
The Bearer of Good Coronavirus News - paulpauper
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-bearer-of-good-coronavirus-news-11587746176
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natrik
Non Paywall Mirror: [https://archive.fo/AVjMe](https://archive.fo/AVjMe)

Not too much in this piece other than what's been said in countless HN
discussions already.

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chkaloon
Except for blaming the media for criticism of a flawed study.

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AbrahamParangi
The bane of evidenced-based science is prudence, or more generally reasoning
under uncertainty with asymmetrical outcomes.

Unsurprising the WSJ publishes an opinion piece carrying water for this
unfortunate perspective.

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riskneutral
So you are saying we should abandon evidence-based science when reasoning
under uncertainty with asymmetrical outcomes?

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AbrahamParangi
There are many decisions where evidence is near worthless and you have to
follow alternative lines of logic.

Any circumstance where you’re dealing with low probability, high impact events
you will necessarily lack evidence to estimate the true expectation from prior
experience (aka evidence). Your prior will be _biased_ in its mean and almost
no amount of “evidence” can fix that.

~~~
riskneutral
Fortunately epidemics are an area where data can be collected until there is
no lack of evidence.

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AbrahamParangi
Epidemics are a great example where we can say that prudence is recommended.
Perhaps 80% of the population of the Americas was destroyed by the eurasian
plagues - diseases which Europe had reached viral equilibrium with but the
Americas had not.

The median of a new outbreak is not worrying, the mean is worrying, and the
min is apocalyptic.

