lukeprog comments on Your Evolved Intuitions - Less Wrong

15 Post author: lukeprog 05 May 2011 04:21PM

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Comment author: lukeprog 05 May 2011 05:16:30PM *  3 points [-]

Overconfident? Really?

  • "...looks like a good candidate for an evolved intuition"
  • "Many researchers think..."
  • "Many researchers suggest..."
  • "Our brains may have evolved..."
  • "but we may not have evolved..."
  • "...it seems unlikely that..."

And of course I haven't defended selfish gene theory.

Comment author: Sideways 05 May 2011 06:04:50PM *  7 points [-]

An exercise in parody:

  • The bacterial flagellum looks like a good candidate for an intelligently designed structure.

  • Many [non-biologist] researchers think Intelligent Design has explanatory value.

  • Many [non-biologist] researchers suggest Intelligent Design is scientifically useful.

  • Our brains may have been intelligently designed to...

  • but we may not have been designed to...

Evolutionary psychology isn't as catastrophically implausible as ID; hence the bit about parody. The point is that merely using qualified language is no guarantee against overconfidence.

Comment author: thomblake 05 May 2011 06:22:30PM *  2 points [-]

merely using qualified language is no guarantee against overconfidence

No, but qualified language by itself is no basis for an accusation of overconfidence, if it is not accompanied by overconfident probabilities. The 'qualified language' is the only indication I see in the text of degree of confidence, and it indicates a general lack of confidence, and so I don't see on what basis [EDIT:] neq1 is [/EDIT] making the accusation.

Comment author: Sideways 05 May 2011 07:00:26PM 5 points [-]

I'm actually not making an accusation of overconfidence; just pointing out that using qualified language doesn't protect against it. I would prefer language that gives (or at least suggests) probability estimates or degrees of confidence, rather than phrases like "looks like" or "many suggest".

ID theorists are more likely than evolutionary biologists to use phrases like "looks like" or "many suggest" to defend their ideas, because those phrases hide the actual likelihood of ID. When I find myself thinking, "it could be that X," instead of "because of A and B, X is likely," I suspect myself of being overconfident, and I apply the same heuristic to statements from other people.

Comment author: thomblake 05 May 2011 07:16:31PM *  1 point [-]

Sorry, "you're" above refers to its great-grandparent. Will edit.

Comment author: neq1 06 May 2011 01:13:01PM 2 points [-]

And as it turns out, all these predictions are correct.

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