It is not nearly as bad as you make it out. Bayesian Bob just seems really bad at explaining.
Rian seems to not consider detectives investigating a crime to be gathering evidence, but Bob does not seem to notice this. We can come up with examples of socially categorized types of evidence and explain why the categories are socially useful.
Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence can be explained in scientific terms. If a scientific experiment looking for evidence of a theory produces no results, that is evidence against the theory. This is easier to deal with in a scientific experiment because its controlled nature allows you to know how hard it was looking for evidence, to calculate how likely it would be to find the evidence if the theory were correct. Outside the context, the principle is harder to apply because the conditional probability is harder to calculate, but it is still valid.
Not once did Bob bring up such concepts as likelihood ratios or conditional probability.
And plenty of other comments have noted the problem with “starts out with a 50% probability”.
As has also been pointed out already, most of the bullet point statements are either not actually controversial, or distorted from the idea they refer to. In particular, though probability theory does not perfectly align with the scientific method, it does explain how the scientific method has been as successful as it is.
I myself have discussed LW ideas with people from skeptics and atheist groups, and not come off as a crackpot.
It is not nearly as bad as you make it out. Bayesian Bob just seems really bad at explaining.
Rian seems to not consider detectives investigating a crime to be gathering evidence, but Bob does not seem to notice this. We can come up with examples of socially categorized types of evidence and explain why the categories are socially useful.
Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence can be explained in scientific terms. If a scientific experiment looking for evidence of a theory produces no results, that is evidence against the theory. This is easier to deal with in a scientific experiment because its controlled nature allows you to know how hard it was looking for evidence, to calculate how likely it would be to find the evidence if the theory were correct. Outside the context, the principle is harder to apply because the conditional probability is harder to calculate, but it is still valid.
Not once did Bob bring up such concepts as likelihood ratios or conditional probability.
And plenty of other comments have noted the problem with “starts out with a 50% probability”.
As has also been pointed out already, most of the bullet point statements are either not actually controversial, or distorted from the idea they refer to. In particular, though probability theory does not perfectly align with the scientific method, it does explain how the scientific method has been as successful as it is.
I myself have discussed LW ideas with people from skeptics and atheist groups, and not come off as a crackpot.