4 ms·
Let's assume this is true for a moment. Then the issue is that you don't know which is which, a priori. Most strong statements end up false, eventually. The st
by 324tgresgw 4y ago
Let's assume this is true for a moment.
Then the issue is that you don't know which is which, a priori. Most strong statements end up false, eventually. The statements that eventually end up right may have been strong all along, but most of their strong cousins will eventually end up wrong instead. Consequently, the cautious approach is to be skeptical of strong statements, since they will likely turn out false.
(I'm also not sure that the initial assumption is actually true. There are tons of examples where the strong statements have not prevailed. Remember those saying Covid-19 is a killer virus, decimating billions? Or that it's no big deal? Turned out neither. It was bad, but not that bad.)
- bsder 4y agoMost strong statements end up false. Even more weak statements wind up false. "Weak statements" have no inherently better Bayesian prior to being more true than "strong statements".
- 324tgresgw 4y agoI'd claim the opposite. The weaker a statement, the more flexible it is. A pretty much maximally weak statement is "something will or will not happen". It's true with 100% certainty. And it's quite useless, since it doesn't actually state anything meaningful. The more concrete and thus stronger you make a statement, the more you risk it turning up false. There are certainly outliers and exception, but there should be a pretty good correlation between strength of a statement and its likelihood of eventually not turning out true.
- galaxyLogic 4y agoI think it is also true that vague statements are often right.