Philip Tetlock speaks strongly of the virtues of foxes. Is there a person in the decision science field who defends being a hedgehog with good arguments?
Does Tetlock make good arguments? Doesn’t he just say that they have a small empirical advantage? An empirical advantage means that he doesn’t know what the virtues actually are. Though maybe a small mean advantage corresponds to a large difference at the tails, and all superpredictors are foxes.
Tetlock himself praises hedgehogs: he says that they are necessary for asking good questions. I don’t he provides any evidence for this and I’m a little worried that it’s just bullshit for the purpose of being inclusive.
There is a long history of decision science praising models and condemning humans who second-guess the models. Is this praise of hedgehogs? They certainly don’t use the word “hedgehog” — that’s Tetlock’s brand. Or does a precise model not count, only verbal models?
When Tetlock talks about foxes and hedgehogs, he sounds to me like a hedgehog, insisting that every new result has vindicated his verbal model that I can’t pin down.
The technical appendix is technical on the matter of scoring, not on the fox-hedgehog distinction. He has a precise test for the fox/hedgehog distinction. But he claims that it means a lot more than a short list of vague questions. In the technical appendix he scores people in many different ways and he claims that these are reasonable things to expect of foxes and hedgehogs, but it’s all post hoc. There’s no evidence that he ever had a theory of foxes and hedgehogs.
Philip Tetlock speaks strongly of the virtues of foxes. Is there a person in the decision science field who defends being a hedgehog with good arguments?
Does Tetlock make good arguments? Doesn’t he just say that they have a small empirical advantage? An empirical advantage means that he doesn’t know what the virtues actually are. Though maybe a small mean advantage corresponds to a large difference at the tails, and all superpredictors are foxes.
Tetlock himself praises hedgehogs: he says that they are necessary for asking good questions. I don’t he provides any evidence for this and I’m a little worried that it’s just bullshit for the purpose of being inclusive.
There is a long history of decision science praising models and condemning humans who second-guess the models. Is this praise of hedgehogs? They certainly don’t use the word “hedgehog” — that’s Tetlock’s brand. Or does a precise model not count, only verbal models?
When Tetlock talks about foxes and hedgehogs, he sounds to me like a hedgehog, insisting that every new result has vindicated his verbal model that I can’t pin down.
Tetlock has more than just verbal models. “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?” has a technical appendix.
The technical appendix is technical on the matter of scoring, not on the fox-hedgehog distinction. He has a precise test for the fox/hedgehog distinction. But he claims that it means a lot more than a short list of vague questions. In the technical appendix he scores people in many different ways and he claims that these are reasonable things to expect of foxes and hedgehogs, but it’s all post hoc. There’s no evidence that he ever had a theory of foxes and hedgehogs.