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Lumifer comments on Stupid Questions (10/27/2014) - Less Wrong Discussion

15 Post author: drethelin 27 October 2014 09:27PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 28 October 2014 07:58:48PM 1 point [-]

If you want marketing materials or want to estimate the upper bound, the question is useful. If you think you'll get some sort of a representative sample, um, sorry to disappoint you...

Comment author: ChristianKl 29 October 2014 10:25:43AM *  5 points [-]

A story about how someone got a result usually contains more than just the result. It suggest what kind of techniques the person learned and makes responsible for the success. It can also tell you about the background of the person.

Case studies are useful to start thinking about a subject.

Comment author: JoshuaFox 29 October 2014 01:03:20PM *  2 points [-]

Quite right. There are always people who undergo spontaneous improvement, and if we cherry-pick success stories, we might just come up with those examples. I'd rather have a proper statistical study, and I think that CfAR is working on that. But until then, I'll make do with success stories.

Comment author: Brillyant 29 October 2014 12:51:02AM 2 points [-]

I think the question is a useful one even if it fails to elicit useful answers.