

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: “The math comes first, words later.” - nileshtrivedi
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10152921768278375&id=13012333374

======
nemo1618
Can someone summarize the linked paper? What result does it propose w.r.t
altruism, and why are Dawkins/Pinker/others challenging it?

EDIT: after some digging, I found this article:
[http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jun/24/battle-of-
the...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jun/24/battle-of-the-
professors), which summarizes the disagreement like so:

    
    
      For lay spectators, the row is a symptom of the long and controversial
      evolution of the very idea of evolution.  At root it is a dispute about
      whether natural selection, the theory of "the survival of the fittest" first
      put forward by Charles Darwin in 1859, occurs only to preserve the single
      gene. Wilson is an advocate of "multi-level selection theory", a development
      of the idea of "kin selection", which holds that other biological, social and
      even environmental priorities may be behind the process.
      
      But Dawkins is far from convinced: "Wilson now rejects 'kin selection' and
      replaces it with a revival of 'group selection' – the poorly defined and
      incoherent view that evolution is driven by the differential survival of
      whole groups of organisms."

~~~
jessaustin
Dawkins [EDIT: remove adjective] believes in kin selection, based on results
of inclusive fitness theory, which makes predictions about fitness when
interacting organisms are related. (e.g. ant workers share 3/4 of their genes,
and ants are remarkably social.) Wilson et al. contend that inclusive fitness
theory is a bit of a distraction, since it only applies in rare cases, and in
those cases it's just a specialization of direct fitness, which can be
calculated without respect to relatedness. Later in the supplement they build
a model which has the features discussed by kin selection without relying on
relatedness.

~~~
MichaelGG
Are there accessible lay-person "popular science" type books that contradict
Dawkins and are highly regarded? My very limited understanding of evolutionary
biology mostly comes from reading Dawkins books, which were highly enjoyable.
And the concepts seem pretty solid and playing around with my own toy
throwaway simulations, don't seem implausible. I also understood that other
math had backed up the general points of Dawkins.

If this isn't the case, what's the recommended pop-sci reading to help make me
less wrong on all this?

~~~
jessaustin
I took a general biology course given by Wilson, plus an ecology course for
which it was a prerequisite, but that is the extent of my knowledge in this
field. Both of those were a long time ago. I don't know enough to make such a
recommendation.

However, if you don't mind a general comment, this whole "controversy" has an
element of "angels dancing on the head of a pin" to it. It is still the case
that evolutionary biology falls somewhat short of many other sciences with
respect to empirical rigor. Many of the concepts that the field presents (e.g.
"ring species", "punctuated equilibrium", etc.) are primarily narrative or
even _ad hoc_. Sociobiology particularly suffers this condition, and
evolutionary psychology was basically written by Rudyard Kipling. My
impression is that Wilson has made some progress past that (I'm thinking of
his island experiments), but evolutionary biology is stuck in the Age of
Philosophy. The field hasn't really had its Copernicus yet, let alone its
Newton. I say that not to denigrate the entire effort, but to put this
particular argument into context.

As any grad student will tell you, however, we must value parsimony, and on
its face this paper seems to have that over kin selection.

------
shas3
I think the principal critique of Nowak et al.'s work is based on how it gets
the biology wrong, not the math. Chicago evolutionary biologist (and prolific
public intellectual) Jerry Coyne, reviews a recent paper that challenges Nowak
et al.'s paper [1]. The answer to Taleb's weird post is within Coyne's review
of Liao et al.:

> As I (Coyne) noted at the time (of Nowak et al.'s publication), their (Nowak
> et al.'s) dismissal of relatedness and kin selection from their model seemed
> bizarre, since they didn’t vary relatedness in their model. If you don’t do
> that, how can you say it’s unimportant in evolving eusociality?

"Math checks out" is a questionable approach to understanding science.

On a possibly related note, Taleb has recently been on a strange anti-Dawkins
spree on Twitter and elsewhere [2]. Taleb has also done some weird anti-GMO
bashing in the past [3].

[1] [https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/new-
pape...](https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/new-paper-shows-
that-nowak-et-al-were-wrong-kin-selection-remains-a-valuable-tool-in-
evolutionary-biology/)

[2] twitter.com/nntaleb

[3]
[http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-11-18/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-11-18/news/56221829_1_kiran-
mazumdar-shaw-gm-crops-gm-technology)

~~~
tensorproduct
//"Math checks out" is a questionable approach to understanding science.

Very much agree. By this standard, one could put "1+1=2" as an appendix to
every article you ever write and then defend them as having valid math,
regardless of the content of the rest of the paper.

I find this most surprising coming from Taleb, because I thought that one of
his principal arguments in the world of finance was that rigourous
mathematical models are of limited use in understanding complicated real world
systems. Maybe I've misunderstood him, but he seems to have changed his tune.

------
stolio
If 100 biologists sign a petition saying your model is wrong that should be a
sign that it's time to double-check some things. And here we have an economist
lecturing scientists about how to properly view and use math? True, biology is
on the "softer" side of the scientific spectrum but I'm not convinced
economics is even on it.

"Math comes first" is a bad strategy. I'd (softly) argue that just like your
probability of randomly hitting a rational number on the number line is zero,
the probability of a given framework of math describing reality is also zero.
You must explain _why_ you think the math is relevant and descriptive of
reality. Or you can demonstrate that your framework allows you to make better
predictions than anything else. Either way you'll have to use your words.

~~~
msandford
Welp, I guess we're going to have to pack up the modern world and go home
then. Because many of the major advances in science thus far have been widely
rejected by credentialed people at first only to eventually be proven correct.

First Semmelweis, then Pasteur:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis#Conflict_with_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis#Conflict_with_established_medical_opinions)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur)

Copernicus and Galileo vs a lot of other people:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#Controversy_ove...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#Controversy_over_heliocentrism)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus)

Einstein and relativity:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_rela...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity)

I could do this for days if you'd like. Credentials are worth _something_ of
course, but credentials don't have metaphysical powers that _prevent_ a person
from being wrong once they have their credentials.

EDIT:

That's not to say I necessarily believe that these folks are correct and
Dawkins is wrong. Just that the credentials don't mean as much as people think
they should. It's not like getting a PhD prevents you from ever having a bias
ever again. It'd be great if it was true, but it's not.

~~~
stolio
Those scientists all had ideas that made demonstrably superior predictions
than other ideas at the time. Evidence outweighs credentials, arguments can
take a walk.

So what evidence is Taleb bringing to the table? I ask honestly, because when
he says "I spent some time scrutinizing the math: it is impeccable, though
unsophisticated by mathematical finance standards." I just think
_Please...spare me_ If all he has is a mathematical critique that was roundly
rejected by 100 experts in the field it's time to put up or shut up. Einstein
predicted Mercury's precession, Galileo predicted new laws of motion. What's
Taleb predicting?

~~~
msandford
> If all he has is a mathematical critique that was roundly rejected by 100
> experts in the field

So, Taleb has looked at the math and says it's good. They haven't looked at
the math at all, or if they have, they've made no effort to refute it. If the
conclusions are supported by the math (presumably they are, otherwise what's
the point of writing the paper?) then to say "no we don't agree with the
conclusion" without making any attempt to understand the way that the authors
got to the conclusion is _pretty freakin ' suspect_ to use a colloquialism.

~~~
stolio
Looking into it more, Taleb's only clear connection to the paper or biology in
general is an old grudge against Dawkins. He's a fascinating economist but it
looks like he's out of his element here.

It looks like a complete non-story scientifically. However, Taleb's now
wandered into a new neighborhood, he's insulted people, he's bragged about his
math skills, and he's borderline demanded a paradigm shift in a field he has
no background in. This might still get interesting considering A) Dawkins'
response might be classic and B) some mathematical physicist might wander by
and take issue with a group of scientists being disrespected by an economist
who thinks he's good at math.

~~~
msandford
> and he's borderline demanded a paradigm shift in a field he has no
> background in.

I don't think that's true at all, and it makes the rest of your argument a lot
weaker.

What he has said is "if someone goes to the trouble of doing the math, at
least take a look at it!" because there are a bunch of people who haven't
bothered to refute the math in the slightest, but who are demanding retraction
nonetheless. I don't think that position is entirely unreasonable, either.

~~~
stolio
I assure you if my arguments look strong it's an illusion! Biologists know
their field and they either dismiss things that anger people or they go on a
million wild-goose chases. It's no-win. They know this area far better than
Taleb and I have to defer to their expertise while accepting that in very rare
occasions they'll be wrong.

Looking around the rebuttals[0][1][2] seem pretty non-exceptional. From the
looks of it nobody's claiming Wilson's math is incorrect on a technical level,
but that it's wrong on a conceptual level. Taleb's mathematical audit may have
preemptively refuted a claim nobody was even making.

If Wilson et al. have a better tool it's on them to demonstrate it. Nobody
needs to check the math, they just state their better predictions and the
community examines them. Sometimes the _claimed_ mathematical tools aren't
even as good as the _current_ ones, and then the correctness of the math is
moot. FWICT, the biologists are saying they already have better tools and
they're declining the offer to downgrade.

