nyan_sandwich comments on What Bayesianism taught me - LessWrong

62 Post author: Tyrrell_McAllister 12 August 2013 06:59AM

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

Comments (201)

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

Comment author: [deleted] 24 August 2013 07:16:46AM *  1 point [-]

very small amounts of evidence for some propositions (e.g. the existence of the deity Thor.)

Very small amounts of evidence? Entire mythologies are quite strong evidence of something thor-like. The point is to be able to say "I don't believe in Thor" and "That is strongish evidence for the existence of Thor" without conflict.

Your point about neglecting small shifts (likelihood ratio 1.0001) is well made, but your numbers are too charitable. When someone says "there is no evidence for X", there is usually some substantial piece of evidence (LR>10) evidence, even quite strong evidence, known to them, not a tiny shift, but not totally conclusive either. The problem is that even substantial evidence usually has the problem you are pointing out (cost of consideration exceeds Value of Inforation).