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I’ll probably be downvoted for pointing this out but I feel like it’s important. 90% of the comments at the time of my posting this are great examples of the lo

by pr0zac 3y ago

I’ll probably be downvoted for pointing this out but I feel like it’s important. 90% of the comments at the time of my posting this are great examples of the logical fallacy a lot of intelligent people fall into where they think their intelligence in one area means they’re qualified to make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own. This would be the same error in judgment that’s turned the nootropic and longevity industries into billion dollar ones. If you are reading these comments please try and be aware of this fact and the possibility that anyone, yourself included, could fall into this trap and remember to take all of the amazing possibilities being suggested and conclusions reached herein with a grain of salt.

harha_ 3y ago
Yeah I keep seeing this behavior here in the comments section. There are some real experts here for sure, but I think assuming you understand anything about something as complex as this without extensive prior studies about the subject is just stupid. I'm tired of reasonably intelligent people extrapolating new information about any possible subject based on their very limited basic level knowledge combined with some new cool research paper headlines.
- bluecalm 3y ago
  On the other hand the opinions you get from medical professionals is garbage as well. Just try going to a few with the same problem and you will realize it. In my case I want to 5 doctors with my knee issue and got 5 different diagnosis/treatments. One wanted knee surgery. Another wanted hip (!?) surgery, one said it's about cartilage, another said it's muscle imbalance, another said it's my hip mobility (so surgery!). One did hyaluronic acid injections another recommended manual therapy done by his friend. The one who did the surgery I later learnt is not recommended anymore told me I will never be able to run/play sports anymore. I do 15 hours a week these days including running 100+km/month for almost 3 years (I switched to other sports now as I find them more fun). Another time I've done a routine blood test and PhD liver specialist with decades of experience thought my liver is damaged looking at the result. She didn't know that liver markers are elevated by strength training (which I mentioned to her) and the way to test for that is to test CK levels as well. She wanted to put me on meds as well. "Studies" mean very little. You can learn a lot from people who took time to read a literature and are good at critical thinking or you can easily be fooled by a confident educated moron with a PhD. I've learnt more about my issues from random internet forums than I've learnt from doctors and I really tried it with doctors.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Likewise. I spent 10 years and many tens of thousands of dollars (after insurance) seeing a dozen or more doctors and they mostly all reached different conclusions and mostly all were wrong. Modern medicine is great at treating wounds, but primitive at actually understanding how the body works and figuring out complex interactions. I'm no expert but I have spent thousands of hours researching looking for my own answers, and I think the human body and the many interactions between pieces is just too complex for individual humans to understand. I think with the help of machines/computers we'll get there, but we are definitely not there yet and a huge heap of humility would serve us well.
wizeman 3y ago
There's no such thing as "intelligence in one area", intelligence is a general ability. You're basically ignoring everything that psychology has studied regarding intelligence.
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  I think this is just a semantics mismatch. GP likely means expertise. Basically: the armchair general problem but for any topic.
- panragon 3y ago
  That's just because he's using the word 'intelligence' here in place of the word 'competence', but that might just be because it's the verbiage competent people often use about themselves. This is a fair correction, but other than that he's obviously correct, being a talented software engineer doesn't give you any ability to understand the nuances of neurochemistry.
  - wizeman 3y ago
    > being a talented software engineer doesn't give you any ability to understand the nuances of neurochemistry. This is a bit of a non-sequitur based on what you said before. Being competent or a talented software engineer is correlated with being an intelligent person, which in turn is correlated with the ability to understand the nuances of [insert topic here]. That doesn't mean that being a talented software engineer necessarily gives you the ability to understand the nuances of neurochemistry, but it is suggestive that it does, if the engineer has an interest in neurochemistry. Also, being an intelligent person doesn't necessarily mean that you are competent or have expertise in a certain area, sure, but that is not a "logical fallacy" as the GP was saying, nor has much to do with intelligence as he seemed to be arguing (or at least, "fluid intelligence", as it is often understood). If he simply meant "being competent or an expert in a certain area" doesn't automatically mean that you are competent or an expert in another area, then sure, I agree, and it's true that many comments on Hacker News exhibit this pattern, and this observation is often justified. But let's not also conveniently ignore the opposite pattern, where a (presumably intelligent) person that doesn't work in a certain field can also provide much better insights than many people with many years of expertise in that same field (especially in things like, say, interpreting scientific papers, which can be legitimately hard to do correctly, for many reasons). I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but a significant percentage of people of almost every field, even with many years of expertise, is pretty damn incompetent... you just have to step outside your bubble if you don't think so. This includes software engineering, BTW. There are many software engineers with years of experience who don't even know what a bug tracking system or what a source code management tool are (although, not all of them are incompetent, strictly speaking). That should tell you something.
AndrewThrowaway 3y ago
At some point I started believing in something like a Gell-Mann Amnesia but for people. You talk/listen to this seemingly intelligent person who seems to be so confident in his field. Or rather in one of the fields. And then this person starts talking about something completely different and he can't be more wrong. The question stands now how much doesn't he know about his own field which he also seems to be so confident about. E.g. some philosopher psychiatrists starts to give some dietary advices of only eating raw meat. You would think and overall intelligent person should not be giving such advices. So can we just ignore him as dietitian or should we also start questioning his views as a psychiatrist.
