[devalier]

OK I missed that you meant "easily fixed" in the strictly mathematical sense, not in the practical, real-world application sense.

With statistics on human affairs, 99% of the hard part is not the math, it is applying that math to a complicated, heterogenous, and difficult to measure underlying phenomena. And in most cases, statistics alone will never give you a straight answer, the best they can do is supplement and confirm qualitative observations. Failing to recognize this is how you get all those unending media reports about how X is bad for your health. PG's post was at the level of one of those junk health news articles.

[yummyfajitas]

And because human affairs are hard, we should criticize anyone who dares to voice an idea they haven't fully figured out yet.

This idea that statistics can only confirm and supplement "qualitative observations" (I.e. my priors) is completely unscientific and anti-intellectual. If that's true, forget stats - lets just write down the one permitted belief on a piece of paper and not waste resources on science. Science is really boring when only one answer is possible.

[devalier]

This idea that statistics can only confirm and supplement "qualitative observations" (I.e. my priors) is completely unscientific and anti-intellectual.

Since when is investing in startups a science? What is anti-intellectual, what is anti-science is to use the wrong tool for the job. Human affairs are not a science in the way that physics is a science. Statistics are far, far more fraught because there are so many variables in play, phenomena are hard to quantify, each case is so heterogenous, etc. You cannot use statistics in human affairs without also having a very good observational understanding of what is actually going on, otherwise you will end up in all sorts of trouble.