I see Cochran as also making the meta-point that we should be sneering at things that are obviously wrong when you look at them from an evolutionary or realist perspective
So in practice, this means you will sneer at anyone disagreeing with an idea you consider "obvious", ie clever. The point of the Jonathan Swift link was that your prior is bad and you should feel bad:
We get to see Harry fail once in Ch. 22, because I felt like I had to make the point about clever ideas not always working. A more realistic story with eight more failed ideas passing before Harry’s first original discovery in Ch. 28 would not have been fun to read, or write.
So in practice, this means you will sneer at anyone disagreeing with an idea you consider "obvious", ie clever.
Consider this quote:
...The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations--then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation--well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the sec
It is the beginning of a new year, and time for the beginning of a new rationality quotes thread.
The rules are: