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Randaly comments on What do professional philosophers believe, and why? - Less Wrong Discussion

31 Post author: RobbBB 01 May 2013 02:40PM

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Comment author: Thrasymachus 03 May 2013 09:31:33PM 2 points [-]

I'm pretty sure an outside view would say it is LWers rather than domain experts who are more likely to be wrong, even when accounting for the selection-confounding Carl Schulman notes: I don't think many people have prior convictions about decision theory before they study it.

I've noted it previously, but when the LW consensus are that certain views are not just correct but settled questions (obviously compatibilism re. free will, obviously atheism, obviously one-box, obviously not moral realism etc.), despite the balance of domain experts disagreeing with said consensus, this screams Dunning-Kruger effect.

Comment author: Randaly 04 May 2013 02:41:45AM 2 points [-]

Compatibilism doesn't belong on that list; a majority of philosophers surveyed agree, and it seems like most opposition is concentrated within Philosophy of Religion, which I don't think is the most relevant subfield. (The correlation between philosophers of religion and libertarianism was the second highest found.)

Comment author: Thrasymachus 04 May 2013 11:15:45AM *  0 points [-]

True, but LW seems to be overconfident in compatibilism compared to the spread of expert opinion. It doesn't seem it should be considered 'settled' or 'obvious' when >10% of domain experts disagree.