[ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong.

[Anders Sandberg]

Från:   BillK <pharos at gmail.com>  


Science is heroic, with a tragic (statistical) flaw
Mindless use of statistical testing erodes confidence in research
I am reading Alex Reinharts "Statistics done wrong: the woefully complete guide" ( http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/ ) and enjoying it. 

The central problem is that we aim for certainty about uncertain things, and then make models of them that we become overconfident about - after all, the numbers coming out of the model are very precise. Shame about the model being wrong, though, and this error being hidden behind a lot of math.

But if science has it rough, at least it is rather numerically literate and knows it has a problem. After three years of talking to insurance I realize that a lot of important business is made on far dodgier assumptions.


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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