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Actually a kind of cool little article. However, a few little errors/improvements I think could improve it: 14. Time value of money: Its actually the opposite
by ACow_Adonis 11y ago
Actually a kind of cool little article. However, a few little errors/improvements I think could improve it:
14. Time value of money: Its actually the opposite of whats stated. We value money today MORE than money tomorrow, not less. The discount rate is how much more money/return you'd need in the future to compensate.
21. Bikeshedding phenomenon is not really substituting an easy problem for a hard one: its more a comment on how people will focus on the problems that they are cognitively able to understand. Or more flippantly, the time spent on a problem is directly proportional to its triviality.
32. Hawthorne effect: This one is close to my heart, because my mother mis-stated this one when I was little. Its that people act different when they are AWARE they are being observed, not just that they act differently when observed.
34. Flynn effect: I feel its important to recognise the subtlety that the flynn effect is about the observed increase in INTELLIGENCE TEST SCORES over several decades. Indeed, the whole point of learning about the flynn effect is to learn about the ambiguity and controversy between tests, test scores, and general intelligence, and the general investigation into why this apparent increase is happening. I feel to simplify this to "IQ has been increasing" is to miss the entire point/controversy/investigation of the flynn effect.
46. Cognitive dissonance: Is i think a mis-statement/erroneous. Cognitive dissonance is indeed the uncomfortableness experienced by humans holding conflicting beliefs, but it does not imply that one of the conflicting beliefs have to be discarded. Rather, it is the interesting ways that human beings deal with conflicting beliefs that don't involve discarding them which I think the real-value/most interesting point of the concept of cognitive dissonance.
47. Coeffcient of determination: Just to save space in this comment, read the wikipedia article if you're into this kind of thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_determination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_determination. Personally, I'd barely call this a concept...its more of a model specific stats metric really, but i'm not really in the mood to argue it...
- mdl8bit 11y agoVery well stated thoughts! I found this quick summary more readable than the whole article, even though I enjoyed it as well.
- dllthomas 11y ago"Substituting an easy problem for a hard one" sounds more like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitution_bias_%28psychology%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitution_bias_%28psycholog...
- petermcintyre 11y agoAll good points, thanks. 14. Yes, that was a mistake, sorry. 32. Agreed, edited to avoid confusing people. 34. Agreed and added. 46. Yeah, one isn't always discarded. For example, humans are pretty good at compartmentalising. 47. Maybe not a concept, (I'm not one to quibble of definitions - http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/) but I feel as though it can be useful. Beyond the formal use, it can be helpful to think about how much variance is explained in a model by any particular attempt. For instance, say someone claims that women are bad at giving directions. Even if on average this is true, gender might only account for a small amount of differences in direction-giving abilities. In this example, you'd want to see some data, but at least it can be instructive to how one might conceptually picture the claim someone is making.