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brazil84 comments on What false beliefs have you held and why were you wrong? - Less Wrong Discussion
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:shrug: That's what I believed. Anyway, your response is a bit of a True Scotsman argument. If I find 100 people who expressed similar beliefs, you can simply dismiss them as not being "reasonably serious."
Let's do this: How do I know if someone is "reasonably serious" or not?
In the same way saying that no one serious believes in perpetual motion machines is also a True Scotsman argument.
Has adequate knowledge of human physiology and is not trolling :-P
Yes, I would say that it suffers from basically the same same problem. Do you agree that there are people out there who believe, in good faith, that perpetual motion machines are possible? Do you agree that there are people who invest a lot of personal time and energy into constructing perpetual motion machines?
Okay, and if someone asserts or implies that generally speaking obesity is caused by low metabolism, how do I know if they have adequate knowledge of human physiology and are not trolling?
And let's look at the girls in the two videos they linked. Although they did not make general statements about the causes of obesity, they did seem to believe at the beginning that their obesity was caused by slow metabolism, agreed? Would you agree that those two girls were not trolling? And in your opinion, did they have adequate knowledge of human physiology? If not, how do you know it?
In short, are those two girls "reasonably serious"?
Here I mean "serious" in the external-observer sense -- to denote people whom others consider serious = worthy of attention and time. I do NOT mean "serious" in the internal perception sense (as in e.g. "I'm not joking, I'm serious").
Fine, but please help me figure out where the goalposts are. Are the two girls in the videos I linked worthy of attention and time (at the beginning of the video, before they were scientifically tested)? In your opinion, do they have adequate knowledge of human physiology? If not, how do you know it?
The goalposts in which particular game? This has grown from talking about a minor mistaken view into a request for general guidance on how to evaluate people's reputations and claims about truth. If you're looking for help with epistemic rationality, well, I heard that there is a whole forum concerned with it and trying to be less wrong...
And unless you're willing to accept me personally as the Ultimate Arbiter Of All Things, I don't see why my opinion about some girls in some videos (which I haven't looked at, by the way) matters.
No game at all, I am simply scrutinizing your statement "that looks to be a strawman."
Not at all, I am trying to nail down your position.
I am asking for your opinion because I want to understand what you mean by "reasonably serious." I have a feeling that the phrase means nothing at all, it's just an out for you to dismiss counter-examples to your generalization.
So again my questions:
If someone asserts or implies that generally speaking obesity is caused by low metabolism, how do I know if they have adequate knowledge of human physiology and are not trolling?
Are the girls in the videos I linked worthy of attention and time (at the beginning of the video, before they were scientifically tested)? In your opinion, do they have adequate knowledge of human physiology? If not, how do you know it?
I can summarize the videos in a couple sentences. Each one contains a fat girl who asserts that she is fat because of her "low metabolism." The girls have their metabolisms scientifically tested. It turns out that their metabolisms are perfectly normal; the problem is that they are eating a lot more than they realize.
Ok, with that understood, do you consider the girls (as they were at the beginning of the videos) to be "reasonably serious"? Why or why not? It's a pretty simple question.
People who have demonstrated a sufficient level of knowledge and competency.
In the usual way -- you bother to find out. Thing these people say are evidence that you use to update your prior.
On the basis of available to me information, no, but that's a low-credence opinion and can easily be changed by additional evidence.
And how exactly do I do that?
Why not?
And if someone asserts or implies that generally speaking obesity is caused by low metabolism, how do I know if they have adequate knowledge of human physiology and are not trolling?
Oh, dear <deity>. If you really have no idea -- none at all whatsoever -- how to find out whether people you're listening to are credible, please go figure out how to do this. This is going to be a much better use of your time than posting on LW.
Because as far as I can see (which, as I mentioned, isn't very far) they were just fat girls specifically selected for having a particular false belief so that this belief could be debunked on video.