Kutta comments on Rationality quotes January 2012 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Thomas 01 January 2012 10:28AM

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Comment author: Kutta 01 January 2012 11:23:25AM * 9 points [-]

Most people you know are probably weak skeptics, and I would probably fit this definition in several ways. "Strong skeptics" are the people who write The Skeptics' Encyclopedia, join the California Skeptics' League, buy the Complete Works of James Randi, and introduce themselves at parties saying "Hi, I'm Ted, and I'm a skeptic!". Of weak skeptics I approve entirely. But strong skeptics confused me for a long while. You don't believe something exists. That seems like a pretty good reason not to be too concerned with it.

Yvain, 2004, source

Edit: authorial instance specified on popular demand.

Comment author: Yvain 02 January 2012 05:40:15AM * 12 points [-]

More accurately, Yvain-2004

Comment author: fortyeridania 02 January 2012 11:49:23AM 6 points [-]

Is it more accurate to put it thus because Yvain-2012 disagrees with Yvain-2004 on this issue?

Comment author: Yvain 03 January 2012 02:12:29AM * 29 points [-]

I don't know if there's enough of a specific, meaningful claim there for me to disagree with, but Yvain-2012 probably would not have written those same words. Yvain-2012 would probably say he sometimes feels creeped out by the levels of signaling that go on in the skeptical community and thinks they sometimes snowball into the ridiculous, but that the result is prosocial and they are still performing a service.

(really I can only speak for Yvain-2011 at this point; my acquaintance with Yvain-2012 has been extremely brief)

Comment author: Will_Newsome comment score below threshold [+] (10 children)

Comment author: nshepperd 04 January 2012 04:41:40AM 3 points [-]

It's a tragedy that you can't prove people wrong when they're right, isn't it?

Comment author: Will_Newsome comment score below threshold [+] (0 children)

Comment author: arundelo 03 January 2012 09:05:42AM 1 point [-]

*cough* Million Dollar Challenge *cough*

Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 04 January 2012 07:49:33AM 4 points [-]

Dean Radin thinks there's something real going on with Ganzfeld telepathy experiments, and runs the numbers on what it'd cost to set up a satisfactory demonstration based on the assumption that people are getting a 32 % success rate instead of the statistically expected 25 % without any known physical causation. He comes up with an experiment that takes 14 years to run and costs somewhat in the excess of $1 million, and concludes that it's not worth doing for a million dollar price but would probably be for ten million dollars.

Comment author: MixedNuts 05 January 2012 03:00:22PM 2 points [-]

He could make additional money from bets. After getting preliminary results, he could ask for donations. He could just contact the X prize foundation and possibly some other skeptics' organizations and ask for ten million rather than one, showing a slightly more detailed version of his post (especially how blinding is done). I expect they would agree.

Fun fact: "radin" is French for "penny-pincher".

Comment author: Will_Newsome 03 January 2012 09:10:38AM * 0 points [-]

It's like we are playing chess and I play 1.Nf3 and you play ...d5 and you annotate it as 1.Nf3?? d5!! . Am I misinterpreting the point of your comment?

Comment author: arundelo 03 January 2012 09:41:16AM 2 points [-]

I think you are. Here it is without the funny business:

As I'm sure you already know, if you really think you have paranormal powers, you can use them to win a huge amount of money and fame. I'm sure you could come up with some good use for the money, and the skeptics would have to admit they were wrong.

(P.S. I was taking the comment I was responding to seriously. Did you mean it that way?)

Comment author: Jack 03 January 2012 10:56:40AM 2 points [-]

The positive results in parapsychology tend to be like 35% hit rates where chance would give a 25% hit rate. It isn't really financially feasible for researchers to gather enough data for a p value of 0.000001 (which, quite reasonably is what Randi requires-- who wouldn't take a 5 in 1000 shot at a million bucks?).

Which isn't to say I think psy is the best explanation for the p= 0.005 results out there, just that no one challenging for the Randi prize doesn't say much about academic parapsychology.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 03 January 2012 10:01:30AM * 1 point [-]

I meant it seriously, though I'll probably regret the strong language and it makes me kinda sad that skeptics are so good at inadvertently trolling me. (ETA: Yup, regretted it. Edited comment to be less in-your-face.)

And what I meant with my chess comment, without the funny business, is that I'm aware of the Randi prize, aware that no one has claimed it, and still assign a decent amount of probability mass (aghhhh that doesn't actually work, probability isn't fundamental like that, but whatever) to the magick hypothesis. So I guess maybe I was annoyed at the implication that I hadn't thought these things through carefully already. I apologize for being brusque.

Comment author: spriteless 04 January 2012 10:13:49PM 2 points [-]

Inadvertent trolling is impossible, trolling is in intent. If your own reaction is similar to being trolled, it is a the genuine emotions trolls try to create through dishonest means... also it makes it seem like you are trying to paint yourself the victim which would make a real troll happy but a non-troll sad. Well, it would also make someone who dislikes you happy, and someone who wants two way communication without signaling that you are wounded and deserve special reprimands sad. I don't want to make you angry, I want to have a conversation.

