cupholder comments on Even if you have a nail, not all hammers are the same - Less Wrong

95 Post author: PhilGoetz 29 March 2010 06:09PM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 30 March 2010 03:57:55PM *  6 points [-]

Not willing to take the time to understand the math, ... Without taking classes in statistics and/or medicine, how can I become less wrong on problems like this?

You can't learn to be less wrong about mathematical questions without learning more math. (By definition.)

Comment author: cupholder 30 March 2010 07:17:26PM 11 points [-]

You can't learn to be less wrong about mathematical questions without learning more math. (By definition.)

Depends. I could become less wrong about mathematical questions by learning to listen to people who are less wrong about math. (More generally: I may be able to improve my chance of answering a question correctly even if I can't directly answer it myself.)