Interesting data I am still digesting:
I ran across this story, which summarizes the results of a study someone did to see if doctors were able to correctly interpret test results. original source. The important thing to note here is that these people are generally trained on this notion that tests have false positives and negatives and how to deal with that. The poor success of doctors to do this kind of analysis, despite being trained on it, and potentially using that skill every day, and caring about the outcome, and being in the presence of the outcome fairly often—this has raised my perception of the difficulty required to train people to learn and apply even small amounts of probability theory. Specifically, I think this provides some hint that moral or utility arguments are not going to convert the masses. I’ve been wondering if there’s a way to trick people into developing and applying skills.
Fun project:
I started working on a dinner game. I’m not entirely sure what the end form of this game will look like, but right now, it involves sticking an object in a closed box, passing the box around, and having people try to determine what is in the box without looking inside it. I tried this out with my family last night; they seemed to enjoy the idea of trying to experimentally determine properties of an unseen object and then trying to figure out what it might be. They were able to pretty precisely determine the shape of the object and two were able to guess the object correctly (though one changed position upon hearing an observation from another player). Several identified unreal properties of the object, but didn’t fixate on them. Based on the success of that run, I am going to try more exotic shapes and materials in future games to see how that changes things. Ultimately, I’d like people to weigh in on propositions like, “The object is red” despite being uncertain what the object is.
I’ve started taking an online course on naturalism, and have been quite surprised by the quality of the discussion questions, which have illustrated to me that my thinking is not particularly precise about various unlikely metaphysical propositions. And speaking of metaphysical propositions and imprecise thinking, I am still looking for a good argument somewhere about how to set sensible priors for metaphysical propositions.
I’m not sure if you describe Kim’s touch game (the Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention this only in German). I have played touch Kim with my sons and they can easily recognize most items when 5 years old so I wonder what the limitations of your box were—or what unusual items you chose. Many items can be recognzed by feeling them with the feet only. Remembering many of them is more difficult though.
I’m not familiar with Kim’s touch game, but I did run across a different game that someone came up with to practice applying Bayes theorem, which involved touching people in the shoulder with one of two objects (in the example, it was a coat-hanger, if memory serves), and then testing their ability to update their predictions based on more information about the object they were touched with. I wish I could find that page again, but I haven’t been able to find it again. It might have even been linked off of a LessWrong meetup group.
I’m less concerned with getting people to apply Bayes theorem (which would be GREAT, mind) than I am with getting people to be more comfortable with collecting information, sharing observations, and not getting fixated on personal theories. I’d especially like them to get comfortable with making the jump to making reasoned predictions about hidden properties of objects, given their theories about what an object is, but I’d like to find a way to make that process at least as fun as shaking a box to determine its contents.
The first game was just a deck of cards and a cardboard box large enough to allow the object to be flipped (though one type of flip was not possible in certain orientations). The players were all adults and I consider them to be quite astute; I expect that children could also play, and it could be a useful lesson about how to not get fixated on your own ideas, how to incorporate observations from others, and how to share observations constructively.
The idea came up in a discussion with a friend about how terrible our science classes had been as children, and how learning individual facts was not particularly useful.
Interesting data I am still digesting: I ran across this story, which summarizes the results of a study someone did to see if doctors were able to correctly interpret test results. original source. The important thing to note here is that these people are generally trained on this notion that tests have false positives and negatives and how to deal with that. The poor success of doctors to do this kind of analysis, despite being trained on it, and potentially using that skill every day, and caring about the outcome, and being in the presence of the outcome fairly often—this has raised my perception of the difficulty required to train people to learn and apply even small amounts of probability theory. Specifically, I think this provides some hint that moral or utility arguments are not going to convert the masses. I’ve been wondering if there’s a way to trick people into developing and applying skills.
Fun project: I started working on a dinner game. I’m not entirely sure what the end form of this game will look like, but right now, it involves sticking an object in a closed box, passing the box around, and having people try to determine what is in the box without looking inside it. I tried this out with my family last night; they seemed to enjoy the idea of trying to experimentally determine properties of an unseen object and then trying to figure out what it might be. They were able to pretty precisely determine the shape of the object and two were able to guess the object correctly (though one changed position upon hearing an observation from another player). Several identified unreal properties of the object, but didn’t fixate on them. Based on the success of that run, I am going to try more exotic shapes and materials in future games to see how that changes things. Ultimately, I’d like people to weigh in on propositions like, “The object is red” despite being uncertain what the object is.
I’ve started taking an online course on naturalism, and have been quite surprised by the quality of the discussion questions, which have illustrated to me that my thinking is not particularly precise about various unlikely metaphysical propositions. And speaking of metaphysical propositions and imprecise thinking, I am still looking for a good argument somewhere about how to set sensible priors for metaphysical propositions.
I’m not sure if you describe Kim’s touch game (the Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention this only in German). I have played touch Kim with my sons and they can easily recognize most items when 5 years old so I wonder what the limitations of your box were—or what unusual items you chose. Many items can be recognzed by feeling them with the feet only. Remembering many of them is more difficult though.
I’m not familiar with Kim’s touch game, but I did run across a different game that someone came up with to practice applying Bayes theorem, which involved touching people in the shoulder with one of two objects (in the example, it was a coat-hanger, if memory serves), and then testing their ability to update their predictions based on more information about the object they were touched with. I wish I could find that page again, but I haven’t been able to find it again. It might have even been linked off of a LessWrong meetup group.
I’m less concerned with getting people to apply Bayes theorem (which would be GREAT, mind) than I am with getting people to be more comfortable with collecting information, sharing observations, and not getting fixated on personal theories. I’d especially like them to get comfortable with making the jump to making reasoned predictions about hidden properties of objects, given their theories about what an object is, but I’d like to find a way to make that process at least as fun as shaking a box to determine its contents.
The first game was just a deck of cards and a cardboard box large enough to allow the object to be flipped (though one type of flip was not possible in certain orientations). The players were all adults and I consider them to be quite astute; I expect that children could also play, and it could be a useful lesson about how to not get fixated on your own ideas, how to incorporate observations from others, and how to share observations constructively.
The idea came up in a discussion with a friend about how terrible our science classes had been as children, and how learning individual facts was not particularly useful.
Critch’s Really Getting Bayes game.
Very helpful and informative!
Thanks, Alex Ross http://www.easyrest.com/