150 | Simon DeDeo on How Explanations Work and Why They Sometimes Fail

<p>You observe a phenomenon, and come up with an explanation for it. That’s true for scientists, but also for literally every person. (Why won’t my car start? I bet it’s out of gas.) But there are literally an infinite number of&nbsp;<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">possible explanations</a>&nbsp;for every phenomenon we observe. How do we invent ones we think are promising, and then decide between them once invented? Simon DeDeo (in collaboration with Zachary Wojtowicz) has proposed a way to connect explanatory values (“simplicity,” “fitting the data,” etc) to specific mathematical expressions in Bayesian reasoning. We talk about what makes explanations good, and how they can get out of control, leading to conspiracy theories or general crackpottery, from QAnon to flat earthers.</p><p><em>Support Mindscape on&nbsp;</em><a href="https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Patreon</em></a><em>.</em></p><p>Simon DeDeo received his Ph.D. in astrophysics from Princeton University. He is currently an Assistant Professor in Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.</p><ul><li><a href="http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~simon/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Web site</a></li><li><a href="https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/sds/people/faculty/simon-dedeo.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Carnegie Mellon web page</a></li><li><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.02359" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">“From Probability to Consilience: How Explanatory Values Implement Bayesian Reasoning,” Wojtowicz and DeDeo</a></li><li><a href="https://simondedeo.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Axiom of Chance blog</a></li><li><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&amp;user=UW3tRn8AAAAJ&amp;view_op=list_works&amp;sortby=pubdate" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google Scholar publication