dumpsterdiver 3y ago
Are they really that intelligent if they truly believe that their expertise can be applied to any field? Imo, understanding your own limitations is a form of intelligence that is very important.
- maleldil 3y ago
  You could have specialised intelligence and be clueless about everything else, including evaluating your ability. Intelligence doesn't beget humility. Nobel disease is a thing[0]; Linus Pauling is possibly the most famous example and the cause of people taking too much vitamin C until this day. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease
  - dumpsterdiver 3y ago
    > Intelligence doesn't beget humility. I completely disagree. Imo, a truly intelligent person understands well that they cannot carry the world upon their shoulders, and from that realization they are humbled.
    - simiones 3y ago
      By that criterion though, people like Edsger Dijkstra or Stephen Hawking would not be considered truly intelligent people. I think many would consider such a definition bizarre.
      - dumpsterdiver 3y ago
        Why would the people you mentioned be considered unintelligent by that criteria? Are you suggesting that they are not humbled when faced with the fact that the world will continue rotating without them?
      - freedomben 3y ago
        Citation may be needed for both of our statements, because my recollection from reading Hawking's book and other things is that he had a sense of humility about things he didn't understand, just like any good scientist must lest they lead to incorrect conclusions.
Palomides 3y ago
HN comments are absolute garbage on anything medical, endless uneducated "theories" and emotional anecdotes you don't need to share your personal backstory, everyone knows someone with mental health or cancer or alzheimer's, your idea that DNA is like compiled code makes me think you should go read a book, and your self-medication is probably not scientifically founded
- podgorniy 3y ago
  > HN comments are absolute garbage on anything medical They are of the same quality on other topics. You just know less about those other topics.
  - HKH2 3y ago
    You're still reading them so they must be somewhat valuable to you.
    - fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
      Doesn't mean the value is in their accuracy, and there are often good comments on software industry posts. The Jupyter Lab 4.0 post currently on the front page for example has a lot of great tips!
    - bazeblackwood 3y ago
      As an endless source of unintentional humor, absolutely.
    - coldtea 3y ago
      This is the most tired response. People also read all kinds of shit, watch cat and celeb videos, or doomscroll and hate themselves for wasting that time. People read stuff just to laugh at the ignorance, or in the off chance they'll find a good nugget. People also watch train wrecks. Being "somewhat valuable for them" doesn't imply anything further about it's overall value, or about its objective benefit for them.
stared 3y ago
There is an alt-med based on a connection with nature, herbs, rituals, and spirituality. Most people here will be skeptical about these - both rightfully and excessively. At the same time, when there is a science- or tech-based promise of a miraculous cure, the same skepticism turns off. Partly as there is a real chance that something works; partly, it is wishful thinking or exaggeration. For example, Less Wrong circles are (in principle) on scientific methodology and skepticism. But when the topic of brain freezing comes up, all skepticism disappears.
coldtea 3y ago
>their intelligence in one area means they’re qualified to make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own That's exactly what it means. Or rather, not that they're "qualified (period)" to "make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own", but "more qualified than someone not as intelligent". And that's exactly what's the case in a general discussion, when expertise is not a prerequirement. But general discussions are still interesting - and can reach some ideas that actual experts missed or see some systematic expert bias (the way outsiders to a field often can see better than insiders). Of course a lot of it will be garbage still Of course, if you want only experts on X talking, or people just reciting experts on X, then go to an X conference. And, last not least, people discussing on an HN thread (or anywhere else) aren't gonna "reach conclusions" in the sense that thet will alter the expert consensus on the field. They aren't going to publish papers or give legal or expert advice on the matter. They're just discussing. At best, as is their right, they'll follow themselves some misguided medical (or dietary or whatever) idea, or pass it on to someone else (who should, and will, still understand they're not their doctor, just another bro).
- bla3 3y ago
  Have you heard (intelligent!) non-tech people talking about tech? Why would (intelligent!) tech people fare better talking about non-tech? Domain knowledge is more important than intelligence almost everywhere.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >Have you heard (intelligent!) non-tech people talking about tech? Yes, and a technologist, I assure you that they often make very valid points, can often see things tech people miss, and even when they're wrong, they should have the right to discuss. Unless you want to shut them up, what over purpose does such a protestation serve? >Domain knowledge is more important than intelligence almost everywhere. Domain knowledge built by stupid people (or by ideology, or for profit, etc) will be stupid domain knowledge, that intelligence can often see right through. Homeopathy also has its "domain knowledge", for example. As for domain knowledge built by smart people, it can still have its blind spots, if not for anything else, because of professional bias or some accepted wisdom few dare to contest.
pookha 3y ago
Irony here is this comment in an "Increased Cognition" study is telling people not to use their brains cognition because they're not "experts" (TRUST THE EXPERTS!!). Systematics would define pr0zac as a systems-person.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
That is really every post here or anywhere. Just in the last week I've seen posts where: STEM people -> arguing about Psychology. STEM, Psychologist -> argue about History STEM, Psychologist, Historians, -> argue about Finance. STEM, Psychologist, Historians, Financiers, -> argue about Evolution. Everyone one on the internet has different levels of knowledge and are being exposed to ideas for the first time at all different times in their own development. All discussions on all subjects is chaos. Queue STEM, Psychologist, Historians, Financiers, Biologist -> argue about Chaos.
robg 3y ago
I’m a neuroscientist and I don’t feel qualified to weigh in. The problem of any complex problem today is the niche nature of expertise.
- bannedbybros 3y ago
