January 17, 2014

At the Federalist, a Defense of "Experts" and "Expertise"
— Ace


I don't imagine this column will be well-received, generally, although his basic point is sound enough.

Before excerpting his piece, I think it's important to know what his claimed area of expertise is. From the quick bio at the end of the article:

Tom Nichols is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct at the Harvard Extension School. He claims expertise in a lot of things, but his most recent book is No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security (Penn, 2014).

So his area of expertise is war doctrines and geostrategy, I guess.

Now here is his basic point. But it's a long article, so this excerpt isn't nearly the sum of his argument (or of his cri du coeur, more like):

I am (or at least think I am) an expert. Not on everything, but in a particular area of human knowledge, specifically social science and public policy. When I say something on those subjects, I expect that my opinion holds more weight than that of most other people.

I never thought those were particularly controversial statements. As it turns out, they’re plenty controversial. Today, any assertion of expertise produces an explosion of anger from certain quarters of the American public, who immediately complain that such claims are nothing more than fallacious “appeals to authority,” sure signs of dreadful “elitism,” and an obvious effort to use credentials to stifle the dialogue required by a “real” democracy.

But democracy, as I wrote in an essay about C.S. Lewis and the Snowden affair, denotes a system of government, not an actual state of equality. It means that we enjoy equal rights versus the government, and in relation to each other. Having equal rights does not mean having equal talents, equal abilities, or equal knowledge. It assuredly does not mean that “everyone’s opinion about anything is as good as anyone else’s.” And yet, this is now enshrined as the credo of a fair number of people despite being obvious nonsense.

WhatÂ’s going on here?

I fear we are witnessing the “death of expertise”: a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of any division between professionals and laymen, students and teachers, knowers and wonderers – in other words, between those of any achievement in an area and those with none at all. By this, I do not mean the death of actual expertise, the knowledge of specific things that sets some people apart from others in various areas. There will always be doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other specialists in various fields. Rather, what I fear has died is any acknowledgement of expertise as anything that should alter our thoughts or change the way we live.

What has died is any acknowledgement of expertise as anything that should alter our thoughts or change the way we live.

This is a very bad thing. Yes, itÂ’s true that experts can make mistakes... [But to] reject the notion of expertise, and to replace it with a sanctimonious insistence that every person has a right to his or her own opinion, is silly.

Worse, itÂ’s dangerous. The death of expertise is a rejection not only of knowledge, but of the ways in which we gain knowledge and learn about things. Fundamentally, itÂ’s a rejection of science and rationality, which are the foundations of Western civilization itself.

Okay. Everything he just said there is true. And I agree that the False Equality of the Know-Nothings -- those who claim that there is literally nothing outside of their own knowledge base worth knowing, and yes, some flirt with this idea or announce it explicitly -- is basically a half-assed defense of ignorance.

However. Here is why people are so quick to dismiss the expertise of an expert:

Because experts themselves do not recognize the limitations of expertise, and need to be reminded of them.

Every field of true academic study has some parts which are more provable -- and proven -- and some parts which are very gray areas, in which "knowledge" largely consists of speculations, theories (which fall in and out of vogue), rules of thumb, and wild-ass guesses.

And here's the thing: Depending on the field of study, we reach that gray area more rapidly than we do in others. The writer uses the example of medical doctors. He would like to analogize his own field to that one. Let me say I reject that analogy. I can't put an exact figure on it, but my rough guess would be that around 70% of medicine can be said, at this point, to be a mature science. The processes are understood, the diagnoses sound, the recommended treatments well-tested and shown to be useful.

But around 30% of medicine is still guesswork, and that 30% includes some Very Very Big Questions that no one has the answers to, including the possibility of extending the human lifespan by arresting the built-in limitation on cells' ability to make good new copies of themselves, or regenerating lost limbs, or curing cancer -- really curing it, not just treating it -- and so on and so forth.

I do not believe that geostrategic war doctrine can be said to be at such a state of maturity. I would imagine the ratio of the Well-Understood to the Not Well Understood is nearly the opposite of what I'd guess it is in medicine -- 30% well understood, 70% guesswork and trial-and-error.

And yet you will rarely hear an expert in a field which is more art than science (or, even more trial-and-error guesswork than actual settled science) confess to such.

No, the defense of expertise is almost always made by recourse to analogy with a practitioner of a field in which most questions are well-settled, be it medical science, or automotive repair, or plumbing, or rocket science.

You rarely hear an expert say, "You wouldn't doubt the word of a psychologist about your neuroses and mental blocks, would you?" Because of course we would do just that.

That's not say the opinion of an expert in a less-mature field like psychology should be dismissed. Even in a field that is more guesswork than proven rule, an expert certainly has thought more about the subject, read more about the subject, and engaged in more trial-and-error practice in the field than a layman. Much, much more.

Nevertheless, while he may have a much stronger foundation for his speculations and guesses than the layman, ultimately the psychologist telling you that you have to confront your Maternal Separation Issues is only making a well-informed guess.

And to suggest otherwise is to deny his own ignorance.

This is what this writer objects to -- that people he talks to, non-experts in the field, will not readily confess to their own ignorance. They will make bold assertions based on little more than gut reaction and swagger.

Fair enough. People ought to be much more cognizant of when they are speaking out of their depth, and much more willing to confess that.

But that goes for experts as well. There are things they know well, nearly as facts. And then there are things they know... well, in their own guts, but they could never prove it, within the field itself or outside of it, because some things (like predicting human behavior or a country's response to a nuclear strike) remain almost entirely within the realm of speculation.

And here's the problem: Most experts have an agenda. They have a point of view. They have particular beliefs not just about the technical areas of expertise -- how to do something -- but about the broader, and much less technical, questions of What should we do?

And how could they not? They entered the field because it greatly interested them. Of course they have particular ideas of What We Ought To Do About All This. For a lot of them, that's probably why they entered the field in the first place.

Because here is something about humans: They don't find their greatest pleasure in telling you how to do something that you've decided should be done. That role -- of the consultant explaining the technical processes by which you can achieve your goal -- is an important one, but it's not the highest aspiration of almost any human.

No, the greatest pleasure a human being can feel in this realm is not telling someone how to do something that other person has decided to do. The greatest achievement is telling that person What he ought to do.

People love being Chiefs. They will tolerate being Indians, but they all long to be Chiefs.

And this is why people too quickly reject "expertise" -- because they frequently sense, correctly, that the expert has moved out of the realm of explaining how to achieve a goal that the citizens of the country have decided upon to the much more fun and egotistically satisfying realm of telling us what we ought to do.

And experts will frequently exploit layman ignorance to Fudge the Data and Hide the Facts in order to advance their personal political goals.

Look at Obamacare. A month ago I was rounding up all the lefty "experts" saying that they all knew that Obamacare would, of course, throw millions off cheaper, better insurance they already had and compel them to purchase pricier, worse insurance. Duh, they said collectively. How else could the numbers work?

Well, we said "Duh" two or three years ago too and we were called liars and ignoramuses for doing so. If they always knew this -- and I think most of them did -- then they deliberately lied to the public about the actual facts in order to compel an outcome they favored.

In order to sell their particular idea of what should be done, they lied about the adverse consequences many (most?) would actually suffer under their preferred regime.

From the IPCC's political/media "summary" of the science of global warming -- they take out all the caveats and skepticism and confessions of known unknowns that appears in the actual scientific report -- to Obamacare to, yes, how much of a "cakewalk" the War in Iraq would turn out to be, "experts" have a rather pronounced tendency to make all assumptions in favor of their preferred speculations and desired outcomes, and a very real track-record of hiding those assumptions from the public they wish to convince to take a gamble on their pet theories.

Laymen know this. Laymen know that "all professions are a conspiracy of the laity."

And laymen also know something else: In a democracy, the common citizen must decided upon the course of the nation, whether the citizenry is right or wrong about it.

The layman resents the never-ending agitation for a "democracy" in which all important decisions are made by a Council of Experts (generally government bureaucrats and academic gadflies with their own very serious bias issues) and then simply announced to the public.

In all these ways, the layman suspects he is being bullied into taking a position he does not favor by the invocation of the word "expert," and not just bullied-- often, he feels like he is being straight-up conned.

I actually do respect knowledge and expertise. And I do think it is a lamentable thing that this nation now hold such things in lesser respect than they once did.

But the self-declared experts must also take some of the blame for this state of affairs.

You only get to lie to someone so many times before he stops listening to you entirely.

And you don't need to be an expert to know that.


Posted by: Ace at 11:26 AM | Comments (418)
Post contains 1954 words, total size 12 kb.

1 Ace is no expert at closing html tags.

Posted by: Waterhouse at January 17, 2014 11:28 AM (RUvjp)

2 Barack Obama is a stuttering clusterf*ck of a malignant traitor.

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) Ah, F It. at January 17, 2014 11:28 AM (PYAXX)

3

The Federalist?

 

Which one of you wrote this?

Posted by: Bigby's Semaphore Hands at January 17, 2014 11:29 AM (3ZtZW)

4 "I am (or at least think I am) an expert. Not on everything, but in a particular area of human knowledge, specifically social science and public policy."

Stopped reading.

Right.

There.

Posted by: tangonine at January 17, 2014 11:29 AM (x3YFz)

5 Close that tag! I m all wonky!

Posted by: Gingy @GingyNorth at January 17, 2014 11:30 AM (N/cFh)

6 It's probably been mentioned that the head of the IPCC is a railroad engineer.  He does have mad scientist hair though.

Posted by: ryukyu at January 17, 2014 11:31 AM (C6XFd)

7 You only get to lie to someone so many times before he stops listening to you at all.

Except for Democrats for whom science has proven, there is no lie absorption limit.

Posted by: LoneStarHeeb at January 17, 2014 11:31 AM (BZAd3)

8 >>>Ace is no expert at closing html tags. I am an expert, I just choose to leave them open for aesthetic reasons. Your crude mind wouldn't understand my process even if I were to explain it to you.

Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 11:32 AM (/FnUH)

9 Is this another pubic hair post?

Posted by: LoneStarHeeb at January 17, 2014 11:32 AM (BZAd3)

10 "social science" I have a degree in it, so I'm an expert on the subject. There is no expertise in social science, other than expertise at fooling people.

Posted by: Meremortal at January 17, 2014 11:32 AM (1Y+hH)

11 Is this because of all the glowing obits of The Professor?

Posted by: Baldy at January 17, 2014 11:32 AM (2bql3)

12 I've got problem with experts. I have major problems with "experts." Current POTUS is the textbook example of the distinction.

Time to go back and read it all, though.

Posted by: red sweater at January 17, 2014 11:33 AM (oATMN)

13 Shorter rebuttal:
Thomas Sowell, "for every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. However, for every fact, there is not an equal and opposite fact."

That, that explains why the leftists rely upon--and insist we rely upon--experts so much.

Posted by: RoyalOil at January 17, 2014 11:33 AM (VjL9S)

14 Does dick cheese guy have expertise or is he an expert?

Posted by: NCKate at January 17, 2014 11:33 AM (x6fKj)

15 When everyone is an expert, no one is.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit [/i][/s][/b] at January 17, 2014 11:33 AM (0HooB)

16

Who needs expertise and science when we have Journalists?

Posted by: Bigby's Semaphore Hands at January 17, 2014 11:34 AM (3ZtZW)

17 "I never thought those were particularly controversial statements. As it turns out, they’re plenty controversial. Today, any assertion of expertise produces an explosion of anger from certain quarters of the American public, who immediately complain that such claims are nothing more than fallacious “appeals to authority,” sure signs of dreadful “elitism,” and an obvious effort to use credentials to stifle the dialogue required by a “real” democracy."

If you start your diatribe by leading with "oh, I'm a victim!"

Then you're a douche. 

You prove expertise not by claiming it, but by being an expert; indicated by your actions and wisdom.

Who the fuck is this clown?  (rhetorical)

Posted by: tangonine at January 17, 2014 11:34 AM (x3YFz)

18
I'm changing my business cards to "IllTemperedCur, Expert".

I'll leave it up to you to guess my primary area of expertise.



Posted by: IllTemperedCur at January 17, 2014 11:34 AM (TIIx5)

19 Expertly written, Ace.

Posted by: Dang at January 17, 2014 11:34 AM (MNq6o)

20 If I may offer a very brief alternative read: "Experts" are being rejected because they are, or have become perceived as having become, politicized to the point that credibility has been largely lost. Otherwise, that's all I've got. Excellent points, Ace.

Posted by: Brother Cavil wants out at January 17, 2014 11:34 AM (naUcP)

21 The media seems to be pretty down with being lied to, and they are obviously experts... ON EVERYTHING!

Posted by: LoneStarHeeb at January 17, 2014 11:34 AM (BZAd3)

22

>>>Your crude mind wouldn't understand my process even if I were to explain it to you.

 

Its French.

Posted by: Bigby's Semaphore Hands at January 17, 2014 11:35 AM (3ZtZW)

23 I don't have a problem with experts talking about those things they have expertise in.  I don't want to hear what a lawyer or a brain surgeon or ESPN's stats guy thinks of global warming.  And I certainly don't want to hear how a law degree from an Ivy League school means the holder is infallible and omniscient.

Posted by: Ian S. at January 17, 2014 11:35 AM (B/VB5)

24 You know, that's just what we need. More experts.

Posted by: Rachel Maddow at January 17, 2014 11:35 AM (DrC22)

25 And now I finish reading it, and it's pretty much what you said. Man, I need a drink.

Posted by: Brother Cavil wants out at January 17, 2014 11:35 AM (naUcP)

26 Any supposed area of expertise has a body of evidence that supports its assertions.  Anybody who claims to be an expert in any area knows the WEAKEST type of evidence is the kind that is asserted by the so-called experts.

If you don't have stronger evidence, go with the experts' assertions.  But keep looking for stronger evidence, and if the experts are unwilling or unable to eventually come up with something stronger, they're no longer operating in  the realm of science, but have veered into their own personal  religion. 

Posted by: BurtTC at January 17, 2014 11:36 AM (BeSEI)

27 brb.  going down a couple threads to see if this guy is in that six hour gaynado for obamacare.

Posted by: tangonine at January 17, 2014 11:36 AM (x3YFz)

28 I'm an expert.  You have nothing to fear from us!

Posted by: Michael Mann at January 17, 2014 11:36 AM (Aif/5)

29 The best refutation for the argument of "expertise" is Global Warming.

Posted by: D-Lamp at January 17, 2014 11:36 AM (bb5+k)

30 I have no expertise.

Posted by: garrett at January 17, 2014 11:37 AM (ZHTYA)

31 Speaking of this stuff we're speaking of,  I really hate the term, "guru".  Exercise guru,  home repair guru,  health guru,  etc.  It's a way of claiming to be an expert without possibly committing fraud.

Posted by: Dang at January 17, 2014 11:37 AM (MNq6o)

32 Also, as Reagan said: "The problem with our opposition is not that they are ignorant. It's that they know so much which isn't so."

Posted by: D-Lamp at January 17, 2014 11:37 AM (bb5+k)

33 I was a criminal prosecutor for a long time you have no idea how many people claim to be "expert" and offer testimony as such and all seem to hold to the idea that being called an "expert" means you cannot be contradicted which is all bullshit we are not seeing the collapse of expertise we are seeing an explosion of supposed expertise and like any commodity, a flood on the market dilutes its value

Posted by: thunderb at January 17, 2014 11:37 AM (zOTsN)

34 Ace, very good and interesting piece. I've been thinking of this for about a week now, all because of the baseball HOF voting and the complaints many have against the process. Two chief complaints being (1) there are not enough experts involved or too many non experts and (2) it would be better if the voting class were smaller and got together to come to a consensus on who should be a hall of famer. Experts and consensus are two words I am tired of as a conservative. I cannot fathom how this would help the HOF voting process. Besides how expert does one need to be for the baseball HOF voting. Using your example less, much less, than a doctor. But even a doctor is not an expert of you. Anyway, great post. When the experts stop trying to be experts over me and my wants and my wishes, then I will start to recognize their area of expertise a little more.

Posted by: SH at January 17, 2014 11:38 AM (CNuph)

35 Ace you knower of things, and of nothing... We are the change we've been waiting for.

Posted by: Meekle at January 17, 2014 11:38 AM (kqHcW)

36 It his guy is confused by why we rightly reject 'experts', take a look at the previous thread.  The brave warriors in the Third Pubic War consider themselves 'experts' deserving of deferrence.  Clean up the academy, get rid of the marginal no-talents wasting their student's time and lives and then get back to me.

Posted by: Joe at January 17, 2014 11:38 AM (7pOq5)

37 Lol at 'an expert on social science and public policy'. What a douche.

Posted by: mugiwara at January 17, 2014 11:38 AM (83+Ki)

38 No, the greatest pleasure a human being can feel in this realm is not telling someone how to do something that other person has decided to do. The greatest achievement is telling that person What he ought to do. What is life's greatest pleasure, Conan?

Posted by: rickb223 at January 17, 2014 11:38 AM (lUXJH)

39 16
Who needs expertise and science when we have Journalists?

Posted by: Bigby's Semaphore Hands at January 17, 2014 03:34 PM (3ZtZW)

Journalists do have expertise though, in Wikipedia and twitter.

Posted by: Heralder at January 17, 2014 11:38 AM (/Mxso)

40 The expert self nullification theorem.

Before Gore and Obama, this had been known as "professional suicide".

Posted by: LoneStarHeeb at January 17, 2014 11:39 AM (BZAd3)

41 >>>People love being Chiefs. They will tolerate being Indians, but they all long to be Chiefs.<<<




They both have their benefits.

