Practice & Philosophy of Science

TagLast edit: 14 Jul 2020 1:07 UTC by Ruby

Practice and Philosophy of Science is for posts that discuss how science is done or should be done; examples include Building Intuitions on Non-Empirical Arguments in Science and the Science and Rationality sequence. (It is not for posts that simply report on a new scientific result.)

On Solving Problems Before They Appear: The Weird Epistemologies of Alignment

adamShimi11 Oct 2021 8:20 UTC

93 points

11 comments15 min readLW link

Shotgun Book Reviews: Against Method, The Knowledge Machine and Understanding Nature

adamShimi14 Mar 2022 8:13 UTC

24 points

2 comments8 min readLW link

Epistemological Framing for AI Alignment Research

adamShimi8 Mar 2021 22:05 UTC

53 points

7 comments9 min readLW link

Science in a High-Dimensional World

johnswentworth8 Jan 2021 17:52 UTC

228 points

49 comments7 min readLW link

12 interesting things I learned studying the discovery of nature’s laws

Ben Pace19 Feb 2022 23:39 UTC

245 points

40 comments9 min readLW link

Intuitions about solving hard problems

Richard_Ngo25 Apr 2022 15:29 UTC

86 points

22 comments6 min readLW link

Beware The Man Of One Study

Scott Alexander12 Dec 2014 9:04 UTC

49 points

1 comment8 min readLW link

Science Isn’t Strict Enough

Eliezer Yudkowsky16 May 2008 6:51 UTC

53 points

61 comments5 min readLW link

Is Science Slowing Down?

Scott Alexander27 Nov 2018 3:30 UTC

121 points

77 comments9 min readLW link 1 review

(slatestarcodex.com)

Ed Boyden on the State of Science

Ben Pace13 May 2019 1:54 UTC

62 points

2 comments9 min readLW link

Towards a Bayesian model for Empirical Science

Yair Halberstadt7 Oct 2021 5:38 UTC

11 points

7 comments7 min readLW link

Scientific Wrestling: Beyond Passive Hypothesis-Testing

adamShimi7 Mar 2022 12:01 UTC

42 points

5 comments8 min readLW link

Building Intuitions On Non-Empirical Arguments In Science

Scott Alexander7 Nov 2019 6:50 UTC

53 points

28 comments11 min readLW link

(slatestarcodex.com)

Book Review: The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions

Scott Alexander9 Jan 2019 7:10 UTC

95 points

30 comments19 min readLW link 1 review

(slatestarcodex.com)

The Failures of Eld Science

Eliezer Yudkowsky12 May 2008 10:32 UTC

86 points

57 comments9 min readLW link

The Dilemma: Science or Bayes?

Eliezer Yudkowsky13 May 2008 8:16 UTC

49 points

188 comments5 min readLW link

Science Doesn’t Trust Your Rationality

Eliezer Yudkowsky14 May 2008 2:13 UTC

50 points

137 comments3 min readLW link

When Science Can’t Help

Eliezer Yudkowsky15 May 2008 7:24 UTC

48 points

70 comments4 min readLW link

Does blind review slow down science?

Kaj_Sotala6 Mar 2009 12:35 UTC

21 points

22 comments4 min readLW link

Do Scientists Already Know This Stuff?

Eliezer Yudkowsky17 May 2008 2:25 UTC

51 points

57 comments5 min readLW link

No Safe Defense, Not Even Science

Eliezer Yudkowsky18 May 2008 5:19 UTC

77 points

67 comments6 min readLW link

Changing the Definition of Science

Eliezer Yudkowsky18 May 2008 18:07 UTC

30 points

29 comments2 min readLW link

Faster Than Science

Eliezer Yudkowsky20 May 2008 0:19 UTC

48 points

13 comments4 min readLW link

How to Fix Science

lukeprog7 Mar 2012 2:51 UTC

68 points

143 comments5 min readLW link

Follow-up on ESP study: “We don’t publish replications”

CarlShulman12 Jul 2011 20:48 UTC

111 points

50 comments2 min readLW link

This is why we can’t have social science

Costanza13 Jul 2014 21:04 UTC

50 points

83 comments1 min readLW link

13 Causes of Bad Science (Novum Organum Book 1: 69-92)

Francis Bacon4 Oct 2019 19:52 UTC

33 points

1 comment30 min readLW link

Shuttling between science and invention

jasoncrawford27 May 2020 21:25 UTC

50 points

1 comment6 min readLW link 1 review

(rootsofprogress.org)

