Re:99 bits of unsolicited advice
by nine_k on Monday April 26, 2021 @06:51PM
(#26949319)
The entire concept of evolution is built on survivor bias.
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Re:99 bits of unsolicited advice
by Godel_unicode on Monday April 26, 2021 @10:45PM
(#26951349)
No. Evolution is built on favorable mutations being preserved (e.g. the tautology that things which cause life to continue cause life to continue). Survivorship bias is arbitrarily associating traits that survivors have with success. It's the difference between correlation and causation.
My point is that the correlation is the only real data we have.
Re:99 bits of unsolicited advice
by Godel_unicode on Friday April 30, 2021 @09:29PM
(#27001976)
My point is that correlation isn't real data.
That's conflating two concepts. Survivor bias means assuming what you did is "why" you survived. Evolution is survivor results. Survivors stay alive but no one is claiming anything about why they stayed alive, only that they did.
I'm not sure what you meant by this but it comes across as a quip attempting to be witty and piercing but completely missing the point.
No, it's quite literal.
Evolution is the process that preserves those who survived and left progeny, and chaffes away those who don't. The only measure of success in it is the survival.
It does not mean that attempts to make some rational models is worthless; quite the contrary.
Of course, there are many who tried things like these and failed; maybe many more than those who prospered. But there are those who tried something opposite, and fewer of them, if any, have prospered. So these inclinations of prosperous people have something to them, though not a guarantee.
If you take many such accounts of successful people and correlate them, you will find certain similarities; they, of course, are pretty well-known.