[0] - [http://news.sciencemag.org/2011/03/researchers-
challenge-e.-...](http://news.sciencemag.org/2011/03/researchers-
challenge-e.-o.-wilson-over-evolutionary-theory) [1] -
[https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/a-misgui...](https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/a-misguided-
attack-on-kin-selection/) [2] -
[http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/eo_wilson_disavows_his_...](http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/eo_wilson_disavows_his_own_kin046341.html)
[mathy rebuttal] - [http://kinselections.blogspot.com/2013/12/nowak-and-
wilson-a...](http://kinselections.blogspot.com/2013/12/nowak-and-wilson-are-
at-it-again.html)

~~~
msandford
I've read them, and I've yet to see anything other than a bunch of people
saying "nuh uh! you're wrong!" to paraphrase. They might be smart folks, but
the fact that people can't point out obvious mistakes and must simply say
"it's not right" is really unfortunate.

In a lot of science there are right and wrong answers and the math (and
experiments) make it obvious which is which. Here it seems to be a lot more
opinions rather than facts.

------
Luc
I think this article from last year sums up the context of the situation
pretty well:

[http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/07/richard-
dawki...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/07/richard-dawkins-
labelled-journalist-by-eo-wilson)

To me, the simplest explanation for why Taleb is getting involved is because
he can't stand Dawkins. Not exactly pure motives.

~~~
SiVal
Pure motives? Do you imagine that all Dawkins cares about is to find the
truth, regardless of what it turns out to be? The reason Dawkins is involved
is because he can't stand EO Wilson casting doubt on the ideas for which
Dawkins became famous.

Pure motives in science are nice to have but aren't necessary. It shouldn't
matter why a scientific argument is made as long as opponents are free to
counter it. Taleb is saying that instead of just spinning verbal yarns like
some social "scientists" do to disguise their political advocacy as actual
science, Dawkins (who is a real scientist) needs to show where Wilson's math
is either mistaken or incorrectly models the data (by, for example,
abstracting away something important). If he can't or won't do so, it doesn't
mean he's wrong, but it means his rebuttal is just rhetoric.

~~~
Luc
> It shouldn't matter why a scientific argument is made as long as opponents
> are free to counter it.

Yeah, sure thing, if we all had unlimited time and brain power to devote to
these things. But I can't weigh the issues myself on their scientific merit
since I don't have the background (ignoring the fact I might easily fool
myself too) and I'm too old to wait 50 years for everything to get sorted out.

So on the balance of things, the debate appears to be ongoing and reasonable
people reasonably disagree, but I don't think I'm wrong saying that Taleb's
'contribution' to the 'scientific argument' is mainly heckling Dawkins.

~~~
SiVal
Well, sure, then Dawkins can dispose of it by rebutting the math. If he can't,
then this "heckling" is an actual scientific contribution.

~~~
Luc
That's so wrong I don't even know where to start. Which, I suppose, is how
Dawkins feels about Taleb's 'scientific contribution'.

Actual, real contributions can be made to arXiv, by anyone. Posting on
Facebook that you checked the math and it's legit, though somewhat simplistic
to your standards, is not a scientific contribution, it's NOISE.

------
mathattack
Taleb is pretty heavy duty with these attacks. I'm a big fan of his, but isn't
it extreme to demote Dawkins [0] to just a journalist? He's got a Phd in
animal decision making (close to the field in question here) and has been on
the faculty of Oxford for 45 years.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins)

~~~
dragonwriter
> I'm a big fan of his, but isn't it extreme to demote Dawkins to just a
> journalist?

He's just adopting Wilson's attack on Dawkins [0], when Wilson said: "There is
no dispute between me and Richard Dawkins and there never has been, because
he's a journalist, and journalists are people that report what the scientists
have found and the arguments I've had have actually been with scientists doing
research."

[0] [http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/07/richard-
dawki...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/07/richard-dawkins-
labelled-journalist-by-eo-wilson)

~~~
mathattack
Interesting. It's clear that this goes way beyond merely the paper in
question.

------
jessaustin
Having spoken with Prof. Wilson on numerous occasions (long ago), and thus
knowing what a charming gentleman he is, I can't help but suspect that he
would have preferred this work escape the attention of combative public
intellectuals like Dawkins, Pinker, and Taleb.

The actual paper with math in it, rather than this gloss of an abstract:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3279739/bin/NIHM...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3279739/bin/NIHMS329641-supplement-
Supplementary_Information.pdf)

~~~
dragonwriter
> Having spoken with Prof. Wilson on numerous occasions (long ago), and thus
> knowing what a charming gentleman he is, I can't help but suspect that he
> would have preferred this work escape the attention of combative public
> intellectuals like Dawkins, Pinker, and Taleb.

Dawkins and Wilson have been directly exchanging attacks on this issue for
some time [0], and however charming Wilson might be personally, he's hardly
been any less combative than Dawkins.

[0] e.g., [http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/07/richard-
dawki...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/07/richard-dawkins-
labelled-journalist-by-eo-wilson)

------
jtkme
Because countering verbal BS with ad hominem attacks is clearly the answer ...

