
Competing Hypotheses - Made for the CIA. Now free to the public. - _pius
http://competinghypotheses.org/
======
burton
Hi everyone. If you're interested in contributing code to the project, we'd
love to have you. See the Developer FAQ at
<http://competinghypotheses.org/docs/Developer_FAQ>.

~~~
qeorge
Glad to see an open-source project that wants help and is written in PHP :)

I should be able to knock a couple items off your bug list. Thanks for the
code!

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ivanzhao
1\. Beautiful site

2\. To those who are interested in its background, you should read Heuer's
original masterpiece on analysis (what this software package is based on I
believe). It's very easy to read and elucidate many rationales you think is
"obvious" but can't explain why.

[https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-
intellig...](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-
intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-
analysis/PsychofIntelNew.pdf)

~~~
burton
+1. His chapter on ACH is here: [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-
study-of-intellig...](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-
intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-
analysis/art11.html)

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10ren
A way to implement these ideas reddit-style would be amazing.

Maybe a 2D reddit, so you can add (and vote on) evidence and hypotheses; and
then also vote on each intersection (a choice of 5 levels of consistency).
_Not sure about nesting; would it mean sub-evidence/hyp, commentary,
alternative expression, or related evidence/hyp. Perhaps users could work it
out, in effect adding dynamic untyped fields, like twitter's @name, with
voting for significance. Let the users decide! The UI would look messy, but
collapsing fixes it._

To avoid group-think, you could do pseudo A/B-testing, with different votes.
_Though I don't think users would go for this - and when would the results
become "official"? It becomes more stately (stateful); one of the beautiful
simplicities of reddit is that the model types/components are constant._

~~~
limist
No shortage of HN "hypotheses" too. :)

Hypothesis: Lisp/Python/Haskell/Ruby is the best programming language ever
made. Evidence: PG recommends/PG criticizes; Libraries for X
available/unavailable; Supports/Omits 1st class functions, etc. etc.

Hypothesis: You need a cofounder to succeed at your startup. Evidence:
YCombinator funds/does-not-fund solo founder startups; Fail rate higher/lower
for cofounder tech startups; etc. etc.

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crux
I love software like this: software that not only models data structures, like
a spreadsheet, but attempts to model thought structures and patterns of
reasoning, too. It's so much harder than building some dinky wizard that steps
you through a series of fixed questions to answer. Instead it attempts to
quantify the process of hypothesis and disputation in an open-ended way—yet an
intuitive one, which attempts to interface with the ways that a professional
will already think about a problem. I'd love to see more examples; I guess
certain CRM/Project Management tools try to accomplish the same type of thing.

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bmm6o
The software looks cool, and I totally get the demo scenario. I'm having
trouble coming up with situations in which i would be useful _to me_ , though.
Do any of you all see other uses for it?

~~~
burton
When it comes to your personal life, it's probably very limited. That's
because most personal decisions involve preferences, and it's completely
normal for you to be subjective when making such decisions. The point of ACH
is to help you think objectively about objective facts, not keep you from
thinking subjectively about things that are inherently subjective.

~~~
gwern
Argument-mapping software would be particularly useful for controversial
topics where it's hard to judge just based on the appearance.

For example, take cryonics. An 'outside view' would be that it's largely
scorned, associated with nutcases, etc.; but its partisans make an 'inside
view' of specific technical arguments and say the facts overcome the outside
view.

A mapped out inside view would be easier to follow for non-technical folks,
and at least make clear what technical points are disputed. (eg. if the
cryobiologists' counter-arguments are basically 'yes, it's possible except for
one small issue with synaptical vesicles', an outsider might think that's
soluble issue and decide to believe in the whole thing)

Of course, so far I know of no one who has put together a useful argument map
like this (and all applications seem to be in niches - like the CIA), which
sort of suggests that perhaps it's not a good tool at all or is too heavy-
weight or something.

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lancegood
We made a previous version of the software in collaboration with Richards
Heuer that you can get for free from PARC:

<http://www2.parc.com/istl/projects/ach/ach.html>

The setup is a lot easier with that version if you just want to try it out. It
is just a little java program. Unfortunately, I don't think it is open source.

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peripitea
Isn't this flawed in that it ignores Bayes' theorem? The "object was a UFO"
conclusion from the video is a good example of this. As compelling as the
evidence is for that hypothesis, it's still virtually certain to be untrue.

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Vivtek
The best possible reason for liking this: the how-to video has three icons
when explaining that the method was developed by the CIA for managing national
security; the third icon is Godzilla rampaging among skyscrapers.

