[extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence

[Samantha Atkins]

On Wednesday 05 November 2003 17:19, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> Samantha Atkins wrote:

> >
> > That is a huge cop-out.  It doesn't fit your worldview so the first
> > choice is to believe it never happened, heh?    Convenient but not very
> > relevant.
>
> Yes, that's right.  It doesn't fit my worldview, and therefore I assert
> that it never happened.  On the hypothesis that the universe is genuinely
> non-eerie but people are not reliable reporters, it will sometimes be
> necessary to do that.  The important thing is to do it flat out, honestly,
> and without excuses.  It doesn't fit my preconceived notions and
> therefore, without apology, I reject it.  Anyone is welcome to catalog
> reports like these; doing so is not an assault on Reason, for Reason can
> take the heat.  It is suppressed fear that the universe really *is* eerie
> that leads to people trying to "suppress memories", "not think about it",
> deny grant funding to people trying to investigate it, and other harmful
> strategies.  I will not live in fear of Chris Phoenix's report.  I accept
> that he made the report, and deny that it happened as reported.
>

So, what would it take to get through what looks like defensive assertions 
against anything that disagrees with your worldview?   Why is the avoidance 
of anything that might strike you as being under the very loose term "eerie" 
such an apparently large value?   The Universe *is* "eerie" in many respects 
or at least more singularly odd than we might be able to hold in our noggins.  
Why should some form of ESP existing be even a very large threat?  It would 
be yet another unexpected phenomenon to account for as I see it.   

All of that said I have no general trouble with reporting/observation errors 
being the first and most likely explanation.    I know first hand just how 
marvelously creative and integrative of things that should not be integrated 
the human mind is.  But it doesn't seem justified to assert those *are* the 
explanation without examination.

> >> This world is my home, and I know it now, and I know the world
> >> doesn't work that way.
> >
> > You *know* no such thing.  You believe it doesn't work that way.
>
> "You are not me," replied Chuangtse. "How can you know that I do not know
> that the fish are enjoying themselves?"
>

I do not have to be you to assert that a bald assertion that the world doesn't 
work in such a way as to allow X would require near omniscience or at least a 
far more totally vetted model of reality than any of us to date, to my 
knowledge, have or are likely to have.   The world doesn't work in such a way 
as to support a blanket assertion that the world doesn't work in such a way 
as to allow ESP.  :0


> >> There are a few things left that I don't know yet, but the remaining
> >> uncertainty does not have enough slack in it to permit ESP.  This
> >> world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so it is a
> >> simulation of a world without ESP.
> >
> > I see no way you could have complete enough knowledge or sufficiently
> > vetted theory of knowledge to make such a statement meaningfully.
>
> On the hypothesis that the universe really is non-eerie, there is no
> reason why an inhabitant of that universe should not eventually become
> confident of the fact.  Of course, as I noted, it takes some work.
>

Please clarify what you mean by "eerie".   From where I sit there are lots of 
very "eerie" things in some parts of our current scientific models.  

> >
> > The story has to be assumed accurate for the questions raised to be
> > even seriously addressed.  What you have done looks like more disowning
> > of inconvenient data.  We all know most of the things you are bringing
> > up here and yet this nagging residue that doesn't fit remains.
>
> Right.  I am disowning inconvenient data.  The important thing is not to
> make the action look any more respectable than it is, or try to make the
> incovenient data look less improbable by coming up with pseudo-rational
> explanations for it.  Scientists are nervous around disowned inconvenient
> data, even though it is, sometimes necessary.  That is as it should be,
> and the reason why, when disowning inconvenient data is necessary, it
> should be done plainly and without apology.
>

I am really not getting what the virtue of this is.   If it is really *data* 
it cannot be disowned without intellectual dishonesty.   So I hope this is a 
quibble about whether such an anecdote is sufficient to qualify as data.  


- samantha