

If the answer to either of these questions is "No", then we're just back where we started, with me asking for experimental evidence for PCT in a cognitive context. If the answer to both is "Yes", then I think I can explain my disagreement.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 11 August 2009 05:38:51PM *  0 points [-]

If Marken will turn out to be both a crank and a respected member of PCT community, it will say something about the community.

ETA: Technical report "Error in Skilled Performance: A Control Model of Prescription Writing" (2002) can be found online here.