OK cool. I’m most interested in debating topics related to methodology and epistemology. They have larger potential impact than more specific topics, and they’re basically prerequisites anyway. I don’t think we’d be able to discuss e.g. animal welfare, and agree on a conclusion, without some methodology disagreements coming up mid-discussion and having to be resolved first.
The specific issue I’d propose to debate first is:
As for me personally, I’m not sure that I will use it now—as I feel like I agree with the points you make, I’m less busy than you so I answer to everything even if I don’t agree with it, and I already try to do all you said in my mind.
(which might sound like from the outside exactly like bias- but I feel like I have a track record of changing my viewpoint on complicated topics as I got better information, even for some core questions like “Is industrial civilization good?” or “Is capitalism good?”).
It does sound like bias to me, as you predicted. And I don’t think trying to do rationality things in your mind is adequate without things like written policies and transparency. So we have a disagreement here.
I must admit that I’m usually not that interested by things like methodology and epistemology, as I associate that with bureaucracy in my head. But I agree that they are important—I just want to avoid the pitfall where this gets too abstract.
Maybe I’ll start with the methodology I use to gather information (I use it implicitely in my head, but I don’t know if writing it down somewhere would change anything).
Let’s say I get a new information (say, that a serious drop in energy means a serious drop in economic growth). This is an idea that:
It’s new—I haven’t heard it anywhere else
It is supported by data, like say this graph :
I have a rough idea of how the conclusion was obtained (I can trace back to a study or a book) - the source is OK
It makes logical sense (the economy produces goods and services, and you need energy for that) - I see no internal flaw in this reasoning
I don’t have a serious counter point for that
It’s better than the previous explanation I had (economic growth is caused only by labor, capital and human ingenuity—which misses out on the fact that you need resources to produce goods and services)
In such a case, what I do is : I accept the conclusion, as “best temporary explanation”, and I live with it
If I find later a better explanation, I accept it (if it is more complete, with data more precise or more recent, it provides good counterpoints to the previous line of thinking I had, or has a more reliable source)
Now, the weakest part of this is number 1.5 : there may be good counterpoints but I may not be aware of them (for instance, one could say that we can do decoupling and still grow the economy with less energy). There are 2 different cases:
If this is not on an important topic, or it’s an information I can’t really act on, then I don’t do more research—maybe as I read more general stuff I’ll stumble over something better ?
If it’s an important information (like if we will have less energy in the next decade this would mean a very large recession), then I try to dig in more into it.
By reading books and articles. I try mostly to read experts that aggregated a lot of interesting data in a big picture view, and for whom I’ve found little criticism. They often provide useful links.
Note that while I read scientific papers, that’s rarely where I learn the best, since few of them provide a big picture, and their writing style is poorly suited to human psychology.
For stuff that I write (like a book or article), I need to step up my game. Then I try to find reviewers who know their stuff—the quality of what I write depends of the quality of my reviewers. If I find one that I disagree with, great ! It happened with the energy descent post, I exchanged a lot with Dave Denkerberger who was very knowledgeable, so I had to find good counterarguments, or accept his conclusion (which I did on several occasions).
For the energy/GDP stuff, for instance, we had only 2 or 3 graphs each—which was not enough. So I had some doubts about the validity of my data, I digged deeper, read about a dozen papers on ecological economics… and found that, surprisingly, the energy/GDP relationship was even more supported by data than I initially envisioned.
If I have two concurrent explanations that contradict each other, or if the data is poor on both sides, I flag the data point as “contested” in my head and I try not use it in my reasoning, until I’ve done more research (this is the case for the causality of energy/GDP, whether “GDP causes energy” or “energy causes GDP” or both. There is no consensus)
However, even if they disagree on causality, studies still indicate that a high GDP needs a lot of energy. Good enough, I use that instead.
Now, this is very rough, I agree, but I feel like I learned a lot, and changed my views on a wide range of topic, so I feel like this kinda works so far.