Posted by: Suckagawea Warren at January 17, 2014 11:39 AM (DpLZ2)

42 So you've got an expert who says, "That there is a busted water pump." And you've got an expert who says, "You have a hernia, young man." Beyond that--everybody thinks he's an expert on something.

Posted by: Caliban at January 17, 2014 11:39 AM (DrC22)

43

ace, I'd point out that the conventional wisdom in medical schools is that medical science is about 50% settled/correct.  To quote one of my professors, "Half of what we teach you is wrong.  The problem is, we don't know which half."

 

Now, that is a bit of a simplification, but look at the radical changes in the medical science regarding hormone therapy in menopause and taking large doses of Vitamin E in the past 20 years.  Both were supposed to have enormous benefit with no real downside, but subsequent research has shown that both have real risks and questionable benefits.

 

Any number regarding known/unknown in medicine is almost axiomatically pulled out of one's @ss, but you have the right general idea.  Personally, I'd argue it's probably more in the 60/40 range, but that's an opinion.

Posted by: Conservative Crank at January 17, 2014 11:39 AM (sQ0LB)

44 My rule of thumb on experts: My take on experts: Most of the really "expert" experts are PhD level+ in a subject. The problem is they know everything about a very very narrow sliver of human endeavor. Or at least they did when they were reviewing for their dissertation defense. It takes a whole lot of effort to keep up even on that little sliver. Most people, even experts, can't keep that effort up for a sustained period of time. By the time such an "expert" goes on to advise politicians, or do interviews on the news, they're probably years out of practice.

Posted by: bonhomme[/i][/b][/i][/b][/s][/s] at January 17, 2014 11:39 AM (P7Wsr)

45 Pray tell, of what is Al Gore an expert? Besides scamming the public with his global warming bullshit, that is? I have never, and will never, grant him status as an expert in any practical matter of importance.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars™ [/i] [/b] [/s] at January 17, 2014 11:39 AM (HsTG8)

46 Your crude mind wouldn't understand my process even if I were to explain it to you. Its French. Sounds Greek to me.....

Posted by: rickb223 at January 17, 2014 11:39 AM (lUXJH)

47 22 -

Yeah,  I read this  post in its original Latin, whilst you were making love to a pubed up mannequin. 

Posted by: BurtTC at January 17, 2014 11:40 AM (BeSEI)

48 Experts? I give you "Ancient Astronaut Theorists." They too, fall under the definition of "experts."

I suspect that this fellow has never had to testify in front of a jury. Where his "expertise" is put to a real-world test--including exposure of his bias.

Posted by: RoyalOil at January 17, 2014 11:40 AM (VjL9S)

49 'an expert on social science and public policy'


Could you be a little more vague?  No,  I didn't think you could either.

Posted by: Dang at January 17, 2014 11:40 AM (MNq6o)

50 It amazes me that Ace's brain can bounce from topic to topic and still just let the words flow the way they do. Serious you guys.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 11:40 AM (DmNpO)

51 More experts should look like Marisa Tomei on the stand in My Cousin Vinny.

Posted by: Waterhouse at January 17, 2014 11:40 AM (RUvjp)

52 What these "experts" detest is when the populace  knows what is expertise and what is just an opinion.

Posted by: Soona at January 17, 2014 11:41 AM (OP7uy)

53 I know Tom Nichols. I took two of his courses. Very smart man. He won on Jeopardy.

Posted by: soothsayer at January 17, 2014 11:41 AM (/9W5b)

54 ace, I'd point out that the conventional wisdom in medical schools is that medical science is about 50% settled/correct. To quote one of my professors, "Half of what we teach you is wrong. The problem is, we don't know which half." If doctors are experts, why is what they do called a "practice"?

Posted by: rickb223 at January 17, 2014 11:41 AM (lUXJH)

55 The thing here is that there can be no "expertise" in "art" fields. An expert is defined as "having or showing special skill" (per m-w.com). Now, as for "having special skill" how would that be known without it being shown? And for "showing special skill" in an artful subject (whether we're talking actual "art" or international relations)? Either we're really dumbing down "special skill" or every used-car salesman is an "expert" in international relations- because that's mostly about human behavior and motivation. THAT's why "experts" are being rejected. It *doesn't* take "special skill" to know (for instance) that Iran isn't going to give up its nukes without some very strong coercion. It doesn't take "special skill" to realize that if you screw over all your allies, pretty soon you're not going to have allies. It doesn't take special skill to know that if you limit access to something, its price will increase. It doesn't take special skill to realize that limiting what someone can charge for something is going to get people to stop selling that something.

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) Ah, F It. at January 17, 2014 11:41 AM (PYAXX)

56 I have no problem with actual experts.  Some of the smartest and best educated folks that I have known were also the most humble.  I have no use for the "I am an expert because I am a Liberal Intellectual" ilk of the intelligentsia--particularly the people in Womyn's Studies, or African Studies or some other Studies--where everything is subject to very specialized filters, rules, and definitions of truths.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes, think mink. at January 17, 2014 11:42 AM (kXoT0)

57 Two points: 1. Credentials are not proof of ability to reason. 2. Meghan McCain graduated from an Ivy-league school.

Posted by: Inspector Cussword at January 17, 2014 11:42 AM (UfYXk)

58 the thing about "social science" is that it is very fertile ground for bias and almost impossible to measure

Posted by: thunderb at January 17, 2014 11:42 AM (zOTsN)

59 There's a lot of words in that post. Can we go back to talking about teh pubes?

Posted by: BlueStateRebel at January 17, 2014 11:42 AM (7ObY1)

60 People love being Chiefs. They will tolerate being Indians, but they all long to be Chiefs

It's not all it's cracked up to be once you hit the playoffs.

Posted by: Andy Reid at January 17, 2014 11:42 AM (B/VB5)

61 I would also be more willing to accept somone's proposed expertise if they could design a system where it is not assumed they will be part of the elite cadre implementing said system.  Thinking through a system where you will always be wearing the yoke inevitably leads to more freedom.

Posted by: Joe at January 17, 2014 11:42 AM (7pOq5)

62 Since pot legalization, I've become an expert on a lot of things.  I just can't understand why others don't share that view.

Posted by: LoneStarHeeb at January 17, 2014 11:42 AM (BZAd3)

63 Experts? I give you "Ancient Astronaut Theorists." They too, fall under the definition of "experts."



I have TWO degrees thank you very much!  What are they in you ask?  Don't worry about that!

Posted by: Giorgio Tsoulakos (Communications and Sports Information) at January 17, 2014 11:43 AM (Aif/5)

64 37 Lol at 'an expert on social science and public policy'. What a douche. Posted by: mugiwara at January 17, 2014 03:38 PM (83+Ki) The very claim contradict his argument. How can you be an "expert" in a non measurable area of study? Non falsifiable, eschews the concept of expertise.

Posted by: D-Lamp at January 17, 2014 11:43 AM (bb5+k)

65 Meghan McCain graduated from an Ivy-league school.

To me, this means Columbia should be de-Ivyed.  Or at least mocked endlessly.

Posted by: Ian S. at January 17, 2014 11:43 AM (B/VB5)

66 Here's the other thing. Social science isn't. A Poli Sci undergrad requires 1, count it one, "upper level" math credit. Statistics. That's it. So no, all those classes in "American Political Thought" and "Politics and the Media" don't actually make you an "expert" in anything practical at all, much less a "leading voice" on health policy or the environment or any other of the hundreds of things that political science majors fancy themselves as experts of. Same thing with Journalism.

Posted by: Lauren at January 17, 2014 11:43 AM (hFL/3)

67 we are not seeing the collapse of expertise we are seeing an explosion of supposed expertise and like any commodity, a flood on the market dilutes its value Posted by: thunderb at January 17, 2014 03:37 PM (zOTsN) 'XACTLY! You should come work in my corporation.

Posted by: Caliban at January 17, 2014 11:43 AM (DrC22)

68 49'an expert on social science and public policy'


Could you be a little more vague? No, I didn't think you could either.

Posted by: Dang at January 17, 2014 03:40 PM (MNq6o)

 

Apparently I'm still stuck in the last thread, since I read that as "an expert on social science and pubic policy."

Posted by: Heralder at January 17, 2014 11:43 AM (/Mxso)

69 Really good article Ace.  Hits the nail on the head, and articulates something I've tried to capture for a while.

As an engineer, I am naturally skeptical about all social sciences as the have "experts" that bitterly disagree on fundamental principles, yet each is still accepted in the academy (unless he's too politically incorrect).  In my field, any expert who claims that the function of a transistor is brought about by fairies and goat milk will soon find himself losing the "expert" moniker very quickly.  

There is an objectivity that lends credibility in hard sciences that is far harder to capture in the social sciences (and by extension policy and political sciences)

Posted by: Kevin Canuck at January 17, 2014 11:43 AM (Hlv/w)

70
Consultants and experts produce a lot of bullshittery but are secretly longing for a real job.


Posted by: Doctor Fish at January 17, 2014 11:43 AM (pJF+c)

71 47 22 -

Yeah, I read this post in its original Latin, whilst you were making love to a pubed up mannequin.
========
Latin? I could've sworn it was Peruvian.

Posted by: RoyalOil at January 17, 2014 11:44 AM (VjL9S)

72 I have two words on the subject of experts: Paul krugman! Drops mic....

Posted by: Kreplach at January 17, 2014 11:44 AM (d2QQ4)

73

A guy walks into a bar and orders  a  Tom Collins.

 

The bartender brings the guy his drink.

 

After taking a sip the guy says, " hey, this is not  a Tom Collins.  This is vodka not gin"

 

The bartender says,  "   Hey ,  who's the expert here,  me or you?" 

Posted by: polynikes at January 17, 2014 11:44 AM (m2CN7)

74 I'm ok with experts who advise using their expertise. Less so with experts who force because of their expertise.

Posted by: SH at January 17, 2014 11:44 AM (CNuph)

75 I am not an expert on anything per se, but, oh, that does not stop me from being one opinionated bitch.


I am Hillary, but, with honesty, humor, a work ethic, and a face that does not scare the horses.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes, think mink. at January 17, 2014 11:44 AM (kXoT0)

76 However. Here is why people are so quick to dismiss the expertise of an expert: Because experts themselves do not recognize the limitations of expertise, and need to be reminded of them. You know what the Universe has taught me and continues to teach me on a daily basis? Intellectual humility. I don't know what I don't know and, sadly, many times I don't know what I think I know to the extent I think I know it. Now, I deeply appreciate that I do not always (read never) evince such but it's true. There is a lot, I mean a whole really lot, that I do not know. Thinking that I do know it when I don't? Yeah, that ends well. The appeal to authority only works when the authority is dispositive. That's the problem. Well, I'm an expert in whatever so you must listen to me. Okay, well, then how about countervailing concerns in that area in which you are not an expert? Unfortunately, the response of many people appears to be hey I've thought about that and I don't think it's important so it's not. Well, no. No. You can explain to me why it's not and I will consider that but I will not accept your per se determination that it is so. There's also the problem of credentialism over actual expertise. Too many people consider having a piece of paper to be the substitute for experience and learning and thought. If you tell me that that 30 year old guy over there has an MBA from Harvard and that 30 year old guy over there is a high school drop out who has started and sold five successful small businesses, guess who I think is actually an expert in the field of entrepreneurship? tl;dr - Of course people can be experts, of course they can. There is, however, a reason why appeal to authority is one of the classic logical fallacies.

Posted by: alexthechick - Come to us, oh mighty SMOD at January 17, 2014 11:44 AM (VtjlW)

77

What these "experts" detest is when the populace knows what is expertise and what is just an opinion.

 

But with the concerted effort to  dumb down the populace, everyone is being taught to automatically defer to whomever   we're told is an expert,  and in the process    to ignore our own experience.

 

This is how we got to the pathetic point of having  a "political class" IMO. They're all idiots.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit [/i][/s][/b] at January 17, 2014 11:45 AM (0HooB)

78 the thing about "social science" is that it is very fertile ground for bias and almost impossible to measure Want to have some real fun? Put a Professor of Social Science into a room full of Physicists and have the SS Prof explain their experiment's methodology. I posit the only thing funnier would be watching a penguin fall down.

Posted by: bonhomme[/i][/b][/i][/b][/s][/s] at January 17, 2014 11:45 AM (P7Wsr)

79 >>>the thing about "social science" is that it is very fertile ground for bias and almost impossible to measure yes this is all about POLICY disputes, and this is all social science, and while there is some science in there, it is the smaller fraction of it. But they always analogize themselves to actual scientists and engineers, who can and do literally PROVE things through repeated experiments. They don't do these things. This is not because they are lazy; this is because the object they seek to understand (human behavior) is not capable, currently, of being analyzed in a lab the way the aerodynamic properties of a wing's shape can be. But they just keep insisting: We're just like the engineers at Boeing. No, you're not. Stop it.

Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 11:45 AM (/FnUH)

80 Any number regarding known/unknown in medicine is almost axiomatically pulled out of one's @ss, but you have the right general idea. Personally, I'd argue it's probably more in the 60/40 range, but that's an opinion.

Posted by: Conservative Crank at January 17, 2014 03:39 PM (sQ0LB)

 

 

--------------------------------------------

 

 

It's why doctors call their businesses/clinics "practices".   Many people  think medicine is science.  It's not.  It's an art.

Posted by: Soona at January 17, 2014 11:45 AM (OP7uy)

81
Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand alloys and compositions and things with... molecular structures.



Posted by: Ash at January 17, 2014 11:45 AM (TIIx5)

82 Chris Pagano : Cheese Expert

Posted by: Chris Pagano at January 17, 2014 11:45 AM (ZHTYA)

83 43 ace, I'd point out that the conventional wisdom in medical schools is that medical science is about 50% settled/correct. To quote one of my professors, "Half of what we teach you is wrong. The problem is, we don't know which half." Posted by: Conservative Crank at January 17, 2014 03:39 PM (sQ0LB) And don't forget the previous "Expert" opinion of leeches, bloodletting, and indifference to hygiene for surgeons.

Posted by: D-Lamp at January 17, 2014 11:45 AM (bb5+k)

84 Of course it's true.. look no further than at the opinion of all the blowhards around here who think their opinion counts!

I'll just be hiding behind the sofa for a while.. or maybe in the barrel..

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at January 17, 2014 11:45 AM (f9c2L)

85 Barack Hussein Obama, Constitutional Expert.

Posted by: JackStraw at January 17, 2014 11:45 AM (g1DWB)

86 >>>You know what the Universe has taught me and continues to teach me on a daily basis? Intellectual humility. I don't know what I don't know and, sadly, many times I don't know what I think I know to the extent I think I know it. yup.

Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 11:46 AM (/FnUH)

87 I'm an expert in propaganda. (Actually, that's true.) I wonder if Professor Social Science gives my thoughts on the Obama administration's communication techniques their due weight, by allowing my opinions on Obama's PR to guide his opinions. Experts are experts, after all.

Posted by: Phinn at January 17, 2014 11:46 AM (/SxiR)

88 The alleged expertise of climate scientists and their models died in Kuwait in 1991. The models predicted that if there were fires sending aloft huge quantities of soot, that nuclear winter would ensue, as the soot reached the stratosphere. Saddam Hussein obliged by having his forces set 640 oil wells alight The soot never got above 19,000 feet and nuclear winter did not occur. The climate models failed the only real world experiment they were ever subjected to. The climate "experts" could not explain why their models failed. Why believe these self-proclaimed "experts"?

Posted by: MachiasPrivateer at January 17, 2014 11:46 AM (0c0fX)

89 >>>'d point out that the conventional wisdom in medical schools is that medical science is about 50% settled/correct i can't really reverse the ratios for war doctrine there, can I? I've been wanting to lower that guess of "85% settled" since I wrote it. I think I'll change it to 70/30.

Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 11:47 AM (/FnUH)

90 Another school shooting.

Posted by: Soona at January 17, 2014 11:47 AM (OP7uy)

91 And don't forget the previous "Expert" opinion of leeches, bloodletting, and indifference to hygiene for surgeons.

Posted by: D-Lamp at January 17, 2014 03:45 PM (bb5+k)


got two words for you:  Kermit Gosnell

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes, think mink. at January 17, 2014 11:47 AM (kXoT0)

92

If doctors are experts, why is what they do called a "practice"?

Posted by: rickb223 at January 17, 2014 03:41 PM (lUXJH

 

Any non-quack will freely admit there is much we don't know.  We prefer to call it the "art of medicine" even though there is a robust scientific basis for much we do, because there is still so much variability and so much we don't know that it requires a huge foundation of knowledge and experience to make the right call in the cases that aren't straight-forward algorithims.  This is why cookbook medicine is a horrible idea, and why I shudder at the idea of Obamacare continuing to expand the scope of PAs and NPs.  I know plenty of wonderful PAs and NPs, I married one, but the really good ones know their limitations.

Posted by: Conservative Crank at January 17, 2014 11:47 AM (sQ0LB)

93 Glad you covered global warming, Ace. The corruption of expertise seems like a new thing, though perhaps it isn't, and it's inevitable. When your livelihood depends on scaring people, you scare people. Even if you have to hide things, in some cases.

Posted by: Michael Rittenhouse at January 17, 2014 11:47 AM (qDFhC)

94 Talk about your bold assertions.

Posted by: Bud Norton at January 17, 2014 11:47 AM (6cOMd)

95 in court, you are allowed to "voir dire" or question a proposed expert who is offering their testimony to ascertain if they truly are expert their degrees and resume is not assumed to be enough seems Mr Nichols objects to that tough tittie says the kitty

Posted by: thunderb at January 17, 2014 11:47 AM (zOTsN)

96 I posit the only thing funnier would be watching a penguin fall down.

Posted by: bonhomme at January 17, 2014 03:45 PM (P7Wsr)

Don't be makin fun of penguins!  They're cute!

