MartinB comments on Scientific Self-Help: The State of Our Knowledge - Less Wrong

138 Post author: lukeprog 20 January 2011 08:44PM

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Comment author: Anatoly_Vorobey 21 January 2011 05:02:40PM 6 points [-]

This is a terrible argument:

  • it affirms the consequent;
  • the assumption that all social activity reduces to fitness strategies is in sharp contrast with reality and lacks evidence;
  • even allowing for the unreasonable assumption and overlooking the fallacy, the problem remains that apart from some anecdotal evidence, nobody has a clue as to whether PUA works, including people who denounce it. The most that could be concluded, even under the manifestly unreasonable assumptions, is that people who denounce PUA believe that it works, or have anecdotal evidence that it works. However, since it's reasonably common for people to both denounce PUA and believe that it's practiced by pathetic unsuccessful creeps, this conclusion is wrong, too.
Comment author: MartinB 22 January 2011 02:39:52PM 0 points [-]

nobody has a clue as to whether PUA works

I think that is a mistake. There are at least 10.000s of people who ran through all kinds of programs or self studied. Some report and increased success rate, some do not. Some do worse. How is that just mere anecdotal evidence?

You may not get the specific evidence you ask for. But you get some.

Comment author: MartinB 22 January 2011 02:41:41PM 2 points [-]

Oh I should add, that it does not mean that the people who achieve success know how they do it. Just that.

I noticed how in many cases successful people not only have a hard time explaining how the are successful, but honestly have a mistaken view about it. Unconscious competence.