ChristianKl comments on Prediction Sources - Less Wrong

6 Post author: lukeprog 04 December 2012 05:48AM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 04 December 2012 08:52:27PM 0 points [-]

[Most predictions in daily life]...aren't textbook level questions either

That depends. For a student who spends 8 hours per day with learning for university many questions boil down to textbook knowledge. For a scientist who does biology research it's also very important that the scientist has a firm grasp about various biology questions that are based on textbook knowledge.

Good rationality training is supposed to make a scientist who studies biology better at biology.

We have strong reason to doubt that: namely, that many well-educated people are also poorly calibrated.

I don't think that there are many people who are calibrated on their knowledge of textbook questions.

Let me give you an example: Question: Which enzymes catalyse RNA synthesis? A) RNA polymerases B) RNA telomerases

The person who answers the question has to say either A or B and predict how likely he's right.

During most university causes students aren't asked how likely they think they are right. As a result the students aren't well calibrated on being right.