Concise Summary简洁概述
The Fallacy of Gray is the leap from "nothing is perfectly certain or perfectly pure" to "therefore all uncertainties (or all imperfections) are equivalent." Yudkowsky shows this is a non-sequitur: even without true black or white, shades of gray can still be compared—some are far lighter, some far darker. The Quantitative Way demands we ask how much rather than stopping at whether. Someone who dismisses overwhelming evidence as merely "uncertain," or equates Gandhi with Stalin as both "imperfect," or treats science and witchdoctoring as epistemically equal because neither is flawless, has swapped a two-color error for a one-color error—arguably worse.
「灰色谬误」指的是这样一种跳跃：从「没有什么是完全确定或完全纯粹的」，直接推论到「因此所有的不确定性（或所有的不完美）都是等价的」。Yudkowsky 指出这是一个无效推论：即便没有真正的黑与白，灰色的深浅仍可比较——有的极浅，有的极深。量化之道要求我们追问「多少」，而不是止步于「是否」。把压倒性的证据斥为「只是不确定」，或把甘地与斯大林并列为「都不完美」，或以「科学也不完美」来将其与巫医并列——这些都是把两色谬误换成了一色谬误，甚至更糟。
Infographic信息图
Shades can still be ranked
深浅仍可排序
Even without pure black or white, you can say one gray is lighter or darker than another — comparison does not require extremes.
即便没有纯黑或纯白，你仍可以说这个灰比那个灰更浅或更深——比较并不依赖极端值。
The Quantitative Way
量化之道
What you cannot eliminate may still be worth reducing. Asking how much rather than just whether is the core of rational improvement.
无法完全消除的东西，仍然值得去减少。追问「多少」而非仅仅「是否」，是理性进步的核心。
The devil's bargain with imperfection
与不完美的恶魔交易
Those who refuse to acknowledge that improvement is possible often refuse to let anyone else improve either — every attempt at betterment becomes an offense.
拒绝承认进步可能的人，往往也拒绝让别人进步——任何改善的尝试都会成为对他们的冒犯。
Asimov's lesson on degrees of wrong
阿西莫夫：错误也有程度
Thinking the Earth is spherical is wrong, and thinking it is flat is wrong — but thinking these are equally wrong is wronger than both combined.
认为地球是球形的是错的，认为地球是平的也是错的——但认为这两种错误同等程度的错，比这两者加在一起还要错。
Detailed Summary详细概述
The Opening Epigraph
Yudkowsky opens with a dialogue from Marc Stiegler's David's Sling: The Sophisticate declares that because the world is all gray, no one is better than anyone else. The Zetet replies that knowing only gray, the Sophisticate concludes all grays are the same shade — replacing a two-color view with a one-color view. This is named the Fallacy of Gray.
The essay traces the fallacy to the previous essay's example: someone who treated odds of 2^750,000,000 to 1 against as merely "uncertain" and therefore ignorable. All probabilities were simply "uncertain," and uncertainty was a license to dismiss.
Shades Are Comparable
"The Moon is made of green cheese" and "the Sun is made of mostly hydrogen and helium" are both uncertain — but they are not the same uncertainty. Even if there is no pure white, shades of gray can still be ordered: lighter, darker, or identical.
The Quantitative Way and Self-Improvement
Yudkowsky traces a personal intellectual moment to a passage in Iain M. Banks's Player of Games: some societies try to maximize the imposition of their values on members, some try to minimize it. The insight he drew: that which you cannot eliminate may still be worth reducing. This is the Quantitative Way applied to life — asking how much, not just whether.
He applies this to the claim "It is impossible to completely eliminate bias." True — but the professional economist who says this, and treats it as a reason not to try, has not grokked the Quantitative Way. Likewise Robin Hanson's goal of weighting economic theory at ≥75% over his gut: Tyler Cowen objects that there is no "straightforwardly applying economic theory" without personal and cultural filters. Yudkowsky's reply: you can try to minimize that filter, and in many cases the result deserves to be called "straightforward" even if it isn't perfectly so.
