I rather enjoyed this article by Scott Alexander, and I think the world probably needs to do some thinking about expertise. It is a capability set; it is not a priesthood.https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/04/14/a-failure-but-not-of-prediction/ …
-
-
I kind of look at it as the epistemic posture control panel, where you have a lot of different levers to dial in for individual tasks/fields/etc and sufficient metacognition to reset levers based on new evidence. I have many less levers pegged at "Defer" than I did on January 1.
-
"He knew the strengths and weaknesses of experts." -- R. V. Jones, describing Winston Churchill. That's such a high and rare ability that the first time I read that sentence I had little idea what it even meant.
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
The missing perspective: we need to trust others to some degree (can't figure out everything on your own), but we need to have *reasons for trusting them*. Credentials are one factor in the overall case for “why should I believe X's argument?” Not a license to blind trust
-
Oh, sure. Beliefs of experts are an important input into your assessment, just as external evidence is important in valuing a scientific theory. But, like Popper, I think that one can’t do this mechanistically... intrinsically and irreducibly requires careful judgement!
- 3 more replies
New conversation -
-
-
That's what I try to get at in my article. Current education, particularly elite credentialing, focuses on expertise at the expense of judgement and ownership.https://americanmind.org/features/the-green-zone-plan/burst-the-complacency-bubble-before-its-too-late/ …
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
I think that the article errs in not also considering the experts who got it right, including the epidemiologists in Washington State who did an end run around their own CDC. Rather than framing it as non-experts vs. experts, we have some of both who saw what was coming and took
-
appropriate action, and some who didn't. It may be more productive to ask what the non-experts and experts who took appropriate action have in common than asking what differentiates the non-experts who were right from the experts who were wrong.
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
You might be talking about COVID here, but that question works much more broadly. I'm a big fan of how
@EpsilonTheory and@WRGuinn put it in our jobs as citizens, family members, etc. -- clear eyes, full hearts.https://www.epsilontheory.com/inception/#.Xpb6nuS1_8c.twitter …Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
Forming a sound & logical judgement would take time. That can be in direct conflict with the effects of in-action. So maybe we are compelled to choose a side or make a conclusion superficially. I think not nearly enough find it okay to say - “I don’t know, yet”
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
This answer is different if it's about what you should do vs. what you believe the general public should do. It's likely that there is a limit on the complexity of societies where people are unwilling to trust assessments of experts. (We may have passed the complexity threshold)
-
We are *extremely* past that complexity threshold. For better or for worse, we have to figure out how to live with each other without being able to understand and verify everything ourselves
- 2 more replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.