~~~
burton
Oddly, I've been working on this project for years and didn't see the video
(created internally at Howcast) until yesterday.

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raleec
Actually I thought that this would be very useful for Medical diagnosis, and I
vaguely recall a similar app being used thusly...

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sdurkin
Very interesting possible uses for legal work.

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kevinpet
I wonder if it would be acceptable in the US for a jury to use this software.
For a judge to require a jury to use this software?

~~~
anigbrowl
Unlikely and no way.

A jury is supposed to rely only on the evidence presented at trial and ruled
admissible, no matter how obvious or compelling other evidence might seem. The
only exceptions are for fundamental matters of common sense, like the fact
that the sun does not shine brightly at night or that gravity usually causes
things to fall down rather up or sideways.

Any kind of external research by a juror is right out - that's like bringing
in additional testimony after the trial has taken place, and undermines a
defendant's right to cross-examine and dispute the evidence. If an attorney's
omission of some information seems like a glaring oversight, that's not the
jury's problem. Maybe the client has an incompetent attorney (lots of cases
involving that) or maybe the two sides agreed to a partial deal before the
trial which included staying off that topic...there's no 'right to know' and
juror's are not allowed to introduce any new information to others in the jury
room. Any personal background knowledge which gives a juror extra insight, he
is supposed to keep to himself. Usually that is considered juror misconduct.

Now here you're only looking at putting pieces of evidence into a matrix and
scoring them, which seems totally neutral - but unless it's a very simple case
and you can fit all the evidentiary arguments on there verbatim, then the
losing side would probably claim the presentation of evidence in such
simplistic fashion gave rise to bias.

A recent appeal of a murder conviction examined the use of software by a juror
in depth. Although the judge concluded it was acceptable, it was only because
the juror used the software alone and it simply served a note-taking function,
rather than letting him manipulate or explore the paramaters in any novel way:
[http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1103407335837753...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11034073358377533219)
Scroll down to section B2 for the software use challenge.

In another case from this year, video playback software was questioned but
ultimately authorized: [http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2010/03/jurors-
experimentatio...](http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2010/03/jurors-
experimentation-and-misconduct.html)

I think it will be a long time before any kind of data-organizing tool will be
allowed. I am a bit skeptical about allowing even the frame-by-frame video
playback in the second case, because not all video codecs are created equal
and it's possible that artifacts in the display of a video image might distort
it enough to sway a person's mind about whether it resembled a defendant (cf
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia>). IANAL, mind.

Usually a judge will err on the side of caution if any technological
innovations are proposed, since being reversed for not conducting the rial
properly is bad for one's future career. Please note, IANAL and this is an
amateur opinion.

I do think there are some judges who would like to use tools like this for
their own analysis of a complex case, without a jury. Richard Posner springs
to mind, he's very much into Bayesian reasoning and formal methods.

~~~
grandalf
Software aside, wouldn't the output of the software simply stand on its own as
particularly insightful reasoning? What's to prevent a juror from using it
privately and then mentioning the output to the rest of the jurors, who, if
rational, would be hard pressed not to agree.

~~~
anigbrowl
I think that would be OK for an individual, no different from using a notebook
to organize one's thoughts. You'd still have the benefit of the systematic
circumstance/condition comparison, although you'd lose the benefit of the
voting aspects.

California criminal jury instructions say jurors can take notes, but cautions
that they are only for individual use.

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sandGorgon
hmm.. explicitly uses myisam engine in mysql. Not good.

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chasing
What would you suggest this be changed to?

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Shorel
Anything else?

PostgreSQL (with ADODB for PHP) would be my suggestion.

