A serious reasoning error that is particularly common among educated people is to argue that if a study hasn't been done on a particular question we have 'no data', and therefore no basis on which to form beliefs or act.

This is incorrect and dangerous. 1/

There is almost always a reference class we can use to make a sensible prediction, and often we can reason about the causal mechanism directly.

To see how this is clearly wrong, consider these two extreme cases: 2/
a. Before a vaccine trial is conducted we have 'no data' on how likely it is to work.

But we can estimate the likelihood just fine! To start with we can just check the base rate of all vaccine trials.

What fraction of all vaccine trials in history have had +ve results? 3/
That gives a much better estimate than pure agnosticism.

b. Imagine now that the vaccine trial results have come back positive. But by chance all the vaccines were given in a blue room.

So, will the vaccine still work if given in a red room? I guess we have 'no data'.

4/
So can we say nothing about about whether vaccines work in red rooms?

That is plainly ridiculous — we understand the causal mechanism and it doesn't involve room colour, so in fact we can give a near definitive answer to that question. 5/
I think this confusion is encouraged by people who study a bit of science but never study philosophy of science, so end up with a garbled epistemology — one more peculiar and foolish than whatever they started with. 6/
It is also encouraged by bureaucratized thinking, where the key is to avoid responsibility by never making personal 'judgement calls', and instead robotically following a cover-your-ass process

The error does most damage when we need to move fast in an uncertain environment. 7/
I've been thinking about it this week because I keep reading people on Twitter saying we have 'no data' and no ability to say whether COVID vaccines work after a single dose, because a trial studying a single dose hasn't been conducted.

What complete bollocks! 8/
To start with the Pfizer vaccine shows new infections crashing a week before patients received the second dose.

But even if they didn't, we could look at the base rate among all vaccines — what fraction of all vaccines offer protection for ~6 months after the first dose? 9/
More than half? Less than half? That is super informative!

Furthermore, we know how vaccines work, and people who are experts in immune reactions probably have a trained intuition on how likely one is to get immunity after a first exposure to an antigen. 10/
They'll also have a sense of how strong human immune reactions are to COVID surface proteins as compared to those on other viruses.

If they think one shot will work with 70% probability or 30% probability, that's a big update either way. 11/
Where something hasn't been studied extensively, the resulting probabilities are likely to fall between 20-80% rather than near 0% or 100%.

But that's normal and fine, and they can go in an expected value calculation nonetheless. 12/
(The folks above are separately making an error where they neglect risks in the status quo.

They call giving one dose 'risky' but if we were already planning to give one dose we could equally say two doses is wildly risky — because you only vaccinate half as many people!) 13/
All estimates are subjective probabilities.

No two cases are exactly the same, and we always have to reason from nearby analogies — which means we always have relevant information we can use to guide a decision. 14/
On top of that, inaction or 'going with the default' is as much an action as choosing the alternative!

Either way you're making an implicit estimate about how good the alternative is. 15/
If you go with the default you're not actually remaining agnostic until the 'data' come in — you're actively deciding that the alternative has a lower expected value.

So, don't let people get away with dodging the responsibility to choose using confused philosophy. 16/

More from For later read

@snip96581187 @Daoyu15 @lab_leak @walkaboutrick @ydeigin @Ayjchan @franciscodeasis @TheSeeker268 @angie_rasmussen Clearly, because as I have been saying for 8 months now, DTRA and DARPA have been using Ecohealth and UC Davis to collect novel pathogens for gain of function work back in the USA. I have documented this in many threads which I will post here just to annoy everyone.

@Daoyu15 @lab_leak @walkaboutrick @ydeigin @Ayjchan @franciscodeasis @TheSeeker268 @angie_rasmussen


@Daoyu15 @lab_leak @walkaboutrick @ydeigin @Ayjchan @franciscodeasis @TheSeeker268 @angie_rasmussen


@Daoyu15 @lab_leak @walkaboutrick @ydeigin @Ayjchan @franciscodeasis @TheSeeker268 @angie_rasmussen


@Daoyu15 @lab_leak @walkaboutrick @ydeigin @Ayjchan @franciscodeasis @TheSeeker268 @angie_rasmussen
Wow, Morgan McSweeney again, Rachel Riley, SFFN, Center for Countering Digital Hate, Imran Ahmed, JLM, BoD, Angela Eagle, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Lisa Nandy, Steve Reed, Jon Cruddas, Trevor Chinn, Martin Taylor, Lord Ian Austin and Mark Lewis. #LabourLeaks #StarmerOut 24 tweet🧵

Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, launched the organisation that now runs SFFN.
The CEO Imran Ahmed worked closely with a number of Labour figures involved in the campaign to remove Jeremy as leader.

Rachel Riley is listed as patron.
https://t.co/nGY5QrwBD0


SFFN claims that it has been “a project of the Center For Countering Digital Hate” since 4 May 2020. The relationship between the two organisations, however, appears to date back far longer. And crucially, CCDH is linked to a number of figures on the Labour right. #LabourLeaks

Center for Countering Digital Hate registered at Companies House on 19 Oct 2018, the organisation’s only director was Morgan McSweeney – Labour leader Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. McSweeney was also the campaign manager for Liz Kendall’s leadership bid. #LabourLeaks #StarmerOut

Sir Keir - along with his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney - held his first meeting with the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM). Deliberately used the “anti-Semitism” crisis as a pretext to vilify and then expel a leading pro-Corbyn activist in Brighton and Hove

You May Also Like

I’m torn on how to approach the idea of luck. I’m the first to admit that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. To be born into a prosperous American family in 1960 with smart parents is to start life on third base. The odds against my very existence are astronomical.


I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.

In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.

So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.

Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.