Bryan Caplan:
I often disagree with people who know more about a given topic than I do. ... I reason, if I did immerse myself in the modern literature, it's a lot more likely that I would arrive at a sophisticated version of my current view than that I would radically change my mind. ... When I argue with people who are better-informed than I am ... [I ask] "If I saw and read everything that you've seen and read, what would I conclude?" ... Even though the disputants are not on a level playing field, that isn't the real reason why they hold different views. ...Robin Hanson:
I suspect that Robin Hanson will be disturbed by my heuristic. After all, its lets every person retain his view that his prior is "special." You could even call my method the Anti-Hansonian Heuristic, because it deliberately ignores the fact that lots of smart people persistently disagree with you. In response to Robin, though, I'd say that (a) it's almost impossible to convince anyone that his prior isn't special - and my heuristic improves the quality of beliefs despite this impasse; and (b) since my prior is special (laugh if you must!), this is a great heuristic for me to live by.
I'd like to say Bryan bites a bullet here, but alas he just gums it, as he doesn't engage the hard questions: what exactly is his better-origin scenario/story, and what evidence supports that story over less-flattering stories? That is, how could Caplan tell the difference between a situation where his prior was good and mine bad, vs. a situation where his prior was bad and mine good? If he grants that a reasonable person, long before our births, would have thought these two situations equally likely, what later evidence could have convinced this reasonable person that Bryan's prior turned out better?
I have never read a book on why you should eat meat... or on why it is bad. So the discussion Stuart and I have been having has (for me) more been one of getting an understanding of his argument. As such, I probably went about it the wrong way, saying points that I felt and getting explained why I was wrong and then putting up a feeble defense. I should really have been asking more questions. Hopefully not leading questions.
That being said, I know of a few people who have been following our discussion (the voyeurs) but no one has commented... and I imagine most are meat eaters too.
Do I think that if I had read enough and thought about it enough, I would still believe what I do. I would like to think not, but that is probably what I think.
I probably agree with Hanson more than Caplan when I am just talking about something that doesn't seem important. But it is hard to do when you eat 3 meals a day... and 2 of them include meat.
4 comments:
What point are you trying to make with the meat-eating voyeur comment?
aha! No real point, just checking that you are alive :-)
And hoping that one or two meat eating voyeurs will add a few points to the discussion.
Oh. Usually "that being said" is the prelude to a point.
The point was that I was hoping some of those readers would have done the reading that I have not yet done, and may be able to say a thing or two.
Not well expressed on my part.
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