Comment author: GeraldMonroe 03 October 2012 09:17:12PM 0 points [-]

How would registry of the trials work?

When I heard a lecture on this subject (there is pretty damning statistical evidence that drug trials are always slanted towards the company paying for the trials) the only viable proposal I heard discussed was to have the testing completely performed and controlled by an unbiased third party. (probably the government)

Comment author: Despard 04 October 2012 03:05:54PM 4 points [-]

It's not necessary to have them completely performed and controlled by a third party - but the idea is if you want to do a drug trial, you sign up with an independent register saying which drug you're testing and what your methodology is. Then when the trial is done, you must report your results publicly.

That stops companies hiding negative trials and only publishing positive ones. It doesn't stop the data being manipulated, but that's another problem.

Comment author: Despard 03 October 2012 08:35:26PM 2 points [-]

Nice article. Much of psychology suffers from the failure to replicate experiments, for various reasons like funding, time pressure, and difficulties in obtaining the population required. I've worked in sensorimotor control for several years and recently some researchers have come up with the idea of putting together a database of studies on perturbations during reaching (which is a very widely used paradigm) because they can so often be divergent due to tiny changes in the experiments.

I'd love to see more of this kind of thing in psychology in general, just as I'd like to see registration of medical trials from pharmaceutical companies (with both negative and positive results published) to avoid the all-too pervasive publication bias.

Comment author: Despard 17 September 2012 02:02:32AM 1 point [-]

I will hopefully be in New Zealand in January, just passing through. Keep me informed!

Comment author: gwern 09 September 2012 06:10:06PM 5 points [-]

I don't suppose there's a non-Flash version of the article?

Comment author: Despard 11 September 2012 03:37:49AM 1 point [-]
Comment author: Rubix 09 September 2012 09:35:54PM *  4 points [-]

Julia Galef is quoted as Julie Galef on page 21.

Comment author: Despard 10 September 2012 10:29:35PM *  1 point [-]

Good catch. Just chatting to the editor to try to get this fixed - apparently there's a problem with the edit feature on issuu.

ETA: unfortunately it can't be changed. It can be re-uploaded but then they'd lose the view stats.

Comment author: AlexMennen 09 September 2012 06:26:52PM 0 points [-]

The brief description of Less Wrong in that article will sound very strange to anyone not already familiar with us.

Comment author: Despard 09 September 2012 06:35:58PM *  2 points [-]

I guess it does a little - the piece was edited slightly from my original submission. I don't think it sounds all that strange, though I'm almost certainly biased on that front...

Comment author: gwern 09 September 2012 06:10:06PM 5 points [-]

I don't suppose there's a non-Flash version of the article?

Comment author: Despard 09 September 2012 06:31:17PM 2 points [-]

It'll be going up on Wordpress soon: http://nervemag.wordpress.com/

[Link] Article about rationality and CFAR

8 Despard 09 September 2012 05:06PM

http://issuu.com/nervemag/docs/issue-2?mode=window&pageNumber=18

A friend of mine runs Nerve, the new science magazine at the university where I work, and I offered to write about rationality for their second issue. The article is just out, with some quotes from some people you might recognise! Enjoy.

EDIT: the Wordpress version is now up, for those allergic to Flash.

http://nervemag.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/why-are-smart-people-so-stupid/

Comment author: JoeW 08 September 2012 09:24:36AM 9 points [-]

I would love to see a discussion of privilege in terms of biases. Obvious ones include: attribution errors (fundamental & ultimate); system justification; outgroup homogeneity & ingroup superiority biases.

I hadn't considered the availability heuristic but yes, that's probably relevant too.

Comment author: Despard 09 September 2012 06:50:59AM 3 points [-]

That's actually a really interesting thought. I am white and male and straight and am very aware of my privilege, and also am very interested in heuristics and biases and how they are part of our thought patterns. I consider myself very much a feminist, and also a realist in terms of how people actually work compared with how people would like each other to work. I might brood on this for a bit and write about it.

Comment author: [deleted] 30 August 2012 03:38:23PM 1 point [-]

If you go southward to get to Chicago, instead of northward, you can go past NYC, Philadelphia, and Columbus, which all have active meetup groups. If you come to Columbus, I'll happily put you up!

In response to comment by [deleted] on The wandering rationalist
Comment author: Despard 30 August 2012 08:50:27PM 0 points [-]

That's not a bad idea - except I have a friend in Lansing, MI I said I'd look up on the way. If I do too many zig-zags it will raise hell with my schedule, and I've spent a lot of time on the East Coast fairly recently. Still... I'll think about it.

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