Gandhi, Stalin, and the One-Color Error
"Everyone is imperfect" — Gandhi was imperfect, Stalin was imperfect — but they were not the same shade of imperfection. Saying this doesn't win applause, but it holds out hope to those who strive to do better. The one-color view forecloses that hope. The same logic applies to scientific paradigms: yes, every paradigm imposes some assumptions — but there are worldviews that try to minimize that imposition and worldviews that glory in it. Treating all worldviews as epistemically equivalent because none is perfectly assumption-free is folly.
Science vs. Faith: A Strange Dynamic
Yudkowsky dissects the claim "Science is based on faith too!" Note the angry-triumphal tone — usually from those who regard faith as a good thing. If science really is faith-based, then by their own terms it's directly comparable — and it's the faith that heals the sick and reveals the structure of stars, while their faith cannot "walk on the Moon." Are you sure you want to open that comparison?
The Devil's Bargain
There is a peculiar psychology behind the fallacy: someone who has made a devil's bargain with their own mistakes refuses to hear of improvement. They will not concede that anyone can do better. Every mode of improvement becomes their enemy. They say, in one breath, "I'm glad to be gray" — and in the next, angrily, "And you're gray too!"
The essay closes with Asimov's "Relativity of Wrong": thinking the earth is spherical is wrong; thinking it flat is wrong. But thinking these are equally wrong is wronger than both put together.
开篇的题词
Yudkowsky 以 Marc Stiegler 小说 David's Sling 中的一段对话开场：「老练者」宣称，既然世界全是灰色，便没有人比任何人更好。「泽泰特」反驳：只知道灰色，你就断定所有灰色都是同一深浅——这是把两色世界观换成了一色世界观。Yudkowsky 将此命名为灰色谬误。
他把这个谬误追溯到上一篇的例子：有人把 2^750,000,000 比 1 的反对赔率视为单纯的「不确定」，因而可以忽略。所有概率都只是「不确定」，而不确定就成了置之不理的许可证。
灰色是可以比较的
「月球由绿奶酪构成」与「太阳主要由氢和氦构成」都是不确定的——但它们并非相同的不确定。即便没有纯白，灰色的深浅仍可排序：更浅、更深，或同等。
量化之道与自我提升
Yudkowsky 将一次个人的智识顿悟追溯到 Iain M. Banks 小说 Player of Games 中的一段话：有些社会试图最大化对成员的价值观灌输，有些则试图最小化。他从中汲取的洞见是：你无法消除的东西，仍然值得去减少。 这就是量化之道应用于生活——追问「多少」，而非仅仅「是否」。
他用这一点驳斥「完全消除偏见是不可能的」这一说法。诚然如此——但凡说出这句话就以此为不努力的理由的职业经济学家，还没有真正领会量化之道。同样，罗宾·汉森的目标是将经济理论的权重置于直觉之上至少 75%；泰勒·柯文反驳说，「直接应用经济理论」根本不存在，个人与文化的过滤器无处不在。Yudkowsky 的回答是：你可以努力最小化那个过滤器，在许多情况下，结果配得上「直接」这个名称，即便并不完全如此。
甘地、斯大林与一色谬误
「每个人都不完美」——甘地不完美，斯大林也不完美——但他们并非同一深浅的不完美。说出这一点不会赢得掌声，但它为那些努力向好的人留住了希望。一色世界观封堵了这种希望。同样的逻辑适用于科学范式：是的，每个范式都会强加某些假设——但有的世界观努力最小化这种强加，有的则沾沾自喜于它。仅仅因为没有完全无假设的世界观，就把所有世界观在认识论上等量齐观，是愚蠢的。
科学与信仰：一种奇特的动态
Yudkowsky 解剖了「科学也是建立在信仰之上的！」这一主张。注意那种愤愤然而又得意的语气——通常出自把信仰视为好东西的人。如果科学真的是基于信仰的，那么按他们自己的逻辑，二者是可以直接比较的——而科学是那种能治愈疾病、揭示星辰结构的信仰，他们的信仰却无法「走上月球」。你确定要开启这种比较吗？
与自身错误的恶魔交易
这个谬误背后有一种奇特的心理：某人已与自身的错误达成恶魔交易，从此拒绝听闻任何改善的可能。他不承认任何人能做得更好。每一种进步的方式都成了他的敌人。他一口气说出「我乐于是灰色的」，紧接着愤愤补上「你也是灰色的！」
文章以阿西莫夫的「错误相对论」收尾：认为地球是球形的是错的；认为地球是平的也是错的。但认为这两种错误同等程度的错，比这两者加在一起还要错。
FAQ常见问答
What exactly is the Fallacy of Gray?「灰色谬误」究竟是什么？
It is the invalid inference from "nothing is purely black or white" to "therefore all shades of gray are the same." Recognizing that no certainty is absolute, or that no person is perfectly virtuous, does not mean all uncertainties or all people are equally positioned. Gray shades differ, and the difference matters.
