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Comment by sumanthvepa | Hacker News Reader

I read about DK and I was absolutely convinced that the effect was real. Then I read the article about DK being mere autocorrelation and I came away absolutely convinced that DK was bullshit. Then I read this article and I'm absolutely convinced that the 'DK is autocorrelation' hypothesis is utter BS. Sigh. There are lies, damned lies and statistics... :-)

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Consider taking a more Bayesian view of the world, especially with scientific papers. I informally tell the students I work with to look for a constellation of papers that offer supporting evidence from multiple perspectives.

Me too. I believe the effect contains a logical recursion that is impossible to escape from. Maybe the randomness variable in it? It looks as if all validations and refutations of it are always going to appear logical. I don't know what to call it or compare it with but it feels this must be documented as being a prime example of its category.

Sounds like DK in effect

Parent comment made no evaluation of their own ability, so I don’t see how it’s DK in effect at all.

In the sense that people shouldn't let themselves be convinced by arguments they don't fully understand, that seems somewhat related to DK, in that people shouldn't be believing they are more competent than they are.

(That's not to criticize OP - when someone makes an argument that sounds convincing, it can be pretty convincing! It's just different than actually being valid.)

They immediately reached a conclusion about something upon reading about it and now as they learned more, they understand that there might be more nuance to it

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