Studying Early Stage Science: Research Program Introduction

habryka17 Jan 2020 22:12 UTC

32 points

1 comment15 min readLW link

(medium.com)

Fixing science via a basic income

Kaj_Sotala2 Aug 2018 8:30 UTC

30 points

29 comments3 min readLW link

(kajsotala.fi)

The promise of connected science

lukeprog12 Nov 2011 18:22 UTC

33 points

8 comments2 min readLW link

Karnofsky on forecasting and what science does

Rob Bensinger28 Mar 2018 1:55 UTC

14 points

0 comments8 min readLW link

(80000hours.org)

Is Molecular Nanotechnology “Scientific”?

Eliezer Yudkowsky20 Aug 2007 4:11 UTC

35 points

63 comments2 min readLW link

Scientific Evidence, Legal Evidence, Rational Evidence

Eliezer Yudkowsky19 Aug 2007 5:36 UTC

97 points

18 comments3 min readLW link

A brief history of ethically concerned scientists

Kaj_Sotala9 Feb 2013 5:50 UTC

103 points

150 comments14 min readLW link

[Book Review] The Trouble with Physics

lsusr5 Jan 2020 1:47 UTC

27 points

18 comments2 min readLW link

Problems in evolutionary psychology

Kaj_Sotala13 Aug 2010 18:57 UTC

84 points

102 comments8 min readLW link

Alignment Research Field Guide

abramdemski8 Mar 2019 19:57 UTC

220 points

9 comments17 min readLW link 2 reviews

Outside the Laboratory

Eliezer Yudkowsky21 Jan 2007 3:46 UTC

117 points

351 comments7 min readLW link

The Dogma of Evidence-based Medicine

ChristianKl25 Jan 2018 21:15 UTC

12 points

39 comments4 min readLW link

Science like a chef

adamzerner8 Feb 2018 21:23 UTC

32 points

17 comments3 min readLW link

Non-communicable Evidence

adamzerner17 Nov 2015 3:46 UTC

17 points

49 comments2 min readLW link

Diseased disciplines: the strange case of the inverted chart

Morendil7 Feb 2012 9:45 UTC

62 points

150 comments4 min readLW link

Hedge drift and advanced motte-and-bailey

Stefan_Schubert1 May 2016 14:45 UTC

49 points

8 comments2 min readLW link

Knowledge value = knowledge quality × domain importance

John_Maxwell16 Apr 2012 8:40 UTC

14 points

41 comments1 min readLW link

Where Philosophy Meets Science

Eliezer Yudkowsky12 Apr 2008 21:21 UTC

45 points

22 comments4 min readLW link

To Spread Science, Keep It Secret

Eliezer Yudkowsky28 Mar 2008 5:47 UTC

60 points

50 comments4 min readLW link

Why no archive of refuted research?

Kaj_Sotala26 Aug 2011 8:14 UTC

37 points

11 comments2 min readLW link

Problems with Academia and the Rising Sea

JonahS23 May 2013 19:17 UTC

46 points

39 comments4 min readLW link

Idols of the Mind Pt. 2 (Novum Organum Book 1: 53-68)

Francis Bacon26 Sep 2019 22:24 UTC

27 points

3 comments17 min readLW link

Dissolving the Problem of Induction

Liron27 Dec 2020 17:58 UTC

36 points

32 comments7 min readLW link

[Question] How good are our mouse models (psychology, biology, medicine, etc.), ignoring translation into humans, just in terms of understanding mice? (Same question for drosophila.)

Ruby22 Jan 2021 20:45 UTC

60 points

10 comments1 min readLW link

Epistemology of HCH

adamShimi9 Feb 2021 11:46 UTC

16 points

2 comments10 min readLW link

[Question] If my previous research is wrong, what are my options ?

BB67 Apr 2021 16:44 UTC

50 points

9 comments1 min readLW link

Intermittent Distillations #4: Semiconductors, Economics, Intelligence, and Technological Progress.

