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I am noticing a trend in Paul's essays. The last two were about changing paradigms. The first was about how a second read of a book leads to a different underst

I am noticing a trend in Paul's essays. The last two were about changing paradigms. The first was about how a second read of a book leads to a different understanding, and this essay is about not letting your previous beliefs close your mind about things that can change. I like though how he circles back to two fundamentals. One, human nature doesn't really change, and Two, betting on people is a better indicator of the future than betting on ideas. Probably the biggest mistake people make is looking for confirming evidence instead of using evidence to determine the relative likelihood of competing hypotheses. Even a large body of confirming evidence doesn't prove anything because that same evidence could be consistent with other hypotheses you never considered. You need to evaluate the diagnosticity of that evidence. (i.e. a patients high fever has almost no diagnostic value in determining what is wrong, because so many illnesses are consistent with that evidence. Whereas, one shred of evidence can disprove a hypothesis completely. Which is why good doctors rule out things to identify the most likely problem. These ideas PG is talking about are, IMO, some of the most important things for founders to understand. Don't look to confirm your theories, look to disprove them. Don't accept lore, challenge everything. Most importantly though, always evaluate competing hypothesis to prevent you from just trying to confirm what you are looking for.

vishnugupta 12y ago
> Don't look to confirm your theories, look to disprove them. I use this framework, though learnt it by reading Fenmayn's writings, when there's a debate as to use tool A or tool B to get X. And it's been very effective so far. I have a vague sense that B is better and a colleague is particular about A. Earlier I used to look deeper and deeper into how B is good at doing X. But realized that I wasn't convincing enough. Then I remembered Feynman's saying to the effect "the best way to prove something is to try very hard to disprove it". This has helped quite a lot in coming up with objective comparisons and use right tool for the task at hand; or in general to come up with the right solution the problem at hand.

vishnugupta 12y ago

> Don't look to confirm your theories, look to disprove them. I use this framework, though learnt it by reading Fenmayn's writings, when there's a debate as to use tool A or tool B to get X. And it's been very effective so far. I have a vague sense that B is better and a colleague is particular about A. Earlier I used to look deeper and deeper into how B is good at doing X. But realized that I wasn't convincing enough. Then I remembered Feynman's saying to the effect "the best way to prove something is to try very hard to disprove it". This has helped quite a lot in coming up with objective comparisons and use right tool for the task at hand; or in general to come up with the right solution the problem at hand.