[HN Gopher] Reflections on Qualitative Research
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       Reflections on Qualitative Research
        
       Author : martingalex2
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2024-04-26 18:01 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (transformer-circuits.pub)
 (TXT) w3m dump (transformer-circuits.pub)
        
       | martingalex2 wrote:
       | from the article "A pattern we see in some interpretability and
       | interpretability-adjacent ML papers is defining some metric which
       | is claimed to correspond to some property of interest, and then
       | very rigorously measuring this metric. We see this as a kind of
       | Cargo-Cult Science."
        
       | mxwsn wrote:
       | Great read on the fragility of the "process" of doing science -
       | the "right" way to do science shifts as knowledge shifts, but
       | both of these are opaque leading to numerous disagreements on
       | both. Doing science, and trying to scientifically improve /how/
       | we do science, are both very much akin to wandering around in the
       | dark. It's a bit unfortunate these ideas aren't taught during a
       | PhD.
       | 
       | The contrast between qualitative and quantitative research
       | reminds me of how some old-school biologists are suspicious of
       | p-values -- in their mind, the best kinds of biological research,
       | and the best biological results, don't need p-values to "prove"
       | their reality -- they are plain to see, qualitatively. Of course,
       | modern-day statisticians or computational biologists can find
       | this perspective a bit maddening.
        
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