tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post6300501264761287260..comments2024-01-13T18:57:18.243-05:00Comments on Information Processing: Hail to the quants, pundit failSteve Hsuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428333897272913660noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-83785706907677094332012-11-09T20:47:49.649-05:002012-11-09T20:47:49.649-05:00"but it's really high math ability that i..."but it's really high math ability that is useful for discovering things<br /> about the world -- that is, discovering truth or reasoning rigorously."<br /><br /><br />Did this blog's author say this?<br /><br /><br />Really high math ability is useful for doing really high math and theoretical physics and ripping the face off muppets. That's it.<br /><br /><br />As a Hastings Bandanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-40356227810134432862012-11-09T08:47:33.260-05:002012-11-09T08:47:33.260-05:00“This prediction is tied to the Moody’s Analytics ...“This prediction is tied to the Moody’s Analytics current baseline <br />forecast for U.S. growth, which assumes that most states will continue <br />to recover at slow to moderate speeds.”<br /><br />According to the BLS, in their latest revision, only 125,000 net new jobs were created during Obama's presidency.<br /><br />http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/27/yulvanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-88808819141217926852012-11-08T21:08:24.303-05:002012-11-08T21:08:24.303-05:00Sure, that's why left-leaning commentators kep...Sure, that's why left-leaning commentators kept saying it was "neck and neck", "too close to call" all through election day...steve hsuhttp://duende.uoregon.edu/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-31046293548882095542012-11-08T21:02:54.739-05:002012-11-08T21:02:54.739-05:00Seems like the problem may be more party identific...Seems like the problem may be more party identification than low M. The media is motivated to make everything look closer than it is, from sports to politics. And of course the party hacks will always predict a win for their side.ben_gnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-72615510918798847242012-11-08T19:58:08.465-05:002012-11-08T19:58:08.465-05:00How about Germany? Angela Merkel has a PhD in qua...How about Germany? Angela Merkel has a PhD in quantum chemistry and did her undergrad in physics.jeffhsu3noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-9632164508612406722012-11-08T19:31:17.843-05:002012-11-08T19:31:17.843-05:00And I will add, you can find discussions of the pu...And I will add, you can find discussions of the pullback all over the place. It is useful to think about it in the epistemological context. You start with a naive universe of possibilities, a space of parameters joined to a space of dynamical variables. Then you supposed relationships on the parameters, operate on the dynamical variables [pick any one of the 'middle' sets in the David Coughlinhttp://twitter.com/dscoughlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-7255793666455607862012-11-08T18:48:31.862-05:002012-11-08T18:48:31.862-05:00I am skeptical about how well technocrats can gove...I am skeptical about how well technocrats can govern. They may be smart (and sometimes too confident), but they will be often wrong, just less often wrong than stupid people about certain things.Odoacernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-41978819366459447602012-11-08T18:38:48.753-05:002012-11-08T18:38:48.753-05:00One point that has been noted by Half Sigma and ot...One point that has been noted by Half Sigma and others is that high M seems to be conducive to value creation, while high V seems to be conducive to value transference. Some might say that there's nothing smarter than being able to con society into paying you money that you did relatively little to deserve!Yan Shenhttp://profiles.google.com/yanshen71786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-56942895653925836512012-11-08T18:38:15.210-05:002012-11-08T18:38:15.210-05:00"Just as personality factors are largely inde..."Just as personality factors are largely independent of cognitive factors..."<br /><br />Is this necessarily true? I get the impression from looking around the world that people who are significantly skewed towards M often are shy, quiet, passive, meek math geeks who barely know how to stand up for themselves, while people skewed towards V have fiery, aggressive personalities(the Yan Shenhttp://profiles.google.com/yanshen71786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-44615581903208899202012-11-08T18:38:10.395-05:002012-11-08T18:38:10.395-05:00"They did this based on emotional need."..."They did this based on emotional need."<br /><br /><br />That must explain why many smart people even are vehemently anti-HBD or believe in God, etc...Yan Shenhttp://profiles.google.com/yanshen71786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-19483626891628726592012-11-08T18:37:31.135-05:002012-11-08T18:37:31.135-05:00I asked for the definition in this thread because ...I asked for the definition in this thread because we are primarily discussing the cognitive profiles of individuals of moderate intellectual caliber (that is people who are capable of being accepted into a Public Ivy or better); surely in the context of this thread, "high M" does not mean someone who cares in the low 600s of the SAT, even though that in the low 80th percentile of the BlackRoseMLnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-75345818811038768182012-11-08T18:36:53.400-05:002012-11-08T18:36:53.400-05:00I understood that you think having both high M and...I understood that you think having both high M and V is important to some kinds of achievement. There was, however, a mismatch between the rhetoric in your post and that conclusion. Whatever high V is, it behaves like a very important part of understanding the world. I agree that low M is going to probably lead to more confusion than low V (as in this case) but even then is it low "M", tractalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-53200314392796059462012-11-08T18:36:04.454-05:002012-11-08T18:36:04.454-05:00Just as personality factors are largely independen...Just as personality factors are largely independent of cognitive factors, the characteristic of being "epistemologically careful" (someone who reasons cautiously, with minimal bias) is only imperfectly correlated with g. I know many physicists who fall in love with their theoretical constructs and lose the ability to reason dispassionately about whether they actually describe Nature. Stephen Hsunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-34653372508524088092012-11-08T18:35:45.470-05:002012-11-08T18:35:45.470-05:00"One positive thing about this election is th..."One positive thing about this election is that both candidates were people who could appreciate (if not perform) quant analysis."