Comments on: Sick of Textbook Errors http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/01/sick_of_textboo.html Overcoming Bias is economist Robin Hanson’s blog, on honesty, signaling, disagreement, forecasting, and the far future. Sun, 12 Feb 2012 03:06:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: TGGP http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/01/sick_of_textboo.html#comment-422488 TGGP Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:36:26 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/01/sick-of-textbook-errors.html#comment-422488 Steve Sailer <a href="http://www.vdare.com/sailer/frist_health.htm" rel="nofollow">claims</a> that he almost died because doctors thought whooping cough was extinct, when they were actually thinking of whooping cranes. He <a href="http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/09/we-have-always-been-at-war-with-iranq.html" rel="nofollow">thinks</a> the same problem of words that sound similar is the case with Iran/Iraq and Sunnis/Shiites. Steve Sailer claims that he almost died because doctors thought whooping cough was extinct, when they were actually thinking of whooping cranes. He thinks the same problem of words that sound similar is the case with Iran/Iraq and Sunnis/Shiites.

]]> By: Carl Shulman http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/01/sick_of_textboo.html#comment-422487 Carl Shulman Sun, 28 Jan 2007 16:17:56 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/01/sick-of-textbook-errors.html#comment-422487 Institutional incentives would certainly help to avoid pseudo-epidemics, both by motivating doctors to expend mental effort searching for reasons not to proceed, and by allocating decision-making power to better Bayesians. However, the example remains troubling in a world where constructing such incentives is costly, and it is very difficult to incentivize careful thinking across all domains. Doctors unable to generalize from their (mandatory!) study of statistics to an almost identical real life situation, like the scientist who is a mystic outside the laboratory (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/01/outside_the_lab.html#more), cannot be fully trusted in any but the most carefully structured and incentivized transactions, which are rare in medicine because of information asymmetries. Institutional incentives would certainly help to avoid pseudo-epidemics, both by motivating doctors to expend mental effort searching for reasons not to proceed, and by allocating decision-making power to better Bayesians.

However, the example remains troubling in a world where constructing such incentives is costly, and it is very difficult to incentivize careful thinking across all domains. Doctors unable to generalize from their (mandatory!) study of statistics to an almost identical real life situation, like the scientist who is a mystic outside the laboratory (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/01/outside_the_lab.html#more), cannot be fully trusted in any but the most carefully structured and incentivized transactions, which are rare in medicine because of information asymmetries.

]]> By: Robin Hanson http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/01/sick_of_textboo.html#comment-422486 Robin Hanson Sun, 28 Jan 2007 12:00:16 +0000 http://prod.ob.trike.com.au/2007/01/sick-of-textbook-errors.html#comment-422486 Their incentives, including liability, might also be a factor in biasing their conclusions; they may well suffer much more for failing to flag an outbreak than from falsely flagging one. Their incentives, including liability, might also be a factor in biasing their conclusions; they may well suffer much more for failing to flag an outbreak than from falsely flagging one.

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