Mark Xu8 Jul 2021 22:14 UTC

81 points

9 comments10 min readLW link

Addendum to “Amyloid Plaques: Medical Goodhart, Chemical Streetlight”

Jemist2 Sep 2021 17:42 UTC

10 points

1 comment2 min readLW link

A Taxonomy of Research

Jemist8 Sep 2021 19:30 UTC

5 points

0 comments2 min readLW link

Measurement, Optimization, and Take-off Speed

jsteinhardt10 Sep 2021 19:30 UTC

47 points

4 comments13 min readLW link

Born Again: Disconnected Psychology, Martian Science, and the Order of the Phoenix

rogersbacon17 Sep 2021 14:23 UTC

4 points

0 comments17 min readLW link

[Question] Search for replication experiments

Andrew Vlahos20 Sep 2021 22:28 UTC

3 points

1 comment1 min readLW link

Explanations as Hard to Vary Assertions

Alexander24 Sep 2021 11:33 UTC

17 points

24 comments8 min readLW link

Frankfurt Declaration on the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness

Jan24 Oct 2021 9:54 UTC

9 points

3 comments5 min readLW link

(universalprior.substack.com)

Where did the 5 micron number come from? Nowhere good. [Wired.com]

Elizabeth9 Nov 2021 7:14 UTC

95 points

6 comments1 min readLW link

(www.wired.com)

Sci-Hub sued in India

Connor_Flexman13 Nov 2021 23:12 UTC

131 points

19 comments7 min readLW link

Streaming Science on Twitch

A Ray15 Nov 2021 22:24 UTC

20 points

1 comment3 min readLW link

Understanding as hierarchical model building

invertedpassion13 Jan 2022 9:28 UTC

5 points

0 comments5 min readLW link

[Question] How would you go about testing a political theory like Neofeudalism?

FinalFormal22 Feb 2022 17:09 UTC

3 points

6 comments1 min readLW link

Strevens on scientific explanation

Richard_Ngo14 Feb 2022 8:10 UTC

16 points

5 comments7 min readLW link

(thinkingcomplete.blogspot.com)

An analogy as the midwife of thermodynamics

adamShimi16 Feb 2022 21:34 UTC

28 points

10 comments7 min readLW link

Becoming Stronger as Epistemologist: Introduction

adamShimi15 Feb 2022 6:15 UTC

29 points

2 comments4 min readLW link

Monks of Magnitude

Duncan_Sabien18 Feb 2022 7:48 UTC

86 points

49 comments5 min readLW link

What The Foucault

adamShimi19 Feb 2022 22:48 UTC

36 points

6 comments3 min readLW link

The Art and Science of Intuition Pumping

adamShimi22 Feb 2022 0:18 UTC

18 points

1 comment9 min readLW link

The Limits Of Medicine—Part 2 - Homogeneity Assumptions

George2 Mar 2022 16:45 UTC

15 points

3 comments8 min readLW link

(www.epistem.ink)

Replacing Natural Interpretations

adamShimi16 Mar 2022 13:05 UTC

13 points

0 comments7 min readLW link

Christopher Alexander’s architecture for learning

Henrik Karlsson24 Mar 2022 9:11 UTC

34 points

7 comments9 min readLW link

(escapingflatland.substack.com)

Productive Mistakes, Not Perfect Answers

adamShimi7 Apr 2022 16:41 UTC

77 points

11 comments6 min readLW link

I only believe in the paranormal

Malmesbury24 May 2022 12:15 UTC

87 points

9 comments2 min readLW link

On exact mathematical formulae

daozaich22 Apr 2018 19:41 UTC

62 points

14 comments2 min readLW link

[Question] How did academia ensure papers were correct in the early 20th Century?

Ben Pace29 Dec 2018 23:37 UTC

99 points

17 comments2 min readLW link 1 review

Even if you have a nail, not all hammers are the same

PhilGoetz29 Mar 2010 18:09 UTC

132 points

126 comments6 min readLW link

Tal Yarkoni: No, it’s not The Incentives—it’s you

Zack_M_Davis11 Jun 2019 7:09 UTC

90 points

120 comments1 min readLW link 4 reviews

(www.talyarkoni.org)

Rule Thinkers In, Not Out

Scott Alexander27 Feb 2019 2:40 UTC

159 points

62 comments4 min readLW link 4 reviews

(slatestarcodex.com)

Science as Attire

Eliezer Yudkowsky23 Aug 2007 5:10 UTC

127 points

89 comments2 min readLW link

The Skeptic’s Trilemma

Scott Alexander15 Mar 2009 0:12 UTC

80 points

15 comments5 min readLW link

Some Heuristics for Evaluating the Soundness of the Academic Mainstream in Unfamiliar Fields

Vladimir_M15 Feb 2011 9:17 UTC

99 points

278 comments9 min readLW link

Parapsychology: the control group for science

AllanCrossman5 Dec 2009 22:50 UTC

89 points

188 comments2 min readLW link

Privileging the Hypothesis

Eliezer Yudkowsky29 Sep 2009 0:40 UTC

93 points

131 comments5 min readLW link

Were atoms real?

