

Bayesian Adjustment Does Not Defeat Existential Risk Charity - gwern
http://lesswrong.com/lw/gzq/bayesian_adjustment_does_not_defeat_existential/

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gwern
I submit this not because I think HN _really_ cares all that much about
existential risk charity, but because this illustrates an interesting way that
statistical arguments can be flawed: we're generally fairly savvy about how
p-values go wrong, the need for power, and so on, but it's much rarer to see
someone object to the choice of _distribution_.

In this case, the choice of a normal distribution (or any thin-tailed
distribution) almost entirely determines the result of the original argument,
and inasmuch as there is no clear justification for why we would make the
assumption that charity efforts follow a normal distribution, the original is
just a very long exercise in begging the question.

