tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post47193480415103307..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Haidt: Against Occam's RazorUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-27679809719796509432014-01-30T06:34:46.092-08:002014-01-30T06:34:46.092-08:00with mathematicians, their range of problem solvin...<i>with mathematicians, their range of problem solving ability is more narrow. it's critical to our way of life in some instances, but it's a less broad, and usually a less useful ability. also, mathematicians often demonstrate surprising lack of contact with the real world. they can really be out of touch, and you'd never trust them to be 'normal', or make any important decisions. you'd probably have to make a mathetmatician prove he can be trusted to be a normal, responsible adult who is aware of what's going on and has a good grasp on how the world works, before you'd put him in charge of anything important.</i><br /><br />Autism?<br /><br /><i>it's not true that physicists would be good at all fields equally. it's not like they have great aptitude for every field by virtue of their physics ability. i agree with that reservation. the main thing you have to wonder today, is how much brainpower is being wasted by going into finance, instead of hard science and engineering.</i><br /><br />Smart people often go where the money is, because that's the smart thing to do.<br /><br />Bottledwaternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-36944386393739461452014-01-30T04:40:28.546-08:002014-01-30T04:40:28.546-08:00Occam would also suggest that we not believe in ca...Occam would also suggest that we not believe in catastrophic global warming until there is good evidence of it.<br /><br />As with the "social sciences" the objection seems to be that "we want to kudos of calling ourselves scientists without sticking to the basic rules that have allowed science to work.neil craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09157898238945726349noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-74447490092694642602014-01-29T14:25:52.241-08:002014-01-29T14:25:52.241-08:00Cochran is an example of a physicist who transitio...Cochran is an example of a physicist who transitioned to evolutionary theorist.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-83742001723247750642014-01-29T13:57:27.245-08:002014-01-29T13:57:27.245-08:00i have wondered the same about scientists. how muc...i have wondered the same about scientists. how much talent is general ability and how much is field specific. how would guys from one field do in another. i'm kind of in the middle there. i do think that if the smart guys from physics went into other fields, you'd see some serious breakthroughs. i consider physicists to be the smartest people in general. smarter than mathematicians. they have more general purpose problem solving ability. not as good as mathematicians at esoteric realms of math (although physicists are great at math), but more ability to break new, unfamiliar problems which nobody has encountered before. it's impressive to watch a high level physicist approach a new problem and systematically crack it over time with dazzling new insights you never would have come up with. and, i would say, mathematicians rarely would have come up with.<br /><br />with mathematicians, their range of problem solving ability is more narrow. it's critical to our way of life in some instances, but it's a less broad, and usually a less useful ability. also, mathematicians often demonstrate surprising lack of contact with the real world. they can really be out of touch, and you'd never trust them to be 'normal', or make any important decisions. you'd probably have to make a mathetmatician prove he can be trusted to be a normal, responsible adult who is aware of what's going on and has a good grasp on how the world works, before you'd put him in charge of anything important.<br /><br />it's not true that physicists would be good at all fields equally. it's not like they have great aptitude for every field by virtue of their physics ability. i agree with that reservation. the main thing you have to wonder today, is how much brainpower is being wasted by going into finance, instead of hard science and engineering.jodynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-40622400576280941502014-01-29T13:53:10.410-08:002014-01-29T13:53:10.410-08:0037 is old for a football player. not just middle a...37 is old for a football player. not just middle aged. old. there might not be a single defensive starter in the entire league who is 37. the only guys who make it to 40 are quarterbacks, kickers, and punters.<br /><br />"Nobody just "crashes" elite soccer (or even a mediocre pro league such as MLS) from another sport. But you can find former basketball players in the NFL, and (very tall) former soccer or volleyball players in the elite ranks of basketball."<br /><br />accurate observations. nobody will just come into soccer and play at the highest level right off the bat. this does happen in football and basketball though. they are lower particpation rate, lower skill sports.