AnnaSalamon8 Dec 2010 17:30 UTC

91 points

156 comments4 min readLW link

Science: Do It Yourself

alyssavance13 Feb 2011 4:47 UTC

84 points

207 comments6 min readLW link

Gears vs Behavior

johnswentworth19 Sep 2019 6:50 UTC

82 points

12 comments7 min readLW link 1 review

Einstein’s Arrogance

Eliezer Yudkowsky25 Sep 2007 1:29 UTC

119 points

89 comments3 min readLW link

I Defy the Data!

Eliezer Yudkowsky11 Aug 2007 21:33 UTC

82 points

12 comments3 min readLW link

Why epidemiology will not correct itself

gwern11 Aug 2011 0:54 UTC

69 points

13 comments1 min readLW link

The Scent of Bad Psychology

Jacob Falkovich10 Sep 2018 18:42 UTC

42 points

6 comments1 min readLW link

(putanumonit.com)

No One Knows What Science Doesn’t Know

Eliezer Yudkowsky25 Oct 2007 23:47 UTC

73 points

107 comments3 min readLW link

Scientific misconduct misdiagnosed because of scientific misconduct

GLaDOS10 Jun 2011 14:49 UTC

61 points

55 comments2 min readLW link

The Galileo affair: who was on the side of rationality?

Val15 Feb 2015 20:52 UTC

48 points

71 comments7 min readLW link

Novum Organum: Preface

Francis Bacon19 Sep 2019 22:51 UTC

53 points

5 comments7 min readLW link

[Question] Which scientific discovery was most ahead of its time?

Richard_Ngo16 May 2019 12:58 UTC

38 points

14 comments1 min readLW link

Is the rate of scientific progress slowing down? (by Tyler Cowen and Ben Southwood)

Ben Pace2 Dec 2019 3:45 UTC

48 points

6 comments1 min readLW link

(docs.google.com)

Kevin Simler’s “Going Critical”

habryka16 May 2019 4:36 UTC

56 points

1 comment1 min readLW link

(www.meltingasphalt.com)

The Inadequacy of Current Science (Novum Organum Book 1: 1-37)

Francis Bacon23 Sep 2019 2:53 UTC

36 points

3 comments9 min readLW link

Fixing science via a basic income

Kaj_Sotala8 Dec 2017 14:20 UTC

14 points

2 comments3 min readLW link

(kajsotala.fi)

Conjunction Controversy (Or, How They Nail It Down)

Eliezer Yudkowsky20 Sep 2007 2:41 UTC

53 points

25 comments8 min readLW link

Feed the spinoff heuristic!

CarlShulman9 Feb 2012 7:41 UTC

81 points

91 comments2 min readLW link

On alien science

Richard_Ngo2 Jun 2019 14:50 UTC

44 points

8 comments5 min readLW link

(thinkingcomplete.blogspot.com)

My IRB Nightmare

Scott Alexander28 Sep 2017 16:47 UTC

40 points

1 comment19 min readLW link

Error detection bias in research

neq122 Sep 2010 3:00 UTC

73 points

37 comments2 min readLW link

 How Should We Critique Research? A Decision Perspective

gwern14 Jul 2019 22:51 UTC

46 points

4 comments1 min readLW link

(www.gwern.net)

[Question] Books on the zeitgeist of science during Lord Kelvin’s time.

Hazard9 Dec 2019 0:17 UTC

30 points

8 comments1 min readLW link

What science needs

PhilGoetz2 Dec 2012 22:31 UTC

58 points

84 comments7 min readLW link

Sex, Lies, and Dexamethasone

Jacob Falkovich20 Feb 2018 19:56 UTC

15 points

1 comment9 min readLW link

Counterfactual outcome state transition parameters

Anders_H27 Jul 2018 21:13 UTC

37 points

1 comment6 min readLW link

[Link] The Greek Heliocentric Theory

[deleted]12 Jun 2012 17:18 UTC

52 points

11 comments3 min readLW link

What’s wrong with psychology, anyway?

Anatoly_Vorobey28 Apr 2012 23:36 UTC

43 points

15 comments1 min readLW link

[Question] Hard to find factors messing up experiments: Examples?

