As I wrote in another post, I support the use of numbers, but it’s clear to me that some EAs think that quantifying something automatically reduces uncertainty / bias / motivated reasoning.
Agree that the main benefit of quantification is precision, not accuracy.
Precision is only sometimes warranted though. For the same reason that in science we never report numbers to a higher precision than that we can actually measure, it is misleading to quantify things when you actually have no idea what the numbers are.
In the self-evaluation of their mistakes, the Intelligence community in the US came to the conclusion that lack of quantification of the likelihood that Saddam didn’t have WMDs was one of the reasons they messed up.
This led to forecasting tournaments which inturn lead to Tetlock’s superforcasting. I think the orthodox view in EA is that Tetlock’s work is valuable and we should apply its insights.
As I wrote in another post, I support the use of numbers, but it’s clear to me that some EAs think that quantifying something automatically reduces uncertainty / bias / motivated reasoning.
Agree that the main benefit of quantification is precision, not accuracy.
Precision is only sometimes warranted though. For the same reason that in science we never report numbers to a higher precision than that we can actually measure, it is misleading to quantify things when you actually have no idea what the numbers are.
I disagree. I think words are often just as bad for this. So it’s not the fault of quantification but an issue with communication in general.
Good point!
In the self-evaluation of their mistakes, the Intelligence community in the US came to the conclusion that lack of quantification of the likelihood that Saddam didn’t have WMDs was one of the reasons they messed up.
This led to forecasting tournaments which inturn lead to Tetlock’s superforcasting. I think the orthodox view in EA is that Tetlock’s work is valuable and we should apply its insights.
Precisely!
The downvotes to comments like this are also bad practice IMO, separate from every other cultural practice raised in the discussion.