Eugine_Nier comments on Open Thread, June 1-15, 2012 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 01 June 2012 04:01AM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 14 June 2012 12:33:12AM 0 points [-]

There are historical theories that actually fit most of the facts and pseudo-historical theories that fit carefully selected sets of facts. Being able to tell the difference is a valuable skill that members of this community should try to develop.

And how does one do that? The problem is that most historical facts are publicly available, so how does one distinguish a theory producing by data mining and overfitting from one that wasn't?

This is a thick problem.