3 ms·

> It doesn't, because there is no explanation for how it determines the difference I don’t think an explanation is required for this. I should be able to stat

> It doesn't, because there is no explanation for how it determines the difference I don’t think an explanation is required for this. I should be able to state that two species have a different lifespan based on a difference in mean age of death - without needing to provide any specific biological mechanism in my study. Substitute that mean for a linear regression / neural network and the species lifespan for some vector of brain organisation to get the results in the article.

biomcgary 3y ago
Males are known to have larger brains by volume (https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210326/Size-is-the-only-difference-between-male-and-female-brains-shows-study.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210326/Size-is-the-only-...). If this is the only explanatory variable doing the work, the AI model is completely uninteresting.
- AgentOrange1234 3y ago
  I was thinking about this too, but I don’t know how widely they overlap? Like, if (say) 30% of male brains are at least 10% smaller than the average male brain, and 30% of female brains are at least 10% larger than the average female brain, then a model that just considered volume might not be very accurate at all, because anything in the middle still has a significant chance of being either sex?
karpierz 3y ago
> I should be able to state that two species have a different lifespan based on a difference in mean age of death - without needing to provide any specific biological mechanism in my study. You need to control for confounders. For example, if I told you: - Mean lifespan of species 1 is: 3 years - Mean lifespan of species 2 is: 10 years Does that mean that species 2 has a longer lifespan than species 1? What happens when you find out that species 1 is domesticated cattle, which has (almost) all of its males slaughtered at age 2? You could then say "I meant for two species that are in controlled conditions", but now you need to define what conditions you're controlling, which implies what casual mechanisms you're controlling for.
- michaelmarkell 3y ago
  > which implies what casual mechanisms you're controlling for. Without thinking terribly deeply about it, it seems like this could be modified to "what correlated mechanisms we're controlling for", in which case, yes I think if we controlled for the highly correlated variable of "does this cow live on a meat farm" with the mean age, we would be able to make broad claims about cattle lifespan without needing to be privy to the internal mechanisms of the agriculture industry

biomcgary 3y ago

Males are known to have larger brains by volume (https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210326/Size-is-the-only-difference-between-male-and-female-brains-shows-study.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210326/Size-is-the-only-...). If this is the only explanatory variable doing the work, the AI model is completely uninteresting.

AgentOrange1234 3y ago
I was thinking about this too, but I don’t know how widely they overlap? Like, if (say) 30% of male brains are at least 10% smaller than the average male brain, and 30% of female brains are at least 10% larger than the average female brain, then a model that just considered volume might not be very accurate at all, because anything in the middle still has a significant chance of being either sex?

karpierz 3y ago

> I should be able to state that two species have a different lifespan based on a difference in mean age of death - without needing to provide any specific biological mechanism in my study. You need to control for confounders. For example, if I told you: - Mean lifespan of species 1 is: 3 years - Mean lifespan of species 2 is: 10 years Does that mean that species 2 has a longer lifespan than species 1? What happens when you find out that species 1 is domesticated cattle, which has (almost) all of its males slaughtered at age 2? You could then say "I meant for two species that are in controlled conditions", but now you need to define what conditions you're controlling, which implies what casual mechanisms you're controlling for.

michaelmarkell 3y ago
> which implies what casual mechanisms you're controlling for. Without thinking terribly deeply about it, it seems like this could be modified to "what correlated mechanisms we're controlling for", in which case, yes I think if we controlled for the highly correlated variable of "does this cow live on a meat farm" with the mean age, we would be able to make broad claims about cattle lifespan without needing to be privy to the internal mechanisms of the agriculture industry