ErikM comments on [Link] Social Psychology & Priming: Art Wears Off - Less Wrong

1 Post author: GLaDOS 06 February 2013 10:08AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (11)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: ErikM 17 February 2013 05:00:22PM 1 point [-]

Something similar goes for phrenology (the prediction of mental attributes from head shape): Science can discover where phrenology works and which traits it can predict and where it stops working. The sheer number of possible traits and populations one can correlate makes me confident you'd find something scientific if you looked. But if science discovers that elongated heads predict high extraversion among Swedes, and is otherwise largely wrong or unpredictive, would you say that phrenology is science?

Steven Kaas quipped something I find applicable: "Yes, I was wrong, but that only makes me falsifiable which makes me scientific which makes me right."This should be taken as general truth about the path towards becoming right - not a post hoc defense of something specific that didn't replicate.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 18 February 2013 02:39:59AM 0 points [-]

Same as response above - the context was a best case scenario in which the effect is real.

Comment author: gwern 17 February 2013 05:27:13PM 0 points [-]

But if science discovers that elongated heads predict high extraversion among Swedes, and is otherwise largely wrong or unpredictive, would you say that phrenology is science?

Why would you not? Does the word 'phrenology' really scare you that much? Fortunately, names can be changed, as SIAI has recently demonstrated.