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This is a blog on why we believe and do what we do, why we pretend otherwise, how we might do better, and what our descendants might do, if they don't all die.
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A well-connected reporter (who I promised I’d keep anonymous) just told me that a major Washington media organization started a project studying major media pundits, and a big part of this project was assessing individual pundit forecast track records. After several months of several folks working on the project, it was killed, supposedly because management decided readers don’t care as much about pundit accuracy as they’d previous thought.
Of course that need not have been their real reason – perhaps some folks didn’t like the ratings it was giving to their favorite pundits. Or perhaps it died for any of a hundred random reasons projects are killed. Even so, I found this anecdote interesting.
Who Wants Accuracy?
I'm beginning to think this is the problem with philosophy, as well.
Science is often described as an agreed upon objective method for determining who is right.
As far as I can tell, the common complaint about philosophical debates being 'endless' is true - philosophers haven't even tried to agree upon a method for coming to agreement. (Thus, it only happens by chance.)
Could it be because most affiliate with a philosopher to leech status and signal various values, not because they think he might be correct? Extending this, could most logic use by philosophers be because logic is fashionable, not because they want logic to constrain their thoughts?
Lucky that scientists think an objective method is fashionable.
See the work of Phil Tetlock on this subject:
http://tinyurl.com/3btbkg4