它是从「没有任何东西是纯黑或纯白」到「因此所有灰色都一样」的无效推论。承认没有绝对的确定性，或没有人是完美的，并不意味着所有的不确定性或所有的人都处于同等位置。灰色的深浅不同，而这种差异至关重要。
What is the "Quantitative Way" and why does Yudkowsky emphasize it?「量化之道」是什么，Yudkowsky 为何强调它？
The Quantitative Way is the habit of asking how much rather than just whether. Many people treat qualitative claims ("everyone has some bias," "no paradigm is assumption-free") as license to give up on improvement. Yudkowsky's point is that what you cannot fully eliminate you can still reduce — and reduction has real value.
量化之道是追问「多少」而非仅仅「是否」的习惯。许多人把定性的断言（「每个人都有偏见」、「没有范式是无假设的」）当作放弃改善的许可证。Yudkowsky 的要点是：你无法完全消除的东西，仍然可以减少——而减少本身具有真实价值。
How does the Hanson–Cowen exchange illustrate the fallacy?汉森与柯文的交流如何体现了这个谬误？
Robin Hanson says he aims to weight economic theory heavily over his intuitions. Tyler Cowen replies that there is no such thing as theory application without personal filters. Cowen is technically right, but he slides from "no perfect filter-free application" to implying the goal is impossible or meaningless — the Fallacy of Gray. Yudkowsky's retort: you can still minimize the filter, and minimized is meaningfully different from unminimized.
罗宾·汉森说他努力将经济理论的权重大幅置于直觉之上。泰勒·柯文回答说，不存在没有个人过滤器的理论应用。柯文在技术上是对的，但他从「没有完美的无过滤应用」滑向了「因此这个目标是不可能或没有意义的」——灰色谬误。Yudkowsky 的反驳：你仍然可以最小化那个过滤器，而最小化与未最小化之间有着有意义的差别。
Why does Yudkowsky say the "Science is faith too" argument backfires?Yudkowsky 为何说「科学也是信仰」这个论证会适得其反？
The argument is typically made by those who consider faith a virtue, hoping to drag science down to religion's level. But if science and faith are directly comparable, then science wins the comparison: it is the faith that walks on the Moon, cures diseases, and makes verified predictions. Calling science a religion is a dangerous gift to science's credibility, not a takedown.
这个论证通常由那些认为信仰是美德的人提出，希望把科学拉低到宗教的水平。但如果科学与信仰可以直接比较，那么科学赢得这场比较：它是那种能登上月球、治愈疾病、做出可验证预测的信仰。把科学称为一种宗教，是对科学公信力的危险馈赠，而非贬低。
What is the "devil's bargain" Yudkowsky warns about?Yudkowsky 警告的「恶魔交易」是什么？
Someone who has made a devil's bargain with their own mistakes has, in effect, decided not to try to improve. To justify this, they need the world to confirm that improvement is impossible — so they deny that anyone can do better, and treat every claim that betterment is possible as an attack. The tell-tale sign: saying both "I'm glad to be gray" and "you're gray too!" with anger.