Hazard15 Nov 2019 17:46 UTC

32 points

12 comments1 min readLW link

Lone Genius Bias and Returns on Additional Researchers

ChrisHallquist1 Nov 2013 0:38 UTC

37 points

64 comments6 min readLW link

A hundred Shakespeares

Stuart_Armstrong11 Dec 2018 23:11 UTC

29 points

4 comments2 min readLW link

Moving to a World Beyond “p < 0.05”

lifelonglearner19 Apr 2019 23:09 UTC

23 points

6 comments1 min readLW link

(www.tandfonline.com)

Why Academic Papers Are A Terrible Discussion Forum

alyssavance20 Jun 2012 18:15 UTC

45 points

53 comments6 min readLW link

Natural Laws Are Descriptions, not Rules

pragmatist8 Aug 2012 4:27 UTC

39 points

236 comments9 min readLW link

Frugality and working from finite data

Snowyowl3 Sep 2010 9:37 UTC

35 points

47 comments4 min readLW link

Experiments and Consent

jefftk10 Nov 2019 14:50 UTC

30 points

45 comments1 min readLW link

(www.jefftk.com)

Time Binders

Slimepriestess24 Feb 2020 9:55 UTC

23 points

10 comments1 min readLW link

(hivewired.wordpress.com)

Separating the roles of theory and direct empirical evidence in belief formation: the examples of minimum wage and anthropogenic global warming

VipulNaik25 Jun 2014 21:47 UTC

38 points

66 comments4 min readLW link

Contaminated by Optimism

Eliezer Yudkowsky6 Aug 2008 0:26 UTC

17 points

78 comments7 min readLW link

Friedman’s “Prediction vs. Explanation”

Eliezer Yudkowsky29 Sep 2008 6:15 UTC

9 points

79 comments1 min readLW link

If Van der Waals was a neural network

George28 Jan 2020 18:38 UTC

18 points

3 comments11 min readLW link

(blog.cerebralab.com)

A Correspondence Theorem

johnswentworth26 Oct 2020 23:28 UTC

28 points

3 comments9 min readLW link

Science vs. art

PhilGoetz16 Mar 2009 15:48 UTC

7 points

36 comments2 min readLW link

Are the social sciences challenging because of fundamental difficulties or because of imposed ones?

ozziegooen10 Nov 2020 4:56 UTC

53 points

13 comments11 min readLW link

Over-encapsulation

PhilGoetz25 Mar 2010 17:58 UTC

29 points

56 comments3 min readLW link

Einstein’s Speed

Eliezer Yudkowsky21 May 2008 2:48 UTC

57 points

35 comments8 min readLW link

Objective truth?

pchvykov15 Feb 2021 21:47 UTC

1 point

0 comments2 min readLW link

Hard vs Soft in fields as attitudes towards model collision

Jemist20 Apr 2021 18:57 UTC

13 points

2 comments2 min readLW link

Research Motivations and “The Division of Cognitive Labor”

Aidan_Kierans16 May 2021 0:00 UTC

4 points

3 comments5 min readLW link

On “Epistemic Trespassing” and Intellectual Modesty

Aidan_Kierans16 May 2021 0:40 UTC

9 points

4 comments9 min readLW link

One Study, Many Results (Matt Clancy)

aarongertler18 Jul 2021 23:10 UTC

84 points

19 comments9 min readLW link

(mattsclancy.substack.com)

[Book Review] Altered Traits

lsusr23 Sep 2021 0:33 UTC

61 points

12 comments11 min readLW link

The Dark Side of Cognition Hypothesis

Cameron Berg3 Oct 2021 20:10 UTC

19 points

1 comment16 min readLW link

[Linkpost] Danger of motivatiogenesis in interdisciplinary work

particlemania25 Nov 2021 0:13 UTC

9 points

0 comments1 min readLW link

Exegesis

rogersbacon31 Dec 2021 17:48 UTC

5 points

2 comments20 min readLW link

(rogersbacon.substack.com)

Book Review: A PhD is Not Enough

ljh27 Apr 2022 5:15 UTC

16 points

3 comments23 min readLW link

Summary: “Internet Search tips” by Gwern Branwen

Pablo Repetto8 Apr 2022 2:02 UTC

12 points

2 comments4 min readLW link

(pabloernesto.github.io)

But What’s Your New Alignment Insight, out of a Future-Textbook Paragraph?

David Udell7 May 2022 3:10 UTC

24 points

18 comments5 min readLW link

No comments.