You Should Downvote Contrarian Anecdotes • Hacker News Board

Re: You Should Downvote Contrarian Anecdotes

#131

Post by mindcrime » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 5:53 PM UTC

hythloday wrote: post #104

kijin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how do you distinguish between people who simply share their stories because they think it's moderately relevant to the thread, on the one hand, and people who "exploit known cognitive biases", on the other? Exploitation seems to imply deliberate manipulation, which most people who share medical anecdotes don't intend at all. Yet, humans have so many cognitive biases that even the most mundane thing can trigger o…

"Trigger" is a better word than "exploit", in some ways, but it makes it sound like it's an accident: "sorry, I just fell over your cognitive bias, I had no idea it was there!". In fact I think people have a weak responsibility in good discourse to be aware of known cognitive biases and not to appeal to them. I'm comfortable downvoting people who appeal to emotion even if they're not setting out with the intent of do…

I'm comfortable downvoting people who appeal to emotion even if they're not setting out with the intent of doing it, simply because I think it leads to a worse discussion.

And I'm comfortable making a "corrective upvote" because I think downvotes should be reserved for obvious spam, completely OT comments and comments that add nothing to the discussion at hand.

Re: You Should Downvote Contrarian Anecdotes

#132

Post by Symmetry » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 6:11 PM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #122

dmauro wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author was referring to contrarian anecdotes in reply to statistical data, not someone's opinion. - He is only arguing that there is universal truth in proxy by arguing that the scientific method is more valuable than anecdotal evidence. If you don't agree with that, you probably disagree with most of HN (pure conjecture, does anyone else here think anecdotal evidence is more valuable than statistical analysis?)…

> He is only arguing that there is universal truth in proxy by arguing that the scientific method is more valuable than anecdotal evidence. The strawman here is in equating (published) statistical analysis with the scientific method. Of course the scientific method is more valuable, but that's not necessarily relevant. Please have a look at http://xkcd.com/882/ if you haven't already - what this comic describes is a…

Scientists' use of statistics is often problematic, but that doesn't mean that its valid to counter statistics with anecdote unless you have some larger argument.

Re: You Should Downvote Contrarian Anecdotes

#133

Post by Symmetry » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 6:26 PM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #102

The idea that there was an impending credit crisis was a "contrarian anecdote" in 2008. The idea that the US Government conducted illegal eavesdropping/wiretapping operations against US Citizens was a "contrarian anecdote" in 2003. This blog post condescendingly claims that HN readers are not sophisticated enough to balance out the sources that are input to their rational decision making process. In reality, contrari…

Contrarian opinion is often correct, but contrarian anecdote in the face of statistical evidence seldom is. The article was about the later, not the former.

Re: You Should Downvote Contrarian Anecdotes

#134

Post by Symmetry » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 6:33 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #58

By this logic, HN'ers should downvote any anecdote describing successfully exiting a startup because statistics show that the vast majority of startups fail and these anecdotes describing success unduly influence the thinking of entrepreneurs.

Only if its offered as a counterexample to the proposition that most startups fail.

Re: You Should Downvote Contrarian Anecdotes

#135

Post by Symmetry » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 6:37 PM UTC

Goladus wrote: post #83

Contrarian anecdotes can be very useful (and logically sound) when they are contrary to a generalization. If someone asserts "f(x) = 5 for all x in A", "f(a) = 3 and a in A" is a logical contradiction proving the assertion false. And, frankly, if we're talking about public discussion of scientific papers, inappropriate generalization is as big a problem as contrarian anecdotes, if not bigger. Scientific papers often…

Have you ever seen that sort of generalization in an article on Hacker News? Even when you have situations like, e.g. nobody has ever recorded a case of a person with a certain genotype being infected by a norovirus, you don't see papers claiming that its impossible.

Re: You Should Downvote Contrarian Anecdotes

#136

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 6:41 PM UTC

b1daly wrote: post #59

Well I think Stalin summed up the perils of totally ignoring anecdotes pretty well: "One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic." This topic sort of came up the other day in the thread about the girl losing the iPad software she needs to talk (Silencing Maya). http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4103344 Some commenters thought the story should be ignored as a data point about the societal value of patents. I…

[deleted]

Re: You Should Downvote Contrarian Anecdotes

#137

Post by beagle3 » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 6:43 PM UTC

Symmetry wrote: post #132

beagle3 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He is only arguing that there is universal truth in proxy by arguing that the scientific method is more valuable than anecdotal evidence. The strawman here is in equating (published) statistical analysis with the scientific method. Of course the scientific method is more valuable, but that's not necessarily relevant. Please have a look at http://xkcd.com/882/ if you haven't already - what this comic describes is a…

Scientists' use of statistics is often problematic, but that doesn't mean that its valid to counter statistics with anecdote unless you have some larger argument.

Right. But it is also not valid to bring up statistics unless you can properly qualify their relevance, which is almost never the case. This requirement sets much higher bar for anecdotes than published statistics, when the latter rarely deserves that high bar.

As a result, most arguments about science are invalid from a scientific-method point of view. But the claims brought up -- including anecdotes -- are often interesting and informative.

Re: You Should Downvote Contrarian Anecdotes

#138

Post by beagle3 » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 6:45 PM UTC

iy56 wrote: post #123

beagle3 wrote: post #119

You shouldn't downvote contrarian anecdotes. You should just take them at face value for what they are. His notion that in the field of medicine you should disregard contrarian anecdotes because there's statistical evidence is horrible advice. If you actually looked at said statistical evidence, you'd realize it is very rarely strong, and often only relevant to 70% or so of the population (which is great for 2 out of…

>You should just take them at face value for what they are. The problem is that this is impossible for most people.

That's true, and they also get to vote (both on HN, and in real world elections). Imagine the consequences! Or just observe them in the real world....

Re: You Should Downvote Contrarian Anecdotes

#139

Post by Shoomz » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 6:45 PM UTC

I'm curious what some of your (the community's) thoughts are on articles like this. While the article itself has a large amount of personal bias with unsubstantiated claims, the conversation it has broached has been rather rich and enlightening. However, that is largely due to its controversial and contrarian (ironically) nature. That said, while the conversation has been thoughtful and looks to have largely refuted article, because so much of the thoughts put up here in the comments have been to downplay the original article, my question is: "Was this article worth our time or just an elaborate waste of time since the premise was bunk?"

Re: You Should Downvote Contrarian Anecdotes

#140

Post by beagle3 » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 6:59 PM UTC

guelo wrote: post #129

beagle3 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please refrain from giving me personal advice when you know nothing about me. I was not giving you any personal advice. I was taking your "you" as a general statement to the reader, and replying with the same language pattern (e.g. if I said "you can bring a horse to water", I would actually mean "one can bring a horse to water".) > There is a huge difference between saying "something is true, but I don't know what…

It's one thing when learned people dig into the science and find issues to disagree about, it is completely different when some ignorant reporter or blogger disagrees just based on anecdotes or how truthy it feels to them

Someone who is good with statistics is more learned than the prominent experts in many areas when it come to disagreement. See e.g. this: http://blog.sethroberts.net/2012/04/08/gene-linked-to-autism... - Roberts is a professor of psychology, but he wears a statisticians hat in this post. He does this often and in many fields, and more often than not, his review (though well argued) is discarded as "a blogger who disagrees just based on anecdotes and truthiness".

Yes, most criticism is useless, but ...

No, most research is NOT as sound as the researchers themselves believe.