与自身错误达成恶魔交易的人，实际上已决定不再努力改善。为了为此辩护，他们需要世界来确认进步是不可能的——所以他们否认任何人能做得更好，并把每一个「改善是可能的」的主张都当作攻击。典型的标志：同时说出「我乐于是灰色的」和愤愤然的「你也是灰色的！」
How does Asimov's example of the Earth's shape illustrate the fallacy?阿西莫夫关于地球形状的例子如何体现了这个谬误？
Both "the Earth is flat" and "the Earth is spherical" are technically wrong (it's an oblate spheroid). But concluding they are equally wrong is wronger than either, because it erases an enormous difference in degree of accuracy. This is the fallacy in miniature: two imperfect beliefs are not automatically equivalent.
「地球是平的」和「地球是球形的」在技术上都是错的（它是一个扁球体）。但由此断定它们同等地错，比这两者中的任何一个都更错——因为这抹去了精确程度上的巨大差异。这是这个谬误的缩影：两个不完美的信念并不自动等价。
In-depth Analysis · Pros & Cons深入解读 · 优缺点
"The Fallacy of Gray" is a compact polemical essay in the How To Actually Change Your Mind sequence. Its target is the pseudo-sophisticated move of collapsing all imperfect things into a single undifferentiated mush — a move that sounds like epistemic humility but is actually a cover for intellectual laziness or motivated resistance to self-improvement.
《灰色谬误》是《如何真正改变你的想法》系列中一篇简洁的论战文章。它的靶标是一种「伪老练」的操作——把所有不完美的事物折叠成一团无差别的泥浆——这种操作听起来像是认识论上的谦逊，实则是智识懒惰或对自我改善的动机性抵制的掩护。
- Crisp diagnosis of a genuine common error对一种真实常见错误的精准诊断The fallacy Yudkowsky names is ubiquitous in public discourse — from "all politicians are corrupt" to "no worldview is objective" — and giving it a name and structure genuinely helps readers spot it.Yudkowsky 命名的这个谬误在公共话语中无处不在——从「所有政客都腐败」到「没有世界观是客观的」——给它命名和提供结构，确实帮助读者识别它。
- The Quantitative Way is practically actionable量化之道在实践上可操作The reframe from "can I eliminate it?" to "can I reduce it?" is immediately useful for any self-improvement or decision-making context, not just abstract epistemology.从「我能消除它吗？」到「我能减少它吗？」的重新框架，对任何自我提升或决策场景都立即有用，而不只是抽象的认识论。
- Psychologically astute on motivated resistance对动机性抵制的心理洞察精准The "devil's bargain" analysis — those who won't improve resent those who try — is a sharp piece of social observation that extends the essay's reach beyond pure epistemics.「恶魔交易」的分析——不肯改善的人会憎恶那些努力改善的人——是一个尖锐的社会观察，将文章的触角延伸至纯粹认识论之外。
- The science-vs-faith judo move is memorable科学对信仰的「柔道」一击令人难忘Turning the "Science is faith too!" argument back on its proponents by accepting the premise and showing science wins the comparison is rhetorically elegant and logically sound.接受「科学也是信仰」的前提，然后证明科学赢得了比较——这一将对手论证反转回去的「柔道」操作，修辞上优雅，逻辑上也站得住脚。
- The argument from examples risks overgeneralizing举例论证存在过度泛化的风险Yudkowsky's illustrations (Gandhi vs. Stalin, moon orbit vs. invisible dragon) are chosen to be maximally clear-cut. In practice, many real comparisons are genuinely close calls where "some grays are darker" doesn't resolve the question of how to compare them or how much darker one must be before it matters.Yudkowsky 所举的例子（甘地对斯大林，月球轨道对隐形龙）都是故意选取最一目了然的情形。在实践中，许多真实的比较都是真正难以判断的边缘情形，「有的灰更深」并不能解决如何比较或深多少才算重要的问题。
- "Reducing" bias is asserted, not demonstrated as tractable「减少」偏见被断言，而非被证明是可行的The Quantitative Way is appealing, but the essay assumes that bias reduction efforts actually work at the individual level. Decades of cognitive-bias research suggest debiasing is hard and often fails — the gap between "you can reduce it" and "you reliably can" is not addressed.量化之道很有吸引力，但文章假定个人层面的减偏努力确实有效。数十年的认知偏差研究表明，去偏见非常困难且常常失败——「你可以减少它」与「你可以可靠地减少它」之间的差距，文章未予处理。
- The Hanson example smuggles in a contested assumption汉森的例子夹带了一个有争议的假设Yudkowsky endorses Hanson's project of heavily weighting economic theory over intuition. But whether economic theory itself is a reliable guide — rather than a model with its own systematic distortions — is exactly the contested question. Using it as an illustration of the Quantitative Way at work may beg the question.Yudkowsky 支持汉森大幅权重经济理论凌驾于直觉之上的做法。但经济理论本身是否是可靠的指导——还是一个有其自身系统性扭曲的模型——恰恰是争议所在。用它来说明量化之道的运作，可能是循环论证。
