> and the field of statistics has devoted extensive effort to the problem of getting good answers out of bad inputs.
You are talking about measurement bias. Social bias is not measurement bias. Social bias may be a real statistical distribution; it is called "bias" because it is caused (in the sense of physical causality) and reinforced by biased human perception and the actions that follow. When we talk about "fixing bias" we don't mean "offset measurement errors", but change the actual distribution through action.
> Mandating specific outcomes is just a way of ensuring that the predictor can't discover certain facts.
Exactly. And neglecting feedback from the equations mandates a specific (conservative) outcome. See my reply to barry-cotter for examples of dynamical systems where conservative assumptions can lead to empirically valid yet mathematically wrong results, by failing to detect other stable states: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10874683
If your dynamic system contains feedback, it is quite possible (and very likely) to come up with a model that may be completely predictive, yet quite wrong, and then use that mistake to justify conservatism (what's worse, it is ironically a mathematical error that helps paint a political view as a neutral, "mathematical" one).
You are talking about measurement bias. Social bias is not measurement bias. Social bias may be a real statistical distribution; it is called "bias" because it is caused (in the sense of physical causality) and reinforced by biased human perception and the actions that follow. When we talk about "fixing bias" we don't mean "offset measurement errors", but change the actual distribution through action.
> Mandating specific outcomes is just a way of ensuring that the predictor can't discover certain facts.
Exactly. And neglecting feedback from the equations mandates a specific (conservative) outcome. See my reply to barry-cotter for examples of dynamical systems where conservative assumptions can lead to empirically valid yet mathematically wrong results, by failing to detect other stable states: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10874683
If your dynamic system contains feedback, it is quite possible (and very likely) to come up with a model that may be completely predictive, yet quite wrong, and then use that mistake to justify conservatism (what's worse, it is ironically a mathematical error that helps paint a political view as a neutral, "mathematical" one).