But yeah.  It's why the engineering building is segregated from the social "sciences" building.  Bloodshed.

Posted by: tangonine at January 17, 2014 11:47 AM (x3YFz)

97 Giorgio Tsoulakos (Communications and Sports Information)
=======
Take a look at my Divinity Degree, it's gotten me pretty far as an expert in global warming.

Posted by: Al Gore at January 17, 2014 11:48 AM (VjL9S)

98 My job requires me to be a jack of all trades and a master of none.   Actually I have to become a master of quite a few but that's not how the saying goes.  Fortunately I  have to become a master  mostly to  audit and monitor those who I hire as the experts. 

Posted by: polynikes at January 17, 2014 11:48 AM (m2CN7)

99 Expert DicPics Available by Request

Posted by: Carlos Danger at January 17, 2014 11:48 AM (ZHTYA)

100 I prefer the expertise of the accumulated wisdom of the western world.

Posted by: SH at January 17, 2014 11:48 AM (CNuph)

101 The writer uses the example of medical doctors. He would like to analogize his own field to that one. Let me say I reject that analogy. I agree, and I think you really nailed why many of the experts in non-scientific fields reach too far, at least part of the reason. There is an envy of the respect and authority conveyed by a scientist or a doctor's expertise, and people want that for themselves in their own fields. As you point out, it leads to problems. Unfortunately, I see the backlash go the opposite direction, discounting the expertise of scientists and doctors, and it is very troubling. I get very frustrated arguing with people about vaccinations, to give an example. One can go too far in assuming experts are not to be trusted about anything.

Posted by: Hal at January 17, 2014 11:48 AM (MftY/)

102 The thing here is that there can be no "expertise" in "art" fields.

Oh, bullshit.  The first clarinet in the Philharmonic is an expert.  The first clarinet in the third-grade orchestra in P.S.157 is not.

Posted by: HR at January 17, 2014 11:49 AM (ZKzrr)

103 "Scientists" are experts. That's why they're all for AGW.

Posted by: Caliban at January 17, 2014 11:49 AM (DrC22)

104 On Obamacare, think you're confusing playing politics with being wrong on something.

Posted by: JL at January 17, 2014 11:49 AM (75uHN)

105 Put a Professor of Social Science into a room full of Physicists and have the SS Prof explain their experiment's methodology. I posit the only thing funnier would be watching a penguin fall down. At the north pole....

Posted by: rickb223 at January 17, 2014 11:49 AM (lUXJH)

106 23 I don't have a problem with experts talking about those things they have expertise in. I don't want to hear what a lawyer or a brain surgeon or ESPN's stats guy thinks of global warming. And I certainly don't want to hear how a law degree from an Ivy League school means the holder is infallible and omniscient.

Posted by: Ian S. at January 17, 2014 03:35 PM (B/VB5)


*******************


^^ this. The problem is that just because a person is an expert on Topic A, it does not necessarily mean he is an expert on related Topic B, and it sure as hell means that he is not an expert on unrelated Topic C.


I once saw a graph with "Confidence in Your Statement" on the y-axis and "Knowledge of the Subject" on the x-axis. As one might expect, as it moves right from the origin, it starts low, rises quickly, then falls, then rises a bit, but not as high as the peak reached by the person who knows a little bit about the subject and thinks he knows a lot.

Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at January 17, 2014 11:49 AM (HubSo)

107 86 >>>You know what the Universe has taught me and continues to teach me on a daily basis? Intellectual humility. I don't know what I don't know and, sadly, many times I don't know what I think I know to the extent I think I know it.


yup.

Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 03:46 PM (/FnUH)

Amen.  The smarter I get the dumber I get.

Posted by: tangonine at January 17, 2014 11:49 AM (x3YFz)

108 The thing here is that there can be no "expertise" in "art" fields.
Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) Ah, F It.

I think a guy or gal who can spot a forgery painting would be an expert.  There are a lot of other examples.  The left has pushed the idea that all artists are somehow equal whether it's Andy Warhol,  Michelangelo or some toothless old codger making clay jugs in the Ozarks.  I disagree.

Posted by: Dang at January 17, 2014 11:50 AM (MNq6o)

109 103 true, it's probably a Communist/grant money conspiracy

Posted by: JL at January 17, 2014 11:50 AM (75uHN)

110 Great post, Ace, though you left out the main culprit - the media. These opinion shapers present us with experts who are nothing of the sort because they want certain things said while real experts are prevented from expressing their thoughts to the public. Some time down the road either events prove the "experts" wrong or people find out differently from blogs etc. then of course they will start to discount the opinions of any experts.

Posted by: Decaf at January 17, 2014 11:50 AM (amIgd)

111 well attempting to close tags in this post has been a little adventure. They're finally all closed... in my expert opinion (guess).

Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 11:51 AM (/FnUH)

112 Take a look at my Divinity Degree, it's gotten me pretty far as an expert in global warming.

You don't have one, you sack of Satan's shit.  You dropped out.

Posted by: HR at January 17, 2014 11:51 AM (ZKzrr)

113 But would you recommend this as a date movie, Ace?

Posted by: LibertarianJim at January 17, 2014 11:51 AM (WDCYi)

114 The only problem with this post is you can't say anything funny about it.

Posted by: Sad Sock at January 17, 2014 11:51 AM (DrC22)

115 I think a guy or gal who can spot a forgery painting would be an expert. That all depends on the forgery more than the 'expert'.

Posted by: garrett at January 17, 2014 11:51 AM (ZHTYA)

116 >>>You know what the Universe has taught me and continues to teach me on a daily basis? Intellectual humility. I don't know what I don't know and, sadly, many times I don't know what I think I know to the extent I think I know it.
===========
yeeeeah.

I get to tell a client on Monday how, even though I've been doing this pretty specialized area of law for about 8 years, "sorry, you stumbled into the one loophole I've never come across before."

But, doesn't my doctorate degree mean I'm an expert?

Posted by: RoyalOil at January 17, 2014 11:51 AM (VjL9S)

117 One class, Prof Nichols brought up trebuchets for some reason. He made a point about how it wasn't simple to build. A studentette said she knew how to make a trebuchet. Nichols was like what. You know how to make a trebuchet, he asked inctedulously. Studentette answered affirmatively. Nichols guffawed and shook his head, "There's one in every class.." It was funnier to me because all I could think of the legendary AoS idiotic longbow debate that annoyed Ace.

Posted by: soothsayer at January 17, 2014 11:52 AM (/9W5b)

118 It's not all it's cracked up to be once you hit the playoffs. *** Every supervisory job I've ever held felt like adult day care.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 11:52 AM (DmNpO)

119 >>There is an envy of the respect and authority conveyed by a scientist or a doctor's expertise, and people want that for themselves in their own fields. As you point out, it leads to problems. One of the most memorable (from a mocking standpoint) lines from any tv ad was years ago when some actor, don't remember who, said: I'm not a doctor but I play one on tv .... He then went on to give his "expert" opinion on some medicine as if playing a doctor on tv made him an expert.

Posted by: JackStraw at January 17, 2014 11:52 AM (g1DWB)

120 Reminds me of something I saw at Drudge today. Scientists stumped about what's going on with the Sun. Anyone think some of these same stumped scientists are positively convinced when it comes to global warming?

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at January 17, 2014 11:52 AM (oFCZn)

121

You know what  expert   that  I think is the biggest bunch of bullshit in ratio  to the importance that its given?

 

The FBI profiler.  

Posted by: polynikes at January 17, 2014 11:52 AM (m2CN7)

122 >>>The thing here is that there can be no "expertise" in "art" fields. Oh, bullshit. The first clarinet in the Philharmonic is an expert. The first clarinet in the third-grade orchestra in P.S.157 is not. ... i think he meant "art" as in "Not reduced to science." And yeah I still disagree -- even in art fields, there are experts. HOWEVER, there is a difference between being an expert in an actual science and an expert in a mere field of study. Yes, expertise is still expertise -- and experts know more. But in fields-of-study, much, MUCH less is actually proven, and much, MUCH more is still opinion.

Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 11:52 AM (/FnUH)

123

Here are my areas of expertise:

Long bow vs crossbow

Ninjas vs pirates

Taste's great vs less filling

Kate Upton's left elbow vs Kate Upton's right elbow

Posted by: Blowhard E. Crank at January 17, 2014 11:53 AM (7pOq5)

124 I'm an expert in propaganda. (Actually, that's true.) I have a BS in propaganda. Working on a Masters in Bull Shit.

Posted by: rickb223 at January 17, 2014 11:53 AM (lUXJH)

125 expert opinion is still important. Expertise, even if merely opinion, should not be dismissed. But we see over and over this sort of Science Envy in the fields of study. Everyone wants to pretend they are a science.

Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 11:53 AM (/FnUH)

126 Architects are my favorite 'expert'. 90% of them can't build a sawhorse.

Posted by: garrett at January 17, 2014 11:53 AM (ZHTYA)

127 Ace is on a fucking roll today...

Posted by: Washington Nearsider at January 17, 2014 11:54 AM (fwARV)

128 Oh, bullshit. The first clarinet in the Philharmonic is an expert. The first clarinet in the third-grade orchestra in P.S.157 is not. Fair enough- I probably should not have included actual art in that- there can be no debate that Leonardo di Vinci (were he alive today) would show "special skill" in painting and even sculpture. There can't really be debate over your example (though I reject the comparison of an adult with usually 20+ years of training to a child). The rest, however, holds. The difference between Former Enron Economic Adviser Paul Krugman (who would be called "an expert") and me is not "special skill," it is specific employment. And I'm less of a douche.

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) Ah, F It. at January 17, 2014 11:54 AM (PYAXX)

129 Pray tell, of what is Al Gore an expert?

Chakra release.

Posted by: Basement Cat at January 17, 2014 11:54 AM (53cD3)

130 I AM A SCIENTIST. WHY DO You H8 SCIENCE?

Posted by: Feminist with an MA in Feminist Studies at January 17, 2014 11:55 AM (hFL/3)

131 I often wondered who Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey married.  Guess I don't have to wonder any longer.

Posted by: @JohnTant, now boasting a Clinton Disloyalty Index of 6 at January 17, 2014 11:55 AM (PFy0L)

132
   So what is someone who devotes a working life to a particular trade?

  Can that person not be called an expert?

Posted by: irongrampa at January 17, 2014 11:55 AM (SAMxH)

133 >There is an envy of the respect and authority conveyed by a scientist or a doctor's expertise, and people want that for themselves in their own fields. Did everyone behind me get their Lab Coats? Should we give a few of them some clipboards, too?

Posted by: Barack Hussein Obama at January 17, 2014 11:55 AM (ZHTYA)

134 If experts wish to be respected, they should start being wrong a lot less.

Posted by: irright at January 17, 2014 11:55 AM (8GKDa)

135

One of the shittiest parts of being an engineer (and they are legion) is the constant interaction with the educated experts.

 

If you are truly so damned good in your field, do not waste your time telling me. Show me.

 

Your pedigree means absolutely nothing to me. One's work should speak for itself.

Posted by: ScoggDog at January 17, 2014 11:55 AM (cM7hk)

136 Every supervisory job I've ever held felt like adult day care. Which is why I liked being in the military a lot more. Because, up to a certain reasonable point of explaining your decisions, "Fuck You That's Why" is an acceptable response to subordinates

Posted by: Sean Bannion[/i][/s][/u][/b] at January 17, 2014 11:55 AM (yz6yg)

137
Meghan McCain graduated from an Ivy-league school.

To me, this means Columbia should be de-Ivyed. Or at least mocked endlessly.

Posted by: Ian S. at January 17, 2014 03:43 PM (B/VB5)










Considering the "quality" of thought coming out of the Ivies in the past 50 years or more, pitiless mocking should be one's default attitude.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at January 17, 2014 11:55 AM (TIIx5)

138 I think a guy or gal who can spot a forgery painting would be an expert.


That all depends on the forgery more than the 'expert'. Posted by: garrett


You mean the artist might be really good at fooling people with forgery paintings and be considered... an expert?

Posted by: Dang at January 17, 2014 11:55 AM (MNq6o)

139 I have a PhD in Doughnuts.

Posted by: Chris Christie at January 17, 2014 11:56 AM (oFCZn)

140

Posted by: JackStraw at January 17, 2014 03:52 PM (g1DWB)

 

------------

 

I'll go one better...

 

Alan Alda gave the keynote to a medical school graduation because he played Hawkeye Pierce on MASH.  That's it.

Posted by: @JohnTant, now boasting a Clinton Disloyalty Index of 6 at January 17, 2014 11:56 AM (PFy0L)

141 But we see over and over this sort of Science Envy in the fields of study. Everyone wants to pretend they are a science.

Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 03:53 PM (/FnUH)

Brother, you have to see it to believe it.

They make up "metrics" and statistics, pie charts and percentages.  Much mathy math to lend legitimacy as they attempt to quantify the unquantifiable. 

It's painful to watch, it really is.

Posted by: tangonine at January 17, 2014 11:56 AM (x3YFz)

142 Don't be makin fun of penguins! They're cute! Agreed. Video offered for consideration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuhMtBHc5Z0

Posted by: bonhomme[/i][/b][/i][/b][/s][/s] at January 17, 2014 11:56 AM (P7Wsr)

143 137 Everyone wants to pretend they are a science. Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 03:53 PM (/FnUH) Science is for intellectual pansies who need the real world as a crutch.

Posted by: AmishDude, ask me about math at January 17, 2014 11:56 AM (T0NGe)

144 You're right Ace, the problem with social "science" is not so much that the  people engaging in it are play acting at doing science, it's that the field itself is messy, and much more subject to...er, subjectivity.  Precisely BECAUSE it is so messy.

I would caution people here though, it's not a good idea to try to abandon the notion of "science" being part of the study of human behavior, just to make sure we understand its limits, and live within  them. 

So it's not a condemnation of  "social science" so much as it is a condemnation of  many so-called social scientists, and their inability to recognize those limits. 

Posted by: BurtTC at January 17, 2014 11:56 AM (BeSEI)

145 Because, up to a certain reasonable point of explaining your decisions, "Fuck You That's Why" is an acceptable response to subordinates *** That's the way it should be. After a while, it's just because I said so.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 11:57 AM (DmNpO)

146 Nicely reasoned, Ace.

I would add that the best experts - those who respect their own profession and can introspect critically, anyway - also follow a template of testability where inputs and outcomes can be tangibly measured.

The scientific disciplines have an advantage in that they can hypothesize, test, conclude, and then retest to validate. IOW it's science which, by definition, mandates critical analysis and repeatability of experimentation. The social sciences don't operate under such constrained parameters because, I think, they simply cannot which introduces flaws, errors, and ignorance.

A patient, for example, can be treated and the outcome measured. A whole population can be treated (as individuals) and the outcome even further refined. The mere numbers of "independent tests" improve the statistics and validate the work, so expertise is more readily respected. You can see the results and they are repeatable.

Now how does that apply to a, for example, geopolitical strategist? Just how many repeatable situations can you derive your answers from? And how many moving parts are there in such scenarios? The inputs are infinite and history cannot be repeated exactly; only in the macro sense will all sorts of intangibles thrown in.

Some disciplines just don't lend themselves to "expertise." Knowledgeable, sure, but not really expert. Laymen, as you say, must weight professions. Some professions, as it turns out, are necessarily and rightly weighted to be, "Yes, we both have an opinion on the matter. We also both have a**holes, so there you go."

Posted by: AnonymousDrivel at January 17, 2014 11:57 AM (eHIJJ)

147 I have a PhD in Doughnuts Caloric Studies. FIFY

Posted by: Sean Bannion[/i][/s][/u][/b] at January 17, 2014 11:57 AM (yz6yg)

148 People frequently confuse "expertise" for genius.

Posted by: AmishDude, ask me about math at January 17, 2014 11:57 AM (T0NGe)

149 >>I often wondered who Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey married. Guess I don't have to wonder any longer. ace- If you ever do another one of those retrospective postings you gotta bring back Jackie Mackie. Damn that was funny.

Posted by: JackStraw at January 17, 2014 11:57 AM (g1DWB)

150 If mankind knew a large percentage of the total body of the knowable discoveries would be rare.

Posted by: tmitsss at January 17, 2014 11:57 AM (oMAbH)

151 the greatest pleasure of a human ( especially on the internetz ) is telling you that you're wrong

Posted by: President Merkin Muffley at January 17, 2014 11:58 AM (omBWL)

152 Oh, bullshit. The first clarinet in the Philharmonic is an expert. The first clarinet in the third-grade orchestra in P.S.157 is not.

Posted by: HR at January 17, 2014 03:49 PM (ZKzrr)

 

 

----------------------------------------------

 

 

I know there are exceptions to this rule, but the first-chair musician loves playing music  to the best of their ability.  That's where they  find their purpose and satisfaction.  They leave it  someone  else label them as "experts".

 

The same is true of a good doctor.

Posted by: Soona at January 17, 2014 11:58 AM (OP7uy)

153
I am an expert on security matters and the presidency, and you can count on me to answer the 3AM phone call as I have in the past.

Posted by: Sir Edmund Hillary Rodham Clinton at January 17, 2014 11:58 AM (pJF+c)

154 So what is someone who devotes a working life to a particular trade?

Can that person not be called an expert?

Posted by: irongrampa at January 17, 2014 03:55 PM (SAMxH)

 

My opinion,  is that anyone in a field with a finite scope of  information  can indeed be an expert.   Fields which deal in theory or subjective matters  is  more difficult to measure in terms of being an expert.  

