wedrifid comments on The Four-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss - any LWers tried it? - Less Wrong

21 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 June 2011 10:18PM

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Comment author: gwern 10 June 2011 03:40:32AM 9 points [-]

I think comparing Feriss to lukeprog's posts does the latter a grave injustice.

In the matters I consider myself fairly knowledgeable, like spaced repetitions, the claims lukeprog makes are consistent with what I expect. In matters I consider myself fairly knowledgeable like polyphasic sleep, the claims Feriss makes are not consistent with what I expect, to the point where I wondered if Feriss had ever actually done it as he claims or whether he was just plagiarizing things others had written. (I'm not impressed with what he wrote about the Zeo either.) And Gerard above discusses the ECA stack.

Comment author: wedrifid 10 June 2011 09:14:23AM *  -2 points [-]

nd Gerard above discusses the ECA stack.

This sentence in particular resolves to net evidence against your position, at least according to my publicly inferrable priors.

Gerard's contribution to the wikipedia ECA page consists of:

  • making a claim about the state of scientific theory that flat out contradicts what can be found with a single pubmed search and then
  • making an edit to the page that violates neutral point of view, the need for citation and basic grammar.

Note that taking ECA is basically a terrible idea and if Tim had actually recommended it in his book he would lose all sorts of credibility. But he didn't so he doesn't.

Also note: My objection to the wikipedia ECA page applies specifically to the state at the time when Gerard first appealed to the authority of his own wikipedia edit. Further edits by either him or another author may well have improved it since then.

Comment author: gwern 11 June 2011 03:22:58AM *  9 points [-]

I don't care about Gerard's contributions. Nor do I either know or care about the facts of the ECA stack. I read his post the first time it was mentioned on LW, and I've read it again - it still seems like a damning example of Ferriss's shoddy research practices. I'll quote it:

So I sought out his references PDF (he doesn't put them in the actual book for space reasons) and looked up what he had ... no dozens of studies, just a long quote from an old version of the Wikipedia article. Except that that text was removed from the article because it was completely uncited, overall or in detail, and was peppered with "citation needed" tags. It's only one example, but I think quoting text that was deleted from Wikipedia for having been uncited rubbish as your crowning moment of evidence suggests deep problems with the concept of evidence.)

You do not point to an unreferenced - not just an unreferenced part, but one with active warning tags indicating low quality! - as your citation for a claim like 'dozens of studies supported the effects'. You point to a study, or a review, or hell, a popular media article like from the New York Times or something claiming to summarize the research.

making a claim about the state of scientific theory that flat out contradicts what can be found with a single pubmed search

A Pubmed search he did not link to (he could link to Wikipedia but not Pubmed?), and which I have no reason to believe he ever conducted. In 4HW, Ferriss advocates multiple forms of lying and deception, and more generally, laziness; he deserves no benefit of the doubt. If it looks like he stopped at a Wikipedia paragraph - he probably did just that, in full accordance with his little 'Pareto' principles.

(The contrast with lukeprog is obvious.)

Comment author: wedrifid 11 June 2011 06:54:04AM -1 points [-]

ubmed search he did not link to (he could link to Wikipedia but not Pubmed?), and which I have no reason to believe he ever conducted. In 4HW, Ferriss advocates multiple forms of lying and deception, and more generally, laziness; he deserves no benefit of the doubt. If it looks like he stopped at a Wikipedia paragraph - he probably did just that, in full accordance with his little 'Pareto' principles

These are not inferences I would make.

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