lukeprog comments on Mini-review: 'Proving History: Bayes' Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus' - Less Wrong

18 Post author: lukeprog 01 February 2012 07:20PM

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Comment author: lukeprog 02 February 2012 01:55:21AM 2 points [-]

I am interested in that review of yours.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2012 02:07:39AM 3 points [-]

It's long, so I put it in dropbox. This link should take you there. (If not, let me know. My dropbox skills are probably sub-par)

Comment author: gwern 04 June 2012 02:04:54AM *  1 point [-]

Interesting review, but I have to take exception to your last paragraph: I think Turchin is doing the right thing by only investigating a few selected variables (which he has substantial background reason for thinking of interest) as input into his models. Turning a neural network loose on every possible variable is just begging for massive datamining and multiple comparison problems which eliminate any validity you might hope to have for your results! Worse, if you use all your data initially, no one will be able to test your results for overfitting on any other data set...

Comment author: [deleted] 04 June 2012 02:14:16AM *  1 point [-]

Thanks for the feedback. I would guess you're probably right. My knowledge of data mining practices is actually pretty minimal.

The review, however, was written for a class, and so it is academically mandatory (i.e. "If you want an A you better...") to come up with problems with the original research and ways to improve. The professor seemed to like neural networks, so... (I think I inherited her "Just run everything through a neural network" mentality, but will definitely update my views based on your feedback. Thanks!)