Stuart_Armstrong comments on Science Isn't Strict Enough - Less Wrong

13 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 16 May 2008 06:51AM

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Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 16 May 2008 01:45:39PM 1 point [-]

But if you would rather not waste ten years trying to prove the wrong theory, you'll need to essay the vastly more difficult problem: listening to evidence that doesn't shout in your ear.

I'd say that, in practice, Science has an edge over Bayescraft in some areas of hypothesis formulation (mainly in the "hard" sciences). The laws of gravity are not formulated in a Bayesian fashion, nor are most of the laws of physics. The ability to say "electrons exist, they all behave identically, and they are different from muons" is very useful to creating reasonable hypotheses about their behaviour. The corresponding Bayesian statement, with its probabilistic formulation of the same statement, would be more of a barrier to efficient hypothesis formulation.

Similarly, Newton's laws were formulated with incredible precision and simplicity, based on frankly little experimental evidence. The equivalent Bayesian formulation would have been messy and complicated, and would probably have obscured the essential simplicity of what was going on.