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uoaei 3y ago
HN comments about ML and AI are so obviously un- or under-informed to the point of pure fancy and speculation that I've simply stopped trying to engage with people who don't want to confront how ill-equipped they are to be involved in discussions on the topic. Sometimes they acquire some narrow bit of useful information but without wider context they end up quickly re-introducing bullshit to the discussion. It's a very real chilling effect that's happened a couple times in different communities I've been part of. Typically the dilution of quality discussion comes after a sharp influx of what could be crudely labeled 'normies' (those entering a hype cycle anew from the outside with no prior experience) who have their own under-developed ideas and can't discern between experts and bullshitters in flattened discussion spaces. What complicates the discussions so much is those normies' insistence on engaging in high school debate club tactics which are really just rhetorical devices designed (consciously or otherwise) to disguise logical fallacies as 140-character truth bombs.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Roark66 3y ago
I wish I could upvote your comment twice. Based on my observation how a childhood friend of mine was treated for a psychiatric condition I think all of the "science" of using drugs to treat mental issues is at the level of advancement comparable to medieval blacksmiths doing dentistry. It essentially comes down to "hey, try this, are you better or worse, worse? Try something else. Better, have more of it". All the theories about lacks of certain neurotransmitters causing certain problems, all of it is like a bunch of cavemen trying to fix a transistor radio with their stone axes and coming up with ideas to explain various noises they hear when they whack it. Of course many conditions are so debilitating even such random experimentation is better than nothing. I don't blame individual doctors and practicioners, but I think this whole field should be much more humble about what is it they can treat, what kind of long term outcomes one can expect etc. Certainly they shouldn't be giving random drugs that really can f** with a developing human mind to treat imaginary mental illnesses that cause ones grades to be insufficiently good etc.
- oblak 3y ago
  Sadly, what we have is bro science vs super cozy doctors and pharma industry. One group is largely ignorant, while the other wants to make money. You shouldn't trust either one blindly.
- PragmaticPulp 3y ago
  > I think all of the "science" of using drugs to treat mental issues is at the level of advancement comparable to medieval blacksmiths doing dentistry. Discounting an entire field of science like this, based on a second-hand observations, is exactly the kind of hubris the parent comment was talking about: There’s something about psychiatry and neuroscience that makes a lot of people who are good at engineering/software think that they are qualified to also be experts on the field of psychiatry. You’re right that psychiatry and medication is a lot of trial and error, but that’s the most efficient and accurate way to determine which medications work with a patient. In a hypothetical perfect world we’d have more tools to predict ahead of time and this is an active field of study. However, nothing comes close to the speed and efficiency of just trying medications based on what has worked for many other patients with similar conditions. Note they practitioners aren’t just guessing and hoping for the best. They are using a large body of research, clinical experience, and shared knowledge of their peers.
DrThunder 3y ago
Appeal to authority is also a logical fallacy and this essentially what you're presenting. The idea that everyone's arguments are wrong or should be scrutinized because they're not an authority on the subject is avoiding the actual argument.
bedobi 3y ago
> intelligent people fall into where they think their intelligence in one area means they’re qualified to make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own you're describing 99.99% of hackernews, lol (and I'm not even sure people here are that intelligent in the first place) (in case anyone is reading this thinking I'm saying I'm intelligent, rest assured I'm not)
- tnel77 3y ago
  I like HackerNews because the conversations are mostly intelligent and polite. Not always, but it’s far better than my experience with Twitter and Reddit.
  - bannedbybros 3y ago
    [dead]
  - pradn 3y ago
    HN comments have an air of authority because we so frequently do see reasoned, expert opinions. But it's still hard to mix up mere speculation, shooting-from-the-hip thoughts and well-thought-out comments. It's more pernicious here. On other sites, we routinely see incredibly low-effort and naive comments so we're on guard more: there's simply more mixed-up communities/contexts with different standards to train us to be more skeptical.
    - cassianoleal 3y ago
      HN readers are the human equivalent of ChatGPT?
      - sph 3y ago
        HN commenters like you and I are like ChatGPT, unaware if what we're saying is nonsense; we're full of ourselves and believe have something worthwhile to say. The lurkers on the other hand are humbler and smarter than us, they prefer reading instead of voicing their misinformed opinion, aware of their ignorance.
PragmaticPulp 3y ago
The health podcast industry is making this problem even worse. Many people consume content like Huberman’s podcast and assume he’s an expert because he speaks so confidently and at such lengths. Yet Huberman’s podcasts are well known to contain a lot of errors on very basic concepts and extreme exaggerations. He appears to well-versed in topics related to his domain of study, albeit with exaggerations of his findings to appease a podcast audience. Once he steps outside of his domain and starts talking about dopamine this and dopamine that, his podcast will make neuroscientists roll their eyes. Yet he speaks so confidently that his audience is convinced they, too, are now experts on all things neuroscience.
- moneywoes 3y ago
  > Yet Huberman’s podcasts are well known to contain a lot of errors on very basic concepts and extreme exaggerations Is there a list?
  - CaninoDev 3y ago
    I, too, am interested in reading the critiques. He seems to pepper much of his podcasts with YMMVs and ”case by case” knowing full well that there is no “one size fits all” or panaceas.
- boc 3y ago
  What are your opinions on Peter Attia’s podcast? They seem similar but it’s impossible for a lay person to judge if they’re trustworthy.
  - steve_adams_86 3y ago
