Rationality Meetups: Studies and Statistics

The goal of the meetup is to deepen our understanding of rationality and become better at using it in our lives.

We will be discussing these required readings: Studies and Statistics (except Interlude). Please get familiar with the required texts in advance.

To give you an idea about the content, here is the intro to the required readings on LessWrong: 

“Aquinas famously said: beware the man of one book. I would add: beware the man of one study.

For example, take medical research. Suppose a certain drug is weakly effective against a certain disease. After a few years, a bunch of different research groups have gotten their hands on it and done all sorts of different studies. In the best case scenario the average study will find the true result – that it’s weakly effective. But there are also about 5 studies that find that the drug is very good, and 5 studies missing the sign entirely and finding that the drug is actively bad. There’s even 1 study finding that the drug is very bad, maybe seriously dangerous.”

Rationality Meetups

This meetup is part of a series of six open-format meetings. There’s no need to register in advance; you are welcome to join even if you can’t attend every session. English speakers welcome. You can see an overview of all the upcoming sessions as well as our other events here.

Not able to attend?

If you are interested in the topic but cannot attend, leave us your contact details and we will get back to you with other opportunities (events, discussions, lectures, projects).