Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Bears Repeating: Don't Need Scientific Permission

In short, if a study author is dumber than you, then if you disagree with them, it is overwhelmingly likely that they are wrong, not you.

If you're not reading this blog for the first time today, then with p < 0.05 between 98% and 99.5% of scientific paper authors are dumber than you. Epistemically speaking, you have total impunity for disagreeing with them. 

It's very important to get good enough at thinking that you can give yourself permission to believe things, rather than waiting for "scientific" permission. Believing in modern scientific papers is not a serious option. There is no shortcut to replace good reasoning and good judgment.

Modern scientific papers are not refined metal, they are raw ore. They are a source of hypotheses to test, not, in any way, the test themselves. No refinement happens before they reach your worktable.  


The only thing the whole paper/experiment does that a simple IQ test wouldn't do is to filter out the liars. If you knew in advance that you could win arguments by pulling out your IQ ID card, then what incentive do you have to tell the truth? There has to be some unforgeably costly demonstration of truth-telling.

For your own personal use, you already know if you're arguing in good faith or not, so you can use the simple IQ test. Bonus: the length of a paper is more than enough writing to accurately gauge someone's IQ. You can intuit that crud and move on with your day. 

Even in the unlikely event that a paper is by someone smarter than you, it merely means you have to read beyond the title or abstract. Now you have to filter out the liars the hard way - or perhaps, simply ignore too-smart papers as economically inefficient ore.
Which, you may notice, means modern scientific papers go in the entertainment section. Neither smarter nor dumber are worth much. Read for fun, not for profit.




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