    My take on both of them is that there’s a lot of research supporting positive health outcomes which they oddly tend to neglect, and I suspect they have strong biases. I should preface this with admitting I know nothing at all about this stuff. There was one episode where Huberman had a guy on talking about how young men should drink milk to maximize free testosterone and thus maximize “health” outcomes like height. There is a fairly substantial amount of research suggesting this isn’t actually a great idea more generally speaking because maximizing body size doesn’t have inherent benefits and could even have long term disadvantages for health outcomes. Further, drinking a lot of milk appears to be correlated with increased likelihood of developing cancer. And worse still, there are other foods which deliver the benefits of milk without the same disadvantages. Yet this odd little bit was accepted freely and without any criticality. Finally, maximizing height is kind of a culturally motivated desire in my mind. If you’re happy and healthy, who cares if you didn’t milk your growth spurts to the utmost degree? Is being 5’10” a shameful thing? Or even 5’6”? It struck me as so bizarre to hear someone in health still bent on growing kids larger. We’re not cattle. If we eat enough, we’ll grow enough. Let it be. Attia has been slowly shifting over, but he’s been very pro animal-based foods in a field of research where the greater body of work indicates that these foods should be more limited or emphasized quite a bit less than he has. Or maybe this has changed quite recently. I know in the last few years he has begun to mention more often that eating plants appears to be critical to health and performance, but when I’ve listened in, he still heavily encourages eating more meat than seems necessary. It seems weird given he has a book about longevity now (I’m only half way through so maybe he’ll surprise me still) yet he doesn’t seem to be on the cutting edge of this research in regards to diet. They’re very smart (smarter than I am by a wide margin) and probably very current in their research but I suppose it seems like they ignore certain areas of research. They seem a little “old fashioned” at times when it comes to diet in particular. I’m not saying people should never eat meat. It’s about moderation. Attia also emphasizes consuming protein in ways that a lot of research doesn’t support, but I’m not in the field so what the hell. I don’t know who’s more correct.
pgt 3y ago
Instead of appealing to authority, could you please try to refute some of the logical fallacies that you claim are being made in the comments?
- p_j_w 3y ago
  GP is not appealing to authority, he/she is advising caution based on the fact that HN is not largely made up of medical professionals.
  - pgt 3y ago
    That is an appeal to authority.
    - BizarroLand 3y ago
      You're wrong
    - danaris 3y ago
      "Someone who has gone through years of medical school to get a degree is more likely to be correct on matters concerning medicine than someone who has not" is not an appeal to authority.
    - hnaccount141 3y ago
      Advising against blind trust in non-experts' statements doesn't imply a recommendation to blindly trust experts' statements.
vbtemp 3y ago
It's kind of like how we all have our favorite podcasts to learn about new things. When it's a topic we don't know much about it's so interesting and we learn so much, but when it's a topic we're experts in, we get exasperated about how inaccurate or misleading it is.
- germinalphrase 3y ago
  Aka “Gell-Mann Amnesia” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
hammock 3y ago
> they think their intelligence in one area means they’re qualified to make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own That's not what intelligence is. General intelligence is general, and can (generally) be safely generalized. When you said "intelligence in one area" did you mean "experience"?
sublinear 3y ago
> they think their intelligence in one area means they’re qualified to make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own. This would be the same error in judgment that’s turned the nootropic and longevity industries into billion dollar ones. I agree there are a lot of know-it-alls here, but I don't believe this is why quackery sells or even that anyone on here makes up a meaningful share of their business. Nobody cares or listens to this bunch of nerds shouting into the void, not even themselves. Bringing intelligence into this is a red herring. It sells because people are willing to take a risk on what seems like a shortcut to better health. Irrational decisions like this are not correlated with intelligence, and here we are overthinking it.
bigmattystyles 3y ago
I don't disagree, but, and I've said this before, when I go to the doctors, they (mostly specialists) end up giving me multiple options, including doing nothing and want me to decide which. Mtfkr, I didn't go to medical school, tell me what to do. I don't know if it's a liability thing or if there's a body of work saying that empowering patients to make decisions is better, but it's ridiculous. It's one anecdote, but it feels like where it counts, people don't just want to tell you what to do. In my mind, that leads to the what you're saying. I have also come to the realization, having recently turned 40, that most people, even those we are told to look up to, a. aren't actually that knowledgeable and b. don't really care
boringg 3y ago
However I might fall into this trap, VC's are probably the poster child for this trap.
hungryforcodes 3y ago
Ok. Please describe the specifics of the trap, tho. Telling us HN are doing "bad" won't help until you tell us what the bad is.
tedmiston 3y ago
> the logical fallacy a lot of intelligent people fall into where they think their intelligence in one area means they’re qualified to make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own The Dunning-Kruger effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect > The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge.
shrimp_emoji 3y ago
My favorite bit of HN medicine was that inhaling steam from your mist shower will give you a kind of silicosis due to the minerals in the water.
m463 3y ago
hmmm... although it is a logical fallacy, statistics show that the margin of error based on successful previous observations is smaller than the margin of error base on no previous observations. In other words, although it is not certain that an observation will be accurate, the chances of an accurate observation are increased by someone who has previous success. Smart people - who have observed things correctly - might have fewer errors observing and predicting. (but I'm old and silly, frequently suffering from Gell-Mann Amnesia)
ElFitz 3y ago
> and remember to take all of the amazing possibilities being suggested and conclusions reached herein with a grain of salt Case in point; mice still haven't reached immortality, nor taken over the world. Despite the numerous published articles regarding the innumerable wonder cures, miracle habits, and other panaceas, we have found for them. For those either amused or interested (and still on Twitter): - https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/15/in-mice-twitter-account-hype-science-reporting/ https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/15/in-mice-twitter-account-... - https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice

by pr0zac 3y ago

harha_ 3y ago

Yeah I keep seeing this behavior here in the comments section. There are some real experts here for sure, but I think assuming you understand anything about something as complex as this without extensive prior studies about the subject is just stupid. I'm tired of reasonably intelligent people extrapolating new information about any possible subject based on their very limited basic level knowledge combined with some new cool research paper headlines.

bluecalm 3y ago
On the other hand the opinions you get from medical professionals is garbage as well. Just try going to a few with the same problem and you will realize it. In my case I want to 5 doctors with my knee issue and got 5 different diagnosis/treatments. One wanted knee surgery. Another wanted hip (!?) surgery, one said it's about cartilage, another said it's muscle imbalance, another said it's my hip mobility (so surgery!). One did hyaluronic acid injections another recommended manual therapy done by his friend. The one who did the surgery I later learnt is not recommended anymore told me I will never be able to run/play sports anymore. I do 15 hours a week these days including running 100+km/month for almost 3 years (I switched to other sports now as I find them more fun). Another time I've done a routine blood test and PhD liver specialist with decades of experience thought my liver is damaged looking at the result. She didn't know that liver markers are elevated by strength training (which I mentioned to her) and the way to test for that is to test CK levels as well. She wanted to put me on meds as well. "Studies" mean very little. You can learn a lot from people who took time to read a literature and are good at critical thinking or you can easily be fooled by a confident educated moron with a PhD. I've learnt more about my issues from random internet forums than I've learnt from doctors and I really tried it with doctors.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Likewise. I spent 10 years and many tens of thousands of dollars (after insurance) seeing a dozen or more doctors and they mostly all reached different conclusions and mostly all were wrong. Modern medicine is great at treating wounds, but primitive at actually understanding how the body works and figuring out complex interactions. I'm no expert but I have spent thousands of hours researching looking for my own answers, and I think the human body and the many interactions between pieces is just too complex for individual humans to understand. I think with the help of machines/computers we'll get there, but we are definitely not there yet and a huge heap of humility would serve us well.

wizeman 3y ago

There's no such thing as "intelligence in one area", intelligence is a general ability. You're basically ignoring everything that psychology has studied regarding intelligence.

Waterluvian 3y ago
I think this is just a semantics mismatch. GP likely means expertise. Basically: the armchair general problem but for any topic.
panragon 3y ago
That's just because he's using the word 'intelligence' here in place of the word 'competence', but that might just be because it's the verbiage competent people often use about themselves. This is a fair correction, but other than that he's obviously correct, being a talented software engineer doesn't give you any ability to understand the nuances of neurochemistry.
- wizeman 3y ago
  > being a talented software engineer doesn't give you any ability to understand the nuances of neurochemistry. This is a bit of a non-sequitur based on what you said before. Being competent or a talented software engineer is correlated with being an intelligent person, which in turn is correlated with the ability to understand the nuances of [insert topic here]. That doesn't mean that being a talented software engineer necessarily gives you the ability to understand the nuances of neurochemistry, but it is suggestive that it does, if the engineer has an interest in neurochemistry. Also, being an intelligent person doesn't necessarily mean that you are competent or have expertise in a certain area, sure, but that is not a "logical fallacy" as the GP was saying, nor has much to do with intelligence as he seemed to be arguing (or at least, "fluid intelligence", as it is often understood). If he simply meant "being competent or an expert in a certain area" doesn't automatically mean that you are competent or an expert in another area, then sure, I agree, and it's true that many comments on Hacker News exhibit this pattern, and this observation is often justified. But let's not also conveniently ignore the opposite pattern, where a (presumably intelligent) person that doesn't work in a certain field can also provide much better insights than many people with many years of expertise in that same field (especially in things like, say, interpreting scientific papers, which can be legitimately hard to do correctly, for many reasons). I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but a significant percentage of people of almost every field, even with many years of expertise, is pretty damn incompetent... you just have to step outside your bubble if you don't think so. This includes software engineering, BTW. There are many software engineers with years of experience who don't even know what a bug tracking system or what a source code management tool are (although, not all of them are incompetent, strictly speaking). That should tell you something.

AndrewThrowaway 3y ago

At some point I started believing in something like a Gell-Mann Amnesia but for people. You talk/listen to this seemingly intelligent person who seems to be so confident in his field. Or rather in one of the fields. And then this person starts talking about something completely different and he can't be more wrong. The question stands now how much doesn't he know about his own field which he also seems to be so confident about. E.g. some philosopher psychiatrists starts to give some dietary advices of only eating raw meat. You would think and overall intelligent person should not be giving such advices. So can we just ignore him as dietitian or should we also start questioning his views as a psychiatrist.

dumpsterdiver 3y ago

Are they really that intelligent if they truly believe that their expertise can be applied to any field? Imo, understanding your own limitations is a form of intelligence that is very important.

