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Readers of Nassim Taleb, doubts raised over our blind trust of institutions like their reaction to coronavirus, any mainstream nutritional advice (fat is bad an

Readers of Nassim Taleb, doubts raised over our blind trust of institutions like their reaction to coronavirus, any mainstream nutritional advice (fat is bad and causes heart disease, “the China study” was written by a nutritional biochemist), papers that p hack to be published, replication crisis of psychology, statistics and using it to lie. There is no paranoia, an allegory is an ivory tower of studies about language from non native speakers with a PhD, and a native speaker who gets no recognition for using it daily but doesn’t have a fancy diploma or credentials so someone who speaks “proper” Spanish from Spain who has never been to Spain is more “credible” than the Mexican speaking “improper” Spanish daily. Academia is to be ignored unless it’s relevant, Fritz Harber didn’t need the Nobel prize to have real world effects in nitrogen fixing to help farmers grow and sustain our population, Obama wasn’t more relevant because of his Nobel prize, and Perelman’s refusal of the Fields Medal doesn’t change his contributions.

SkyMarshal 5y ago
Readers of Nassim will also recognize his critiques of academia are mainly targeted at social sciences and similar fields that can only “prove” their findings statistically, where p-hacking and incorrect use of models and wrong distributions and the like result in bad findings passed off as good. That’s not the case with computer science, at least in systems subfields like filesystems, where theories can be implemented in isolation and shown to either work or not.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  Disagree. Artificial benchmarks and p hacking for showing good performance in CS are also statistically proven. The best result in geekbench doesn’t mean anything to me.
  - SkyMarshal 5y ago
    Benchmarks and geekbench are not "where theories can be implemented in isolation and shown to either work or not."
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      Maybe I don’t understand your point, in psychology for example sterile lab tests are isolated and can be shown to work or not, is it not the same idea here?
      - SkyMarshal 5y ago
        CompSci theories are essentially mathematical proofs. You create a proof of something, then you build it to test it, to make sure your math is actually correct, and that the theory works in implementation. Proof of correctness doesn't rely on having a large cohort of test subjects undergoing an experimental trial of some sort, and then interpreting the results with statistical models, distributions, p-values, etc. I don't know psychology in depth, but if there are similar kinds proofs without requiring statistical analysis of a large experimental cohort, then I don't think Taleb's criticisms are aimed at those either. It's the fundamental problem of knowledge - can truth be known via logic and reason, or via empiricism and observation? The answer to both is, sometimes, but with caveats. Peter Norvig also wrote a good take on all the ways studies using experimental cohorts can go wrong: https://norvig.com/experiment-design.html https://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

SkyMarshal 5y ago

Readers of Nassim will also recognize his critiques of academia are mainly targeted at social sciences and similar fields that can only “prove” their findings statistically, where p-hacking and incorrect use of models and wrong distributions and the like result in bad findings passed off as good. That’s not the case with computer science, at least in systems subfields like filesystems, where theories can be implemented in isolation and shown to either work or not.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
Disagree. Artificial benchmarks and p hacking for showing good performance in CS are also statistically proven. The best result in geekbench doesn’t mean anything to me.
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  Benchmarks and geekbench are not "where theories can be implemented in isolation and shown to either work or not."
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    Maybe I don’t understand your point, in psychology for example sterile lab tests are isolated and can be shown to work or not, is it not the same idea here?
    - SkyMarshal 5y ago
      CompSci theories are essentially mathematical proofs. You create a proof of something, then you build it to test it, to make sure your math is actually correct, and that the theory works in implementation. Proof of correctness doesn't rely on having a large cohort of test subjects undergoing an experimental trial of some sort, and then interpreting the results with statistical models, distributions, p-values, etc. I don't know psychology in depth, but if there are similar kinds proofs without requiring statistical analysis of a large experimental cohort, then I don't think Taleb's criticisms are aimed at those either. It's the fundamental problem of knowledge - can truth be known via logic and reason, or via empiricism and observation? The answer to both is, sometimes, but with caveats. Peter Norvig also wrote a good take on all the ways studies using experimental cohorts can go wrong: https://norvig.com/experiment-design.html https://norvig.com/experiment-design.html