Nornagest comments on Rationality Quotes February 2013 - Less Wrong

2 Post author: arundelo 05 February 2013 10:20PM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 February 2013 05:56:24AM 4 points [-]

if most researchers' backgrounds are likely to introduce implicit biases toward certain conclusions on certain topics, then taking a close look at the experimental structure to rule out such bias isn't merely a good political sop but is actually good science in its own right.

Unfortunately, since the people deciding which papers to take a closer look at tend to have the same biases as most scientists, the papers that actually get examined closely are the ones going against common biases.

Comment author: Nornagest 02 February 2013 07:19:00AM 3 points [-]

I hate to find myself in the position of playing apologist for this mentality, but I believe the party line is that most of the relevant biases are instilled by mass culture and present at some level even in most people trying to combat them, never mind scientists who oppose them in a kind of vague way but mostly have better things to do with their lives.

In light of the Implicit Association Test this doesn't even seem all that far-fetched to me. The question is to what extent it warrants being paranoid about experimental design, and that's where I find myself begging to differ.

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