Douglas_Knight comments on Contrarianism and reference class forecasting - Less Wrong

26 Post author: taw 25 November 2009 07:41PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (90)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: DanArmak 26 November 2009 03:58:37PM 1 point [-]

The WP table you link to gives these cranial volume ranges: H. sapiens, 1000-1850. H. neanderthalensis, 1200-1900.

Given the size of the ranges and > 70% overlap, the difference between 1850 and 1900 at the upper end doesn't seem necessarily significant. Besides, brain size correlates strongly with body size, and Neanderthals were more massive, weren't they?

More importantly, if the contemporary variation for H. sapiens (i.e. us) is all or most of that huge range (1000-1850 cc), do we know how it correlates with various measures of intellectual and other capabilities? Especially if you throw away the upper and lower 10% of variation.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 26 November 2009 05:04:03PM 0 points [-]

More importantly, if the contemporary variation for H. sapiens (i.e. us) is all or most of that huge range (1000-1850 cc), do we know how it correlates with various measures of intellectual and other capabilities?

.2

Comment author: DanArmak 26 November 2009 05:17:53PM 1 point [-]

Can you expand please? Exactly what measurement is correlated with cranial capacity at .2?