(2014-08-14) Alexander Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor

Scott Alexander: Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor. At its best, philosophy is a revolutionary pursuit that dissolves our common-sense intuitions and exposes the possibility of much deeper structures behind them. One can respond by becoming a saint or madman, or by becoming a pragmatist who is willing to continue to participate in human society while also understanding its theoretical limitations. Both are respectable career paths. The problem is when someone chooses to apply philosophical rigor selectively.

I have already been made fun of for how many different things I am metaphorically comparing IQ to – speed, blood pressure, comas – so I guess it can’t hurt to add another example I only thought of today. How about crime?

When Cosma Shalizi says he’s not sure about the factor analysis in IQ, I have no quarrel with him, because Cosma Shalizi’s response to everything in the world is to glare at it for not being sufficiently statistically rigorous.

But when other people are totally happy to talk about speed and blood pressure and comas and the crime rate, and then suddenly switch to a position that we can’t talk about IQ at all unless we have a perfect factor-analytical proof of its obeying certain statistical rules, then I worry they’re just out to steal cows.

cf Decision-Making vs Decision-Rationalizing; HiPPO; Evidence-Based