About Gooder

Gooder

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10/31/07

• 2 votes

  Technology

  response to  Michael A.M. Lerner and Ethan Hill's post The New Nostradamus

  Softball

  Not a useful article for purposes of science or judgement, but only for entertainment.
  Did you catch the swiftly given caveat "provided the basic input is accurate"? Did you notice that the references to CIA and DOD are empty appeals to authority? Do you notice that there is no proof of his predictive powers given here in a meaningful sense? What are the failures? How were all of the models different? Has this process been tested by other scientists in any formalize scientific review process?
  The predictive power is measurable. What is his success and error rate overall? What is the measure taking into account the magnitude of errors?
  The comparison to CIA analysts is meaningless. First, the success rates of the praised man are given, but not those of the CIA analysts. Second, rather than compare on the measurable benchmark of accuracy as used already, the CIA analysts apparently fall short in terms of precision. But this is not measured.
  This piece is an uncritical puff-piece.

  Comments (2)

  Commented on October 31, 2007 by - Gooder