diff --git a/ESPR-Evaluation/1-Current-Evidence.md b/ESPR-Evaluation/1-Current-Evidence.md index 9e0cf20..0c30c35 100644 --- a/ESPR-Evaluation/1-Current-Evidence.md +++ b/ESPR-Evaluation/1-Current-Evidence.md @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ > > But this certain way of thinking extends beyond that. It is deeper and more universal than a pair of goggles you put on when you enter a laboratory and take off when you leave. It applies to daily life, though this part is subtler and more difficult. But if you can’t say “Oops” and give up when it looks like something isn’t working, you have no choice but to keep shooting yourself in the foot. You have to keep reloading the shotgun and you have to keep pulling the trigger. You know people like this. And somewhere, someplace in your life you’d rather not think about, you are people like this. It would be nice if there was a certain way of thinking that could help us stop doing that. -- Eliezer Yudkowsky, https://www.lesswrong.com/rationality/preface +\- Eliezer Yudkowsky, https://www.lesswrong.com/rationality/preface ## The evidence on CFAR's workshops. @@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ But I feel like that is only partially sufficient. The magnitude of the effect f ![](https://nunosempere.github.io/ESPR-Evaluation/Pre-post-1.jpg) ![](https://nunosempere.github.io/ESPR-Evaluation/Pre-post-2.jpg) -I find them scary; depending on the method used to test your effect, a simple pre-post comparison can get an effect size that is 4-5 times as great, or about as great, in the other direction. The effects the study finds, f.ex. the one most prominently displayed in CFAR's webpage, an increased life satisfaction of 0.17 standard deviations (i.e., going from 50 to 56.75%) are small enough +I find them scary; depending on the method used to test your effect, can get an effect size that is 4-5 times as great as the effect you find with an RCT, or about as great, in the other direction. The effects the CFAR study finds, f.ex. the one most prominently displayed in CFAR's webpage, an increased life satisfaction of 0.17 standard deviations (i.e., going from 50 to 56.75%) are small enough for me to worry about such factors. Thus, I feel that an RCT could be delayed on the strength of the evidence that CFAR currently has, including its logical model (see below), but not indefinitely. In particular, if CFAR had plans for more ambitious expansion, it would be a good idea to run an RCT before. If MIT's JPAL, didn't specialize on poverty interventions, I would suggest teaming up with them, and it seems like a good idea to try anyways. JPAL would provide strategies like the following: we can randomly admit people for either this year or the next, and take as the control the group which has been left waiting. It is not clear to me why this hasn't been done yet.