Zack_M_Davis comments on The 9/11 Meta-Truther Conspiracy Theory - Less Wrong

43 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 December 2009 06:59PM

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Comment author: Zack_M_Davis 24 December 2009 04:16:35AM 1 point [-]

About the Jaynes reference, I'll have to find it again.

You're probably thinking of Chapter 5 of Logic of Science. If I'm reading him correctly, Jaynes is arguing that while reports of ESP are evidence for ESP, they're even stronger evidence that the reports are somehow mistaken.

But the thing about ESP is, we already have strong theoretical reasons for thinking that it doesn't exist. Whereas the prior probability of a secret implosion of WTC7 is very low, and structural engineering is difficult enough that we can't expect naive physical intuition to be able to tell what really happened from a nine-second YouTube clip.

Before dismissing a study as unscientific, you should be able to point to specific sections of the report and explain why you think they're mistaken.

Comment author: Peter_de_Blanc 24 December 2009 05:55:32AM 3 points [-]

If I'm reading him correctly, Jaynes is arguing that while reports of ESP are evidence for ESP, they're even stronger evidence that the reports are somehow mistaken.

I don't have my copy of PT:LOS right here, but this doesn't sound right to me. I would think that your prior probability for the reports being mistaken is greater than your prior for ESP. The reports provide strong evidence for a mistake, and even stronger evidence for ESP, but not strong enough to make ESP look more probable than a mistake.