Posted by: polynikes at January 17, 2014 11:58 AM (m2CN7)

155 I thought a expert was a previous drip under pressure.

Posted by: Haywood Jablowme at January 17, 2014 11:58 AM (Yl4yE)

156 You mean the artist might be really good at fooling people with forgery paintings and be considered... an expert? No. I mean only a small subset of forgeries would take any expertise to expose. But your point is also true: A quality forgery demands expertise on the part of the forger.

Posted by: garrett at January 17, 2014 11:58 AM (ZHTYA)

157

Nice job ace.

 

In all these ways, the layman suspects he is being bullied into taking a position he does not favor by the invocation of the word "expert," and not just bullied-- often, he feels like he is being straight-up conned.

 

*****

THIS x 1000.

Posted by: Infidel at January 17, 2014 11:58 AM (O/fK8)

158 Gah!  I am not an expert on sentence structure.

Posted by: Soona at January 17, 2014 11:59 AM (OP7uy)

159 Because, up to a certain reasonable point of explaining your decisions, "Fuck You That's Why" is an acceptable response to subordinates

Posted by: Sean Bannion at January 17, 2014 03:55 PM (yz6yg)

What the fuck kind of outfit were you running?  "Fuck you, that's why" was the go-to response in our unit.

Pilot: "This is what's happening"
Random crewman who isn't me, repeat, is NOT me: "Why?"
Pilot: "Fuck your face. Charlie Mike."

Posted by: Washington Nearsider at January 17, 2014 11:59 AM (fwARV)

160 Putin's incredible gay insult: Russian president says homosexuals will be welcome at Winter Olympics ... so long as they 'leave the children alone' I believe he was referring to the Russian law that says no propagandizing to minors -- not the other thing. lol

Posted by: Dr. Schlomo Pugberg at January 17, 2014 11:59 AM (Qev5V)

161 I don't object the social sciences as a whole but the easy conferring of the title "expert", especially in the "soft" sciences they dilute their own credibility

Posted by: thunderb at January 17, 2014 11:59 AM (zOTsN)

162 Auto mechanics and used car salesmen are, at least some of them, experts in their fields. They also have a reputation for being crooks, on average. When tested, the majority rarely fail to rip off in small or large ways. It's not just whether they're really expert, it's also whether they're lying. Also I'd say the medicine estimate is close to 50/50. The majority is guesswork based on processes not well understood. Much of that guesswork "works" most of the time, because it is based on long experience at guessing. That's one reason why they have to keep switching medicines for most people - they have rough studies (I've looked, many of them are quite rough) of effectiveness but there are always a large number of people for whom they don't work or side effects cannot be tolerated. Because people are not interchangeable machines. I have always had far more "I don't know's" than answers from doctors. The thing is, this is a field with which I have had a great deal of interaction - I do not *assume* that fields with which I have not had a great deal of interaction are better. Certainly not fields that intersect on politics or "social science," the track record is just abysmal.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith[/i] [/b] [/s] [/u] at January 17, 2014 12:00 PM (qyfb5)

163 I am an expert in pr0n, and declare shaved vag is the best vag. Anyone who disagrees is gay.

Posted by: wooga at January 17, 2014 12:00 PM (MfaOD)

164 Oh, the humanities!

Posted by: Obligatory Sheldon Cooper at January 17, 2014 12:00 PM (hFL/3)

165
Every supervisory job I've ever held felt like adult day care.

Which is why I liked being in the military a lot more.

Because, up to a certain reasonable point of explaining your decisions, "Fuck You That's Why" is an acceptable response to subordinates

Posted by: Sean Bannion at January 17, 2014 03:55 PM (yz6yg)









Plus, putting a subordinate in the front leaning rest for 20 minutes or so goes a long ways towards shutting up miscreants.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at January 17, 2014 12:01 PM (TIIx5)

166 Female Orgasm Expert and G-Spot Locator

Posted by: Will Folks at January 17, 2014 12:01 PM (ZHTYA)

167 121 -

Is it though?  I don't know, so I'm asking.  I always figured the FBI profiler was more  of a tv character than anyone who is actually considered an important part of a criminal investigation. 

Posted by: BurtTC at January 17, 2014 12:01 PM (BeSEI)

168 This goes hand in hand with one of my pet peeves: The preference of intelligence over wisdom. To me intelligence is a slightly overrated commodity. Intelligence may allow you to look at a problem and be able to see say 12 different solutions. A person of lower intelligence may be able to look at the same problem and see 8 different solutions. Intelligence may be able to allow you to discard 3-4 of these solutions as unworkable or wasteful, but it does not allow you to be able to choose the RIGHT solution. That is what wisdom is. As I have gotten older I have seen how valuable and rare wisdom truly is, and how little it is valued. People keep wanting to tell us that the President is intelligent, and I, for one, cannot see it. For any given problem, his solution comes from a very small number of the same solutions (increase the Federal government, increase his own or his cohorts power, and/or pay off a certain group with a "solution" that in no one decreases given problem, but might actually make it worse.) Clinton was much more intelligent, I think we can all agree. However, I do not think anyone would ever argue that Mr. Clinton was wise. In any sense. However, he seems to be wiser than his wife. Reagan always struck me as wise. Not in that he always made the right decision, but in the fact that he got many things "Right". Also, something that he had that is markedly absent in the two men discussed above is humility. Humility and wisdom always seem to have gone hand in hand to me. This is why claims, like Mr. Nichols' above, of expertise do not hold a lot of weight with me. Do not tell me how smart you are and how much you know. Knowledge or intelligence is cheap- wisdom (i.e. being able to make the right decision) is hard.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at January 17, 2014 12:01 PM (TGgNi)

169 In all these ways, the layman suspects he is being bullied into taking a position he does not favor by the invocation of the word "expert," and not just bullied-- often, he feels like he is being straight-up conned. That's when you lean towards them & say in a low voice, "Never bullshit an old bullshitter, son".

Posted by: rickb223 at January 17, 2014 12:01 PM (lUXJH)

170 >>>If you ever do another one of those retrospective postings you gotta bring back Jackie Mackie. Damn that was funny. i didn't want to. it seems so cruel to me now. What a monster you are.

Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 12:01 PM (/FnUH)

171 Fields which deal in theory or subjective matters is more difficult to measure in terms of being an expert. Spot on. Which is why Nichols (author of the original piece) is full of shit. Compiling knowledge is only one part of being an "expert" in a subjective field. The other half is consistent correct interpretation of that knowledge. That's something social "scientists" can't admit to themselves.

Posted by: Sean Bannion[/i][/s][/u][/b] at January 17, 2014 12:02 PM (yz6yg)

172 "Expert on public policy" roughly translates to "I sat in a lot of classes and I went to a lot of meetings, and now I'm going to tell you how I am going to make life-decisions for you."

Posted by: grammie winger at January 17, 2014 12:02 PM (P6QsQ)

173 I had a drug case where the defense counsel, no shit, tried to get a voodoo lady in NO qualified as an expert in a certain type of tea and its drug qualities I vior dired her, and she did not qualify (She called her self The Lady Doctor Reverand Bishop Tutu, no kidding) A lot of these talking heads on television claim to be experts with as much qualification I don't know this Mr Nichols, but part of being an "expert" is to justify your qualifications as such Experts are not infallable

Posted by: thunderb at January 17, 2014 12:02 PM (zOTsN)

174 Kudos to you Ace. This is one of your best. You've nailed every doubt, suspicion, and caveat to the door of the church of "expertise" in a way Luther would be proud of.

Posted by: OneEyedJack at January 17, 2014 12:02 PM (agLwc)

175 Plus, putting a subordinate in the front leaning rest for 20 minutes or so goes a long ways towards shutting up miscreants That's the "fuck you" ^5.

Posted by: Sean Bannion[/i][/s][/u][/b] at January 17, 2014 12:03 PM (yz6yg)

176 My Expertise is Satisfying Large Groups of Women.

Posted by: George Brownridge at January 17, 2014 12:03 PM (ZHTYA)

177 There are things, like mathematics, that can only be mastered with a lot of study. Someone with a Ph.D in math is clearly going to know way more about it than I do. But if that same person tries to tell me that 2+2=5, he's wrong, no matter how much of an expert he is.

Posted by: Farmer Joe at January 17, 2014 12:03 PM (P8oOy)

178 Take a look at my Divinity Degree, it's gotten me pretty far as an expert in global warming.

Posted by: Al Gore at January 17, 2014 03:48 PM (VjL9S)


****************************


He actually never got a degree from the Divinity School. Or the law school, which he also attended for a time.

Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at January 17, 2014 12:03 PM (HubSo)

179 All the "experts" completely missed the financial/housing collapse of 2007/2008 that continues too this day.  Every.Last.One.  There were some people warning about it, especially the easy credit to buy houses, but they were dismissed as crackpots, doomsayers or just not financially savy enough to understand the market.  I have never trusted the "experts" since and never will again. They are all missing the financial train wreck we are on that anybody with any sense can see.  Screw them.

Posted by: George Orwell at January 17, 2014 12:03 PM (Vv4Go)

180 Sometimes I go back to the paper I got published in law school, did a big section on expert testimony.

It's not just the facts that must be introduced, it's also the methods and analysis.

"Trained experts commonly extrapolate from existing data. But nothing in either Daubert or the Federal Rules of Evidence require a district court to admit opinion evidence that it connected to the existing data only by the ipse dixit of the expert. A court may conclude that there is simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion proffered."
--TX Supreme Court

And that is why we dismiss them, there is "simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion proffered."

Posted by: RoyalOil at January 17, 2014 12:03 PM (VjL9S)

181 >>What a monster you are. Indeed. One might even say I am an expert monster.

Posted by: JackStraw at January 17, 2014 12:03 PM (g1DWB)

182 Again, I like experts when I'm seeking guidance and advice. When they tell me I have to do something because they know best, I have much less confidence. This is all it comes down to. People just try to dismiss your opinion by claiming you are not an expert. Take my kids. No one is more of an expert of them than me, and yet certain experts will try to force me to not have the ability to spank my kids because it may damage their psyche.

Posted by: SH at January 17, 2014 12:04 PM (ztCj0)

183 A quote that I love that seems to fit the current situation: "I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know."

Posted by: Aetius451AD at January 17, 2014 12:04 PM (TGgNi)

184 " specifically social science and public policy"

sorry, but no one is an 'expert' on social science and public policy. Human behavior is so fickle that it is almost unpredictable (Hari Seldon hasn't been born yet). Public policy is based on human behavior, and humans have a thing called 'free will'

Individuals can, at any moment choose to change their minds on any topic and that makes groups as fickle as any individual. Humans make bad decisions all the time, and often compound those bad choices with even worse choices.

Individuals and groups make decisions for all the wrong reasons, irrational, illogical reasons, and experts are no different. There was a guy named Galileo. He was right, all of the worlds 'experts' were wrong. There are many other examples of experts being wrong on all kinds of things.

Sorry, but no. Experts give bad advice as often as non experts. (Karl Rove).
Yes, it is a good idea to consult with 'experts', but never do anything because an 'expert' told you to.

Posted by: Jerry Old Guy at January 17, 2014 12:04 PM (qnupY)

185 >>>Because experts themselves do not recognize the limitations of expertise, and need to be reminded of them. OK, I am going to go back and actually read the article. I just love ace's brain (in a non-creepy, non-stalkerish kind of way)

Posted by: I need a cool new sig at January 17, 2014 12:04 PM (q177U)

186 I agree with Michael Rittenhouse, pushing the global warming wagon has brought all scientists and experts into disrepute. It has been a long and sustained campaign to convince people that what they see is not true. People finally called enough.

Posted by: Decaf at January 17, 2014 12:04 PM (amIgd)

187 It's all because the "experts" ain't.
They are a bunch of frauds.
They are of late, anyway.

Posted by: navybrat at January 17, 2014 12:04 PM (AW7Gr)

188 50 It amazes me that Ace's brain can bounce from topic to topic and still just let the words flow the way they do.  Serious you guys. 

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 03:40 PM (DmNpO)

He's an expert with words! 

Keep an eye on that Ewok, can't trust him ...

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at January 17, 2014 12:04 PM (AjiwO)

189 Read the article ace linked about regenerating lost limbs, and what you will see most of all is how real, reproducible science is done. It's also a good story.
 
But enter a courtroom, and you will see various 'experts' from the prosecution and the defense disagree on just about everything. This includes 'settled science' on medical issues.
 
Then we have Elizabeth O'Bagy, PhD, issuing expert opinion on the Syrian rebels. Well okay, she fudged a bit and is just a dissertation review away from that PhD. Wait, well, she's not actually even enrolled in a PhD program but she's going to get on that, pronto.
 
And now she works for John McCain in an advisory capacity.
 
I'll let others beat up on the climate 'scientists' with their models that cannot predict anything but the past, and do even that poorly.

Posted by: GnuBreed at January 17, 2014 12:05 PM (cHZB7)

190 Ace, have you ever watched the British show "Horrible Histories"? British humor and history, for kids or other immature people.

Posted by: Mama AJ at January 17, 2014 12:05 PM (SUKHu)

191 It takes a whole lot of effort to keep up even on that little sliver. Most people, even experts, can't keep that effort up for a sustained period of time. By the time such an "expert" goes on to advise politicians, or do interviews on the news, they're probably years out of practice. Posted by: bonhomme at January 17, 2014 03:39 PM (P7Wsr) Those guys won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering that ulcers come from bacteria, not stress. To be fair, those guys were also doctors, and thus experts themselves, but they questioned well established and well known expert opinions.

Posted by: alexthechick - Come to us, oh mighty SMOD at January 17, 2014 12:05 PM (VtjlW)

192 "I am an expert monster." Or are you a monster expert?

Posted by: Lauren at January 17, 2014 12:05 PM (hFL/3)

193 Seems like many want to express how they "feel" about any given subject, and then construct walls of words (to make arguments) to defend their feelings. Because how they "feel" is so important, after all.

Posted by: tubal at January 17, 2014 12:05 PM (YEQ2h)

194 As an engineering major now in a pretty quantitatively oriented international security affairs program, I have to say that a lot of my previous stereotypes about the social sciences not being that scientific were somewhat misinformed. For example, new techniques for simulation and modeling in behavioral economics, for example, can produce results that are pretty replicable in the real world. That said, Ace hit the nail on the head--"can" doesn't equate to "should." Or making an analogy with physical sciences, just because you can build a nuclear bomb doesn't mean that you've considered all of moral and social ramifications, much less the unintended consequences.

Posted by: Hurricane LaFawnduh at January 17, 2014 12:06 PM (pginn)

195 That's when you lean towards them & say in a low voice, "Never bullshit an old bullshitter, son".

Posted by: rickb223 at January 17, 2014 04:01 PM (lUXJH)

 

 

---------------------------------------------

 

 

Yup.  Works for me. 

Posted by: Soona at January 17, 2014 12:06 PM (OP7uy)

196 "Architects are my favorite 'expert'. "

"90% of them can't build a sawhorse."


Ahem.
From the perspective of one who went to architecture school, worked for several years with them after graduation...


...said "fuck this" and ran away from the profession screaming, and is, today, suffering through a stack of architectural drawings to do a millwork quote...


YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.

Posted by: Jaws at January 17, 2014 12:07 PM (4I3Uo)

197 I have a PhD in Doughnuts Caloric Studies. *** Emphasis on Consumption Engineering

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 12:07 PM (DmNpO)

198 Good piece, Ace. Yeah, every PhD wants to be listened to with the same amount of respect as a particle physicist. Respect My Authoritai!

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at January 17, 2014 12:07 PM (ZPrif)

199 170 -

Oh.  I didn't think cruel was a thing we were avoiding around here.  I asked for this post when you were asking for suggestions. 

If you take away cruelty, you'll take away  about 36% of the things I have to say here.  What a sad, sad  day this is. 

Posted by: BurtTC at January 17, 2014 12:07 PM (BeSEI)

200 She called her self The Lady Doctor Reverand Bishop Tutu, no kidding

Did she wear toe shoes and one of those ballet outfits too?

Posted by: Basement Cat at January 17, 2014 12:07 PM (53cD3)

201 136 159 My standard response was, "You know you're going to do it anyway, so quit bitching and just do it."

Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at January 17, 2014 12:07 PM (HubSo)

202 I am too an expert!

Posted by: Al Roker at January 17, 2014 12:08 PM (DrC22)

203 I vior dired her, and she did not qualify (She called her self The Lady Doctor Reverand Bishop Tutu, no kidding) Miss Cleo's sister?

Posted by: rickb223 at January 17, 2014 12:08 PM (lUXJH)

204 Architects are my favorite 'expert'.


90% of them can't build a sawhorse.

Posted by: garrett at January 17, 2014 03:53 PM (ZHTYA)

 

That's a non-sequitur. We're talking about experts with expertise in a given field, people with specific knowledge in certain areas. Building a sawhorse has nothing to do with architecture unless you're talking about the execution of the design, which is called construction, which is another field entirely, although it's fairly safe to say both construction workers and architects depend on each other to pay the bills.

 

It should be noted I work as a commercial artist, and only point out glaringly obvious things as a (not very profitable) sideline.

Posted by: troyriser at January 17, 2014 12:08 PM (V9ol4)

205 What you guys said.

Yes, one can be an expert at, say, neurosurgery.  Or on the ancient Greek Navy.  Or metallurgy.  Hell, even Public Health Policy.  Etc, etc, etc.

Claim you're an "expert" at "social science and public policy"?  You're a douche who confuses credentialism with expertise.

Posted by: Hollowpoint at January 17, 2014 12:08 PM (SY2Kh)

206 Oh FFFFFFFS!! Houston School Board Outlaws “Warriors” And “Rebels” For Being Offensive Mascots…

Posted by: RWC at January 17, 2014 12:08 PM (fWAjv)

207 Seems like many want to express how they "feel" about any given subject, and then construct walls of words (to make arguments) to defend their feelings. Because how they "feel" is so important, after all.

