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PhilGoetz comments on Scientific Self-Help: The State of Our Knowledge - Less Wrong
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And you have absolutely no idea how many people studied math, tried it, didn't work for them, went on to try something else. You have no data to work with.
The usefulness of math is not measured by the amount of people who learn it, or the amount of people who fail to grasp its usefulness, but by the results that those who master it get.
It is not that interesting how many people try it and fail, but if it works, when done right.
I find statistical exploration of social issues rather hard. But that might just be my own ignorance on the tool set real scientists have.
But I see that someone who is sucessfull in one area might not be able to actually explain how he does it. He might have mistaken models, or ignore important factors he is not aware of. But at least he shows something is there.
Where "those who master it" is defined by "the intersection of people who tried it, and people who get good results".
Anatoly's observations are spot on, whereas MartinB's ignore the problems with self-selection bias, and could also be used as a defense of psychotherapy, ouija boards, and picking lottery numbers from fortune cookies.
More importantly, we don't even have evidence that pickup artist techniques work for anyone! All we have are testimonials from people highly-incentivized to make them. Is there any factual evidence that David DeAngelo, Neil Strauss, or any of these PUAs actually have slept with many beautiful women?
It would be hard to provide such evidence - but that doesn't mean we can just trust them.
Yes. Video evidence and an overwhelming abundance of eyewitness reports. Including reports from women who they have dated. All of this is evidence that someone could assert is faked or engineered by some ingenious plot with payed actors and widespread bribes. Technically.
If we are going to throw about insulting analogies for rhetorical effect then a more appropriate one would be "moon landing".