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The Fallacy of Seeing Patterns

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Re: The Fallacy of Seeing Patterns

#11

Post by iaw »

I wish the article was on Apophenia, it would be more fun.

Instead it's not clear to me who the target audience is. The phrasing makes it appear to be targeted at analysts and not their business partners. Assuming that to be the case, senior analysts are substantially beyond the level this article is written at (or should be).

Entry level analysts need close supervision to prevent them from making these, and other, mistakes. The examples the author draws (specifically cheese vs. infant mortality and the google flu approximations) don't do a good job at identifying when this issue arises. For the cheese example it's unclear if the phenomenon is real or not (the magnitude of the variation in infant death may actually be significant, if the cheese consumption variation was small then there would be a different story). The author does nothing to help the reader resolve this.

In the Google flu example it's only through hindsight (and colossal failure) that the author identifies the lack of validity in Google's model.

I agree 100% with his point but I don't think the article is providing much value because essentially the author is simply saying: "be aware, this type of problem exists out there..." without providing information necessary to navigate/resolve the problem.

Re: The Fallacy of Seeing Patterns

#12

Post by iaw »

bognition wrote: post #6
apathy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accurate results are not necessarily actionable.

correct, but inaccurate results are never actionable.

If only that were true in practice. The stories I could tell about mistakes I've found...

At the end of the day, your point is 100% correct.

Re: The Fallacy of Seeing Patterns

#13

Post by hinkley »

bognition wrote: post #2

>As an analyst, one needs to keep in mind that the Journey is more important than reaching the Destination. I'm really not sure what to make of the last line. The goal of analysis should be to produce results that are actionable. In the end it should matter very little how they are obtained as long as they are accurate.

This is the road to metric dysfunction.

Or at least, if you continue to use the metric that diagnosed the problem while trying to address it, you're going to get what you measure. With most groups I've been with, they were relieved to get the metrics good enough to detect anything at all, and don't have the stamina to come up with a more accurate way to determine the same thing.

Re: The Fallacy of Seeing Patterns

#14

Post by apathy »

liquidise wrote: post #8
apathy wrote: post #3

Ctrl-F "apophenia" 0 matches on this page Welp, that's pretty sad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

Excellent link, but no need to poopoo a post because the author's vocab didn't include a word you expected.

Words and concepts exist for a reason. The author of the post could have turned up the (well researched and imho fascinating) antecedent work very quickly simply by googling his piece's title. That he did not makes me sad. Very smart people have previously studied most interesting problems. Ignoring their work is both arrogant and foolish.

Put differently, you don't learn much by talking, but you learn a lot by listening. You learn a little by writing, but you and your readers learn much more if you read up first. (I am not assuming you wrote this. The themes are general.)

If I wrote a piece that ignored a decades-old, well-known, fundamental result, not only would editors and colleagues slam me for it, I'd be ashamed of it myself. I went back and skimmed a few more of this author's posts and I have to say, they're not of a quality I would suggest to students. If they happen to read this, I hope they'll talk with someone who has a little formal training and revise their work.

Re: The Fallacy of Seeing Patterns

#15

Post by jsprogrammer »

apathy wrote: post #14
liquidise wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent link, but no need to poopoo a post because the author's vocab didn't include a word you expected.

Words and concepts exist for a reason. The author of the post could have turned up the (well researched and imho fascinating) antecedent work very quickly simply by googling his piece's title. That he did not makes me sad. Very smart people have previously studied most interesting problems. Ignoring their work is both arrogant and foolish. Put differently, you don't learn much by talking, but you learn a lot by liste…

Does joining the Nazi party qualify you as being very smart?

Wikipedia references work [0] that indicates Konrad's theory could not be validated empirically.

Do you have any references that validate what you are claiming as a well-known, fundamental result?

Can you give a definition of the theory?

[0] https://www.thieme-connect.com/DOI/DOI?10.1055/s-2007-999113

Re: The Fallacy of Seeing Patterns

#16

Post by jrapdx3 »

The article starts with, "Human beings try to find patterns to explain the reason behind almost every phenomenon, but that doesn’t mean that there is a pattern to rely on." The second part of the sentence is true, on further observation some patterns prove not to be patterns. However the first half, the attempt to explain why we "find patterns" isn't convincing.

Instead, replace that phrase with this: "based on brain construction, we humans are predisposed to find patterns in data we encounter". This idea holds up to evolutionary scrutiny, organisms have mechanisms biased for self-protection and finding food and other resources through various forms of pattern recognition. IOW we find patterns we're neurologically capable of finding, particularly in regard to survival and reproduction.

Perhaps it's more accurate to assert we "find patterns" useful in making predictions about our present and future state within the environments we occupy. The fact that patterns may not turn out to be authentic is simply part of a process of refinement of pattern-seeking and improving value as predictors of future states. We may call a pattern an "explanation" but nothing is actually "explained" as shown by the fact we reserve the right to enhance or revise the "pattern", or what we insist it predicts, at any given time.

Edits: grammar and clarity

Re: The Fallacy of Seeing Patterns

#17

Post by doctorpangloss »

bognition wrote: post #2

>As an analyst, one needs to keep in mind that the Journey is more important than reaching the Destination. I'm really not sure what to make of the last line. The goal of analysis should be to produce results that are actionable. In the end it should matter very little how they are obtained as long as they are accurate.

> In the end it should matter very little how they are obtained as long as they are accurate.

That's about as actionable of a statement as a CEO telling you he wants you to do whatever "will be the most successful." Well duh :)

Re: The Fallacy of Seeing Patterns

#18

Post by duaneb »

liquidise wrote: post #8
apathy wrote: post #3

Ctrl-F "apophenia" 0 matches on this page Welp, that's pretty sad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

Excellent link, but no need to poopoo a post because the author's vocab didn't include a word you expected.

Disappointment is not "poopoo"ing.

Re: The Fallacy of Seeing Patterns

#19

Post by apathy »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #15
apathy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words and concepts exist for a reason. The author of the post could have turned up the (well researched and imho fascinating) antecedent work very quickly simply by googling his piece's title. That he did not makes me sad. Very smart people have previously studied most interesting problems. Ignoring their work is both arrogant and foolish. Put differently, you don't learn much by talking, but you learn a lot by liste…

Does joining the Nazi party qualify you as being very smart? Wikipedia references work [0] that indicates Konrad's theory could not be validated empirically. Do you have any references that validate what you are claiming as a well-known, fundamental result? Can you give a definition of the theory? [0] https://www.thieme-connect.com/DOI/DOI?10.1055/s-2007-999113

I'm tempted to point out that you went from zero to Godwin in record time. To assume that Konrad's party affiliation (likely a pragmatic choice at the time) either validates or invalidates his work is a bit absurd. The issue as I see it is one of the modern meaning, which is to say, a tendency to see patterns where none exist.

Nonetheless, let us see whether Konrad's work has been dismantled in more recent studies. A quick trip to PubMed suggests otherwise:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2800156/

Note that I did not claim Konrad's result was fundamental. I stated that if I ignored a fundamental result in my writing, I would be pilloried. Konrad's theory of prodromal schizophrenic ideation beginning with this tendency to see patterns where none exist is perhaps of interests to psychiatric historians, but it is not what I would call fundamental. I would claim that if the perfect term for a concept exists and is established, one should use it.

Apophenia, in its now accepted colloquial meaning, is an exceptionally handy shorthand for what the writer describes. Like other swell ideas (Gaussian processes, natural selection) it is so useful that it has accumulated several names (as a parallel, kriging and clonal evolution are alternate). Either would work fine here.

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