Rationality Quotes October 2011

MinibearRex

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

I'm very confused by the downvotes, could someone explain?

First off, it's easy to cheer "yay science!" and rag on low status beliefs, but does this quote tell us that this person is good at determining truth value in cases of controversy? If an experiment returns a particular result, do they feel compelled to believe it? What would they think, for example, about the OPERA measurements?

Second, a cheer for the epistemic rationality of engineers is particular is likely to be unpopular because engineers are somewhat famous for standing on the frontiers of crank science, and have a reputation for being more ... (read more)

7Document15y

Didn't downvote, but: * Is he advocating rationality to people who want to be engineers, or is he just crowing about how much better engineers are than those stupid people in other fields who think they're just as smart? * Might be a nitpick, but speaking at all in terms of what one "believes in" rather than what's true is a bad habit. * It puts too much emphasis on conclusions rather than epistemology. * It sounds like "Believe what those cool people in lab coats say, not those freaks in robes", or "Believe things that sound scientific and modern, not things that sounds weird and fantastical". * It connotes that disbelieving in black magic is proof of a superior mind, rather than largely a fact about what culture one grew up in. * One should believe things that can't be verified by experiment.

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Rationality Quotes October 2011

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Rationality Quotes October 2011

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