On multiple occasions, I’ve found a “quantified” analysis to be indistinguishable from a “vibes-based” analysis: you’ve just assigned those vibes a number, often one basically pulled out of your behind. (I haven’t looked enough into shrimp to know if this is one of those cases).
I think it is entirely sensible to strongly prefer cause estimates that are backed by extremely strong evidence such as meta-reviews of randomised trials, rather than cause estimates based on vibes that are essentially made up. Part of the problem I have with naive expected value reasoning is that it seemingly does not take this entirely reasonable preference into account.
Yeah, I agree that one also shouldn’t blindly trust numbers (and discounting for lack of robustness of supporting evidence is one reasonable way to implement that). I take that to be importantly different from—and much more reasonable than—the sort of “in principle” objection to quantification that this post addresses.
On multiple occasions, I’ve found a “quantified” analysis to be indistinguishable from a “vibes-based” analysis: you’ve just assigned those vibes a number, often one basically pulled out of your behind. (I haven’t looked enough into shrimp to know if this is one of those cases).
I think it is entirely sensible to strongly prefer cause estimates that are backed by extremely strong evidence such as meta-reviews of randomised trials, rather than cause estimates based on vibes that are essentially made up. Part of the problem I have with naive expected value reasoning is that it seemingly does not take this entirely reasonable preference into account.
A vibes-based quantitative analysis has the virtue that it’s easier to critique than a vibes-based non-quantitative analysis.
Yeah, I agree that one also shouldn’t blindly trust numbers (and discounting for lack of robustness of supporting evidence is one reasonable way to implement that). I take that to be importantly different from—and much more reasonable than—the sort of “in principle” objection to quantification that this post addresses.