lukeprog comments on Rationality Quotes August 2012 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Alejandro1 03 August 2012 03:33PM

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Comment author: lukeprog 31 August 2012 08:05:38PM 3 points [-]

A principal object of Wald's [statistical decision theory] is then to characterize the class of admissible strategies in mathematical terms, so that any such strategy can be found by carrying out a definite procedure... [Unfortunately] an 'inadmissible' decision may be overwhelmingly preferable to an 'admissible' one, because the criterion of admissibility ignores prior information — even information so cogent that, for example, in major medical... safety decisions, to ignore it would put lives in jeopardy and support a charge of criminal negligence.

...This illustrates the folly of inventing noble-sounding names such as 'admissible' and 'unbiased' for principles that are far from noble; and not even fully rational. In the future we should profit from this lesson and take care that we describe technical conditions by names that are... morally neutral, and so do not have false connotations which could mislead others for decades, as these have.

E.T. Jaynes, from page 409 of PT: LoS.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 01 September 2012 03:24:38AM -1 points [-]

This illustrates the folly of inventing noble-sounding names such as 'admissible' and 'unbiased' for principles that are far from noble; and not even fully rational.

You mean such as 'rational'.