The incentive gradient I was referring to goes from trying to actually figure out the truth to using arguments as weapons to win against opponents. You can totally use proxies for the truth if you have to(like an article being written by someone you’ve audited in the past, or someone who’s made sound predictions in the past). You can totally decide not to engage with an issue because it’s not worth the time.
But if you just shrug your shoulders and cite average social science reporting on a forum you care about, you are not justified in expecting good outcomes. This is the intellectual equivalent of catching the flu and then purposefully vomiting into the town water supply. People that do this are acting in a harmful manner, and they should be asked to cease and desist.
the best scrutinizer is someone who feels motivated to disprove a paper’s conclusion
The best scrutinizer is someone that feels motivated to actually find the truth. This should be obvious.
For whatever reason, on average they find it more intrinsically motivating to look for holes in social psych research if it supports a liberal conclusion.
Yet EAs are mostly liberal. The 2017 Survey had 309 EAs identifying as Left, 373 as Centre-Left, 4 identifying as Right, 31 as Centre Right. My contention is that this is not about the conclusions being liberal. It’s about specific studies and analyses of studies being terrible. E.g. (and I hate that I have to say this) I lean very socially liberal on most issues. Yet I claim that the article Kelly cited is not good support for anyone’s beliefs. Because it is terrible, and does not track the truth. And we don’t need writings like that, regardless of whose conclusions they happen to support.
The best scrutinizer is someone that feels motivated to actually find the truth. This should be obvious.
How does “this should be obvious” compare to average social science reporting on the epistemic hygiene scale?
Like, this is an empirical claim we could test: give people social psych papers that have known flaws, and see whether curiosity or disagreement with the paper’s conclusion predicts flaw discovery better. I don’t think the result of such an experiment is obvious.
The incentive gradient I was referring to goes from trying to actually figure out the truth to using arguments as weapons to win against opponents. You can totally use proxies for the truth if you have to(like an article being written by someone you’ve audited in the past, or someone who’s made sound predictions in the past). You can totally decide not to engage with an issue because it’s not worth the time.
But if you just shrug your shoulders and cite average social science reporting on a forum you care about, you are not justified in expecting good outcomes. This is the intellectual equivalent of catching the flu and then purposefully vomiting into the town water supply. People that do this are acting in a harmful manner, and they should be asked to cease and desist.
The best scrutinizer is someone that feels motivated to actually find the truth. This should be obvious.
Yet EAs are mostly liberal. The 2017 Survey had 309 EAs identifying as Left, 373 as Centre-Left, 4 identifying as Right, 31 as Centre Right. My contention is that this is not about the conclusions being liberal. It’s about specific studies and analyses of studies being terrible. E.g. (and I hate that I have to say this) I lean very socially liberal on most issues. Yet I claim that the article Kelly cited is not good support for anyone’s beliefs. Because it is terrible, and does not track the truth. And we don’t need writings like that, regardless of whose conclusions they happen to support.
How does “this should be obvious” compare to average social science reporting on the epistemic hygiene scale?
Like, this is an empirical claim we could test: give people social psych papers that have known flaws, and see whether curiosity or disagreement with the paper’s conclusion predicts flaw discovery better. I don’t think the result of such an experiment is obvious.
Flaws aren’t the only things I want to discover when I scrutinize a paper. I also want to discover truths, if they exist, among other things
[random] I find the survey numbers interesting, insofar as they suggest that EA is more left-leaning than almost any profession or discipline.
(see e.g. this and this).