I’m happy to add to my post examples of empirical evidence for or against the claims in my post as people point them out.
In the absence of empirical evidence on a given subject matter, it’s still reasonable to talk about the subject matter. For example, if there’s no hard data supporting or opposing my claims then my post may prompt empirical investigation of the ostensible phenomena in question by a social scientist reader of Less Wrong.
When I say things like “it seems very likely” “I’d hypothesize that” “seems” “my impressions”, I’m indicating that (a) I don’t know of hard data to back up my claims (b) my subjective impressions point to the said conclusions.
Subjective impressions play an important role in rational decision making about complicated matters where it’s impossible to get really robust hard data.
Also, one doesn’t always need hard data to have a justified high degree of confidence in something. If you haven’t done so already, read some of Eliezer’s posts about science vs. Bayesian reasoning:
I’m happy to add to my post examples of empirical evidence for or against the claims in my post as people point them out.
In the absence of empirical evidence on a given subject matter, it’s still reasonable to talk about the subject matter. For example, if there’s no hard data supporting or opposing my claims then my post may prompt empirical investigation of the ostensible phenomena in question by a social scientist reader of Less Wrong.
When I say things like “it seems very likely” “I’d hypothesize that” “seems” “my impressions”, I’m indicating that (a) I don’t know of hard data to back up my claims (b) my subjective impressions point to the said conclusions.
Subjective impressions play an important role in rational decision making about complicated matters where it’s impossible to get really robust hard data.
Also, one doesn’t always need hard data to have a justified high degree of confidence in something. If you haven’t done so already, read some of Eliezer’s posts about science vs. Bayesian reasoning:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/jo/einsteins_arrogance/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/qb/science_doesnt_trust_your_rationality/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/qa/the_dilemma_science_or_bayes/