cupholder comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong

97 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 March 2010 11:23PM

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Comment author: cupholder 23 March 2010 10:30:13AM 0 points [-]

Rejecting an interpretation of the evidence != rejecting evidence.

(Incidentally, I tried pulling up meta-analyses on the effect of prayer and found this Cochrane meta-analysis which finds no consistent effect of being prayed for on ill health.)

Comment author: brazil84 23 March 2010 12:21:53PM 0 points [-]

Rejecting an interpretation of the evidence != rejecting evidence.

:shrug: By what standard do you evaluate this evidence so as to reach your atheistic conclusion notwithstanding this evidence for the existence of God?

Comment author: cupholder 23 March 2010 01:26:56PM 0 points [-]

The same standard I use to reach an a-homeopathic conclusion notwithstanding the evidence for homeopathy working, or an a-alien-abduction conclusion notwithstanding the evidence for people being beamed up and anally probed by aliens.

Namely, can I fit the idea of God existing/homeopathy working/alien abduction into my broader understanding of the world, or would it require overturning practically my whole understanding of how reality works?

Comment author: brazil84 23 March 2010 03:33:46PM -1 points [-]

So if I understand you correctly, there is no possible evidence which could convince you of the effectiveness of homeopathy, or the existence of God?

Comment author: cupholder 23 March 2010 03:52:20PM 1 point [-]

On the contrary, it is quite possible that there could be evidence that would convince me of either of those things. It is just that the evidence would have to be strong enough to go head-to-head with basic physics. If it could somehow be demonstrated that Avogadro's number were 300 orders of magnitude too tiny, and that molecules were a googol times smaller than we thought, and could explain why our earlier experiments had led us to our original estimates of Avogadro's number and molecular sizes, then that would tend make the effectiveness of homeopathy (more) plausible.

Comment author: brazil84 23 March 2010 04:21:39PM -1 points [-]

It is just that the evidence would have to be strong enough to go head-to-head with basic physics.

And by what standard would you decide whether the evidence is sufficiently strong?

Comment author: cupholder 23 March 2010 08:58:25PM 0 points [-]

My estimate of the probability of homeopathy working and the current laws of physics being very different would have to be of similar order to my estimate of the probability of the current laws of physics being correct.

Comment author: brazil84 23 March 2010 11:49:15PM *  0 points [-]

And how do you come up with your probability estimates in a situation like this? Do you rely on your general knowledge and common sense? Do you have some algorithm you follow?

Comment author: cupholder 24 March 2010 12:32:03AM -1 points [-]

No, I don't have a strict algorithm I follow in situations like this. What I actually do is probably more like this:

  • do some initial reading to get an idea of the basic plausibility of the hypothesis based on my background knowledge
  • let the hypothesis bounce around my mind for a while
  • try to spell out to myself the resulting gut feeling for the hypothesis' probability
  • check that rough estimate for any gaping flaws
  • if that rough estimate is really low, reject the hypothesis as Too Unlikely To Debate for the time being (remember that 'super careful' warning I made a few posts up? This is where it applies)
  • if the rough estimate is instead very high, accept the hypothesis as Too Likely To Debate for the time being
  • if the probability estimate is more middling, and the hypothesis' truthiness is important to me, gather more data and try to hone my hunch for the hypothesis' probability
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