Some examples of possible misinterpretations would add value to your post.
With the climate emails part of the problem was the use of language in a different sense from its normal meaning. In scientific fields, trick is often used in the sense of a nifty hack, with nothing sinister implied. Just as in common parlance “theory” means something far less definite than it does in scientific discourse, more like what scientists would call a hypothesis.
I would add two other comments:
1. As pointed out in the article, the fact that the lan leak was artificially suppressed does not mean it is right.
2. Just because government officials chronically lie does not mean that any given thing they say is definitely true. It just reduces the information content of what they say.
Sure. A lot of the editorializing seems like what I was talking about. For instance the people prevaricating, who have a specific motive inferred for them. Or the person who sent “we are all together you know” in an email, which sounds kind of like a conspiracy. Or the guy who brings up one version of the genetic engineering process at the beginning of february, says he’ll know more later, and then 4 days later denounces a more general version of the genetic engineering hypothesis—he gets interpreted as a liar rather than someone learning more or changing his mind.
It’s interesting how you have to bend the facts to make your argument work. The issue is not that he denounced the more general version of the genetic engineering hypothesis but that he said it’s a crackpot theory.
I can imagine my changing my mind completely about whether a theory is true in 4 days if I spent time with the subject. On the other hand expecting that everybody else manages to do that switch in 4 days and that everybody who didn’t manage is a crackpot is something I wouldn’t do and I wouldn’t expect from anyone acting in good faith.
I assume the sentence you’re talking about is “The main crackpot theories going around at the moment relate to the virus being somehow engineered with intent and that is demonstrably not the case.”
Let’s define A = “is a main crackpot theory” and B = “genetic engineering claim.” This sentence says A implies B, and B is false. You seem to be interpreting this as B implies A—which might be true on average if we assume he thinks that A is common, but probably fails when you get to edge cases like inferring he thinks everybody who doesn’t agree with him is a crackpot.
but probably fails when you get to edge cases like inferring he thinks everybody who doesn’t agree with him is a crackpot.
I didn’t infer that. You might reread my comment.
In general, looking at individual pieces isn’t central. If you want an alternative interpretation, you should say:
What was the purpose of the January 1 meeting?
Why does the NIH feel that information about what happened in the meeting (and future discussion of the lab leak theory in Fauci’s emails) has to be hidden from the public?
What was so important for Farrar that Tedros should do and couldn’t wait for more then a day?
If you get answers to that we could form an alternative model of what happens and read the emails to determine how likely that model happens to be.
Some examples of possible misinterpretations would add value to your post.
Then write them in the comments. I intentionally added screenshots of all the emails so that’s easy for people to offer alternative interpretations. In cases like the “weird trick” climate science emails hack it’s really easy to provide alternative interpretations.
With the climate emails part of the problem was the use of language in a different sense from its normal meaning. In scientific fields, trick is often used in the sense of a nifty hack, with nothing sinister implied. Just as in common parlance “theory” means something far less definite than it does in scientific discourse, more like what scientists would call a hypothesis.
That’s right but my post is about things like after having a conferences call with other experts where some advocate hypothesis X and other Y saying three days later that X is a crackpot theory. Or calling for putting pressure on a team that’s founded.
In a case like getting words like trick/theory wrongly interpreted it’s easy to provide alternative interpretations in the comments.
1. As pointed out in the article, the fact that the lan leak was artificially suppressed does not mean it is right.
While that is true in this post the arguments I’m making for that thesis are arguments not made by landfish and by which they concluded 85% likelihood of a lab leak but mostly orthogonal to those arguments. In addition Eliezer was a month ago at 80% and Nate Silver at that time at 60%.
Are there any people in our community who have an openly stated probability that’s still under 50%?
Some examples of possible misinterpretations would add value to your post.
With the climate emails part of the problem was the use of language in a different sense from its normal meaning. In scientific fields, trick is often used in the sense of a nifty hack, with nothing sinister implied. Just as in common parlance “theory” means something far less definite than it does in scientific discourse, more like what scientists would call a hypothesis.
I would add two other comments:
1. As pointed out in the article, the fact that the lan leak was artificially suppressed does not mean it is right.
2. Just because government officials chronically lie does not mean that any given thing they say is definitely true. It just reduces the information content of what they say.
Sure. A lot of the editorializing seems like what I was talking about. For instance the people prevaricating, who have a specific motive inferred for them. Or the person who sent “we are all together you know” in an email, which sounds kind of like a conspiracy. Or the guy who brings up one version of the genetic engineering process at the beginning of february, says he’ll know more later, and then 4 days later denounces a more general version of the genetic engineering hypothesis—he gets interpreted as a liar rather than someone learning more or changing his mind.
It’s interesting how you have to bend the facts to make your argument work. The issue is not that he denounced the more general version of the genetic engineering hypothesis but that he said it’s a crackpot theory.
I can imagine my changing my mind completely about whether a theory is true in 4 days if I spent time with the subject. On the other hand expecting that everybody else manages to do that switch in 4 days and that everybody who didn’t manage is a crackpot is something I wouldn’t do and I wouldn’t expect from anyone acting in good faith.
I assume the sentence you’re talking about is “The main crackpot theories going around at the moment relate to the virus being somehow engineered with intent and that is demonstrably not the case.”
Let’s define A = “is a main crackpot theory” and B = “genetic engineering claim.” This sentence says A implies B, and B is false. You seem to be interpreting this as B implies A—which might be true on average if we assume he thinks that A is common, but probably fails when you get to edge cases like inferring he thinks everybody who doesn’t agree with him is a crackpot.
I didn’t infer that. You might reread my comment.
In general, looking at individual pieces isn’t central. If you want an alternative interpretation, you should say:
What was the purpose of the January 1 meeting?
Why does the NIH feel that information about what happened in the meeting (and future discussion of the lab leak theory in Fauci’s emails) has to be hidden from the public?
What was so important for Farrar that Tedros should do and couldn’t wait for more then a day?
If you get answers to that we could form an alternative model of what happens and read the emails to determine how likely that model happens to be.
Then write them in the comments. I intentionally added screenshots of all the emails so that’s easy for people to offer alternative interpretations. In cases like the “weird trick” climate science emails hack it’s really easy to provide alternative interpretations.
That’s right but my post is about things like after having a conferences call with other experts where some advocate hypothesis X and other Y saying three days later that X is a crackpot theory. Or calling for putting pressure on a team that’s founded.
In a case like getting words like trick/theory wrongly interpreted it’s easy to provide alternative interpretations in the comments.
While that is true in this post the arguments I’m making for that thesis are arguments not made by landfish and by which they concluded 85% likelihood of a lab leak but mostly orthogonal to those arguments. In addition Eliezer was a month ago at 80% and Nate Silver at that time at 60%.
Are there any people in our community who have an openly stated probability that’s still under 50%?