<br /><br />this is usually the way you can 'level check' a sport in the real world, without knowing about participation rate. if a great athlete can come in and get to the top in 3 or 4 years, the sport is either not that big, or the skill level required in the sport is not that high. these 2 variables interact. you can have a high participation rate, low skill level sport like track & field, where it's hard to crack into the world class in just a few years. or you can have a low participation rate, high skill level sport like tennis, where it is equally hard to crack into the world class quickly.<br /><br />how long it would take on average to crack into the world class, if you started tomorrow, is a good way to evaluate the level at which a sport is operating. if it would take more than 3 or 4 years for most guys, the sport is not some minor sport that nobody plays, and either has a participation rate high enough that lots of good athletes are already doing it, or has a skill level requirement that takes years to match, or some combination. a sport becomes more than a minor sport, if it would still take a great athlete 6 or 7 years of regular play to get near the top. freak athletes can do it faster, but they're very rare. they wouldn't be freaks if they were common.<br /><br />note here, tennis a low participation rate sport only by way of comparison. it's not a low participation rate sport generally speaking. a great athlete cannot wash out of football or baseball or soccer, pick up a racquet, and start winning million dollar purses in 3 or 4 years of whacking the ball around.jodynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-60951535607973790442014-01-29T13:27:59.951-08:002014-01-29T13:27:59.951-08:00This is Haidt speech and I find it offensive.
Sto...This is Haidt speech and I find it offensive.<br /><br />Stop the Haidt!Dishonest Abe Foxmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-54435459239199961332014-01-29T13:10:00.382-08:002014-01-29T13:10:00.382-08:00Steve said . . .
Jonathan Haidt comes out against ...<br />Steve said . . .<br /><i>Jonathan Haidt comes out against Occam's Razor</i><br /><br />No he didn't. And, no, it does not matter that he said he did.<br /><br />He is an academic who was asked a question. He answered "Now let me talk about my work and attack my enemies."<br /><br />You want to retire something from science, retire academics talking about their own work in reply to EVERY FUCKING QUESTION.Billnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-49626160037226808562014-01-29T13:03:01.457-08:002014-01-29T13:03:01.457-08:00i'm guessing chetty's conclusions were sim...i'm guessing chetty's conclusions were simply GIGO. threw a bunch of unrelated variables into an equation, churned the numbers, and got junk out.jodynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-55695693803162978042014-01-29T08:40:14.236-08:002014-01-29T08:40:14.236-08:00I saw Peyton Manning talking to the press yesterda...I saw Peyton Manning talking to the press yesterday on one of the sports channels. It sure sounded like he was implying that the Super Bowl would be his last game.<br /><br />Regarding aging and athletic performance, my first aches and pains came at age 40; and I had to drastically cut back running, and strength-training plateaued. I'm still consistently winning my age group for local 5K races though.E. Rekshunnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-87281368722260290972014-01-29T06:53:42.344-08:002014-01-29T06:53:42.344-08:001. I don't know if it's in the Chetty stud...1. I don't know if it's in the Chetty study or not, but a first thing to worry about is that lots of people would rather stay in their poor home town than move to New York and double their income. That's not true of people in Newark, but it is of people on Indian reservations and the rural South--- at least, of those from families that have stuck it out this long. <br /> 2. Thus, it woudl be interesting to look at the study after eliminating people who moved out of their state. <br /> 3. The regression ot he mean idea seems like it ought to be testable. Some tenured economist ought to take it up. Eric Rasmusenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01609599580545475695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-47036059541513748272014-01-29T02:32:55.917-08:002014-01-29T02:32:55.917-08:00Simple logic should tell you that if one could wal...<i>Simple logic should tell you that if one could walk in and pick off the (supposedly) low-hanging fruit in the social sciences, plenty of physicists would have done so. If it's so easy, why hasn't it been solved?</i><br /><br />That is a very good point. But I'd wager it is much more likely that a physics undergrad eventually makes a breakthrough in biology than the reverse. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-19054355712245690622014-01-28T22:01:42.945-08:002014-01-28T22:01:42.945-08:00Based on the abundant evidence for Oswald acting a...<br />Based on the abundant evidence for Oswald acting alone and on the utter lack of evidence for conspiracy, the Warren Commission applied Occam's razor, and to this day millions of Americans Haidt it.Auntie Analoguenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-78423968749997532212014-01-28T21:20:38.182-08:002014-01-28T21:20:38.182-08:00"Steve, You're being discussed quite a bi..."Steve, You're being discussed quite a bit on Rod Dreher's blog today."<br /><br />Rod Dreher's comment box is a stain on the face of humanity.Bertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-57673902924368804212014-01-28T21:19:21.327-08:002014-01-28T21:19:21.327-08:00Anonymous said...
