You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Dustin comments on rational dating - can we escape the rat race be setting smarter goals? - Less Wrong Discussion

-7 Post author: RobertChange 09 September 2013 10:38PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (37)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Dustin 12 September 2013 11:52:18PM 0 points [-]

I'm no longer sure what you're arguing for.

I claim that if your claim is that there are multiple cite-worthy studies that are easily findable, your first choice of an example shouldn't be a non-scientific source as evidence that there are multiple cite-worthy studies that are easily findable.

Furthermore, I take it as obvious that where there isn't a lot of high quality, cite-worthy studies out there, that the source he provided is a fine source to use. After all, we have to use the data that we have and assign appropriate confidence to it.

But we are not talking about a naturopath but about a data driven business.

I wasn't intending to imply that the quality distance between a data driven business and whatever the current state of scientific studies is the same as the quality distance between a naturopath and an MD.

I was stating that in the universe where there are multiple easily findable cite-worthy studies, a blog post using OkCupid data was below a cite-worthy study in the same manner a naturopath is below an MD.