“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.” John Kenneth Galbraith
In a purely intellectual world, this might be reasonable. But I real world - you need to also be asking whether the evidence is real and honest vs fake or selectevely reported. Everything else being equal, in cases where accepting the evidence would result in large wins for somebody, the likelihood of the evidence being compromised is higher, so it is still reasonable to require a higher burden of proof.
How do you even apply prediction markets to important questions academics lie about, such as HBD? Which markets right now can an HBD person make money on? Seems like none.
Interesting you mention cold fusion. The initial debunking of cold fusion was partly corrupt and partly fraudulent. Doesn’t necessarily mean there is anything particularly real or useful in cold fusion, but it became radioactive almost instantly for bunk reasons. Strange situation.
I don't think cold fusion is a good example of what Robin is trying to illustrate here, which is a tendency to resist large changes. I say this because, in the science world, the primary path to glory is proving large changes to standard orthodoxy.
Everyone then knew (I was at Caltech at the time) that the first team with smoking-gun evidence of cold fusion would get the Nobel in a heartbeat. That drew in a lot of teams trying to find more compelling proof than what Pons and Fleischmann had produced. If anything these people were biased in favor of finding an effect, not debunking it.
"Obviously, the discovery of advanced extraterrestrials around Earth would be extraordinary in the sense that it would have extraordinary *social* implications, and it would likewise shatter our *social* paradigm, which is centered on the idea that humans are the most powerful creatures around. However, this should not be confused with what we may call extraordinary *epistemic* claims that shatter our *epistemic* paradigm — that is, claims that are extremely surprising and revolutionary relative to what our best current knowledge would predict. After all, a prospect can have extraordinary social implications and shatter our social paradigm without necessarily being epistemically extraordinary or paradigm-shattering. An example might be the predictable rise of a dangerous dictator, or the creation of nuclear weapons based on known physical principles.
So, notwithstanding its profound change in our social paradigm, would the discovery of advanced extraterrestrials around Earth be *epistemically* extraordinary and *epistemically* paradigm-shattering? Well, if we step back and reflect on it, arguably not. In terms of our modern understanding of the world, such a presence is not necessarily the most likely hypothesis a priori, but it would still seem to fit quite well within our current scientific paradigm."
No, and I find your cynical social hypothesis interesting.
FWIW, I suspect it's often just a thoughtless conflation/lack of clarity, whereby we reflexively repeat a cliché mantra, especially in the UFO context. In this regard, I'm somewhat more inclined to use Hanlon's razor ("Don't attribute to malice that which can be explained by error") than Hanson's razor ("Don't attribute to error that which can be explained by hidden motives").
Alternatively, a more charitable hypothesis might be that people treat highly consequential claims as having a low prior because they're being rationally risk averse around the large cultural changes that might follow if people were to quickly update their beliefs.
In a purely intellectual world, this might be reasonable. But I real world - you need to also be asking whether the evidence is real and honest vs fake or selectevely reported. Everything else being equal, in cases where accepting the evidence would result in large wins for somebody, the likelihood of the evidence being compromised is higher, so it is still reasonable to require a higher burden of proof.
Not reasonable to demand MORE evidence, but more reasonable to demand that it meets higher standards of honesty.
How do you even apply prediction markets to important questions academics lie about, such as HBD? Which markets right now can an HBD person make money on? Seems like none.
wait a long time to settle the bets
But that's no use at all, everyone will see what will be happening to the United States and Europe without prediction markets by then.
The prices happen now, long before bets are settled.
I don't get it. How do I take money from black slatists
you mean as in academics lying about the non-existence of HBD with respect to cognition and violent behavior?
Interesting you mention cold fusion. The initial debunking of cold fusion was partly corrupt and partly fraudulent. Doesn’t necessarily mean there is anything particularly real or useful in cold fusion, but it became radioactive almost instantly for bunk reasons. Strange situation.
I don't think cold fusion is a good example of what Robin is trying to illustrate here, which is a tendency to resist large changes. I say this because, in the science world, the primary path to glory is proving large changes to standard orthodoxy.
Everyone then knew (I was at Caltech at the time) that the first team with smoking-gun evidence of cold fusion would get the Nobel in a heartbeat. That drew in a lot of teams trying to find more compelling proof than what Pons and Fleischmann had produced. If anything these people were biased in favor of finding an effect, not debunking it.
Retrospective by my great-uncle who remained curious about it at the expense of his career even after it went radioactive. https://jcmns.org/article/72568-a-review-of-negative-lenr-experiments-determining-why-they-failed-and-how-they-impacted-the-field/attachment/150616.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
I agree with this key distinction between different senses of "extraordinary claims". I made essentially the same point here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zkrbdrgpabKMqKDQz/new-ebook-essays-on-ufos-and-related-conjectures#0_2_Extraordinary_claims_
"Obviously, the discovery of advanced extraterrestrials around Earth would be extraordinary in the sense that it would have extraordinary *social* implications, and it would likewise shatter our *social* paradigm, which is centered on the idea that humans are the most powerful creatures around. However, this should not be confused with what we may call extraordinary *epistemic* claims that shatter our *epistemic* paradigm — that is, claims that are extremely surprising and revolutionary relative to what our best current knowledge would predict. After all, a prospect can have extraordinary social implications and shatter our social paradigm without necessarily being epistemically extraordinary or paradigm-shattering. An example might be the predictable rise of a dangerous dictator, or the creation of nuclear weapons based on known physical principles.
So, notwithstanding its profound change in our social paradigm, would the discovery of advanced extraterrestrials around Earth be *epistemically* extraordinary and *epistemically* paradigm-shattering? Well, if we step back and reflect on it, arguably not. In terms of our modern understanding of the world, such a presence is not necessarily the most likely hypothesis a priori, but it would still seem to fit quite well within our current scientific paradigm."
Did you have a theory as to why people would treat big social implications as if it were a very low prior?
"If that were true we would have noticed by now" --> low prior (works only for things human civ would have noticed in the last 10,000 years)
No, and I find your cynical social hypothesis interesting.
FWIW, I suspect it's often just a thoughtless conflation/lack of clarity, whereby we reflexively repeat a cliché mantra, especially in the UFO context. In this regard, I'm somewhat more inclined to use Hanlon's razor ("Don't attribute to malice that which can be explained by error") than Hanson's razor ("Don't attribute to error that which can be explained by hidden motives").
Alternatively, a more charitable hypothesis might be that people treat highly consequential claims as having a low prior because they're being rationally risk averse around the large cultural changes that might follow if people were to quickly update their beliefs.