There may room for improvements, of course. What do you think about it ?
OK cool. I’m most interested in debating topics related to methodology and epistemology. They have larger potential impact than more specific topics, and they’re basically prerequisites anyway. I don’t think we’d be able to discuss e.g. animal welfare, and agree on a conclusion, without some methodology disagreements coming up mid-discussion and having to be resolved first.
The specific issue I’d propose to debate first is:
It does sound like bias to me, as you predicted. And I don’t think trying to do rationality things in your mind is adequate without things like written policies and transparency. So we have a disagreement here.
Ok, very well.
I must admit that I’m usually not that interested by things like methodology and epistemology, as I associate that with bureaucracy in my head. But I agree that they are important—I just want to avoid the pitfall where this gets too abstract.
Maybe I’ll start with the methodology I use to gather information (I use it implicitely in my head, but I don’t know if writing it down somewhere would change anything).
Let’s say I get a new information (say, that a serious drop in energy means a serious drop in economic growth). This is an idea that:
It’s new—I haven’t heard it anywhere else
It is supported by data, like say this graph :
I have a rough idea of how the conclusion was obtained (I can trace back to a study or a book) - the source is OK
It makes logical sense (the economy produces goods and services, and you need energy for that) - I see no internal flaw in this reasoning
I don’t have a serious counter point for that
It’s better than the previous explanation I had (economic growth is caused only by labor, capital and human ingenuity—which misses out on the fact that you need resources to produce goods and services)
In such a case, what I do is : I accept the conclusion, as “best temporary explanation”, and I live with it
If I find later a better explanation, I accept it (if it is more complete, with data more precise or more recent, it provides good counterpoints to the previous line of thinking I had, or has a more reliable source)
Now, the weakest part of this is number 1.5 : there may be good counterpoints but I may not be aware of them (for instance, one could say that we can do decoupling and still grow the economy with less energy). There are 2 different cases:
If this is not on an important topic, or it’s an information I can’t really act on, then I don’t do more research—maybe as I read more general stuff I’ll stumble over something better ?
If it’s an important information (like if we will have less energy in the next decade this would mean a very large recession), then I try to dig in more into it.
By reading books and articles. I try mostly to read experts that aggregated a lot of interesting data in a big picture view, and for whom I’ve found little criticism. They often provide useful links.
Note that while I read scientific papers, that’s rarely where I learn the best, since few of them provide a big picture, and their writing style is poorly suited to human psychology.
For stuff that I write (like a book or article), I need to step up my game. Then I try to find reviewers who know their stuff—the quality of what I write depends of the quality of my reviewers. If I find one that I disagree with, great ! It happened with the energy descent post, I exchanged a lot with Dave Denkerberger who was very knowledgeable, so I had to find good counterarguments, or accept his conclusion (which I did on several occasions).
For the energy/GDP stuff, for instance, we had only 2 or 3 graphs each—which was not enough. So I had some doubts about the validity of my data, I digged deeper, read about a dozen papers on ecological economics… and found that, surprisingly, the energy/GDP relationship was even more supported by data than I initially envisioned.
If I have two concurrent explanations that contradict each other, or if the data is poor on both sides, I flag the data point as “contested” in my head and I try not use it in my reasoning, until I’ve done more research (this is the case for the causality of energy/GDP, whether “GDP causes energy” or “energy causes GDP” or both. There is no consensus)
However, even if they disagree on causality, studies still indicate that a high GDP needs a lot of energy. Good enough, I use that instead.
Now, this is very rough, I agree, but I feel like I learned a lot, and changed my views on a wide range of topic, so I feel like this kinda works so far.
There may room for improvements, of course. What do you think about it ?
I created a debate topic at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gL7y22tFLKaTKaZt5/debate-about-biased-methodology-or-corentin-biteau-and
I will reply to your message later.
Please let me know if you have any objections to my summary of what the debate is about.