Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Bitcoin Discussion => Topic started by: cunicula on November 10, 2013, 09:25:22 AM



Title: Lend me your upvotes countrymen, this is important.
Post by: cunicula on November 10, 2013, 09:25:22 AM
These cornell guys who say bitcoin is doomed have it all wrong. We need to let the world know why.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1qarhr/how_i_learned_to_stop_worrying_and_love_the/


Title: Re: Lend me your upvotes countrymen, this is important.
Post by: Barek on November 10, 2013, 11:29:28 AM
The paper hasn't even been reviewed, yet. So academically, it might as well be total nonsense.

Quote
“I’m not convinced it’s correct and I don’t think it’s been peer-reviewed,” said Andresen by phone from Australia. The researchers are only submitting the paper for peer review now, says a spokesperson for Cornell University, so it has not yet been looked at by academic colleagues for obvious holes.

(http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/11/06/bitcoin-is-not-broken/)


Title: Re: Lend me your upvotes countrymen, this is important.
Post by: cunicula on November 10, 2013, 12:38:41 PM
Don't count on peer review to save the day. Even in the best case, it is often faulty. Peer review on this kind of paper is especially sketchy. The paper will be reviewed by computer scientists, but is fundamentally addressing an economics question. They will scrutinize the algorithm intensively, but will ignore economic modelling mistakes made by the author. I expect it would slip through.

Once there was a famous economics paper published in a top journal that claimed that the higher ratio of boys to girls in India and China was due to Hepatitis B.

Peer review failed completely on that one. But once it was published, Taiwanese epidemiologists obliterated it post-haste. This is a general problem with cross-disciplinary research. Peer review fails if you don't use the appropriate peers.


Title: Re: Lend me your upvotes countrymen, this is important.
Post by: Barek on November 10, 2013, 12:47:20 PM
I completely agree. Sadly, the review process is a little bit like playing the lottery.

But at least there is a chance that someone who is not biased goes over it and actually tries to understand it. Which cannot be said by the reporters, on both accounts.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to the paper.


Title: Re: Lend me your upvotes countrymen, this is important.
Post by: cunicula on November 10, 2013, 01:19:20 PM
Thanks. I greatly appreciate the positive feedback.