------
macmac
As Taleb points out himself it is in fact possible for the Wilson paper to be
wrong even if the math is correct. This is exactly what this:
[http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jour...](http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002098)
paper demonstrates to be the case.

Quote:

"The misleading conclusions all resulted not from incorrect math but from
overgeneralizing from narrow assumptions or parameter values. For example, all
of their models implicitly assumed high relatedness, but modifying the model
to allow lower relatedness shows that relatedness is essential and causal in
the evolution of eusociality. Their modeling strategy, properly applied,
actually confirms major insights of inclusive fitness studies of kin
selection."

------
thekemkid
Could someone explain this to me like I'm a 5 year old? I feel like it went
over my head. How does maths relate to altruism?

~~~
one-more-minute
It's about having theories that explain/predict altruism, in the same way
you'd have theories which explain/predict chemical reactions, electrons or the
motion of blocks on slopes. You start with some basic assumptions and derive
(mathematically/logically) the outcomes.

You should check out _kin selection_ for more detail on Dawkin's side of the
debate, but basically the idea is that a "gene" for helping out your brother
(for example) is likely to spread through the population because your brother
_probably_ also has the same "gene". You don't have to survive personally for
your genes to live on, so your genes don't focus wholly on your personal
wellbeing.

If you want to be less hand-wavy you can work out the probabilities based on
what we know about genes, and therefore work out how much altruism you expect
to show towards members of your family vs. random strangers. For example, your
relatedness to your siblings is a half, to your cousins 1/8th; hence the quip:

    
    
        I'd lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.
    
          — J.B.S. Haldane
    

My knowledge of Wilson's argument is limited but I think the crux is that he
(or at least someone) believes in selection on the level of groups of
individuals (as opposed to just genes) and uses that to explain altruism
instead / as well. Dawkins and others disagree. Taleb has basically argued
"the maths checks out", but that's pretty much irrelevant when it's the
starting assumptions that are under scrutiny, not the logic that follows.

~~~
thekemkid
Thank you very much.

------
Selfcommit
Dawkins has never struck me as being particularly intellectual. The stance he
takes on his definition of science often comes across as extreme as many
religious fundamentalist perspectives.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
Any particular reason why? He holds a PhD and will happily present scientific
facts if you wish to debate him in something.

~~~
msandford
From an article linked elsewhere in the comments, a comment by Dawkins:

"I greatly admire EO Wilson & his huge contributions to entomology, ecology,
biogeography, conservation, etc. He’s just wrong on kin selection."

I get that you can slam someone like that about very, very well established
stuff like physics; if someone says F = M * a * v then rip into them all you
want (there is no v in the eq.). That stuff is well established, I think in
physics you have to get 5 sigma to claim "significance" ( p = 0.0000003 )
which is pretty hard to do on accident.

But when you're dealing with biology thus far significance is still a p value
of around 0.05 which means there's a 5% chance it could have happened by
accident. That's a pretty substantial risk, at least relative to the world of
physics.

So for someone to proclaim certainty on a subject which is inherently much,
much less certain you have to wonder what's going on. How did a person get so
confident of something without the data telling them to be that confident? Is
it possible that they're choosing to believe something further than what the
data show? If they're willing to exaggerate their confidence on one subject,
who's to say they aren't doing it elsewhere?

Unfortunately in a lot of realms of science people end up with beliefs about
how things work that aren't rigorously backed up. That doesn't make said
beliefs _inherently_ wrong, but pretending that they're _provably_ correct
when they're not smacks of charlatanism.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
You seem to think that because it's more likely for someone to be wrong in
Biology versus Physics that they can't have a strong, confident opinion backed
by science. Dawkins holds a PhD and is a really smart guy who has contributed
to science in general and, more specifically, the theory of evolution. I don't
see the problem here.

As far as I can tell they were both being asshats to each other in the media
(Wilson calling him a Journalist then Dawkins saying to throw Wilson's book
hard). Reading Dawkin's response[1] I think it has merit and it refers to
plenty of science (which doesn't come across at charlatanism to me) though I'm
not going to say he's right because I don't know.

[1] [http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/science-and-
technology/edw...](http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/science-and-
technology/edward-wilson-social-conquest-earth-evolutionary-errors-origin-
species)

------
mathattack
Here's a 2013 Facebook comment from Taleb that highlights the grudge...

 _Richard Dawkins, in his statement about the number of Nobels granted to
Moslems, showed a total ignorance of probability. A primitive violation. You
never get an idea about the mean from measuring the tail (number of Nobels per
capita)._

[https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1015169418...](https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151694181698375&id=13012333374)

------
misiti3780
Taleb comes of as an asshole here, and a lot of the time really, but after
reading all of his books (except dynamic hedging) i find myself agreeing with
almost all of his core hypotheses. The Black Swan and Anti-fragile are some
amazing reads.

