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The bane of evidenced-based science is prudence, or more generally reasoning under uncertainty with asymmetrical outcomes. Unsurprising the WSJ publishes an op
by AbrahamParangi 7y ago
The bane of evidenced-based science is prudence, or more generally reasoning under uncertainty with asymmetrical outcomes.
Unsurprising the WSJ publishes an opinion piece carrying water for this unfortunate perspective.
- riskneutral 7y agoSo you are saying we should abandon evidence-based science when reasoning under uncertainty with asymmetrical outcomes?
- AbrahamParangi 7y agoThere are many decisions where evidence is near worthless and you have to follow alternative lines of logic. Any circumstance where you’re dealing with low probability, high impact events you will necessarily lack evidence to estimate the true expectation from prior experience (aka evidence). Your prior will be biased in its mean and almost no amount of “evidence” can fix that.
- riskneutral 7y agoFortunately epidemics are an area where data can be collected until there is no lack of evidence.
- AbrahamParangi 7y agoEpidemics are a great example where we can say that prudence is recommended. Perhaps 80% of the population of the Americas was destroyed by the eurasian plagues - diseases which Europe had reached viral equilibrium with but the Americas had not. The median of a new outbreak is not worrying, the mean is worrying, and the min is apocalyptic.