Being miscalibrated can feel like “if it were outside of this range, I have just… no explanation for that”—and then it turns out there’s a completely reasonable explanation.
I love this definition of miscalibration for high confidence!
Don’t have a personal example handy, but here is a classic one from Feynman:
Everything that appeared mystical, Feynman believed, was simply an insufficiently explained mystery with a physical answer not yet found. Even Arline’s dying hour had offered testing ground for conviction. Puzzlingly, the clock in the room had stopped at exactly 9:21PM — the time of death. Aware of how this bizarre occurrence could foment the mystical imagination in unscientific minds, Feynman reasoned for an explanation.
His explanation:
Erzrzorevat gung ur unq ercnverq gur pybpx zhygvcyr gvzrf bire gur pbhefr bs Neyvar’f fgnl ng gur fnangbevhz, ur ernyvmrq gung gur vafgehzrag’f hajvryql zrpunavfz zhfg unir pubxrq jura gur ahefr cvpxrq vg hc va gur ybj riravat yvtug gb frr naq erpbeq gur gvzr.
I love this definition of miscalibration for high confidence!
Don’t have a personal example handy, but here is a classic one from Feynman:
His explanation:
From https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/10/17/richard-feynman-arline-letter/
And here I thought that the people recording the time of death had assumed it was a functional clock when it was not.