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IlyaShpitser comments on True numbers and fake numbers - Less Wrong
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I think if the real parameter is hard to measure or is maybe actually multiple parameters the correct answer is to think about modeling harder, not to insist that a dumb model is what we should use.
In less quantititative fields that need to be a little quantitative to publish they have a silly habit of slapping a linear regression model on their problem and calling it a day.
Papers, books, paintings, creating output? Do you think Van Gogh and his ilk would do well on an IQ test?
Cumulative lifetime output doesn't seem very useful, though. For one thing, it's only measurable for dead or near-dead people...
???
Cumulative just means "what you have done so far."
You're right, of course. Nevermind. Though the problem of measuring it for someone who hasn't yet had the chance to do much remains.
Expected cumulative lifetime output, then.
Two papers per year * 30 years of productive career = 60 papers.... :-(
Most people, unlike you (according to your name, at least), are not paper machines.
Someone who works in a large department that values number of papers published and number of grants secured but doesn't particularly care about quality of work, and so publishes four papers a year of poor quality, which are occasionally cited, but only by direct colleagues, vs. Douglas Hoftstadter, who rarely publishes anything but whose first work has been immensely influential, you're going to get a worse picture than if you had just used IQ.
Heh, I suppose that is one of the alternative readings of my handle.
Only four? Why, I know some (who will remain nameless) that published eight or ten papers last year alone.
But of course Goodhart's law ruins everything.