maleldil 3y ago
You could have specialised intelligence and be clueless about everything else, including evaluating your ability. Intelligence doesn't beget humility. Nobel disease is a thing[0]; Linus Pauling is possibly the most famous example and the cause of people taking too much vitamin C until this day. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease
- dumpsterdiver 3y ago
  > Intelligence doesn't beget humility. I completely disagree. Imo, a truly intelligent person understands well that they cannot carry the world upon their shoulders, and from that realization they are humbled.
  - simiones 3y ago
    By that criterion though, people like Edsger Dijkstra or Stephen Hawking would not be considered truly intelligent people. I think many would consider such a definition bizarre.
    - dumpsterdiver 3y ago
      Why would the people you mentioned be considered unintelligent by that criteria? Are you suggesting that they are not humbled when faced with the fact that the world will continue rotating without them?
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Citation may be needed for both of our statements, because my recollection from reading Hawking's book and other things is that he had a sense of humility about things he didn't understand, just like any good scientist must lest they lead to incorrect conclusions.

Palomides 3y ago

HN comments are absolute garbage on anything medical, endless uneducated "theories" and emotional anecdotes you don't need to share your personal backstory, everyone knows someone with mental health or cancer or alzheimer's, your idea that DNA is like compiled code makes me think you should go read a book, and your self-medication is probably not scientifically founded

podgorniy 3y ago
> HN comments are absolute garbage on anything medical They are of the same quality on other topics. You just know less about those other topics.
- HKH2 3y ago
  You're still reading them so they must be somewhat valuable to you.
  - fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
    Doesn't mean the value is in their accuracy, and there are often good comments on software industry posts. The Jupyter Lab 4.0 post currently on the front page for example has a lot of great tips!
  - bazeblackwood 3y ago
    As an endless source of unintentional humor, absolutely.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    This is the most tired response. People also read all kinds of shit, watch cat and celeb videos, or doomscroll and hate themselves for wasting that time. People read stuff just to laugh at the ignorance, or in the off chance they'll find a good nugget. People also watch train wrecks. Being "somewhat valuable for them" doesn't imply anything further about it's overall value, or about its objective benefit for them.

stared 3y ago

There is an alt-med based on a connection with nature, herbs, rituals, and spirituality. Most people here will be skeptical about these - both rightfully and excessively. At the same time, when there is a science- or tech-based promise of a miraculous cure, the same skepticism turns off. Partly as there is a real chance that something works; partly, it is wishful thinking or exaggeration. For example, Less Wrong circles are (in principle) on scientific methodology and skepticism. But when the topic of brain freezing comes up, all skepticism disappears.

coldtea 3y ago

>their intelligence in one area means they’re qualified to make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own That's exactly what it means. Or rather, not that they're "qualified (period)" to "make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own", but "more qualified than someone not as intelligent". And that's exactly what's the case in a general discussion, when expertise is not a prerequirement. But general discussions are still interesting - and can reach some ideas that actual experts missed or see some systematic expert bias (the way outsiders to a field often can see better than insiders). Of course a lot of it will be garbage still Of course, if you want only experts on X talking, or people just reciting experts on X, then go to an X conference. And, last not least, people discussing on an HN thread (or anywhere else) aren't gonna "reach conclusions" in the sense that thet will alter the expert consensus on the field. They aren't going to publish papers or give legal or expert advice on the matter. They're just discussing. At best, as is their right, they'll follow themselves some misguided medical (or dietary or whatever) idea, or pass it on to someone else (who should, and will, still understand they're not their doctor, just another bro).

bla3 3y ago
Have you heard (intelligent!) non-tech people talking about tech? Why would (intelligent!) tech people fare better talking about non-tech? Domain knowledge is more important than intelligence almost everywhere.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >Have you heard (intelligent!) non-tech people talking about tech? Yes, and a technologist, I assure you that they often make very valid points, can often see things tech people miss, and even when they're wrong, they should have the right to discuss. Unless you want to shut them up, what over purpose does such a protestation serve? >Domain knowledge is more important than intelligence almost everywhere. Domain knowledge built by stupid people (or by ideology, or for profit, etc) will be stupid domain knowledge, that intelligence can often see right through. Homeopathy also has its "domain knowledge", for example. As for domain knowledge built by smart people, it can still have its blind spots, if not for anything else, because of professional bias or some accepted wisdom few dare to contest.

pookha 3y ago

Irony here is this comment in an "Increased Cognition" study is telling people not to use their brains cognition because they're not "experts" (TRUST THE EXPERTS!!). Systematics would define pr0zac as a systems-person.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

That is really every post here or anywhere. Just in the last week I've seen posts where: STEM people -> arguing about Psychology. STEM, Psychologist -> argue about History STEM, Psychologist, Historians, -> argue about Finance. STEM, Psychologist, Historians, Financiers, -> argue about Evolution. Everyone one on the internet has different levels of knowledge and are being exposed to ideas for the first time at all different times in their own development. All discussions on all subjects is chaos. Queue STEM, Psychologist, Historians, Financiers, Biologist -> argue about Chaos.

robg 3y ago

I’m a neuroscientist and I don’t feel qualified to weigh in. The problem of any complex problem today is the niche nature of expertise.

bannedbybros 3y ago
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uoaei 3y ago

HN comments about ML and AI are so obviously un- or under-informed to the point of pure fancy and speculation that I've simply stopped trying to engage with people who don't want to confront how ill-equipped they are to be involved in discussions on the topic. Sometimes they acquire some narrow bit of useful information but without wider context they end up quickly re-introducing bullshit to the discussion. It's a very real chilling effect that's happened a couple times in different communities I've been part of. Typically the dilution of quality discussion comes after a sharp influx of what could be crudely labeled 'normies' (those entering a hype cycle anew from the outside with no prior experience) who have their own under-developed ideas and can't discern between experts and bullshitters in flattened discussion spaces. What complicates the discussions so much is those normies' insistence on engaging in high school debate club tactics which are really just rhetorical devices designed (consciously or otherwise) to disguise logical fallacies as 140-character truth bombs.

