50% of neuroscience papers suffer from a major statistical error.

Re:50% of neuroscience papers suffer from a major statistica... by joe_the_user on Monday November 28, 2011 @07:30PM (#3288366)

Having noticed "Hanlon's Razor" becoming the default reaction for a number of HN posters, I have to say what I feel is really bad about it when it applied to complex human endeavors.

When one deals with modern institutional corruption, what one is dealing with is a complex combination of incompetence, overt deception of others, self-deception and simulated incompetence.

Sure, incompetence is in the mix but when you use a construct like "Hanlon's Razor" to "label and forget" the situation, you hide the full situation. The complexities of these situations are there, there is no razor for a priori untangling.

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Re:50% of neuroscience papers suffer from a major statistica... by scott_s on Monday November 28, 2011 @09:02PM (#3288623)

I think of it as a bias towards suspecting incompetence rather than a bias towards suspecting malice. I think people are too quick to assign narrative to situations, and malice is a stronger narrative than incompetence.

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