Posted by: tubal at January 17, 2014 04:05 PM (YEQ2h)

 

 

------------------------------------------

 

 

And this really is the crux of the problem in this country right now.

Posted by: Soona at January 17, 2014 12:08 PM (OP7uy)

208 I call  myself  The  Blog   Whisperer.

Posted by: eleven at January 17, 2014 12:08 PM (fsLdt)

209 Architects are my favorite 'expert'.
90% of them can't build a sawhorse.

Oh, see, you proved the professor's point. You've totallyfailed to grasp what architect's expertise involves.

Architects aren't supposed to be able to build a sawhorse. Their training is to give them the necessary knowledge to design a sawhorse that's impossible for anybody to build!

Posted by: Sort-of-Mad Max at January 17, 2014 12:08 PM (DLu2s)

210 Gonna throw in one of my favorite scriptures here: O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish. But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.

Posted by: bonhomme[/i][/b][/i][/b][/s][/s] at January 17, 2014 12:08 PM (P7Wsr)

211

Posted by: Sean Bannion at January 17, 2014 04:02 PM (yz6yg)

 

Yes and to continue my use of cliche sayings,   most of the classroom and seminar   training these people get result in  them  not seeing the forest because of the trees. 

Posted by: polynikes at January 17, 2014 12:08 PM (m2CN7)

212

>>>sorry, but no one is an 'expert' on social science and public policy. Human behavior is so fickle that it is almost unpredictable (Hari Seldon hasn't been born yet). Public policy is based on human behavior, and humans have a thing called 'free will'. Posted by: Jerry Old Guy at January 17, 2014 04:04 PM (qnupY)

 

Humans often behave irrationally, but rarely completely randomly. Would you argue Adam Smith and capitalism are frauds because human behavior obviously can't be studied?

Posted by: Paul at January 17, 2014 12:09 PM (9qDRl)

213 148 People frequently confuse "expertise" for genius. Posted by: AmishDude, ask me about math at January 17, 2014 03:57 PM (T0NGe) A point i've been meaning to mention to you for awhile now is this. In the manner that people can derive comprehensible answers from complex equations, so too do people want simple answers to complex interactions of human behavior. People do not like dealing with complexity. They want "Yes" or "No" answers to whatever problem they are dealing with. Unfortunately, divining some of these answers is not as easy as figuring out the area under a curve.

Posted by: D-Lamp at January 17, 2014 12:09 PM (bb5+k)

214 "A month ago I was rounding up all the lefty 'experts' saying that they all knew that Obamacare would, of course, throw millions off cheaper, better insurance they already had and compel them to purchase pricier, worse insurance. Duh, they said collectively. How else could the numbers work? Well, we said 'Duh' two or three years ago too and we were called liars and ignoramuses for doing so."

This.

This with the heat of a thousand exploding suns.

It's one thing to not be an expert.

It's quite another thing to be an admitted nonexpert, and put forth a detailed opinion, and have one's standing even to _venture_ that opinion be rudely rubbished by "experts" who disagree, and yet have the nonexpert opinion in the end turn out to be the one which was correct.

What you're seeing here is Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain writ large. Because these "experts" simply can not stand to be shown up by amateurs.

Posted by: torquewrench at January 17, 2014 12:09 PM (gqT4g)

215 I love this place bush to the vagaries of being an "expert" in one day

Posted by: thunderb at January 17, 2014 12:10 PM (zOTsN)

216 58 the thing about "social science" is that it is very fertile ground for bias and almost impossible to measure Posted by: thunderb at January 17, 2014 03:42 PM (zOTsN) Social science is not.

Posted by: AmishDude, ask me about math at January 17, 2014 12:10 PM (T0NGe)

217 Houston School Board Outlaws “Warriors” And “Rebels” For Being Offensive Mascots…

Posted by: RWC at January 17, 2014 04:08 PM (fWAjv)

 

 

-----------------------------------------------

 

 

You people in TX need to start waking up.  There's too much of this shit going on  in your state now.

Posted by: Soona at January 17, 2014 12:10 PM (OP7uy)

218 Fine. Architects are my favorite 'expert'. 90% of them can't conceive of and build a sawhorse.

Posted by: garrett at January 17, 2014 12:10 PM (ZHTYA)

219

And then there are those experts who decide that their expertise in one field means that they should be deferred to as an expert in all other fields.

 

 

Thos people are annoyingly dangerous. 

"I have a doctorate!"

"It's in Woman's studies and we're talking about nuclear reactors!"

(pause)

"I have a doctorate!  Defer to me!"

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Many Styles of Ragetwitch Floor Mats to Choose From! at January 17, 2014 12:10 PM (hLRSq)

220

I wish this Administration and liberals in general would pay more attention to experts in human behaovior. 

Posted by: rockmom at January 17, 2014 12:11 PM (NYnoe)

221 ummmmm, part of the American Ethos is the rejection of expertise


read, par example, Ben Franklin

Posted by: President Merkin Muffley at January 17, 2014 12:11 PM (omBWL)

222 We'll leave the real world application to the laymen.

Posted by: An Architect at January 17, 2014 12:11 PM (ZHTYA)

223 I conceded to my wife that she was officially an "expert" when she started being hired to write reference book entries by Publishers I'd never heard of.

Posted by: Lincolntf at January 17, 2014 12:11 PM (ZshNr)

224 People claim bullshit expertise all the time, too. I know a guy who always claims he's an economist when talking politics. Well, speaking as an economist, I would say blah, blah, blah. He bluffs most people. I did a little research and found out dude has an undergrad degree in econ, which he got 15 years ago. He's never worked a day in his life as an "economist" either. I've called him out but he insists he really is an economist. Weird. Everybody wants to be an expert. They want that respect.

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at January 17, 2014 12:11 PM (ZPrif)

225 Houston School Board Outlaws “Warriors” And “Rebels” For Being Offensive Mascots… *** http://bit.ly/1jaolvI

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 12:11 PM (DmNpO)

226 186 -

Exactly.  Which is why people patting themselves on the  back for their "hard" science knowledge need to be careful.  We've seen a  great uptick in  the log-rolling of the supposed hard sciences lately, and not just the climate nonsense.

Ultimately, all "science" depends on an honest application of the principles of testing theories, and  the peer review process.  Well, if  all your peers are already on board with your theories, how does anybody outside your field know your tests were carried out honestly? 

That used to be  the  top priority. 

Posted by: BurtTC at January 17, 2014 12:11 PM (BeSEI)

227 This is why I direct everyone that will listen to this site. Well done ace, one of your best. I find the death of expertise most visible in political appointments. If Susan Rice as head of the NSA doesn't scare the living shit out of you, you are not paying attention. It goes on and on but the bottom line seems to be that "It aint what you know, It's who ya blow," has taken over in our gov as well as some of our businesses.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at January 17, 2014 12:12 PM (XIxXP)

228 Simpler concept... which comes to the root of the problem... Many so called Experts.... are not. Credentialism has created a whole slew of Edumacated People, with fancy Degrees, who don't know Squat. Paul Krugman? Economic expert? Michael Mann? whose is better at drawing Hockey sticks, than at Climate Science? EPA Scientists, who often are more politicians than scientists? Obama Admin Foreign Policy Experts? When its easy for the common man to see so called experts as wrong... so often... you start to question the very concept... And when the 'common man' has access to SOURCE Material only the Expert had access to in the past??? Then it becomes possible to question that Expertise....

Posted by: Romeo13 at January 17, 2014 12:12 PM (lZBBB)

229 Fine, again. Architects are my favorite 'expert'. 90% of them can't conceive of and build a functional sawhorse.

Posted by: garrett at January 17, 2014 12:12 PM (ZHTYA)

230 >>>And then there are those experts who decide that their expertise in one field means that they should be deferred to as an expert in all other fields.


Thos people are annoyingly dangerous.
"I have a doctorate!"
"It's in Woman's studies and we're talking about nuclear reactors!"
(pause)
"I have a doctorate! Defer to me!"

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Many Styles of Ragetwitch Floor Mats to Choose From! at January 17, 2014 04:10 PM (hLRSq)

 

This is actually the biggest problem.

Posted by: Paul at January 17, 2014 12:12 PM (9qDRl)

231 Houston School Board Outlaws “Warriors� And “Rebels� For Being Offensive Mascots� Posted by: RWC at January 17, 2014 04:08 PM (fWAjv) ----------------------------------------------- You people in TX need to start waking up. There's too much of this shit going on in your state now. The big cities need an air strike called in on them. They are lost causes.

Posted by: rickb223 at January 17, 2014 12:13 PM (lUXJH)

232

OK, experts, I gotta go get ready  for my gig tonight.

 

Y'all have fun and try not to trash the place, 'k?

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit [/i][/s][/b] at January 17, 2014 12:13 PM (0HooB)

233 I used to be a pert, but no longer.

Posted by: Now I'm an expert at January 17, 2014 12:13 PM (nbGZj)

234 Posted by: Aetius451AD at January 17, 2014 04:01 PM (TGgNi) Well Said.

Posted by: D-Lamp at January 17, 2014 12:13 PM (bb5+k)

235 "The life so short; the craft so long to learn" Our educational system sells prepackaged "expertise," and both vendors and customers have a great deal to lose by admitting the limits of textbook learning. Physicians have apprenticeships. Psychologists have apprenticeships. In one, illnesses are cured or not cured. In the other, perceptions are changed. Or not, whatever. Which discipline is more likely to be perfected by the rigors of trial and error?

Posted by: Cameo Appearance at January 17, 2014 12:13 PM (R8yKQ)

236 You people in TX need to start waking up. ----- Houston =/= Texas. I went to a Robert E. Lee High School that is still going strong.

Posted by: Jenny Hates Her Phone at January 17, 2014 12:13 PM (jAyUz)

237

Posted by: Sort-of-Mad Max at January 17, 2014 04:08 PM (DLu2s)

 

Yes I see the design now.  Beautiful in its image.

 

A saw horse with  1/2 inch  gold  spindal wired legs  with an  engraved chromed steel beam saddle.   

Posted by: polynikes at January 17, 2014 12:13 PM (m2CN7)

238 The credentialists want us to believe that all doctoral degrees are equal. Physics PhD = Econ PhD = Women's Studies PhD

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at January 17, 2014 12:13 PM (ZPrif)

239 37 Lol at 'an expert on social science and public policy'. What a douche. Posted by: mugiwara at January 17, 2014 03:38 PM (83+Ki) Hey, he kicked ass in his dorm room bull sessions... ...h8er!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars™ [/i] [/b] [/s] at January 17, 2014 12:13 PM (HsTG8)

240 41. People love being Chiefs Tested selected initiated You lesser humans

Posted by: Navypopojoe at January 17, 2014 12:13 PM (1DZOE)

241 Reminds me of the time I told a room full of civil engineers and draftsmen that it was a lot easier to draw something than it was to build it . Jeez , you'd have thought I took a dump on one of their drawing tables . My statement was a little unfair because some of the guys did have some experience working in the field , mostly the civil engineering techs ,but the guys right out of college . Forget it . Architects , same , same . Wasn't it the famous I.M. Pei , that had a shit pile of windows fall out of one of his buiildings after a stiff wind . Expert .

Posted by: awkward davies at January 17, 2014 12:14 PM (WK8VM)

242 Ace is on a tear today.

Posted by: JEM at January 17, 2014 12:14 PM (o+SC1)

243 Unfortunately, divining some of these answers is not as easy as figuring out the area under a curve. Posted by: D-Lamp at January 17, 2014 04:09 PM (bb5+k) That's the point. Mathematicians know well the notion of an "ill-posed problem" and yet social "scientists" seem to think that all problems are "finding the area under a curve".

Posted by: AmishDude, ask me about math at January 17, 2014 12:14 PM (T0NGe)

244 >>>Ace, have you ever watched the British show "Horrible Histories"? nope. sounds like an idea I had a while ago called "Bad Science," in which (I had proposed) an enthusiastic but incompetent wannabe science professor hosts a kid's show and tells them a bunch of things which are completely wrong. i would watch the Horrible Histories but I'm so biased against British humor. I don't find it funny. I know that's weird, because everyone says "Monty Python" or "The Office." But what I've found (at least as my own sense of humor goes) is that those are massive, massive OUTLIERS, and most British humor is not funny at all. I think people just want to think it's funny because Monty Python was funny.

Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 12:14 PM (/FnUH)

245 So, we need to bring back the Guilds as well as the Dueling Grounds.

Posted by: garrett at January 17, 2014 12:15 PM (ZHTYA)

246

#214 Seriously, Ezra Klein in 2009 was simply not old or experienced enough to be a real expert in anything.  Yet he sold himself as an expert in health care policy and heavily influenced the development of the ACA, and millions believe whatever he says is Gospel.  He's turned out to be wrong about almost everything. 

 

I got a degree in Public Policy, but it took me DECADES to be a real expert in one particular area of policy.  And even then, events can prove me wrong.

Posted by: rockmom at January 17, 2014 12:15 PM (Q4elb)

247 its the full moon

Posted by: thunderb at January 17, 2014 12:15 PM (zOTsN)

248 Jemmy Madison constructed a governmental structure based on negating 'experts', who to him were 'centers of power' ( or in service to Them )


by balancing, based on fear of being Checked. 

Posted by: President Merkin Muffley at January 17, 2014 12:15 PM (omBWL)

249 You people in TX need to start waking up. There's too much of this shit going on in your state now. Houston is New Orleans West, now. Yes, some of this needs to be nipped in the bud.

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) Ah, F It. at January 17, 2014 12:15 PM (PYAXX)

250 204 Architects are my favorite 'expert'. 90% of them can't build a sawhorse. Posted by: garrett at January 17, 2014 03:53 PM (ZHTYA) 

That's a non-sequitur. We're talking about experts with expertise in a given field, people with specific knowledge in certain areas. Building a sawhorse has nothing to do with architecture unless you're talking about the execution of the design, which is called construction, which is another field entirely, although it's fairly safe to say both construction workers and architectsdepend on each other to pay the bills.  It should be noted I work as a commercial artist, and only point out glaringly obvious things as a (not very profitable) sideline. 

Posted by: troyriser at January 17, 2014 04:08 PM (V9ol4)


I attended an engineering talk given by a technician a few years ago. 

One of the main points he wanted the young engineers to understand is that we have to think about how the parts are supposed to fit together during assembly, and not just about the final product. 

Relevance being that engineers design and the technicians put it together; but sometimes the engineers don't think about how it's put together and come up with impossible design, despite all their expertise.  

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at January 17, 2014 12:16 PM (AjiwO)

251 Expert = some asshole with an agenda.

Posted by: maddogg at January 17, 2014 12:16 PM (xWW96)

252
   One takeaway is that being an expert in a field is a constant learning experience.

  At the point you decide you know all of it is time to try another field.

Posted by: irongrampa at January 17, 2014 12:16 PM (SAMxH)

253 Houston is New Orleans West, now. The Katrina "Victims"

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at January 17, 2014 12:16 PM (XIxXP)

254 There is an envy of the respect and authority conveyed by a scientist or a doctor's expertise, and people want that for themselves in their own fields. Mathematics. Everyone wants the absolute certitude of mathematics without having to dirty their hands with icky proofs.

Posted by: AmishDude, ask me about math at January 17, 2014 12:16 PM (T0NGe)

255 I'm an expert. Drop trou, turn around, and let me predict your futures! Haha! Yer all fucked! Rumpology Is The Future!

Posted by: Rumpologist at January 17, 2014 12:17 PM (Qev5V)

256 Ultimately, all "science" depends on an honest application of the principles of testing theories

======================



Exactly.  My daughter is pursuing her doctorate in nursing.  DNP, which is Doctor of Nursing Practice.  The other route available is Ph.D., which is basically a research degree.  She told me "All the Ph.D. students want to do is sit around and talk about it, not put it into practice."


Posted by: grammie winger at January 17, 2014 12:17 PM (P6QsQ)

257 Experts are not infallable Posted by: thunderb at January 17, 2014 04:02 PM (zOTsN) I used to have the great joy and pleasure of dealing with Daubert and Frye motions, both offensively and defensively. By the by, if you know what that means without looking it up, you have some minor claim to expertise in a certain area of law. What did that teach me? All experts are full of shit and everyone's methodology can be attacked. Yes, that includes the hard sciences. As an aside, to this day I refuse to buy Kumho tires, just because if I had to cite that fucking case one more fucking time I was going to go something something.

Posted by: alexthechick - Come to us, oh mighty SMOD at January 17, 2014 12:17 PM (VtjlW)

258 >>Seriously, Ezra Klein in 2009 was simply not old or experienced enough to be a real expert in anything. He's a wonk. Posts on a blog called wonkblog and everything.

Posted by: JackStraw at January 17, 2014 12:17 PM (g1DWB)

259 Bob Costas , firearms expert .

Posted by: awkward davies at January 17, 2014 12:17 PM (WK8VM)

260 We live in a society who elected a so-called Constitutional Law professor (with the latter term denoting a level of expertise) who has no concept as to what constitutes Constitutional Law. The issue may not be the experts, but society's inability to judge expertise accurately.

Posted by: Fringe at January 17, 2014 12:17 PM (oWl4T)

261 I have expertise in being walked all over by the women in my life Damn the luck

Posted by: Navypopojoe at January 17, 2014 12:18 PM (1DZOE)

262 But the self-declared experts must also take some of the blame for this state of affairs.

I think you can stiffen up that assertion.  98% (and I have data) of the so called expertise pushed in the public sphere is lefty bullshit. 