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Roark66 3y ago

I wish I could upvote your comment twice. Based on my observation how a childhood friend of mine was treated for a psychiatric condition I think all of the "science" of using drugs to treat mental issues is at the level of advancement comparable to medieval blacksmiths doing dentistry. It essentially comes down to "hey, try this, are you better or worse, worse? Try something else. Better, have more of it". All the theories about lacks of certain neurotransmitters causing certain problems, all of it is like a bunch of cavemen trying to fix a transistor radio with their stone axes and coming up with ideas to explain various noises they hear when they whack it. Of course many conditions are so debilitating even such random experimentation is better than nothing. I don't blame individual doctors and practicioners, but I think this whole field should be much more humble about what is it they can treat, what kind of long term outcomes one can expect etc. Certainly they shouldn't be giving random drugs that really can f** with a developing human mind to treat imaginary mental illnesses that cause ones grades to be insufficiently good etc.

oblak 3y ago
Sadly, what we have is bro science vs super cozy doctors and pharma industry. One group is largely ignorant, while the other wants to make money. You shouldn't trust either one blindly.
PragmaticPulp 3y ago
> I think all of the "science" of using drugs to treat mental issues is at the level of advancement comparable to medieval blacksmiths doing dentistry. Discounting an entire field of science like this, based on a second-hand observations, is exactly the kind of hubris the parent comment was talking about: There’s something about psychiatry and neuroscience that makes a lot of people who are good at engineering/software think that they are qualified to also be experts on the field of psychiatry. You’re right that psychiatry and medication is a lot of trial and error, but that’s the most efficient and accurate way to determine which medications work with a patient. In a hypothetical perfect world we’d have more tools to predict ahead of time and this is an active field of study. However, nothing comes close to the speed and efficiency of just trying medications based on what has worked for many other patients with similar conditions. Note they practitioners aren’t just guessing and hoping for the best. They are using a large body of research, clinical experience, and shared knowledge of their peers.

DrThunder 3y ago

Appeal to authority is also a logical fallacy and this essentially what you're presenting. The idea that everyone's arguments are wrong or should be scrutinized because they're not an authority on the subject is avoiding the actual argument.

bedobi 3y ago

> intelligent people fall into where they think their intelligence in one area means they’re qualified to make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own you're describing 99.99% of hackernews, lol (and I'm not even sure people here are that intelligent in the first place) (in case anyone is reading this thinking I'm saying I'm intelligent, rest assured I'm not)

tnel77 3y ago
I like HackerNews because the conversations are mostly intelligent and polite. Not always, but it’s far better than my experience with Twitter and Reddit.
- bannedbybros 3y ago
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- pradn 3y ago
  HN comments have an air of authority because we so frequently do see reasoned, expert opinions. But it's still hard to mix up mere speculation, shooting-from-the-hip thoughts and well-thought-out comments. It's more pernicious here. On other sites, we routinely see incredibly low-effort and naive comments so we're on guard more: there's simply more mixed-up communities/contexts with different standards to train us to be more skeptical.
  - cassianoleal 3y ago
    HN readers are the human equivalent of ChatGPT?
    - sph 3y ago
      HN commenters like you and I are like ChatGPT, unaware if what we're saying is nonsense; we're full of ourselves and believe have something worthwhile to say. The lurkers on the other hand are humbler and smarter than us, they prefer reading instead of voicing their misinformed opinion, aware of their ignorance.

PragmaticPulp 3y ago

The health podcast industry is making this problem even worse. Many people consume content like Huberman’s podcast and assume he’s an expert because he speaks so confidently and at such lengths. Yet Huberman’s podcasts are well known to contain a lot of errors on very basic concepts and extreme exaggerations. He appears to well-versed in topics related to his domain of study, albeit with exaggerations of his findings to appease a podcast audience. Once he steps outside of his domain and starts talking about dopamine this and dopamine that, his podcast will make neuroscientists roll their eyes. Yet he speaks so confidently that his audience is convinced they, too, are now experts on all things neuroscience.