"If physicists and chemists...Anonymous said...<br />"If physicists and chemists started directing their hefty intellects towards human behavior, guys like Haidt would be relegated to the sidelines as data collectors and research assistants or just enthusiasts. Goodbye status."<br /><br />Plenty have tried. None has made much progress. <br /><br />Simple logic should tell you that if one could walk in and pick off the (supposedly) low-hanging fruit in the social sciences, plenty of physicists would have done so. If it's so easy, why hasn't it been solved?<br /><br />It's the science version of "if only our [U.S.] best [black] athletes played soccer…"<br /><br />Different skillsets. In basketball, and especially in football in the low-skill positions, it can be enough to be unusually fast/tall/long/strong to be successful. In soccer, it is never enough, though one must be fast to even have a chance. But it takes at least a decade or more of skill refinement. Nobody just "crashes" elite soccer (or even a mediocre pro league such as MLS) from another sport. But you can find former basketball players in the NFL, and (very tall) former soccer or volleyball players in the elite ranks of basketball. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-79190078024829709652014-01-28T21:17:58.562-08:002014-01-28T21:17:58.562-08:00Occam's fist.
The negro way.Occam's fist.<br /><br />The negro way.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-67886500312754311722014-01-28T20:35:12.593-08:002014-01-28T20:35:12.593-08:00Steve needs to think through the Chetty analysis m...Steve needs to think through the Chetty analysis more clearly. Places with high income mobility need not have either (a) high income disparity or (b) high absolute levels of median prosperity. You're conflating mobility with prosperity/achieving the American dream which is false. You could move from the 10th to the 90th percentile in income in the dust belt, but that doesn't mean much, nor does Chetty claim that it means much. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-86649182299699196822014-01-28T20:33:28.914-08:002014-01-28T20:33:28.914-08:00His definition of Occam's Razor is just plain ...<i>His definition of Occam's Razor is just plain wrong. That's embarrassing.</i><br /><br />What do you expect from a guy who is totally ignorant in his own field.<br /><br /><i>In my own field—moral psychology—we've suffered from the same overzealous pursuit of parsimony. Lawrence Kohlberg said morality was all about justice. Others say it's compassion. Others say morality is all about forming coalitions, or preventing harm to victims.</i><br /><br />It's about self-interest -- the self-interest of a group achieved through the mediation of personal conflicts of interest between and among group members. Science has answered this question; it's time to read David Sloan Wilson and move on.ben tillmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-24041364767632926572014-01-28T20:33:04.198-08:002014-01-28T20:33:04.198-08:00Haidt might be right in that Occam's Razor can...Haidt might be right in that Occam's Razor can't be used in dissecting human behavior, but not because it will yield conclusions that aren't true or are incomplete, but because it will yield results we can't bear.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-22787363412398188302014-01-28T20:09:49.095-08:002014-01-28T20:09:49.095-08:00Steve, former 49'er QB Jeff Garcia said today ...Steve, former 49'er QB Jeff Garcia said today that the Seahawks probably won't be able to pressure Manning much, so he favors the Broncos. Bet accordingly. On the other hand, well-known OR-wielder Randy Moss viewed him as gay.nice cakenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-63001562407377449782014-01-28T19:39:26.561-08:002014-01-28T19:39:26.561-08:00Anyone with half a chance flees southern West Virg...Anyone with half a chance flees southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky at the first opportunity--it's been that way almost forever. Nature abhors a vacuum, so them as is left naturally rise to the top. All of my grandparents were WV-born. No prizes for guessing how many aunts, uncles or cousins I have there still. Forgot My Alias Againnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-80212119864620516532014-01-28T19:26:46.940-08:002014-01-28T19:26:46.940-08:00Another way of looking at is, the greater the numb...Another way of looking at is, the greater the number of facts a theory can explain, the more justified it is by occam's razor. Dinesh D'souza would often argue that his anticolonial theory explains more about Obama than any competing theory (I.e. He's a secret Muslim, he's a socialist, he's incompetent etc)Bottledwaternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-19179823112562537692014-01-28T18:56:02.417-08:002014-01-28T18:56:02.417-08:00Occam's Razor only means that when all explana...<em>Occam's Razor only means that when all explanations are unproven, yet you have to take action, choose the explanation with the fewest moving parts.</em><br /><br />Yes. Be willing to consider other explanations, but start with the simplest explanation and work from there. If I can't find my wallet, the simplest explanation is that I've mislaid it, so I look in the places I've been recently. It's also <em>possible</em> that someone snuck into my house without my seeing him and stole it without taking anything else -- but that requires many more unlikely things to have happened together, so I'm not going to grab the phone and call the cops right away. <br /><br />His definition of Occam's Razor is just plain wrong. That's embarrassing.Cail Corishevhttp://cailcorishev.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-63136846541522728492014-01-28T18:52:37.455-08:002014-01-28T18:52:37.455-08:00If physicists and chemists started directing their...<i>If physicists and chemists started directing their hefty intellects towards human behavior, guys like Haidt would be relegated to the sidelines as data collectors and research assistants or just enthusiasts. Goodbye status.</i><br /><br />It's always fascinating when people with super genius intellect suddenly decide to compete in fields that are cognitively beneath them. A good example is business. The best business men are alpha males that have IQ's in say the 130s, and by the late 20th century they made if they were lucky, several billion bucks.<br /><br />Then along came a scrawny four eyed beta nerd businessman like bill gates, with an IQ perhaps as high as 170, and by the late 1990s he's worth $100 billion...so rich the jealous Clinton admin starts persecuting him.<br /><br />The alpha males of the world are very lucky that most super genius beta nerds are happy playing video games all day, because when they do decide to compete for real success, it's an absolute massacre.Bottledwaternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-58995250549039333862014-01-28T18:36:44.021-08:002014-01-28T18:36:44.021-08:00Doesn't occam's razor imply obama's a ...Doesn't occam's razor imply obama's a genius? The simplest explanation for how he was able to do so well at harvard, write such a literary masterpiece and become the most powerful black in human history is that he's a genius.<br /><br />Other common internet explanations invoke multiple theories that combine affirmative action, ghost writers, conspiracies by Jews and/or the CIA etc, and thus violate occam's razor. So maybe we should rename it obama's razor, since it proves Obama has a razor sharp intellect.Bottledwaternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81735903842659611402014-01-28T18:25:37.567-08:002014-01-28T18:25:37.567-08:00To me, occam's razor is simply applying the ge...To me, occam's razor is simply applying the general explanation to a specific case, rather than assuming a special explanation. So why does one race score higher on IQ tests than another? The same general reason as anyone outscores anyone. Because they're smarter. Why is one race smarter than another? The same general reason any contemporary American is smarter than any other. Genetics, since IQ has an 80% heritability by mature adulthood.<br /><br />Or what's causing the flynn effect? The same thing that's caused any other variable (height, brain size, birth weight) to increase over the 20th century. Nutition.<br /><br />Now the people who deny that the flynn effect reflects a genuine biological increase in intelligence are violating occam's razor.<br /><br />Bottledwaternoreply@blogger.com