- Conflates epistemic and moral comparisons混淆了认识论比较与道德比较The essay moves freely between comparing beliefs by accuracy (moon vs. dragon) and comparing people by virtue (Gandhi vs. Stalin). These are distinct comparison problems with different metrics and standards. The argument that "gray shades can be compared" applies more cleanly to probability assessments than to moral character, where the relevant dimensions may be genuinely incommensurable.文章在按准确性比较信念（月球对龙）和按美德比较人（甘地对斯大林）之间自由游走。这是两个不同的比较问题，有不同的指标和标准。「灰色深浅可以比较」的论证，在概率评估上比在道德品格上更干净利落——后者的相关维度可能是真正无法通约的。
A sharply argued, practically useful corrective to a very real fallacy. Its main limitation is that the examples are chosen to make the right answer obvious — the harder cases, where comparison is genuinely difficult, are not addressed. Read it as establishing the principle ("compare, don't collapse") and the Quantitative habit of mind, while knowing that applying those principles to murky real-world cases takes considerably more work.
这是一篇论证尖锐、实践上有用的纠偏文章，针对的是一个非常真实的谬误。它的主要局限是：所有例子都被选得答案显而易见——那些比较真正困难的情形，文章并未涉及。把它当作确立原则（「比较，不要折叠」）和量化思维习惯的文章来读，同时知道：把这些原则应用到现实的模糊案例中，需要的工作量要大得多。
Original Text原文
The Sophisticate: “The world isn’t black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It’s all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else.”
The Zetet: “Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view . . .”
—Marc Stiegler, David’s Sling
I don’t know if the Sophisticate’s mistake has an official name, but I call it the Fallacy of Gray. We saw it manifested in the previous essay—the one who believed that odds of two to the power of seven hundred and fifty million to one, against, meant “there was still a chance.” All probabilities, to him, were simply “uncertain” and that meant he was licensed to ignore them if he pleased.
“The Moon is made of green cheese” and “the Sun is made of mostly hydrogen and helium” are both uncertainties, but they are not the same uncertainty.
Everything is shades of gray, but there are shades of gray so light as to be very nearly white, and shades of gray so dark as to be very nearly black. Or even if not, we can still compare shades, and say “it is darker” or “it is lighter.”
Years ago, one of the strange little formative moments in my career as a rationalist was reading this paragraph from Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, especially the sentence in bold:
A guilty system recognizes no innocents. As with any power apparatus which thinks everybody’s either for it or against it, we’re against it. You would be too, if you thought about it. The very way you think places you amongst its enemies. This might not be your fault, because every society imposes some of its values on those raised within it, but the point is that some societies try to maximize that effect, and some try to minimize it. You come from one of the latter and you’re being asked to explain yourself to one of the former. Prevarication will be more difficult than you might imagine; neutrality is probably impossible. You cannot choose not to have the politics you do; they are not some separate set of entities somehow detachable from the rest of your being; they are a function of your existence. I know that and they know that; you had better accept it.
