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Comment by Scott Alexander

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Author and psychiatrist
Still, this is faint praise for a method that hoped to be able to resolve these kinds of disagreements.
AI Verified source (Mar 28, 2024)
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Policy proposals and claims
Bayesian analysis is the right framework for settling the COVID-19 origins question
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AI Verified Relevant: in context, “this”/“the method” is Rootclaim’s explicit Bayesian approach to the COVID-origins debate. The author says directly applying Bayes to these hard questions “doesn’t work,” produced wildly divergent estimates, and only earns “faint praise” because it failed to resolve the disagreement, so the quote gives a clear determinable stance signal on whether Bayesian analysis is the right framework for settling COVID origins. ([astralcodexten.com](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-rootclaim)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 2h ago
AI Verified The quote is relevant because, in source context, "this" refers to Rootclaim’s explicit Bayesian-style method for the COVID-origins debate, and "these kinds of disagreements" refers to disputes like COVID origins. The surrounding passage says the method was supposed to resolve such questions but instead failed to produce convergence, making a negative stance on the statement substantially more likely. ([astralcodexten.com](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-rootclaim)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 2h ago
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AI Verified Against — the quote calls the result only “faint praise for a method that hoped to be able to resolve these kinds of disagreements,” implying it failed at that goal. In the surrounding source context, the author says Rootclaim’s direct Bayesian approach to COVID origins “doesn’t work” and did not reliably settle the dispute. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 2h ago
AI Verified The quote is dismissive, and the article’s surrounding context makes the target clear: after describing multiple Bayes-style analyses of COVID origins yielding wildly different answers, the author says Rootclaim’s approach "doesn’t work" and this is only "faint praise" for a method that was supposed to resolve the dispute. So he is most likely opposing the claim that Bayesian analysis is the right framework for settling the COVID-origins question. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 2h ago

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AI Verified The sentence appears verbatim at the supplied Astral Codex Ten URL, and that page is attributed on-page to Scott Alexander and dated Mar 28, 2024; Astral Codex Ten’s About page also identifies the author as Scott Alexander. No correction is needed. ([astralcodexten.com](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-rootclaim)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 2h ago
AI Verified The provided Astral Codex Ten page is fetchable and matches the submitted source: it is titled "Practically-A-Book Review: Rootclaim $100,000 Lab Leak Debate," credited to Scott Alexander, dated Mar 28, 2024, and it contains the exact sentence "Still, this is faint praise for a method that hoped to be able to resolve these kinds of disagreements." in the body of the article. That makes the quote authentic, verbatim, correctly attributed, and correctly dated/source-linked. ([astralcodexten.com](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-rootclaim?hide_intro_popup=true)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 2h ago
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