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Amanojack comments on [SEQ RERUN] Some Claims Are Just Too Extraordinary - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: jake987722 27 April 2011 03:06AM

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Comment author: Amanojack 01 May 2011 06:23:22PM 1 point [-]

A peer-reviewed, journal-published, replicated report is worth far more than what you see with your own eyes.

Including my viewing of the report itself? That would be silly. Later Eliezer says that the fact that it is a good idea to trust in science is "pragmatically true," but probably better to say it's a good rule of thumb. I agree with the spirit of the post, but it goes so far into the hyperbolic that it undermines some other aspects of rationality:

What about the claim that 2 + 2 = 5?

Science cannot prove a nonsensical claim. If I believe I read that as a proved result in an authoritative scientific paper, the probability that there was a miscommunication somewhere eclipses everything else. What about the claim "A and not-A"?