Incidentally, this is an area where legal instruction is superior to scientific instruction at the graduate/pre-thesis level.
Hopefully_Anonymous
“Need they have such limited brainpower?” -perhaps. I’m interested in our energy/environmentally constrained limits, past, present, and future, on our ability to model reality, etc. We do apparently have limited brainpower, and sloppy routes to the accumulation of knowledge. It’s worth examining the most efficient paths (even if they may have irrational elements) to the accumulation of best models of reality.
Some of the critics of Eliezer’s point are falling in the trap of justifying a functional system rather than looking how to optimize it. I think Constant’s point that we often regurgitate on the path to understanding. But still, I think primacy should be given to figuring out how to optimize these learning processes, rather than justify the functional elements of the learning processes we currently have.
“I’d be willing to assign zero probability to mathematical falsehoods, such as “2+2=5″.”
You might be willing to, Doug S., but that doesn’t mean that it’s optimally rational for you to do so. I don’t know as much about bayesian reasoning as I’d like to, but my understanding is that would not be bayesian of you.
“Science (unlike religion) has proved its myths—by putting men on the moon, mobile phones in people’s pockets, and curing diseases. It’s payed its dues to reliability. So unless I am willing to look into it myself, I should, as a default, believe most things scientists claim.” Stuart, this in my opinion is an awful sentence, and I’m surprised to read it by an overcomingbias contributor.
Great post and I agree with Brandon. Eliezer, I recommend you admin a message board (I’ve been recommending an overcomingbias message board for a while) but I think in particular you’d thrive in that environment due to your high posting volume and multiple threads of daily interest. I think you’re a bit constrained intellectually, pedagogically, and speculatively by this format.
Eliezer, we need more posts from you elucidating the importance of optimizing science, etc., as opposed to the current, functional elements of it. In my opinion people are wasting significant comment time responding to each of your posts by saying “hey, such-and-such that you criticized actually has some functionality”.
anonymous, I think we have good empirical evidence that Eliezer is not “unaware of the fact that biological evolution is only a subset from general evolution”.
Eliezer and Kyle, name names of serious or influential people who posit in a mockworthy “Corporations split—therefore they reproduce—therefore they evolve.”
If you’re just throwing up a foil so we have a smug sense of in-groupedness, are you wasting our time on an overcomingbias blog?
Eliezer, you seem to be making a science vs. engineering distinction. You’re obviously aware of how evolution is used in engineering (as described in the wikipedia entry on evolution).
Took a look at Kevin Kelly’s site. Instead of occasional foilicious potshots, how about a serious critique of the error of these ideas. Let’s not manufacture a dialectic, I think that’s going to get in the way of building the best models of reality.
Eliezer, I understand the need to contest the wrong-but-influential, but not the wrong-but-insignificant. Kevin Kelly is definitely influential. I just think you have real, worthy opponents (the ultimate one, our apparently pending mortality), I don’t like to see limited energy get sucked up on hack, performed disagreements. I’d rather you get your representational privilege the most useful way to us—solving the hard problems we face, as quickly as possible, not performing 1⁄2 of various dialectics.
What are phenomena that aren’t “emergent”? I guess Eliezer is right when he says “a single quark”. I think Eliezer makes a good case that the word is overused, and doesn’t enlighten the discourse.
It might be more useful to describe things in reverse ” X are the components of phenomenon Y”. Such as “Neurons firing are the known components of intelligence”. Because when we observe something, it can be useful to ask “what are its components”?
It contrast, everything observed IS the component of some bigger system, but it can be also useful to ask, what is the next biggest ordered system it is a part of, etc. That’s where “emergent phenomena” might legitmately come in. Because an ant colony might be the next biggest ordered system that an individual ant is a part of, and that does seem like useful information.
I don’t think these parable posts convey information efficiently to the overcomingbias audience, but I like your point at the end. Specifically, I agree it’s better to use placeholders that make lack of knowledge/understanding clear, rather than placeholders that seem to cover up such lack of knowledge/understanding.
Good post. I find your writing style a little overwrought for your audience (us overcomingbias readers) but the practical details and advice are gold.
Eliezer, you offer a lot of value and shouldn’t post less (in other words, I disagree with anon). Personally I wish you’d communicate a little more directly though. This is probably one of your most egregious, melodramatically obtuse posts.
Since this is overcomingbias, it might be useful that when presenting our narratives of past vs. present, it might be useful to watch out for narratives invoking an inevitability of progress.
All of Eliezer’s 3 points from the past seem to touch on that: (1) new scientific knowledge, (2) improved technology, and (3) more social acceptance and opportunities for power minorities.
Great post overall and I love the honesty in these lines: “I don’t know the grand unified theory for this universe’s laws of physics. I also don’t know much about human anatomy with the exception of the brain. I couldn’t point out on my body where my kidneys are, and I can’t recall offhand what my liver does. (I am not proud of this. Alas, with all the math I need to study, I’m not likely to learn anatomy anytime soon.)”
NE1, I think “electricity” can function as both password and citation. Often in pedagogical settings, answers like that do function literally as passwords -if you say or write it, you can proceed, whether or not you are aware it’s “a citation of the studies and laws that the teacher claims are relevant”. I’m not sure if it’s important for non-experts to know more than passwords that allow for general literacy, though.
However, I also think it would be helpful to this audience for Eliezer to relate his insights clearly rather than through parables, etc.
I’m loving Eliezer’s transparency. I think the strongest criticism on this blog should be reserved for the contributors making the least effort to be internally transparent and responsive to the readers/commenters. Eliezer seems to be making the most effort.
David J. Balan, you write: “But it is not a mistake to say that it is far and away the most successful thing that humans have ever come up with, and so that it is the best framework in which to try to address future problems.”
That sounds like a contestible claim. There often seems to be a “no true scotsman” element to arguments buttressing that claim.
Great post, Eliezer, and I agree with Stuart. There should be no valor in stating an uncertain guess as a certain statement -one should at least express one’s level of uncertainty.