Now, don’t write angry comments saying that, if societies impose fewer of their values, then each succeeding generation has more work to start over from scratch. That’s not what I got out of the paragraph.
What I got out of the paragraph was something which seems so obvious in retrospect that I could have conceivably picked it up in a hundred places; but something about that one paragraph made it click for me.
It was the whole notion of the Quantitative Way applied to life-problems like moral judgments and the quest for personal self-improvement. That, even if you couldn’t switch something from on to off, you could still tend to increase it or decrease it.
Is this too obvious to be worth mentioning? I say it is not too obvious, for many bloggers have said of Overcoming Bias: “It is impossible, no one can completely eliminate bias.” I don’t care if the one is a professional economist, it is clear that they have not yet grokked the Quantitative Way as it applies to everyday life and matters like personal self-improvement. That which I cannot eliminate may be well worth reducing.
Or consider an exchange between Robin Hanson and Tyler Cowen.^1^ Robin Hanson said that he preferred to put at least 75% weight on the prescriptions of economic theory versus his intuitions: “I try to mostly just straightforwardly apply economic theory, adding little personal or cultural judgment.” Tyler Cowen replied:
In my view there is no such thing as “straightforwardly applying economic theory” . . . theories are always applied through our personal and cultural filters and there is no other way it can be.
Yes, but you can try to minimize that effect, or you can do things that are bound to increase it. And if you try to minimize it, then in many cases I don’t think it’s unreasonable to call the output “straightforward”—even in economics.
“Everyone is imperfect.” Mohandas Gandhi was imperfect and Joseph Stalin was imperfect, but they were not the same shade of imperfection. “Everyone is imperfect” is an excellent example of replacing a two-color view with a one-color view. If you say, “No one is perfect, but some people are less imperfect than others,” you may not gain applause; but for those who strive to do better, you have held out hope. No one is perfectly imperfect, after all.
(Whenever someone says to me, “Perfectionism is bad for you,” I reply: “I think it’s okay to be imperfect, but not so imperfect that other people notice.”)
Likewise the folly of those who say, “Every scientific paradigm imposes some of its assumptions on how it interprets experiments,” and then act like they’d proven science to occupy the same level with witchdoctoring. Every worldview imposes some of its structure on its observations, but the point is that there are worldviews which try to minimize that imposition, and worldviews which glory in it. There is no white, but there are shades of gray that are far lighter than others, and it is folly to treat them as if they were all on the same level.
If the Moon has orbited the Earth these past few billion years, if you have seen it in the sky these last years, and you expect to see it in its appointed place and phase tomorrow, then that is not a certainty. And if you expect an invisible dragon to heal your daughter of cancer, that too is not a certainty. But they are rather different degrees of uncertainty—this business of expecting things to happen yet again in the same way you have previously predicted to twelve decimal places, versus expecting something to happen that violates the order previously observed. Calling them both “faith” seems a little too un-narrow.
It’s a most peculiar psychology—this business of “Science is based on faith too, so there!” Typically this is said by people who claim that faith is a good thing. Then why do they say “Science is based on faith too!” in that angry-triumphal tone, rather than as a compliment? And a rather dangerous compliment to give, one would think, from their perspective. If science is based on “faith,” then science is of the same kind as religion—directly comparable. If science is a religion, it is the religion that heals the sick and reveals the secrets of the stars. It would make sense to say, “The priests of science can blatantly, publicly, verifiably walk on the Moon as a faith-based miracle, and your priests’ faith can’t do the same.” Are you sure you wish to go there, oh faithist? Perhaps, on further reflection, you would prefer to retract this whole business of “Science is a religion too!”
There’s a strange dynamic here: You try to purify your shade of gray, and you get it to a point where it’s pretty light-toned, and someone stands up and says in a deeply offended tone, “But it’s not white! It’s gray!” It’s one thing when someone says, “This isn’t as light as you think, because of specific problems X, Y, and Z.” It’s a different matter when someone says angrily “It’s not white! It’s gray!” without pointing out any specific dark spots.