Posted by: SpongeBobObama at January 17, 2014 12:18 PM (kxSZr)

263 Posted by: Romeo13 at January 17, 2014 04:12 PM (lZBBB) Or... to continue my thought... Just because you have studied something, even for a looonnnngggg time... It does not mean you UNDERSTAND something.

Posted by: Romeo13 at January 17, 2014 12:18 PM (lZBBB)

264 "Yes I see the design now. Beautiful in its image.

A saw horse with 1/2 inch gold spindal wired legs with an engraved chromed steel beam saddle."


REJECTED!

Your sawhorse isn't sufficiently "green" as evidenced by your lack of LEED certification points.  Perhaps if you raised your budget a bit...

Posted by: Jaws at January 17, 2014 12:18 PM (4I3Uo)

265 expert joke


The difference between God and a doctor is that God doesn't think he's a doctor

Posted by: Keyser Soze at January 17, 2014 12:18 PM (omBWL)

266 Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 04:14 PM (/FnUH) You might like In The Thick of It. If anything, you will learn new curse words.

Posted by: Rumpologist at January 17, 2014 12:19 PM (Qev5V)

267
All the "experts" completely missed the financial/housing collapse of 2007/2008 that continues too this day. Every.Last.One. There were some people warning about it, especially the easy credit to buy houses, but they were dismissed as crackpots, doomsayers or just not financially savy enough to understand the market. I have never trusted the "experts" since and never will again. They are all missing the financial train wreck we are on that anybody with any sense can see. Screw them.

Posted by: George Orwell at January 17, 2014 04:03 PM (Vv4Go)










I'd imagine that a surprising number of those "experts" saw it coming from a mile away, but they didn't speak up because it would have disproved all their earlier work. Or they were set up to profit either from the bubble or from the crash. Or they just got a kick out of watching the whole thing burn.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at January 17, 2014 12:19 PM (TIIx5)

268 He's turned out to be wrong about almost everything.


*******************************


He's qualified to be Vice President! Hillary-Ezra '16!!

Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at January 17, 2014 12:19 PM (HubSo)

269 sounds like an idea I had a while ago called "Bad Science," in which (I had proposed) an enthusiastic but incompetent wannabe science professor hosts a kid's show and tells them a bunch of things which are completely wrong. Have it hosted by Leonard, Sheldon, Raj & Howard.

Posted by: rickb223 at January 17, 2014 12:19 PM (lUXJH)

270 A self proclaimed king of shit, is still, in his own eyes, a king.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at January 17, 2014 12:19 PM (XIxXP)

271 Credentialism has created a whole slew of Edumacated People, with fancy Degrees, who don't know Squat. *** I worked my way into a well-paying job with a ton of responsibility. I did it at the expense of my education, working mostly 60 and 70 hour weeks for years. I tried to return to school to finish, but work always got in the way. In my last job I had a marketing portfolio of nearly a half billion dollars and was the only manager on my level without a degree. The company, and my new boss in particular, were not happy with that fact and no matter what I accomplished, I would never rise any higher. Not with "credentialed", fresh out of school MBA's willing to work for nothing in this economy. Within 6 months they think they should be running the joint which is, frankly, pretty damn stupid of them considering the hundreds of years of experience proximate to their cubicles. They company always seem to forget that the moment the economy turns around, those kids are the first out the door for greener pastures.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 12:19 PM (DmNpO)

272 I  always laugh at this definition of "expert" because there's a lot of  human nature in it:  An expert is someone working in your profession that lives far away.

Posted by: Soona at January 17, 2014 12:19 PM (OP7uy)

273 Wry Mouth's First Law of Expertise is "Demonstrated expertise in one area does not necessarily imply expertise in all areas." Obvious example: Richard Dawkins.

Posted by: Wry Mouth at January 17, 2014 12:19 PM (GMFsH)

274 Thanks, Ace! Now I really want to see this movie!

Posted by: Large, Auto-allergic, Feline from the sidebar at January 17, 2014 12:19 PM (pHsgM)

275 Senssenbrener cosigns a bill with Leahy to bring back the VRA and punish TX.

For further laughs, he claims he's as conservative as Leahy is liberal.

Fucker.

Hope he falls in a ditch and no one ever comes along.

Posted by: RoyalOil at January 17, 2014 12:20 PM (VjL9S)

276 Someone say Kumho?

Posted by: Sandra Fluke at January 17, 2014 12:20 PM (ZHTYA)

277 Wasn't it the famous I.M. Pei , that had a shit pile of windows fall out of one of his buiildings after a stiff wind . Expert . 

Posted by: awkward davies at January 17, 2014 04:14 PM (WK8VM)


That reminds me:  3rd longest suspension bridge of its time, built by experts, collapsed in 4 months.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_%281940%29

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at January 17, 2014 12:20 PM (AjiwO)

278 Wait I missed the thread on expertise and science? The area I have expertise? Well fuck it. Anyway, Science isn't what it used to be. Various things have more or less corrupted it (perhaps in part the becoming of a career rather than a hobby.) Lots of it is bias confirmation and what I called "weaponized science" designed to make policy recommendations that frankly science is ill equipped to actually make in may cases. (Hi, naturalistic fallacy!)

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) No Really! at January 17, 2014 12:20 PM (GaqMa)

279 Another thought about "expert" credentialism:

When you _do_ start to Pay Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain, and when you start to ask what the particular relevance of his wizardly credential is to the subject under discussion, you may often find that it's not especially relevant at all. That there's a huge pose going on.

This is MASSIVELY so of "climate science".

It's routine now to hear comments about "tens of thousands of scientists agree". There are not tens of thousands of scientists whose training properly equips them to be making anything like long range forecasts about the behavior of the incredibly complicated mechanism that is climate. There are, max, a few hundred such individuals on the planet, where "a few" is genuinely a few.

And what you find out when you dig deeper is that you've got entomologists and dendrologists and such weighing in with what amounts to a somewhat educated guess. If in fact their background is *that* distantly relevant. It can be much less so.

The IPCC is absolutely notorious for this crap.

Ian Plimer, a geologist, points out that in one IPCC report he read, when he dug into the collective curriculum vitae of the contributors, he found that one of the contributing authors was primarily... an expert on the effectiveness of motorcycle helmets. Who had a sideline in scare headlines about health risks from mobile phone use. Another one was a professional environmental activist whose previous big scientific crusade was ginning up support for an international land mine ban on the basis of the mercury left behind in the soil after a mine blows up. (Funny how they worry about this stuff in land mines but not in the light bulbs they force us to use, eh?)

Posted by: torquewrench at January 17, 2014 12:20 PM (gqT4g)

280 An Inconvenient Afterschool Special Presentation.

Posted by: Lincolntf at January 17, 2014 12:20 PM (ZshNr)

281 fucking slow day, eh?

Posted by: Misanthropic Humantiarian at January 17, 2014 12:20 PM (HVff2)

282 This is funny, I was at the Doctor's Wedensday and invoked my layman status when asked to describe a symptom. Ace, perhaps the word you were reaching for was technocracy the rule of an elite coterie of experts from cross disciplines in administering enlightened mechanisms and controls on a body of defacto subjects. If the "educated" would like their technocracy to blow trillions at a time on wrecking health care, blowing up industrial energy grids and whatnot perhaps they could run OPENLY on that system of goernance rather than cloaking it in gauzy bromides like "help" and "coordinate"? I don't reject the expert's knowledge being superior to mine, I have seen far too often the last 15 years the expert reject the humility to know when a situation has rendered him a layman. Regards, Sven

Posted by: sven10077 at January 17, 2014 12:21 PM (TE35l)

283 Very timely article for me Ace. As an MD I have to say that Medicine is both a Science and an Art. 80%/20%. You can learn the Science but some never learn the Art and you have to have both. This was timely for me because I was just over at the Center for American Progress site reading an old 2010 plan by John Podesta on Executive Action. While there I read an article on why the Pebble Mine in Alaska must be stopped; presumably by armed EPA SWAT teams. All through the article they scream, "The Science is Settled!" (no, seriously) and as authority cite the EPA watershed study. The problem is, the article makes speculation after speculation including how the mine will operate when the mine has not released an operating plan yet and simply claims facts not in evidence. Using the EPA as an authoritive source is crapola as well unless you are writing about a corrupt agency that has lost it's Mandate from Heaven. Yes experts can be full of shit unless you tap into their particular expertise or at the very least avail yourself of their hard earned logical thought. As an aside, at the bottom of every essay on CFAP they list their fellows and a note that informs the MFM how to contact our experts. Heh.

Posted by: Daybrother at January 17, 2014 12:21 PM (CLNsc)

284 I'm an expert in rooting for losing teams Shit, I should have a phd in it

Posted by: Navypopojoe at January 17, 2014 12:21 PM (1DZOE)

285 Srsly, Tom, we live in a Republic.

Posted by: Large, Auto-allergic, Feline from the sidebar at January 17, 2014 12:21 PM (pHsgM)

286 Expert: Tony Beets.

Posted by: Lincolntf at January 17, 2014 12:21 PM (ZshNr)

287 Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 04:19 PM (DmNpO) One of the reasons I love my field (software development) is that there is still a lot of room for people who *don't* have degrees (like yours truly). That amount of room is decreasing all the time, unfortunately, but it's still there.

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) Ah, F It. at January 17, 2014 12:22 PM (PYAXX)

288 Saw The Experts open for The Tubes in MSG back in 1980.

Posted by: garrett at January 17, 2014 12:22 PM (ZHTYA)

289 Putin's incredible gay insult: Russian president says homosexuals will be welcome at Winter Olympics ... so long as they 'leave the children alone' I believe he was referring to the Russian law that says no propagandizing to minors -- not the other thing. lol No. He was saying that, but he was implying the other thing. Anyone confronts him, he starts with the "Why would your mind go to child molestation?" I said that Obama should not get into a pissing match with Putin. Putin is so much better at this stuff.

Posted by: AmishDude at January 17, 2014 12:22 PM (T0NGe)

290 100 I prefer the expertise of the accumulated wisdom of the western world. Posted by: SH at January 17, 2014 03:48 PM (CNuph) --------------------------- Yes. A degree in social "science" or womyn's studies is nothing compared to the study of the best literature, history, and philosophy --- learning from the best of those who have learned before us, thinking about the ideas of others who have thought, learning from the experience of man. This is what the traditional liberal arts were about until the progressives replaced them with NEW!!! IMPROVED!!! pseudo-sciences and "arts" that do not have wisdom and truth as their goal, but ideology and action.

Posted by: Margarita DeVille at January 17, 2014 12:22 PM (dfYL9)

291 179 All the "experts" completely missed the financial/housing collapse of 2007/2008 that continues too this day. Every.Last.One. There were some people warning about it, especially the easy credit to buy houses, but they were dismissed as crackpots, doomsayers or just not financially savy enough to understand the market. I have never trusted the "experts" since and never will again. They are all missing the financial train wreck we are on that anybody with any sense can see. Screw them. Posted by: George Orwell at January 17, 2014 04:03 PM (Vv4Go) I believe Peter Schiff called that one before the fact.

Posted by: D-Lamp at January 17, 2014 12:22 PM (bb5+k)

292 I saw a fairly recent article hammering the non-reproducibility of lots and lots of studies. The number I recall was on the order of 87% of studies couldn't be duplicated. I couldn't find that particular article, but I did find this blog post about the topic with numerous embedded links:
 
http://preview.tinyurl.com/mczes3b

Posted by: GnuBreed at January 17, 2014 12:23 PM (cHZB7)

293 244 -

Eddie Izzard is funny.

Because he's an expert at applying makeup. 

Posted by: BurtTC at January 17, 2014 12:23 PM (BeSEI)

294 Remember that Joe Biden is an expert on foreign policy inasmuch as he opines on it frequently. However he is almost always wrong.

Posted by: AmishDude at January 17, 2014 12:23 PM (T0NGe)

295

Executive Summary

Why won't people listen to meeeeeeee!

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at January 17, 2014 12:23 PM (kdS6q)

296 As an aside, to this day I refuse to buy Kumho tires, just because if I had to cite that fucking case one more fucking time I was going to go something something.

Posted by: alexthechick - Come to us, oh mighty SMOD at January 17, 2014 04:17 PM (VtjlW)

 

I had a spurt there back in the 90's where every  claimant  who ever had a fire that started next to their CD player figured the CD  in the player or the player in combination with the CD  was the cause and had their third party attorney and expert testify to the same.    

 

Even though It was bull and refuted by my 'experts' ,  I found myself never leaving a CD in my player for years after.  

Posted by: polynikes at January 17, 2014 12:24 PM (m2CN7)

297 I'm an expert in rooting for losing teams Shit, I should have a phd in it Posted by: Navypopojoe at January 17, 2014 04:21 PM (1DZOE) Ha! If we're going to war of experts on that topic, I submit that I win* bitches. Go me! *For certain values of winning when discussing always rooting for losing teams.

Posted by: alexthechick - Come to us, oh mighty SMOD at January 17, 2014 12:24 PM (VtjlW)

298 266 Keyser Soze, Yup....

Posted by: sven10077 at January 17, 2014 12:24 PM (TE35l)

299 In my humble not so expert opinion, the "experts" always seem to be wrong lately. Climate change, healthcare, Arab spring, etc., are just a few examples(although some may disagree) of "experts" getting it wrong.

Fox had some expert claiming wheat bran was bad for you. I eat shredded wheat every morning because it's low sodium, no sugar and plenty of fiber. F#ck it;imma get me some retro Kaboom, and settle!

Posted by: boned to the bone at January 17, 2014 12:25 PM (Ph479)

300 One of the reasons I love my field (software development) is that there is still a lot of room for people who *don't* have degrees (like yours truly). That amount of room is decreasing all the time, unfortunately, but it's still there. *** And it seems that the intangible skills such as the ability to negotiate and possessing strong intuition no longer count for anything. Intuition?! What degree do you have to back that up?!

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 12:25 PM (DmNpO)

301 I'm not sure scientists understand how much damage "climate science" has done to the faith people have in Science in general.

Nice post btw.

Posted by: Dr Spank at January 17, 2014 12:25 PM (DpEwG)

302 That amount of room is decreasing all the time, unfortunately, but it's still there. Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) Ah, F It. at January 17, 2014 04:22 PM (PYAXX) A degree, like an honorable discharge from the military is proof that you will actually see something through to it's fruition. In todays world, most jobs are taught to you by the employer. Specialists are different but you will still be playing by the rules of man that pays you.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at January 17, 2014 12:25 PM (XIxXP)

303 172 "Expert on public policy" roughly translates to "I sat in a lot of classes and I went to a lot of meetings, and now I'm going to tell you how I am going to make life-decisions for you."

Posted by: grammie winger at January 17, 2014 04:02 PM (P6QsQ)

//consults Magic 8-ball


Yup.  Life coach.

Posted by: tangonine at January 17, 2014 12:25 PM (x3YFz)

304 >>Wasn't it the famous I.M. Pei , that had a shit pile of windows fall out of one of his buiildings after a stiff wind . Expert . Hancock Tower in Boston. True story, they actually designed the building as a sort of angled rectangle because it was right across the street from Trinity Church in Copley Square and people were pissed that the shadow of the building would cover the church. So they angled the building and for a couple of years the windows kept falling out. Kind of a big deal since the entire building is windows and its like 50+ stories tall.

Posted by: JackStraw at January 17, 2014 12:25 PM (g1DWB)

305 Allen, did you learn it the old fashioned way or did you start out with a few classes?

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 12:25 PM (DmNpO)

306 BTW, I actually have a degree in Political Science and it's from a very well regarded university. Ergo, my political opinions are expert-class and anyone who disagrees with me proves they are dummies without Political Science degrees, or if they have the degree, they went to a shitty college. Like probably Harvard or Yale or something.

Posted by: mugiwara at January 17, 2014 12:26 PM (W7ffl)

307 I'm being a little hard on civil engineers , mostly they're pretty good . The best ones are humble guys , cause they know if they design something for say , a 100 yr. flood ,, then sure enough , the next spring will bring a 500 yr. flood .

Posted by: awkward davies at January 17, 2014 12:26 PM (WK8VM)

308 I read somewhere on the internet that watching SNL from the age of 7 on makes one a Comedy Expert.

Posted by: garrett at January 17, 2014 12:26 PM (ZHTYA)

309 285 -

You don't have to be.  The  Cardinals are  just a few hours south  on I-55.  Come on down, we won't judge you.  As long as you keep quiet about your previous life as an Ubscay fan, that is. 

Posted by: BurtTC at January 17, 2014 12:26 PM (BeSEI)

310 Allen, did you learn it the old fashioned way or did you start out with a few classes? My only software dev class was in HS (It was called "computer math" for some reason)- it was all QBasic. So I don't count it. Otherwise- all the old fashioned way.

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) Ah, F It. at January 17, 2014 12:27 PM (PYAXX)

311 I would cast the problem differently.
It's not that their are so many experts, or so few, or that their pronouncements are or are not taken as gospel. It's that the little sense people once possessed has now been driven out of their heads: they are unable to use logic and proportion to assess what the experts say.
Tract after tract in the deep blue cities inhabited by people who eat food taken out of boxes and live in rooms with opaque window coverings and a large TV screen as its focal point.
Many are medicated to the gills.

Posted by: Large, Auto-allergic, Feline from the sidebar at January 17, 2014 12:27 PM (pHsgM)

312 Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 04:19 PM (DmNpO) Yup.... when I started in IT and electronics, 35 years ago... there WERE no degrees in my discipline. I helped create some of this stuff... and taught College Accredited Classes in it... But as I do not have the degree, which did not exist, in the technology I helped create... I am passed over for Jobs, by people who took MY classes to get their credentials... /facepalm

Posted by: Romeo13 at January 17, 2014 12:27 PM (lZBBB)

313

The social science should drop the word "science", it's a transparently aspirational attempt to be taken More Seriously.

