Prior to studies of unusually intelligent people that showed them to be generally much better adapted and happier than others, the popular belief in … - Robyn Dawes

People treat reason as if it were the most minor and harmful aspect of a whole human being. It is as if a soldier standing guard were to say to himself: “What good would my rifle be I were now to be attacked by a dozen enemies? I shall therefore lay it aside and smoke opium cigarettes until I doze off.”

True scientific demonstration involves convincing an observer who is outside the process, particularly one not deeply and emotionally enmeshed in it.

The DID problem is an example of arguing from a vacuum. The argument is basically that if one type of procedure (diagnosis, therapy, business venture, or whatever) does not work, then something else will. Well, perhaps nothing will work, or perhaps the only reason we observe that something did not work is that we were ignoring the cases in which it did—often because, for some very compelling social reasons, they never come to our attention.
I have discovered this argument from a vacuum often in the context of various “critiquing” studies of statistical versus clinical prediction. There is one overwhelming result from all the studies: When both predictions are made on the basis of the same information, which is either combined according to a statistical (actuarial) model or combined “in the head” of an experienced clinician, the statistical prediction is superior.