In this case, I begin to suspect psychology that is more imperfect than usual—that someone may have made a devil’s bargain with their own mistakes, and now refuses to hear of any possibility of improvement. When someone finds an excuse not to try to do better, they often refuse to concede that anyone else can try to do better, and every mode of improvement is thereafter their enemy, and every claim that it is possible to move forward is an offense against them. And so they say in one breath proudly, “I’m glad to be gray,” and in the next breath angrily, “And you’re gray too!”
If there is no black and white, there is yet lighter and darker, and not all grays are the same.
The commenter G2 points us to Asimov’s “The Relativity of Wrong”:
When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
^1^Hanson (2007), “Economist Judgment,” http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/economist-judgm.html. Cowen (2007), “Can Theory Override Intuition?”, http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/12/how-my-views-di.html.
老练者：「世界不是非黑即白的。没有人是纯粹的好，也没有人是纯粹的坏。一切都是灰色的。因此，没有人比任何人更好。」
泽泰特：「只知道灰色，你便断定所有灰色都是同一深浅。你嘲笑两色世界观的幼稚，却用一色世界观取而代之……」
——Marc Stiegler，David's Sling
我不知道「老练者」的错误是否有官方名称，但我把它叫做「灰色谬误」。我们在上一篇文章中见过它的体现——那个认为七亿五千万次方的二次方比一的反对赔率，意味着「仍然存在可能性」的人。在他看来，所有概率不过都是「不确定的」，而这意味着他可以随意忽视它们。
「月球由绿奶酪构成」和「太阳主要由氢和氦构成」，都是不确定的——但它们并非相同的不确定。
一切都是灰色的深浅，但有些灰色浅到几乎接近白色，有些灰色深到几乎接近黑色。或者即便如此说夸张，我们仍然可以比较深浅，说「这个更深」或「那个更浅」。
多年前，在我作为理性主义者的生涯中，有一个奇特的小小formative时刻——读到 Iain M. Banks 的 Player of Games 中的这段话，尤其是加粗的那句：
一个有罪的制度不承认任何无辜者。和任何认为「你要么支持我、要么反对我」的权力机器一样，我们与它为敌。如果你想清楚，你也会的。你的思维方式本身就把你置于它的敌人之列。这也许不是你的错，因为每个社会都会把它的某些价值观强加给在其中成长的人，但关键在于，有些社会试图最大化这种效应，有些社会则试图最小化它。你来自后者，却被要求向前者解释自己。闪烁其词会比你想象的更难；保持中立大概是不可能的。你无法选择不持有你所持有的政治立场；它们不是某种可以从你存在的其余部分中分离出来的独立实体；它们是你存在的函数。我知道这一点，他们也知道；你最好接受它。
请不要在评论里愤愤然地说，如果社会灌输的价值观越少，那么每一代人就有更多的工作需要从零开始。我从这段话里得到的，不是那个。
我从这段话里得到的，是某种事后看来如此显而易见、以至于我本可以在一百个地方得到同样领悟的东西；但某种原因，就是这一段话让它在我脑中「咔嗒」一声落了地。
那是「量化之道」应用于生活问题——比如道德判断和追求个人自我提升——的整个观念。即便你无法把某样东西从开切换到关，你仍然可以让它趋于增加或趋于减少。