moneywoes 3y ago
> Yet Huberman’s podcasts are well known to contain a lot of errors on very basic concepts and extreme exaggerations Is there a list?
- CaninoDev 3y ago
  I, too, am interested in reading the critiques. He seems to pepper much of his podcasts with YMMVs and ”case by case” knowing full well that there is no “one size fits all” or panaceas.
boc 3y ago
What are your opinions on Peter Attia’s podcast? They seem similar but it’s impossible for a lay person to judge if they’re trustworthy.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  My take on both of them is that there’s a lot of research supporting positive health outcomes which they oddly tend to neglect, and I suspect they have strong biases. I should preface this with admitting I know nothing at all about this stuff. There was one episode where Huberman had a guy on talking about how young men should drink milk to maximize free testosterone and thus maximize “health” outcomes like height. There is a fairly substantial amount of research suggesting this isn’t actually a great idea more generally speaking because maximizing body size doesn’t have inherent benefits and could even have long term disadvantages for health outcomes. Further, drinking a lot of milk appears to be correlated with increased likelihood of developing cancer. And worse still, there are other foods which deliver the benefits of milk without the same disadvantages. Yet this odd little bit was accepted freely and without any criticality. Finally, maximizing height is kind of a culturally motivated desire in my mind. If you’re happy and healthy, who cares if you didn’t milk your growth spurts to the utmost degree? Is being 5’10” a shameful thing? Or even 5’6”? It struck me as so bizarre to hear someone in health still bent on growing kids larger. We’re not cattle. If we eat enough, we’ll grow enough. Let it be. Attia has been slowly shifting over, but he’s been very pro animal-based foods in a field of research where the greater body of work indicates that these foods should be more limited or emphasized quite a bit less than he has. Or maybe this has changed quite recently. I know in the last few years he has begun to mention more often that eating plants appears to be critical to health and performance, but when I’ve listened in, he still heavily encourages eating more meat than seems necessary. It seems weird given he has a book about longevity now (I’m only half way through so maybe he’ll surprise me still) yet he doesn’t seem to be on the cutting edge of this research in regards to diet. They’re very smart (smarter than I am by a wide margin) and probably very current in their research but I suppose it seems like they ignore certain areas of research. They seem a little “old fashioned” at times when it comes to diet in particular. I’m not saying people should never eat meat. It’s about moderation. Attia also emphasizes consuming protein in ways that a lot of research doesn’t support, but I’m not in the field so what the hell. I don’t know who’s more correct.

pgt 3y ago

Instead of appealing to authority, could you please try to refute some of the logical fallacies that you claim are being made in the comments?

p_j_w 3y ago
GP is not appealing to authority, he/she is advising caution based on the fact that HN is not largely made up of medical professionals.
- pgt 3y ago
  That is an appeal to authority.
  - BizarroLand 3y ago
    You're wrong
  - danaris 3y ago
    "Someone who has gone through years of medical school to get a degree is more likely to be correct on matters concerning medicine than someone who has not" is not an appeal to authority.
  - hnaccount141 3y ago
    Advising against blind trust in non-experts' statements doesn't imply a recommendation to blindly trust experts' statements.

vbtemp 3y ago

It's kind of like how we all have our favorite podcasts to learn about new things. When it's a topic we don't know much about it's so interesting and we learn so much, but when it's a topic we're experts in, we get exasperated about how inaccurate or misleading it is.

germinalphrase 3y ago
Aka “Gell-Mann Amnesia” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
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hammock 3y ago

> they think their intelligence in one area means they’re qualified to make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own That's not what intelligence is. General intelligence is general, and can (generally) be safely generalized. When you said "intelligence in one area" did you mean "experience"?

sublinear 3y ago

> they think their intelligence in one area means they’re qualified to make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own. This would be the same error in judgment that’s turned the nootropic and longevity industries into billion dollar ones. I agree there are a lot of know-it-alls here, but I don't believe this is why quackery sells or even that anyone on here makes up a meaningful share of their business. Nobody cares or listens to this bunch of nerds shouting into the void, not even themselves. Bringing intelligence into this is a red herring. It sells because people are willing to take a risk on what seems like a shortcut to better health. Irrational decisions like this are not correlated with intelligence, and here we are overthinking it.

bigmattystyles 3y ago

I don't disagree, but, and I've said this before, when I go to the doctors, they (mostly specialists) end up giving me multiple options, including doing nothing and want me to decide which. Mtfkr, I didn't go to medical school, tell me what to do. I don't know if it's a liability thing or if there's a body of work saying that empowering patients to make decisions is better, but it's ridiculous. It's one anecdote, but it feels like where it counts, people don't just want to tell you what to do. In my mind, that leads to the what you're saying. I have also come to the realization, having recently turned 40, that most people, even those we are told to look up to, a. aren't actually that knowledgeable and b. don't really care

boringg 3y ago

However I might fall into this trap, VC's are probably the poster child for this trap.

hungryforcodes 3y ago

Ok. Please describe the specifics of the trap, tho. Telling us HN are doing "bad" won't help until you tell us what the bad is.

tedmiston 3y ago

> the logical fallacy a lot of intelligent people fall into where they think their intelligence in one area means they’re qualified to make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own The Dunning-Kruger effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect > The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge.

shrimp_emoji 3y ago

My favorite bit of HN medicine was that inhaling steam from your mist shower will give you a kind of silicosis due to the minerals in the water.

m463 3y ago

hmmm... although it is a logical fallacy, statistics show that the margin of error based on successful previous observations is smaller than the margin of error base on no previous observations. In other words, although it is not certain that an observation will be accurate, the chances of an accurate observation are increased by someone who has previous success. Smart people - who have observed things correctly - might have fewer errors observing and predicting. (but I'm old and silly, frequently suffering from Gell-Mann Amnesia)

ElFitz 3y ago

> and remember to take all of the amazing possibilities being suggested and conclusions reached herein with a grain of salt Case in point; mice still haven't reached immortality, nor taken over the world. Despite the numerous published articles regarding the innumerable wonder cures, miracle habits, and other panaceas, we have found for them. For those either amused or interested (and still on Twitter): - https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/15/in-mice-twitter-account-hype-science-reporting/ https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/15/in-mice-twitter-account-... - https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice