buybuydandavis comments on The Universal Medical Journal Article Error - Less Wrong

6 Post author: PhilGoetz 29 April 2014 05:57PM

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Comment author: buybuydandavis 07 April 2013 03:54:38AM *  3 points [-]

I ignore evidence when the evidence doesn't relate to the point of contention.

Phil criticized a bit of paper, noting that the statistical analysis involved did not justify the conclusion made. The conclusion did not follow the analysis. Phil was correct in that criticism.

It's just not an argument against Phil that someone might take some of the data in the paper and do a Bayesian analysis that the authors did not do.

Comment author: Matt_Simpson 07 April 2013 04:31:48AM 3 points [-]

It's just not an argument against Phil that someone might take some of the data in the paper and do a Bayesian analysis that the authors did not do.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that what the authors did do IS evidence against the hypothesis in question. Evidence against a homogenous response is evidence against any response (it makes some response less likely)

Comment author: buybuydandavis 07 April 2013 04:50:42AM 3 points [-]

What they did do?

Are you saying the measurements they took make their final claim more likely, or that their analysis of the data is correct and justifies their claim?

Yes, if you arrange things moderately rationally, evidence against a homogenous response is evidence against any response, but much less so. I think Phil agrees with that too, and is objecting to a conclusion based on much less so evidence pretending to have much more justification than it does.

Comment author: Matt_Simpson 07 April 2013 05:25:35AM 1 point [-]

Ok, yeah, translating what the researchers did into a Bayesian framework isn't quite right either. Phil should have translated what they did into a frequentist framework - i.e. he still straw manned them. See my comment here.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 07 April 2013 03:39:20PM 1 point [-]

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that what the authors did do IS evidence against the hypothesis in question.

I know that. That's not the point. They claimed to have proven something they did not prove. They did not present this claim in a Bayesian framework.