这是否显而易见到不值一提？我说它并非如此，因为许多博主曾对 Overcoming Bias 说过：「这是不可能的，没有人能完全消除偏见。」就算说这话的是一位职业经济学家，也清楚地说明他还没有真正领会量化之道在日常生活和个人自我提升等事务上的应用。我无法消除的东西，或许非常值得减少。
或者考虑 Robin Hanson 与 Tyler Cowen 之间的一次交锋。^1^ Robin Hanson 说，他倾向于在经济理论的处方与自己的直觉之间，至少给前者赋予 75% 的权重：「我尝试大体上直接应用经济理论，只添加很少的个人或文化判断。」Tyler Cowen 回应道：
在我看来，根本不存在所谓的「直接应用经济理论」……理论总是通过我们的个人和文化过滤器来应用的，没有其他方式。
是的，但你可以试图最小化那种效应，你也可以做那些注定会放大它的事情。而如果你试图最小化它，那么在许多情况下，我认为将其输出称为「直接的」并非不合理——即便在经济学中也是如此。
「每个人都是不完美的。」莫汉达斯·甘地是不完美的，约瑟夫·斯大林也是不完美的，但他们的不完美并非相同的深浅。「每个人都是不完美的」是把两色世界观替换为一色世界观的绝佳例子。如果你说「没有人是完美的，但有些人比其他人更少不完美」，你可能得不到掌声；但对于那些努力做得更好的人，你为他们留住了希望。毕竟，没有人是完美地不完美的。
（每当有人对我说「完美主义对你有害」，我都会回答：「我认为不完美是可以的，但最好不要不完美到被别人注意到。」）
同样愚蠢的还有那些说「每个科学范式都把它的某些假设强加给它解读实验的方式」，然后表现得像是证明了科学与巫医处于同一水平的人。每个世界观都把它的某些结构强加给它对观察的处理，但关键在于，有些世界观努力最小化这种强加，有些则以此为荣。没有白色，但有些灰色远比其他灰色更浅，把它们当作都在同一水平上是愚蠢的。
如果月球这几十亿年来一直绕地球运行，如果你这些年来一直在天空中看见它，而你期待明天在指定的位置和相位再次看见它，那么这并非确定性。而如果你期待一条隐形的龙治愈你女儿的癌症，那也不是确定性。但它们是相当不同程度的不确定性——一种是以你此前预测到十二位小数的同样方式期待事情再次发生，另一种是期待某件违背此前所观察到的规律的事情发生。把这两者都称为「信仰」，似乎缺乏必要的精确性。
最奇特的心理——这种「科学也是基于信仰的，所以！」的论调。通常这是由那些声称信仰是好东西的人说出的。那么他们为何用那种愤愤然又得意扬扬的语气说「科学也是基于信仰的！」，而不是当作一种赞美？而且从他们的角度来看，这是一种相当危险的赞美。如果科学是基于「信仰」的，那么科学就和宗教是同一种类——可以直接比较。如果科学是一种宗教，它就是那种治愈病人、揭示星辰秘密的宗教。说「科学的祭司们可以作为基于信仰的奇迹，公然、公开、可验证地走上月球，而你的祭司的信仰做不到同样的事」，是完全说得通的。你确定要走这条路吗，哦，信仰者？也许，经过进一步反思，你会更愿意收回「科学也是宗教！」的整套说辞。
这里有一种奇特的动态：你努力净化你的灰色，让它达到相当浅的色调，然后有人用一种深深被冒犯的语气站起来说：「但它不是白色！它是灰色的！」当有人说「这没有你想的那么浅，因为有具体的问题 X、Y 和 Z」，这是一回事。当有人愤愤然地说「它不是白色！它是灰色的！」而不指出任何具体的黑点，这完全是另一回事。
在这种情况下，我开始怀疑背后有比寻常更不完美的心理——某人可能已经与自身的错误达成了恶魔交易，如今拒绝听闻任何改善的可能性。当有人为自己不努力做得更好找到借口时，他们往往也拒绝承认任何人能够努力做得更好，每一种改善的方式此后都成了他们的敌人，每一种「有可能向前迈进」的说法都是对他们的冒犯。于是他们一口气骄傲地说「我很高兴自己是灰色的」，下一口气愤愤然地说「而你也是灰色的！」
如果没有黑与白，仍然有更浅与更深，并非所有灰色都相同。
评论者 G2 为我们指出了阿西莫夫的《错误的相对性》：
当人们认为地球是平的，他们是错的。当人们认为地球是球形的，他们也是错的。但如果你认为认为地球是球形的与认为地球是平的同等程度的错，那么你的观点比这两者加在一起还要错得更多。
^1^Hanson (2007)，"Economist Judgment"，http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/economist-judgm.html。Cowen (2007)，"Can Theory Override Intuition?"，http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/12/how-my-views-di.html。