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  • 1.  FT SBF - math snobs, math chauvinists and bayesian priors.

    Posted 10-21-2023 19:29

    A disappointing read in the Financial Times about Sam Bankman -Fried  "SBF
     (charged with fraud in the loss several billion of Crypto) with pointless insults about mathematicians ("mathematical chauvinists" , "math snobs" , "mental arithmetic" and what seems to be a claim that "math snob" caused to a decline in the UK economy). And disparagement at the potential use or abuse of Bayesian statistics. I don't have copies of the Michael Lewis book the journalist refers to, as it appears SBF may have been quoted as referring to Bayesian priors . 

    I defer to the lexicographers or the relevant experts as to the whether this is the first, or if not,  for how long these insults against mathematicians and statisticians have appeared in the media.

    • I am considering writing a letter to the editor though I am very skeptical of it ever appearing in print. 

    Caveat Emptor. The FT website has a paywall and copyright restrictions on forwarding articles. I assume a few quotes excerpted below are acceptable

    excerpting 
    We must leave it to the criminal courts to decide the future of Sam Bankman-Fried. He denies the various charges against him. For now, I am less concerned with his specific doings than with his worldview, which is a sort of mathematical chauvinism. A theme in Michael Lewis's new book about "SBF" is the subject's mistrust of what cannot be quantified. Shakespeare's supposed primacy in literature, for example. "What are the odds that the greatest writer was born in 1564?" SBF is quoted as asking, citing the billions of people who have been born since then, and the higher share of them who are educated. These are his "Bayesian priors". I hope to never encounter a starker case of abstract reasoning getting in the way of practical observation.
    He is, if nothing else, of his time. A year ago this weekend, Liz Truss, a maths snob who assailed colleagues with mental arithmetic questions, fell as UK premier, almost taking the economy with her. If we consider, too, the dark, Kremlin-partial end of finance bro politics, these are the most embarrassing times for maths chauvinists since Robert McNamara, who even looked geometric and dug America ever deeper into the pit of Vietnam on the back of data.



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    Chris Barker, Ph.D.
    2023 Chair Statistical Consulting Section
    Consultant and
    Adjunct Associate Professor of Biostatistics
    www.barkerstats.com


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    "In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds."
    -Steve Lacy
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  • 2.  RE: FT SBF - math snobs, math chauvinists and bayesian priors.

    Posted 10-21-2023 21:22
    I thought of replying off-list because this might stray towards the political, then I figured, YOLO.

    Unfortunately, "Bayesian" became a shibboleth, among the alt-right, NRX, IDW (and EA) networks - generally I would guess anyone outside of California tech scenes and/or over 50 probably may not have encountered them over the last decade. SBF was part of those networks, Peter Thiel is, Elon Musk is too. 

    If you want some background, I'd recommend "Neoreaction a Basilisk" by Elizabeth Sandifer. But in short, she calls them "literary Bayesians" because really they only use data metaphorically - this group of people are not firing up R to do some MCMC models, they are invoking Bayes to make themselves sound more objective / scientific / smart.

    It would be nice if actual Bayesians (eg someone of Andrew Gelman's stature) would put these cranks in their place, but I understand not wanting to feed the trolls. But when nobody takes them to task, it isn't surprising that the two types of Bayesians get conflated in the media.

    At this point, literary Bayesians (who are hyper-online) may well have more mind-share than actual Bayesians (who mainly are cloistered away in the academy and generally write in obscure/paywalled journals).

    Anyways, if you do write an editorial, I think this is an important distinction that you be aware of. When the FT is making fun of "math snobs" the irony is those people aren't even that good at math, it's all just pretension.

    - Neal






  • 3.  RE: FT SBF - math snobs, math chauvinists and bayesian priors.

    Posted 10-22-2023 12:59

    Neal, thank you. excellent suggestion. I did email to ask Andrew Gelman. 

    And as a professional courtesy I think it unnecessary to ask permission to re-post Andrew Gelmans "brief, incisive, nuanced, "reply here. Suffice it to say, his reply was not favorable toward the article or journalist :) 

    And in follow up reply to my other question about SBF as he is called out here in Silicon Valley, and where (according to WAPO) students on dates and  on bikes! ride by the  Palo Alto /Stanford house  where SBF is under house arrest .  - SBF apparently did write about Shakespeare and Bayes https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/statistics-shakespeare-and-sam-bankman

    quoting from the article (which may be behind a pay wall)

    ...

    Sam Bankman-Fried, cultural critic and public intellectual wrote:

    I could go on and on about the failings of Shakespeare and the constitution and Stradivarius violins, and at the bottom of this post I do*, but really I shouldn't need to: the Bayesian priors are pretty damning. About half of the people born since 1600 have been born in the past 100 years, but it gets much worse than that. When Shakespeare wrote almost all of Europeans were busy farming, and very few people attended university; few people were even literate--probably as low as about ten million people. By contrast there are now upwards of a billion literate people in the Western sphere. What are the odds that the greatest writer would have been born in 1564? The Bayesian priors aren't very favorable....



    ------------------------------
    Chris Barker, Ph.D.
    2023 Chair Statistical Consulting Section
    Consultant and
    Adjunct Associate Professor of Biostatistics
    www.barkerstats.com


    ---
    "In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds."
    -Steve Lacy
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: FT SBF - math snobs, math chauvinists and bayesian priors.

    Posted 10-22-2023 18:49

    Hi Neal, if the section had what we called a "spot award" when I worked in big Pharma, you just won. :) 

    Andrew Gelman emailed to ask me  if he could cite me on his blog for bringing this matter to his attention. ! 



    ------------------------------
    Chris Barker, Ph.D.
    2023 Chair Statistical Consulting Section
    Consultant and
    Adjunct Associate Professor of Biostatistics
    www.barkerstats.com


    ---
    "In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds."
    -Steve Lacy
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: FT SBF - math snobs, math chauvinists and bayesian priors.

    Posted 10-24-2023 18:04

    FT's just cranky because I keep trashing their garbage graphs on X! :)



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    Adam Batten
    Lead Statistician & President AB Analytics LLC
    AB EVERGREEN ANALYTICS LLC
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