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I think quantitative analysis is at fault. The thing is, mathematics is a language and I can as easily produce a model that encapsulates the lies we tell oursel

by yk 10y ago

I think quantitative analysis is at fault. The thing is, mathematics is a language and I can as easily produce a model that encapsulates the lies we tell ourselves in Newspapers, as I can produce a model based on Hitler's Mein Kampf. Actually I thought yesterday about how to misconstruct a human detector for photos, one possibility would be to have face detection and then measure the average pixel color of the face. That would get me probably quite nice detection rates if I test on a dataset that has a racial markup as the average CS lecture. The thing here is, that I push the false negatives purposely to people of color. It is not hard then to invent a story about how 'mathematics proves' that black people are more similar to apes than white people. We currently just don't have anything to ground models of human interaction in,^1 and what is worse most people treat models just as previous generations treated prophecies. They don't understand math and believe in it because they don't understand it. ^1 I am actually not saying that models are worthless, I am saying that most complex models only show what the author wants them to show and they can be as easily manipulated as an essay.

infinity0 10y ago
The flaws you're pointing out, are flaws with the non-quantitative arguments used to justify choosing specific flawed quantitative models. This does not mean quantitative analysis as a whole, is flawed. Someone goes and builds a bridge. The bridge collapses because they applied mathematics in a way to maximise profit, with a safety margin just beyond what they can get away with by existing regulations. 5 million other bridge engineers also do the same, so that eventually bridge engineers get a bad rep, and people think bridges are awful awful things. This doesn't mean mathematics or quantitative analysis is at fault - and in fact these tools can be used to examine the incentives and other social dynamics that led to these situations, to be able to fix them more effectively in the future.
- yk 10y ago
  That is what I meant with 'grounding.' I say that mathematics can be a useful tool, however contrast this with the situation in physics, we have comprehensive theories and we have the situation were we can be very certain that all future theories contain something that can be identified with atoms and even more, if one uses a mathematical theorem then we can be confident that there is something in nature that corresponds to the results. We don't have anything similar in all other intellectual endeavors, but people treat physical and non-physical models similar.
  - posterboy 10y ago
    >contrast this with the situation in physics, we have comprehensive theories no, not of gravity or dark matter.
    - yk 10y ago
      We have a very good theory of gravity, general relativity, and actually for anything that was ever used to build anything including the Voyager probes, Newtonian gravity is enough. In a sense we even have a safety net. As for dark matter, the reason we don't have a good idea what dark matter is, is that is has almost no effect on normal matter. So the reason why we can ignore dark matter everywhere except at the frontiers of physics is, that dark matter only matters when one spends awesome resources to try to detect it.
      - posterboy 10y ago
        Well then, we'd have a comprehensive idea of sociology, too, on account of society not completely collapsing.
      - dilemma 10y ago
        Dark matter isn't "ignored", it is unknown. Not because nobody cares but because, as the parent said, the current scientific paradigm is incomplete and by extension incorrect.
posterboy 10y ago
>The thing is, mathematics is a language and I can as easily produce a model that ... No, you can't. What an outrageous claim to make. Prove it constructively, preferably.

by yk 10y ago

infinity0 10y ago

The flaws you're pointing out, are flaws with the non-quantitative arguments used to justify choosing specific flawed quantitative models. This does not mean quantitative analysis as a whole, is flawed. Someone goes and builds a bridge. The bridge collapses because they applied mathematics in a way to maximise profit, with a safety margin just beyond what they can get away with by existing regulations. 5 million other bridge engineers also do the same, so that eventually bridge engineers get a bad rep, and people think bridges are awful awful things. This doesn't mean mathematics or quantitative analysis is at fault - and in fact these tools can be used to examine the incentives and other social dynamics that led to these situations, to be able to fix them more effectively in the future.

yk 10y ago
That is what I meant with 'grounding.' I say that mathematics can be a useful tool, however contrast this with the situation in physics, we have comprehensive theories and we have the situation were we can be very certain that all future theories contain something that can be identified with atoms and even more, if one uses a mathematical theorem then we can be confident that there is something in nature that corresponds to the results. We don't have anything similar in all other intellectual endeavors, but people treat physical and non-physical models similar.
- posterboy 10y ago
  >contrast this with the situation in physics, we have comprehensive theories no, not of gravity or dark matter.
  - yk 10y ago
    We have a very good theory of gravity, general relativity, and actually for anything that was ever used to build anything including the Voyager probes, Newtonian gravity is enough. In a sense we even have a safety net. As for dark matter, the reason we don't have a good idea what dark matter is, is that is has almost no effect on normal matter. So the reason why we can ignore dark matter everywhere except at the frontiers of physics is, that dark matter only matters when one spends awesome resources to try to detect it.
    - posterboy 10y ago
      Well then, we'd have a comprehensive idea of sociology, too, on account of society not completely collapsing.
    - dilemma 10y ago
      Dark matter isn't "ignored", it is unknown. Not because nobody cares but because, as the parent said, the current scientific paradigm is incomplete and by extension incorrect.

posterboy 10y ago

>The thing is, mathematics is a language and I can as easily produce a model that ... No, you can't. What an outrageous claim to make. Prove it constructively, preferably.