Rather than eliminate, say, the representative heuristic (which would then require us to seek out large amounts of data to be sure of our position) to make ourselves more ‘rational’, should we instead use the representative heuristic by searching out small datasets that may be artificial but accurately represent what large-scale trustworthy studies have discovered? I don’t know how this fits into the marble/clay analogy, unfortunately, but I feel like this is what the quoted piece suggests.
searching out small datasets that may be artificial but accurately represent what large-scale trustworthy studies have discovered
This seems to be what’s done by thought-experiments of the form, “If all the world’s people were represented by 100 people, then X of them would have condition Y” (e.g. wealth, region, religion, access to resources).
Rather than eliminate, say, the representative heuristic (which would then require us to seek out large amounts of data to be sure of our position) to make ourselves more ‘rational’, should we instead use the representative heuristic by searching out small datasets that may be artificial but accurately represent what large-scale trustworthy studies have discovered? I don’t know how this fits into the marble/clay analogy, unfortunately, but I feel like this is what the quoted piece suggests.
This seems to be what’s done by thought-experiments of the form, “If all the world’s people were represented by 100 people, then X of them would have condition Y” (e.g. wealth, region, religion, access to resources).