 

That's not to say they are without foundation and merit.  I was a Poli.Sci. major (until the last term, when the amount of reading proved incompatible with the AoS Lifestyle as practiced in my fraternity).  As an ignorant undergraduate I chose it because it had the word science in it and that suggested it could be mastered.

 

In fact, the international branch of it that I focused on turned out to be more about history.  It was in fact important to know how the various communist parties in Eastern Europe had come to power, what the cultural differences were among them, why the Soviets tolerated some shit here and not other shit there.  If you were dealing with or writing about the region there was an important body of knowledge to consider.  But there was no "science" to tell you whether or not the commies were going to come through the Fulda Gap.

Posted by: Frumious Bandersnatch at January 17, 2014 12:27 PM (A0sHn)

314 287 Expert: Tony Beets.
=====
"In the Klondike, lessons cost money; good ones cost lots."


Posted by: RoyalOil at January 17, 2014 12:28 PM (VjL9S)

315 It's not that their are so many experts, or so few, or that their pronouncements are or are not taken as gospel. It's that the little sense people once possessed has now been driven out of their heads: they are unable to use logic and proportion to assess what the experts say.

==================



Very well put.

Posted by: grammie winger at January 17, 2014 12:28 PM (P6QsQ)

316

Posted by: Daybrother at January 17, 2014 04:21 PM (CLNsc)

 

 

---------------------------------------------

 

 

The one holding the M16 in your face  will  claim expertise in whatever subject they please.

Posted by: Soona at January 17, 2014 12:28 PM (OP7uy)

317 No, the greatest pleasure a human being can feel in this realm is not telling someone how to do something that other person has decided to do. The greatest achievement is telling that person What he ought to do.

Show him what worked for you and see it then work for him.

Posted by: DaveA[/i][/b][/s] at January 17, 2014 12:28 PM (DL2i+)

318 Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at January 17, 2014 04:25 PM (XIxXP) The problem with that in the Software Dev world is that there is so much domain knowledge you need to acquire that ALSO having to learn the actual programming (and all too many "Computer Science" degrees seem not to teach programming) makes your learning curve high enough that you often don't survive the 90-day "transitional period."

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) Ah, F It. at January 17, 2014 12:29 PM (PYAXX)

319 310. 8-O Ummm No

Posted by: Navypopojoe at January 17, 2014 12:29 PM (8sFfo)

320 Would you argue Adam Smith and capitalism are frauds because human behavior obviously can't be studied?

Posted by: Paul at January 17, 2014 04:09 PM (9qDRl)

Non sequitur, false premise. Obviously human behavior can be observed, it can't be predicted. Obviously Adam Smith and capitalism are not fraudulent. Why would you try to suggest that was what I was saying?

Would you argue that Linus Pauling, who once expressed an opinion about vitamin C and the common cold (which apparently turns out to be incorrect) should be ignored because he once said something that didn't prove out? Of course not.

Go away with your facile manipulation of language.


Posted by: Jerry Old Guy at January 17, 2014 12:29 PM (qnupY)

321 309 I read somewhere on the internet that watching SNL from the age of 7 on makes one a Comedy Expert. Posted by: garrett at January 17, 2014 04:26 PM (ZHTYA) Well.... maybe an expert on how Comedy goes from funny.... to just sad???

Posted by: Romeo13 at January 17, 2014 12:29 PM (lZBBB)

322 But as I do not have the degree, which did not exist, in the technology I helped create... I am passed over for Jobs, by people who took MY classes to get their credentials... /facepalm *** Wow! Facepalm, indeed.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 12:29 PM (DmNpO)

323 I read somewhere on the internet that watching SNL from the age of 7 on makes one a Comedy Expert. *** Are you sure they used the word "comedy"?

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 12:30 PM (DmNpO)

324

I fear we are witnessing the “death of expertise”: a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of any division between professionals and laymen, students and teachers, knowers and wonderers – in other words, between those of any achievement in an area and those with none at all.

-

I have no problem with experts, as long as they offer references and proof.  We have too many people who are willing to alter their lives, or worse, alter our lives based on some 'expert opinion', and the 'expert' in question is either a pie in the sky idealist whose ideas are not   based in reality, or worse is an ideologue .

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at January 17, 2014 12:31 PM (eGmvn)

325 238 Flatbush Joe, You're goddamned right I ordered the Code Red! //Dr Paul Kruhaton Krugman phd

Posted by: sven10077 at January 17, 2014 12:31 PM (TE35l)

326 Next you're gonna tell me that the TANG documents were fake

Posted by: Dan Rather at January 17, 2014 12:31 PM (Pr6hk)

327 I think the increase of the level of narcissism in the past couple of generations has also make experts unable to criticize their own expertise. This does not not allow said expertise to grow. They seem to stay stuck at the level they were when someone actually called them an expert.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at January 17, 2014 12:31 PM (XIxXP)

328 I think people just want to think it's funny because Monty Python was funny. Posted by: ace at January 17, 2014 04:14 PM (/FnUH) The fourth Season of Blackadder was funny. Funniest shit I ever saw. Well, three of the episodes anyway.

Posted by: D-Lamp at January 17, 2014 12:32 PM (bb5+k)

329 Those guys won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering that ulcers come from bacteria, not stress. To be fair, those guys were also doctors, and thus experts themselves, but they questioned well established and well known expert opinions. Posted by: alexthechick - Come to us, oh mighty SMOD at January 17, 2014 04:05 PM (VtjlW) Better example. Linus Pauling (yes, two-time genuine Nobel prize winner) derided the notion of "quasicrystals" in the 80s: "Danny Shechtman is talking nonsense. There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists," In 2011 Shechtman won the Nobel prize for the discovery. Sometimes science is wrong. Badly wrong.

Posted by: AmishDude at January 17, 2014 12:32 PM (T0NGe)

330 One thing that occurs to me often is that while there is now less deference to experts in fields I think of as requiring "real" expertise, like medicine, there is now a surge of people claiming to be experts in things that aren't really quantifiable, like parenting. Maybe I read too many mommy blogs, but that's one thing that sticks out to me. Related to that, there's this weird idea that personal experience with something, rather than study of it, mixed with professional makes the "experts". Again, it's something you see a lot with parenting---people will actually sneer about a teacher or a pediatrician or what-have-you that doesn't have kids of his/her own (or doesn't have as many). Just something interesting.

Posted by: Jenny Hates Her Phone at January 17, 2014 12:32 PM (GmTxn)

331 ... they are unable to use logic and proportion to assess what the experts say.
Posted by: Large, Auto-allergic, Feline from the sidebar at January 17, 2014 04:27 PM (pHsgM)

Ever so slight difference of opinion with that.

My take is that people cannot separate fact from opinion.
I actually had a class on that in middle school -- that was back in 1960.

We had to use logic on some fairly tough questions (sentences) to differentiate.

One of the most useful classes I ever took.

Posted by: jwb7605 [/i][/u][/s][/b] at January 17, 2014 12:33 PM (3Tv+N)

332 Nood Pod-Cast.

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) Ah, F It. at January 17, 2014 12:33 PM (PYAXX)

333 My only software dev class was in HS (It was called "computer math" for some reason)- it was all QBasic. So I don't count it. Otherwise- all the old fashioned way. Can you write a KMP parser without looking it up? Or a Huffman encoder? Curiosity only, not making fun.

Posted by: bonhomme[/i][/b][/i][/b][/s][/s] at January 17, 2014 12:33 PM (P7Wsr)

334 Scientists are in the "denial" phase (irony intended) of how they are seen by the community at large. That is why science websites are shutting down comments. It would be pretty nice if the main universities here could call out the warmenists as con artists, but that's like waiting for the Pope to excommunicate our "catholic" proabortion politicians. Good luck with that

Posted by: boulder toilet hobo at January 17, 2014 12:33 PM (eo3Zc)

335 Looking at his blog and credentials, this guy could credibly claim to be an expert at national security policy and international relations.

And to be fair, his blog does tend to focus on those very issues.

Yet, he didn't say that.  Instead, he claims expertise "...in a particular area of human knowledge, specifically social science and public policy."

If he has an opinion on how the US should treat the Syrian conflict (for example), I'd be interested in what he has to say.  Moreso than about what Joe Sixpack thinks about it.

If he tries to bolster his opinion about health care policy by citing his "public policy" expertise, he can go fuck himself.

Maybe he doesn't do that, but so many "experts" do. 

Posted by: Hollowpoint at January 17, 2014 12:33 PM (SY2Kh)

336 The "stupid doc" is able to diagnose the easy 80%, common cold, flu, herpes, whatever.

but, when it comes to something less common they just flail around.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 17, 2014 04:29 PM (KBvAm)

 

As a non expert,  my observation blames this phenomenon, ironically enough,  on science.   Doctors today rely too much on testing .   They have a check list and if your tests are normal ,  they (definitely not all) are stumped  and don't seem to have  the inclination to do anything else.   I blame that on time mostly. 

Posted by: polynikes at January 17, 2014 12:33 PM (m2CN7)

337 I'm an expert in rooting for losing teams Shit, I should have a phd in it Posted by: Navypopojoe at January 17, 2014 04:21 PM (1DZOE) Ha! If we're going to war of experts on that topic, I submit that I win* bitches. Go me! *For certain values of winning when discussing always rooting for losing teams. Posted by: alexthechick - Come to us, oh mighty SMOD at January 17, 2014 04:24 PM (VtjlW My money is on AtC

Posted by: Misanthropic Humantiarian at January 17, 2014 12:33 PM (HVff2)

338 330 -

I tried getting  through Season 1, and could not make it.  Just not funny.  At all. 

As for SNL, I bought the Season 2 set some time ago.  Some of it is very interesting, some of it is even funny, but a lot of it was not.

Belushi  was a freakin'  genius, Murray is almost physiologically incapable of NOT being funny, but the other guys?  Eh.  Very hit and miss.  And the gals, with the exception of Gilda, were almost always  NOT funny. 

Posted by: BurtTC at January 17, 2014 12:34 PM (BeSEI)

339

 Would you argue Adam Smith and capitalism are frauds because human behavior obviously can't be studied?

Posted by: Paul at January 17, 2014 04:09 PM (9qDRl)

 

 

----------------------------------------------

 

 

Past human behaviour CAN be studied.  It's called  history.  Where this country is failing is that the "experts" have shredded "factual history".

Posted by: Soona at January 17, 2014 12:34 PM (OP7uy)

340 I can tell you what DOES payoff in the corporate world now, and it's ass-kissing. I'm not talking about the ability to negotiate a room or the ability to conduct small talk or to network, but out and out ass-kissing. So many folks have risen through the ranks with absolutely no management skills that they must secretly know they suck at it. Hence they CRAVE compliments and atta boys from those around them. When will companies figure out that just because one performs a particular job well does not mean that that same person will manage well the others doing that same job?

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 12:34 PM (DmNpO)

341 Wait, you're trying to say that I'm not an expert in autism and nobody should listen to me? Do you know how many congressmen and reporters I have on speed dial????

Posted by: Jenny McCarthy, Expert With Big Knockers at January 17, 2014 12:34 PM (DLu2s)

342 The social science should drop the word "science", it's a transparently aspirational attempt to be taken More Seriously. We've already figured this out. There are exceptions to this, like economics and computer science but the academic hierarchy is roughly: -ics -engineering -ology -science -studies

Posted by: AmishDude at January 17, 2014 12:35 PM (T0NGe)

343 325 Niedemeyer' Dead Horse, Well "theoretical studies" anyway...

Posted by: sven10077 at January 17, 2014 12:35 PM (TE35l)

344 Intuition?! What degree do you have to back that up?! Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at January 17, 2014 04:25 PM (DmNpO) Philosophy, specifically Aristotelian. I jest. You know the other thing about experts is, that in reality all expertise means is that you're well versed on the available data for a given topic. When called upon you should be able to cite that data and explain it (and how it affects your topic of interest.) However many "experts" aren't that. They're well versed on particular *arguments* about a topic, but not necessarily the data. Consider my two fields: Biochemistry and Bioethics. Now, I'm arguably a quasi-expert on a few rare medical conditions in the former (via my time in the lab.) Which one's specifically are unimportant. The idea is though that if called upon, I could cite you relevant facts and evidence about those disorders, and how it affects other things (like development.) This is what renders me an "expert." in that area. I have a greater body of knowledge than most individuals. You could even rate my "expertise" relative to all the other people who are in the field (I'm at the bottom.) Now take my current field. At best, I know the state of the current battlegrounds, and maybe some factual data with regards to how people make choices. So I'm not sure this really renders me an "expert" in bioethics. I'm not even sure you could be an expert in this area. There's no "facts" to fall back on. An expert in the study of the field of bioethics perhaps. (How meta!) Expertise in particular thick moral systems is certainly possible (e.g. "Catholic Bioethics.") but only because you're appealing to a facts about a particular tradition. And yet, people claim "expertise" in this area.

Posted by: tsrblke, PhD(c) No Really! at January 17, 2014 12:35 PM (GaqMa)

345 Wait, you're trying to say that I'm not an expert in autism and nobody should listen to me? Do you know how many congressmen and reporters I have on speed dial???? Posted by: Jenny McCarthy, Expert With Big Knockers at January 17, 2014 04:34 PM (DLu2s) Trust me honey, they can't hear a word you say. They are staring at your tits.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at January 17, 2014 12:35 PM (XIxXP)

346 At lot of people here are experts in snark, I wish it paid better.

Posted by: Dr Spank at January 17, 2014 12:36 PM (DpEwG)

347 and all too many "Computer Science" degrees seem not to teach programming BYU CS program started off by teaching the basics in Java. Then all the classes transitioned to turning in projects in C++. You had to learn that one on your own and the freaking TAs said it was basically the same thing. Bastards.

Posted by: bonhomme[/i][/b][/i][/b][/s][/s] at January 17, 2014 12:36 PM (P7Wsr)

348 I'll tell you what makes a person an expert in any field: Being the boss's son. Can't get any more expert than that!

Posted by: Sort-of-Mad Max at January 17, 2014 12:36 PM (DLu2s)

349 At lot of people here are experts in snark, I wish it paid better. Posted by: Dr Spank at January 17, 2014 04:36 PM (DpEwG) Good Christ, we'd all be farting through silk instaed of cotton.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at January 17, 2014 12:37 PM (XIxXP)

350

Barky's cheerleaders told us...."Everybody Lies"....when they were defending his lies about OCare.

 

But, if 'everybody lies', as they assert, then that means the experts lie too.

 

That means all those global warming scientists lied.

Those experts they've used to ram things down our throats, on everything...were lying.

 

Posted by: wheatie at January 17, 2014 12:37 PM (Wq5le)

351 Nood up.

Posted by: rickb223 at January 17, 2014 12:38 PM (lUXJH)

352 Then all the classes transitioned to turning in projects in C++. You had to learn that one on your own and the freaking TAs said it was basically the same thing.

Bastards.

Posted by: bonhomme at January 17, 2014 04:36 PM (P7Wsr)

wow.  So the TAs were retarded?  Helmets and short busses and the whole 9 yards?

Posted by: tangonine at January 17, 2014 12:39 PM (x3YFz)

353 Posted by: polynikes at January 17, 2014 04:33 PM (m2CN7) The problem with Doctors also stems from them having to justify tests to Insurance companies. With the torn tendon in my elbow, both me and the Doc KNEW I needed an MRI, but the insurance would not let me have that test until I had first had an Xray...

Posted by: Romeo13 at January 17, 2014 12:41 PM (lZBBB)

354 348 Dr Spank, If you count bruises as a good thing, snark has served me well...

Posted by: sven10077 at January 17, 2014 12:41 PM (TE35l)

355 Tom Nichols, expert in POLICY. Had he illustrated the frustration given every body the long winded expert though they lack expertise with the OWS movement, he might have used a lot less words and reached his own point much more quickly. The way he writes is clumsy. It isn't that everything he says is either right or wrong. He makes points, but makes a mess in his effort. Hardly polished. Hence, on his communication skills, his Public Policy Expertise just ranks above the degree of expertise illustrated by the "experts" who made ObamaCare the fubar it is in every way.

Posted by: panzernashorn at January 17, 2014 12:41 PM (MhA4j)

356 339. Yep

Posted by: Navypopojoe at January 17, 2014 12:41 PM (8sFfo)

357 But, if 'everybody lies', as they assert, then that means the experts lie too.

That means all those global warming scientists lied.
Those experts they've used to ram things down our throats, on everything...were lying.

Reminds me of the I, Mudd episode in Star Trek.

Posted by: boned to the bone at January 17, 2014 12:41 PM (Ph479)

358
My wife was an expert on my irresponsible behavior, especially leaving the toilet set up and staring at the neighbor's ample udders!

Posted by: Doctor Fish at January 17, 2014 12:42 PM (pJF+c)

359
I tried getting through Season 1, and could not make it. Just not funny. At all.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 17, 2014 04:34 PM (BeSEI)







Season 1 of Blackadder is awful, with the exception of watching Brian Blessed chew the scenery. You can skip it without missing anything. The other three seasons are pretty good, but it helps to have a bit of knowledge of British history and 80s Brit pop culture (the by-election in Season 3 for example. The journalist is played by Vincent Hannah, who was an actual journalist who was the go-to guy in Britain for by-election TV broadcasts)

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at January 17, 2014 12:43 PM (TIIx5)

360 wow. So the TAs were retarded? Helmets and short busses and the whole 9 yards? Basically.

Posted by: bonhomme[/i][/b][/i][/b][/s][/s] at January 17, 2014 12:43 PM (P7Wsr)

361 "302 I'm not sure scientists understand how much damage "climate science" has done to the faith people have in Science in general."

