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Lumifer comments on Fixing Moral Hazards In Business Science - Less Wrong
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No, not really. Recall the setting -- I am about to produce a sous vide circulator and am interested (1) whether people find that product useful; and (2) whether the product is safe. I see nothing in your post which indicates how the process of answering my questions will work.
By the way, shipping a product to random people and asking them "Is it useful?" and "Did you kill yourself at any point during the last 24 hours?" is not likely to produce anything useful at all, never mind a proper scientific study.
I see. Right now the system doesn't have any defined questions. I believe that suitable questions will be found so I'm focusing on the areas I have a solid background in.
If a project is unsafe in a literal way, shipping the product to consumers (or offering it for sale) is of course illegal. However, when considering a sous vide cooker in the past I have always worried about the dangers of potentially eating undercooked food (eg. diarrhea, nausea, and light headedness), which was how I took your meaning previously. "Product is safe for use, but accidental use might lead to undesirable outcomes". As I mentioned in our discussion here this project is not intended to be a replacement for the FDA.
I agree that "is it useful" is not a particularly useful question to ask, but I don't see any harm in supporting it. If you are looking for a better question, "80% of users used the product twice a week or more three months after receiving it" sounds like information that would personally help me make a buying decision. (Have you used the product today?)
So perhaps frequency of use might be a better question? I wasn't haggling over what questions to ask because it was your example.
I think rigor in data collection and data processing are what make something scientific. For an example, you could do a rigorous study on "do you think the word turtle is funny?".
Sorry, I don't find this idea, at least in its present form, useful. However I've certainly been wrong before and will be wrong in the future so it's quite possible I"m wrong now as well :-) There doesn't seem to be much point for me to play the "Yes, but" game and I'll just tap out.