VoiceOfRa comments on Rationality Quotes Thread May 2015 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Vaniver 01 May 2015 02:31PM

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Comment author: VoiceOfRa 13 May 2015 06:35:02AM 1 point [-]

To help you see what some of the problems with Chetty’s work is, let’s walk through the top and bottom of his new rankings of 2,478 counties. When thinking about Big Data, I’ve long found it extremely useful to look at the highest and lowest examples in detail to see what kind of patterns leap out. It’s extremely easy these days to look up facts about outliers, so more people should do it. This doesn’t seem to be a common practice among academic data analysts, however, who evidently fear contamination by bias and stereotypes. But instead they wind up suffering from ignorance, which is worse.

Steve Sailer

Comment author: fezziwig 13 May 2015 07:29:39AM *  -1 points [-]

I'm not sure what to make of this quote. It is better to be ignorant than to believe the wrong thing; ignorance is much easier to identify and fix.

Or maybe he's saying that the fear of contamination is unjustified? That doesn't seem accurate either.

EDIT: My bad, it's Steve Sailer, I read the article and of course he was talking about racial bias, not biases generally.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 16 May 2015 10:36:12AM 0 points [-]

When thinking about Big Data, I’ve long found it extremely useful to look at the highest and lowest examples in detail to see what kind of patterns leap out.

Those will usually be the least populous counties because statistical fluctuations.

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 17 May 2015 10:18:06PM 1 point [-]

Well, in Sailer's examples it wasn't.

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