Kaj_Sotala comments on Are these cognitive biases, biases? - Less Wrong

35 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 23 December 2009 05:27PM

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Comment author: cousin_it 23 December 2009 06:34:27PM *  1 point [-]

No need to be scared of statistics! This part:

In the absence of other data, you should treat your own preferences as evidence for the preferences of others... the one-third and two-thirds estimates that would arise from a Bayesian analysis with a uniform prior distribution of belief

refers to the rule of succession.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 23 December 2009 06:56:39PM 0 points [-]

Oh, I did get that part. The bit I didn't entirely follow when the authors had a longer discussion of different calculated phi values regarding the connection between the measured consensus effect and the participant's accuracy in the study. For one, I didn't recognize the term "phi" - Wikipedia implied that it might be the result of a chi-square test, which we did cover in the statistics 101 course I've taken, but it might have been too long ago as I'm not sure of how exactly that test applies in this case or how the phi value should be interpreted.