<br /><br />This is true, but IMO it will still be a long, long time before "quant magic" is universally understood or embraced as it applies to a variety of problems. It's easy to support quant methods when those methods tell you what you want Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-37007468401304116472012-11-08T18:33:11.088-05:002012-11-08T18:33:11.088-05:00There's no hard threshold. Even someone who do...There's no hard threshold. Even someone who doesn't understand what a standard error estimate is can still appreciate "quant magic good" and thereby improve their own predictions about the future. Interestingly, my impression is that elite education at, e.g., HPS is good because many HVLM types who attend these schools will develop a healthy respect for quant magic (or respect steve hsuhttp://duende.uoregon.edu/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-88711934217903958712012-11-08T18:33:08.411-05:002012-11-08T18:33:08.411-05:00I wish I hadn't looked. >_<
*
Cognizan...I wish I hadn't looked. >_< <br /><br />*<br />Cognizant of the respect which NYT journalism is supposed to command, I'm not certain that V need be very high to do opinion column journalism of this type either (David hasn't got anything on James). Other criteria may weigh heavier.LaurentMelchiorTelliernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-31262574961164982832012-11-08T18:32:52.330-05:002012-11-08T18:32:52.330-05:00Could anyone define "modest" M ability, ...Could anyone define "modest" M ability, especially in the context of this thread. What minimum threshold mathematical and statistical competence is need to possess "modest M"? Does it require one to have an understanding of calculus, such as differential equations, and statistics, such as knowing about correlation, statistical independence, central limit theorem, probability BlackRoseMLnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-32820476177627794292012-11-08T18:32:33.051-05:002012-11-08T18:32:33.051-05:00It's not just TV pundits. Look at David Brooks...It's not just TV pundits. Look at David Brooks (or any NYTimes columnist), who clearly is a high V modest M type.steve hsuhttp://duende.uoregon.edu/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-37236471987061032292012-11-08T18:32:30.932-05:002012-11-08T18:32:30.932-05:00"Pundits" on every channel, if one seeks..."Pundits" on every channel, if one seeks them out. <br /><br />I feel uncertain about two assumptions, though:<br /><br /><br />1. Is the ability to spew punditry a good indicator of the V dimension? Despite the obvious, intuitive link (communication comes out of mouth in language format = verbal), I'd expect the correlation between confident salesmanship and V to be fairly modest.LaurentMelchiorTelliernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-72187105692536341592012-11-08T18:32:18.953-05:002012-11-08T18:32:18.953-05:00Go back to the original High V Low M post and look...Go back to the original High V Low M post and look very carefully at what I wrote about V. High V High M and High V Low M are two very different phenotypes. See also the SMPY / SVPY papers.<br /><br />"High verbal ability is useful for more than just impressing others -- it typically implies a certain facility with concepts and relationships between ideas -- but high V alone is a dangerous steve hsuhttp://duende.uoregon.edu/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-72418262247631415912012-11-08T18:27:48.659-05:002012-11-08T18:27:48.659-05:00In fairness, a few pundit-types did explicitly sta...In fairness, a few pundit-types did explicitly state that, if the poll results were not systematically biased, Silver was right; they just hoped that, despite the media frenzy, the "likely voter" models of most polls were wrong and Democrat turnout would be low. Silver did acknowledge that this type of group error has happened in the not-so-distant past. But yes, most pundits were Christopher Changhttp://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=723726480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-52471791382251717142012-11-08T18:27:31.344-05:002012-11-08T18:27:31.344-05:00I can't prove the central limit theorem.
&quo...I can't prove the central limit theorem.<br /><br />"All 2^9 paths are treated as equally likely, but this is SO much better than just reporting two numbers from a national poll."<br /><br />I knew considering each swing state as being statistically independent from each other would be an erroneous assumption, since factors affecting voter turnout for a given candidate in one state BlackRoseMLnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-22681597711121869002012-11-08T18:26:58.559-05:002012-11-08T18:26:58.559-05:00Why bother posting all these interesting talent se...Why bother posting all these interesting talent search studies which suggest both V and M are important to things like scientific research if you're going to maintain regardless that V is just fluff for show? To my (limited) knowledge the literature does not support any of these sweeping conclusions. I know some of your comments are just being snide but this is a research interest of yours, tractalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-553795638693901822012-11-08T18:26:21.106-05:002012-11-08T18:26:21.106-05:00Aren't high M low V people often artistic nerd...Aren't high M low V people often artistic nerds with zero clue how people and the real world work.<br /><br /><br />Do we all need to rewatch that Simpsons episode when Mensa takes over.asdf asdfnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-77846243150282716792012-11-08T18:25:41.724-05:002012-11-08T18:25:41.724-05:00New technology, not yet well understood ... :-)New technology, not yet well understood ... :-)steve hsuhttp://duende.uoregon.edu/noreply@blogger.com