Responding to the new version of this article, I’ll observe that the intent and competence of the Cochrane vs. Heritage folks seems to suggest:
CC signal intellectual honesty and are willing to sacrifice their impact on the beliefs of the masses, expecting in compensation to have better academic reputations, and perhaps influence a few more rationalists.
Heritage signal “don’t oppose us or we’ll embarrass you” and “our side is going to win. don’t even think about switching” and perhaps “we all understand that politics is war. we’ll be happy to share our true beliefs with you at the victory orgy, once you’ve proven your loyalty”.
You can tell almost nothing about their competence or rationality without checking the work of the Cochrane analysis (this is straightforward but costly), or by judging the effectiveness of Heritage propaganda, compared to what you’d expect given their goals and a given level of hidden rationality and intelligence (this is tricky).
Responding to the new version of this article, I’ll observe that the intent and competence of the Cochrane vs. Heritage folks seems to suggest:
CC signal intellectual honesty and are willing to sacrifice their impact on the beliefs of the masses, expecting in compensation to have better academic reputations, and perhaps influence a few more rationalists.
Heritage signal “don’t oppose us or we’ll embarrass you” and “our side is going to win. don’t even think about switching” and perhaps “we all understand that politics is war. we’ll be happy to share our true beliefs with you at the victory orgy, once you’ve proven your loyalty”.
You can tell almost nothing about their competence or rationality without checking the work of the Cochrane analysis (this is straightforward but costly), or by judging the effectiveness of Heritage propaganda, compared to what you’d expect given their goals and a given level of hidden rationality and intelligence (this is tricky).