The magick hypothesis can be tested, can't it? I mean, at this point it seems to me either magick is false, or there is a conspiracy to prevent it from being proven true, like all the White Wolf World of Darkness games have. Some settings have several competing conspiracies to keep the masses ignorant of the nature of reality, some have a big monolithic one. It affects the availability of that hypothesis, for me, at least.

If bits of magic were already discovered and incorporated into science, would that count for the skeptics or magicks? The way herbalism and alchemy have been eaten up by chemistry, skeptics kept pace with the abilities traditionally handled by wise old people and shared the knowledge for many. If, say, life auras were found, skeptics would want to use the knowledge of that too. If auras do not respond to machines we can build, we'll train animals, like aura sniffing dogs as well as gunpowder and drug sniffing ones we already have. The fact that it looks like we are using familiars to find poisons does not deter us now.

What, exactly, is it that makes skeptics so infuriating? Is it mostly the way to point out a link to someone saying something snarky and then walk away, instead of conversing? I know I find that infuriating when someone says something snarky and acts like the conversation is over. I can't sit through creationism movies sometimes without wanting to punch through the internet when they make a joke about apes having human chests and leaving the subject implying because it's funny then it is not a valid point that humans and apes are related lets move on. rage rage rage...

Hello welcome to less wrong please don't mind if we obsess and fail to notice you're upset like aspies it is the culture here. :P

Comment author: Stabilizer 02 January 2012 05:45:36PM 7 points [-]

Well, even if Yvain-2012 does not disagree with Yvain-2004, it would be nice to have the year attached. I would like that the year-attachment convention for attributing quotes and ideas becomes more widespread. Right now, the default assumption that everybody makes is that people are consistent over time. In reality, people almost surely change over time, and it is unreasonable to expect them to justify something which their earlier selves said. So, it would be really nice if the default was year-attachment.

Comment author: fortyeridania 04 January 2012 11:56:20AM 0 points [-]

That would seem to have benefits relative to no further information (except the author's name), but would the benefits be greater than those afforded by the current convention of citing the relevant work? Or maybe you think people don't follow that convention enough and they would be more likely to cite something if the thing they had to cite was just a date?

Comment author: Stabilizer 05 January 2012 06:55:47AM 0 points [-]

Citing the original work would be the best I suppose. But in relatively informal contexts, like internet forums, it is probably easier for the reader to quickly have a sense of when the given quote was said if the year is attached.

Comment author: zntneo 02 January 2012 04:08:18AM 4 points [-]

I would say that for instance I don't believe that most alt med stuff works but this is exactly the reason I care that others know this and how we know this. This attitude infuriates me.

Comment author: machrider 02 January 2012 05:27:53PM * 4 points [-]

The fact is that there are many battles worth fighting, and strong skeptics are fighting one (or perhaps a few) of them. (As I was disgusted to see recently, human sacrifice apparently still happens.) However, I also think it's ok to say that battle is not the one that interests you. You don't have the capacity to be a champion for all possible good causes, so it's good that there is diversity of interest among people trying to improve the human condition.

Comment author: zntneo 03 January 2012 01:08:43AM 4 points [-]

I totally agree if its not your cup of tea fine. What pisses me off is the line about " if you don't believe it exists it seems like a good reason to not be concerned with it"

Comment author: MixedNuts 02 January 2012 02:28:32AM 14 points [-]

The next sentence is

It's not like belief in UFOs killed your pet hamster when you were a kid or something and you've had a terrible hatred of it ever since.

Skeptics will tell you that yes, it did. Belief that the Sun needs human sacrifices to rise in the morning killed their beloved big brother, and they've had a terrible hatred of it ever since. And they must slay all of its allies, everything that keeps people from noticing that Newton's laws have murder-free sunrise covered. Even belief in the Easter bunny, because the mistakes you make to believe in it are the same. That seems like a pretty good reason to be concerned with it.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 January 2012 03:56:42PM 5 points [-]

I was impressed when a skeptic source (sorry no cite) admitted that most people who read astrology columns do it for entertainment rather than for guidance in how to live their lives.

I don't know why some people and groups damp out most or all of the ill effects of their arbitrary beliefs, while others follow arbitrary beliefs to the point of serious damage or destruction. I don't think I've seen this discussed anywhere.

Comment author: James_K 02 January 2012 03:31:11AM 11 points [-]

Indeed. In fact there's a website: What's the Harm? that explains what damage these beliefs cause.

Comment author: Bill_McGrath 05 January 2012 09:12:32PM 4 points [-]

Victims of Moon Landing Denial

Marvellous.

Comment author: MixedNuts 05 January 2012 09:15:55PM 3 points [-]

That actually seems to be a victim of belief in moon landing by people who have landed on the moon.

Comment author: fortyeridania 02 January 2012 11:50:15AM 1 point [-]

The previous quotation would seem to speak in favor of more strong skeptics.

Kutta comments on Rationality quotes January 2012 - Less Wrong

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