The dangers of decompartmentalising toxic waste have been covered here before: Phil Goetz’s classic Reason as memetic immune disorder. Vladimir Nesov hypothesises that this is why humans compartmentalise.
I wonder whether the Salem hypothesis—more precisely, the fact that the Salem hypothesis is interesting—is largely a base rate fallacy. If there are a lot more engineers than, e.g., physicists (which I think there are), and if creationists will claim “scientific expertise” for anyone doing anything even vaguely sciencey, then even if there’s no interaction at all between domain of expertise and susceptibility to creationism most “scientific experts” who are creationists will be engineers, just because most “scientific experts” will be engineers. (My impression is that a better version of the Salem hypothesis would say “If a creationist touts scientific expertise in a supporter, said supporter is likely an engineer, computer person, or medic”—and now take a look at the graph at http://www.intuitor.com/physics/ScienceCareers.php .)
Is there more going on than this? Maybe. It’s possible, e.g., that the cleverest scientific-ish people gravitate to fields other than those and are less likely to be creationists. Or that something about the kind of problem-solving engineers have to do fits somehow with creationism. (I’ve heard a similar explanation proposed for an alleged prevalence of engineers among terrorists.) Or something. But I’m not at all sure that it’s not just a matter of base rates.
Yes, Being willing to swallow the bullet does not mean you are not, in fact, being very stupid indeed. Extrapolating beyond one’s knowledge in this manner is using one’s own ignorance as data. (Not that any agent can avoid judgement under uncertainty, but it’s why this sort of extreme extrapolation can lead to crazy results.) Consistency is useful, but not a terminal value.
Because I can’t write a comment there, I will write it here:
Comment #19 by IceBogan: Interesting comparison. But you can be Libertarian “in the neighborhood of x_0″ without accepting all the reductio ad absurdum arguments — you can vote for a little less government, a little lower taxes, a little more personal responsibility. You can’t be a little bit Many Worlds.
You can be “a little bit Many Worlds”, and actually this is probably the most popular position—that the microscopic particles have many possible histories, with complex amplitudes that sometimes cancel each other out, but as soon as you have too many particles (such as: enough to build a cat), it’s no longer true.
A “Many little Worlds” would probably be a better name. Many little Worlds are acceptable for many bullet-dodgers, assuming that they later transform (collapse) into One big World.
The dangers of decompartmentalising toxic waste have been covered here before: Phil Goetz’s classic Reason as memetic immune disorder. Vladimir Nesov hypothesises that this is why humans compartmentalise.
In the skepticsphere, decompartmentalising stupidity is considered the best hypothesis to explain the Salem hypothesis: that if a creationist touts scientific expertise in a supporter, said supporter is likely an engineer. But engineers in general are notorious for this sort of thing.
I wonder whether the Salem hypothesis—more precisely, the fact that the Salem hypothesis is interesting—is largely a base rate fallacy. If there are a lot more engineers than, e.g., physicists (which I think there are), and if creationists will claim “scientific expertise” for anyone doing anything even vaguely sciencey, then even if there’s no interaction at all between domain of expertise and susceptibility to creationism most “scientific experts” who are creationists will be engineers, just because most “scientific experts” will be engineers. (My impression is that a better version of the Salem hypothesis would say “If a creationist touts scientific expertise in a supporter, said supporter is likely an engineer, computer person, or medic”—and now take a look at the graph at http://www.intuitor.com/physics/ScienceCareers.php .)
Is there more going on than this? Maybe. It’s possible, e.g., that the cleverest scientific-ish people gravitate to fields other than those and are less likely to be creationists. Or that something about the kind of problem-solving engineers have to do fits somehow with creationism. (I’ve heard a similar explanation proposed for an alleged prevalence of engineers among terrorists.) Or something. But I’m not at all sure that it’s not just a matter of base rates.
I’m not actually sure how well the Salem hypothesis holds; I’m wondering if it’s just having no idea what “science” is. See the Creation Ministries International list of scientists alive today who accept the biblical account of creation. They’ve pulled in veterinarians and plastic surgeons as “scientists”.
Also related: The bullet-swallowers by Scott Aaronson.
Yes, Being willing to swallow the bullet does not mean you are not, in fact, being very stupid indeed. Extrapolating beyond one’s knowledge in this manner is using one’s own ignorance as data. (Not that any agent can avoid judgement under uncertainty, but it’s why this sort of extreme extrapolation can lead to crazy results.) Consistency is useful, but not a terminal value.
Because I can’t write a comment there, I will write it here:
Comment #19 by IceBogan:
Interesting comparison. But you can be Libertarian “in the neighborhood of x_0″ without accepting all the reductio ad absurdum arguments — you can vote for a little less government, a little lower taxes, a little more personal responsibility. You can’t be a little bit Many Worlds.
You can be “a little bit Many Worlds”, and actually this is probably the most popular position—that the microscopic particles have many possible histories, with complex amplitudes that sometimes cancel each other out, but as soon as you have too many particles (such as: enough to build a cat), it’s no longer true.
A “Many little Worlds” would probably be a better name. Many little Worlds are acceptable for many bullet-dodgers, assuming that they later transform (collapse) into One big World.
This material is very relevant, I hope you don’t mind me adding links to it the directly to the OP?
I think it would be very much on-mission :-)