Emile comments on The Simple Math of Everything - Less Wrong

42 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 17 November 2007 10:42PM

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Comment author: Emile 31 October 2011 09:45:26AM 5 points [-]

But the problem is that a few people think they know the math here and think they understand the situation completely because of it. In fact they know a tiny bit of math (or trust that other people know the math), and end up doing incredibly stupid things because of it.

Agreed, but people with enough experience of the limits of simple mathematical models in one field are less likely to make that mistake in other fields.

A hypothetical "The Simple Maths of Everything" textbook should include warnings about the limits of the models, and a few memorable examples of how those models go wrong.