katydee comments on Right for the Wrong Reasons - Less Wrong

14 Post author: katydee 24 January 2013 12:02AM

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Comment author: katydee 24 January 2013 10:45:32AM 2 points [-]

Are you going to reward me for being wrong for the right reasons?

It's very difficult for humans to actually isolate such cases, but in principle yes. After all, one in twenty predictions that you make with 95% confidence should turn out to be wrong. Just as lucking into accuracy doesn't mean you're right, lucking into inaccuracy doesn't mean you're wrong.

Comment author: Decius 30 January 2013 12:37:13AM 0 points [-]

Should you be punished if your predictions with 95% confidence come true 97% of a large number of trials? If not, someone is still skimming.

Comment author: katydee 30 January 2013 02:54:48AM *  2 points [-]

Yes. Underconfidence is as much an error as overconfidence is, albeit a less common one.

Comment author: nshepperd 30 January 2013 12:39:42AM 1 point [-]

Of course. After all, that means that your predictions with 5% confidence came true in only 3% of trials.