For me it would be a little easier to give the global warning science some credence if the rhetoric surrounding it wasn't just a list of Dem talking points. More taxes, more regulations, poor hardest hit, wealth transfer from rich to poor nations, capitalist Western countries most responsible, Mother Earth is sick ....  From the first time I heard this back in the 80's it seemed like a a enormous and obvious  liberal scheme to control and destroy the American middle class. 

So yes, the many scientists that have hopped on this bandwagon  without ever bothering to respond seriously to the skeptics or looking at the obvious political  agenda behind the movement have lowered my opinion of any climate expert involved in the hoax, no matter how sincere their belief in global warming.

Posted by: George Orwell at January 17, 2014 12:45 PM (Vv4Go)

362 Posted by: bonhomme at January 17, 2014 04:33 PM (P7Wsr) Never heard of 'em. I do C# development, specifically around system integration (did BizTalk for a while, but boredom and I don't mix well).

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) Ah, F It. at January 17, 2014 12:46 PM (PYAXX)

363 Ace, you touched on it briefly, but I really think the chief reason the well of expertise has been tainted is... Global Warming. If ever there has been a very long running appeal to authority its there. And perhaps, though I think a lot of it is wishful thinking, the expected "ease" of the war in Iraq for lefties. To me, though, way we are constantly bullied about Global Warming definitely has me very skeptical of anyone claiming, "Well, I'm an expert". Its almost become synonymous with lying. There's also something to be said for explaining WHY your expert's opinion has come to be. Don't just tell us, "Do THIS". You need to be able to explain why we should do this and not just rely on your alleged expertise. The public is a fuck of a lot smarter than people give them credit for and they can usually smell a bullshitter from a mile away. Even if you are an "expert" but you sound like a BS artist, you aren't going to convince much of anyone to do anything

Posted by: deadrody at January 17, 2014 12:46 PM (+Dpo7)

364 An expert is proven by his track record in the specific area upon which he is opining.

Posted by: toby928© at January 17, 2014 12:49 PM (QupBk)

365 I once saw a graph with "Confidence in Your Statement" on the y-axis and "Knowledge of the Subject" on the x-axis. As one might expect, as it moves right from the origin, it starts low, rises quickly, then falls, then rises a bit, but not as high as the peak reached by the person who knows a little bit about the subject and thinks he knows a lot.

Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at January 17, 2014 03:49 PM (HubSo)

I've seen that same graph. I do not remember if it was specifically in an article on the Dunning-Kruger effect, or whether it was just the same concept presented elsewhere, but the point it demonstrates is a valid one.

Posted by: HTL at January 17, 2014 12:49 PM (XBG8I)

366 Ace you stated the "laymen feels like he's been conned. NAH.

I'm a layman. I know I've been conned and dread the consequences of going up to DC to make things right.

Posted by: Tortuga at January 17, 2014 12:50 PM (FmyWU)

367 341 Soona, worse than shredded, worse than simply denied or ignored. Those who yet know who dare share knowledge are prosecuted for supposed hate crimes, their lives and families entirely ruined.

Posted by: panzernashorn at January 17, 2014 12:50 PM (MhA4j)

368 I wish I could have gotten to this thread earlier, as 'experts' and expertise is one of my hobby horses. Curse you, gainful employment!

Posted by: toby928© at January 17, 2014 12:52 PM (QupBk)

369 <i>Laymen know this. Laymen know that "all professions are a conspiracy of the laity."</i>

Psst, Ace - that's "conspiracy *against* the laity."  With the members of the profession in question equated to the clergy "conspiring" against the non-clergy, aka "laity".

Posted by: Mitch H. at January 17, 2014 12:52 PM (jwKxK)

370 365. Globull Wehrmacht support it or suffer execution for daring to say, "You Lie!" Tom Nichols came across too elitist for his own good. Any expert who considers it beneath his dignity to make the record public is a fraud. Yes, he stipulates peer review. And as Ace pointed out, when the "experts" conspire to fabricate their own "truth" (case in point, Algore Warming) they are crooks, frauds, deceitful. Like criminals who earn their law degree (ex: Obama) so that they can manipulate the system for organized crime, to be "better" crooks.

Posted by: panzernashorn at January 17, 2014 12:57 PM (MhA4j)

371 The problem with "experts" isn't that an expert can't know more than a layman about his subject, but that so many "experts" know less.  Take, for example, the education establishment which has engineered steadily declining outcomes for more than half a century, always being just a few more new buildings and a pile of more money away from success.

Or "climate scientists" with their "consensus" that pays them so well despite the data.

19th Century writer Josh Billings once observed "It is better to know maybe not so much, than to know so much that just ain't so."

Posted by: Adjoran at January 17, 2014 12:58 PM (473jB)

372 The "stupid doc" is able to diagnose the easy 80%, common cold, flu, herpes, whatever. but, when it comes to something less common they just flail around. Posted by: naturalfake at January 17, 2014 04:29 PM (KBvAm) As a non expert, my observation blames this phenomenon, ironically enough, on science. Doctors today rely too much on testing . They have a check list and if your tests are normal , they (definitely not all) are stumped and don't seem to have the inclination to do anything else. I blame that on time mostly. Posted by: polynikes Yes to both. PAs and NPs sometimes look at something serious and because they don't understand it treat it as something else because they want it to fit into their knowledge base. Conservative Crank mentioned it I think. There are doctors that do the same thing especially some that have been in solo practice for a long time and as you said, sometimes just from time and pressure. There are also doctors that have no clue about human behavior or lack empathy to a pathological extreme but are pretty sure they are right without admitting it is a soft call or they don't really know. A lot is Art rather than Science IMHO. You have to really give a damn too. Also I might add that I've worked with many PAs and NPs that were extremely experienced and had a greater knowledge base than they should have had on paper. Some....not so much.

Posted by: Daybrother at January 17, 2014 01:02 PM (m5+rk)

373 57 Two points: 1. Credentials are not proof of ability to reason. 2. Meghan McCain graduated from an Ivy-league school. Posted by: Inspector Cussword at January 17, 2014 03:42 PM (UfYXk) In all fairness her profs still smile when thinking of her.

Posted by: Dandolo at January 17, 2014 01:02 PM (0XBx+)

374 373 adjoran, Reagan opined on it. We've never spent more on education to get less.

Posted by: sven10077 at January 17, 2014 01:05 PM (TE35l)

375 I hang my head in shame.

Posted by: Less Wonkish More Rogue at January 17, 2014 01:05 PM (dvRYt)

376 I will always consider more carefully the opinions of an "expert." But "consider" does not mean "accept" or "believe."

Posted by: notropis at January 17, 2014 01:07 PM (bvlUm)

377 One of your better essays Ace.

I agree that proceeding from Natural Science and its expertise to that involving human activity means substantially more uncertainty exists over the accuracy of any expert's policy preferences.  Most knowledge in the social fields are probabilistic and have little or no generalizability into broader meaning. 

Thus, I have often received more cogent expressions of the application of constitutional law in a specific case from an untutored undergraduate than expressed by some Supreme Court justices in their opinions. 

I have seen better election analysis from a student in my Introduction to Government class at times than from well published political scientists.  Etc.

Unfortunately, the whole graduate school experience tends to try to indoctrinate those in the field as far as what should be thought about certain subjects.  In a very real sense, academia is a guild that tends to punish those deviating from the masters with a few rare exceptions such as Harvey Mansfield, James Q. Wilson, or James Ceaser. 

When entering academia, I was someone who was older, spent time in the military, worked on political campaigns, came from a small business owning family, and worked in the corporate world, and received an business economics undergraduate degree and a significant number of science/computer science classes, before graduate school.  Thus, my indoctrination did not take.  

Many true experts in the social science field quietly work in obscurity, publish little read research that often has keen insights, and they generally eschew the bright lights of pracademia (practical applications) punditry.  Natural skepticism, transmission of education to students regarding the field, humility, and modesty of interpreting results are truly scholastic ideals and thus little rewarded in our declining institution of academia today.

 


Posted by: wg at January 17, 2014 01:08 PM (yB1LD)

378 I've heard professional pharmacists and Ph.D. nutritionists note that our typically educated M.D. is best adept at surgery. But the marriage between Big Pharma and M.D. pill pushers as dispensaries for sales is not the healthiest situation. My dad researched for the nation's top agricultural center, and at universities taught nutrition as means of preventing and curing diseases. Preventative health care meant a lifestyle including healthy diet, good exercise and regular sleeping habits. Now? When I wrote Congressmen re: ACA during Obama's first term, they responded with the national health policy which stipulates that ingesting pharmaceuticals is what "preventive health care" requires and "means". The experts bought their own propaganda and expect us to buy it at inflated prices. Because. Profits. And you're not the expert, so STFU and do as you are told by your eugenicist "betters". Stay in your lane on that road to serfdom.

Posted by: panzernashorn at January 17, 2014 01:12 PM (MhA4j)

379 Posted by: wg Really good post.

Posted by: Daybrother at January 17, 2014 01:14 PM (3Vftj)

380 381 Posted by: wg You're a really smart person - by which I mean, I completely agree with you.

Posted by: notropis at January 17, 2014 01:18 PM (bvlUm)

381 378 notropis Just as on the other hand, experts who refuse to acknowledge another's view (as the other's view) are indeed pig headed. Tom Nichols made a mess of that one.

Posted by: panzernashorn at January 17, 2014 01:19 PM (MhA4j)

382 Re 381, Thanks, I try but Ace's crew are professional in their commenting.  Most can get off thirty posts before I can post one.  I also try not to be longwinded and pedantic which is an occupational hazard in academia.  Thus, I post rarely but lurk often.

Posted by: wg at January 17, 2014 01:19 PM (yB1LD)

383 BTW, an aside.  I have coached quite a few people to be an expert witness.  One of the hardest thing for many experts to say to a question is I don't know.  However, it is one of the best credibility builders with juries when used sparingly. 

Posted by: wg at January 17, 2014 01:22 PM (yB1LD)

384 "Tom Nichols is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct at the Harvard Extension School. He claims expertise in a lot of things, but his most recent book is No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security (Penn, 2014)." CliffsNotes?

Posted by: panzernashorn at January 17, 2014 01:23 PM (MhA4j)

385 384 wg, Attaching "professional" to posting is a good quip, nice post though. Pedantics are good when warranted.

Posted by: sven10077 at January 17, 2014 01:23 PM (TE35l)

386 http://tinyurl.com/ljp9al3 Next book club reading? "Be the first to review."

Posted by: panzernashorn at January 17, 2014 01:25 PM (MhA4j)

387 Posted by: panzernashorn I don't disagree with your point but I would point out that one thing you do learn in pre-med and Medical School is how to be a scientist. When I was a student and Resident there were still 'Liver Rounds' where drug reps would buy us food, give us free pens and novelty items and try and sell their wonder drugs. I still remember a group of us laughing at the guy showing us a PP with skewed re-booted data for Vioxx. Really, just laughed out loud at him. Same with Geodon. We ate the food, told them what was wrong with their data PP and never prescribed it. It was a nice break and we were hungry. Same for a lot of drugs but there were folks that did prescribe stuff that was more expensive or unnecessary and their scripts were tracked for 'benefits'. Most of that behavior is no longer allowed BTW. No one ever said some Doctors can't be evil assholes. Clearly there are bad Humans.

Posted by: Daybrother at January 17, 2014 01:27 PM (+ih/O)

388 One of the reasons rational people have learned to be skeptical re the pronouncements of "experts" is that they are seldom judged on their record. That is, an "expert" can have been wrong every time for years, but is still put forth as if the opposite were true.

We see this in every field, even baseball. How many pre-season prognosticators are wrong every time, and yet their predictions are still published in detail every April?

Posted by: Otis Criblecoblis at January 17, 2014 01:31 PM (IlZPo)

389 Doctors are experts and over 200,000 people die annually in the US from preventable medical mistakes.

But Global Warming?  That shit is settled.

Posted by: Baron Von Ottomatic at January 17, 2014 01:33 PM (kUgpq)

390 One of the problems with "expertism" is intellectual inbreeding.

"Experts" tend to keep their social and work interactions with peeps of much the same mindset as their own. Where there's difference on opinion, it tends to be among those operating from the same baseline reference to the same theoryguesses but with different extrapolations.

The back and forth tends to get more and more obtuse in circular thought spirals and moves away from actual real world cause and effect.

Posted by: Grimmy at January 17, 2014 01:46 PM (uUsh9)

391 "I do not believe that geostrategic war doctrine can be said to be at such a state of maturity. I would imagine the ratio of the Well-Understood to the Not Well Understood is nearly the opposite of what I'd guess it is in medicine -- 30% well understood, 70% guesswork and trial-and-error."

I doubt it ever will reach such a state of maturity either, because nobody can predict with certainty what new technologies will emerge and become mature, or how those technologies will be applied, and because the geopolitical situation can change so rapidly and unexpectedly.

Posted by: ol_dirty_/b/tard at January 17, 2014 01:46 PM (KSjsb)

392 Posted by: Daybrother at January 17, 2014 05:27 PM (+ih/O) My brother has a PharmD and an MD. He says there's no way doctors can keep up with pharmaceutical advances. His solution is that when he's unsure of a product, he calls the pharmacist in town (the real one, not the pharmacy dispenser....) and discusses it with her. (It helps that she's his daughter.) But he never takes the word of drug company rep's, no matter how many meals, gifts, or lift tickets they give him. (He does, however, accept said meals, gifts and lift tickets.)

Posted by: notropis at January 17, 2014 01:46 PM (bvlUm)

393 I find that an expert's expertise is always enhanced by an order of magnitude after smoking a big fatty.  Serious, dudes.

Posted by: Fritz at January 17, 2014 01:56 PM (UzPAd)

394 "Shoemaker, not above the sandal"

Posted by: Bitblt at January 17, 2014 01:57 PM (UVVL4)

395 You are generous, Ace. Experts deserve all the blame. Not all the experts, but the ones who made a bonfire out of credibility over the last few decades and demanded that people of a certain educational or professional accomplishment (i.e., them) should be listened to. They peed in the pool for everyone else. Name a field and there is some jackass with academic initials who has been loudly and spectacularly wrong, and most wrong when giving policy prescriptions based on their p-values. This has also coincided with neognosticism, the belief that there is secret knowledge that is being "kept" from everyone else. The Right is not immune to this (birtherism, for example) but in every field from vaccination to monetary policy there is one Expert that will tell the True Believers that they are right, and that's all it takes. The True Believers will denigrate any Experts that don't believe them and reinforce their beliefs. There is still room for experts, but humility counts a lot toward credibility these days.

Posted by: Darren at January 17, 2014 02:16 PM (cKoDv)

396 168 This goes hand in hand with one of my pet peeves: The preference of intelligence over wisdom. Intelligence, Wisdom, and Education are a three-legged stool. All three will make you a legend. Two are enough to make a really nice living. A little bit of all three will as well. Too much of just one, however, makes you a real pain in the ass and you fuck up the job-site.

Posted by: ScoggDog at January 17, 2014 03:24 PM (6/+vz)

397 Can we all accept that it takes a true expert to, say, repair a brain aneurysm?

Or should we allow the physicians assistant or janitor to do that?

Posted by: Anon at January 17, 2014 03:37 PM (uu/tf)

398 The only Experts I trust are from the Government.

Posted by: nip at January 17, 2014 03:45 PM (jI23+)

399 From a self-described professional diver -

What is the difference between an expert and a professional?

An expert knows no limits.
A professional knows their limits.
Be professional. Know your limits.


Tom Nichols is indeed an expert.

Posted by: Burnt Toast at January 17, 2014 04:01 PM (80R0X)

400 Anyone claiming to be an expert in "social science" is a mendacious sack of shit.

Posted by: Jerome at January 17, 2014 04:02 PM (eQa5p)

401 Tom Nichols, noted expert on policy of many things, is well published.

BUT, how many references in others publications does he have?

Posted by: Burnt Toast at January 17, 2014 04:05 PM (80R0X)

402 Anyone receiving a salary from the government claiming to be an expert in "social science" is a parasitical mendacious sack of shit.

Posted by: Jerome at January 17, 2014 04:06 PM (eQa5p)

403 the reason I come here is because of this: Because experts themselves do not recognize the limitations of expertise, and need to be reminded of them. It was preceeded by this: Apparently Modern Feminism Is Pretty Much All About Pubic Hair. Seriously. Dead on about experts. They do not undertand that their expertise does not extend to judgment. It is in facts, and subject matter. But once the facts and subject matter are set out judgments vary. Especially among "experts". I have been a trial lawyer since 1992 defending doctors and hospitals in malpractice cases. Dealing with lots of expert witnesses. The experts who do the criticizing tend to be in it for the money AND the ego. Ace you are again on fire. Congrats.

Posted by: simplemind at January 17, 2014 04:14 PM (hTeQK)

404 Re aneurysm repair. Sure that takes expertise. Guess what, the experts often disagree about when and how to fix. Expertise is nice, but there really isn't a Wizard of Oz. Just little men behind curtains, doing the best they can, which is sometimes not the picture they portray to the general public.

Posted by: simplemind at January 17, 2014 04:17 PM (hTeQK)

405 "Experts" told us there would be LESS polar ice, when it fact there is MORE of it. Nobody has a problem with experts. We have a problem with people claiming to be experts who are then anointed by the media/government in a scheme to change our lives...who in reality are fools with no expertise at all!

Posted by: Dan at January 17, 2014 04:28 PM (gR5OX)

406 I had a drug case where the defense counsel, no shit, tried to get a voodoo lady in NO qualified as an expert in a certain type of tea and its drug qualities I vior dired her, and she did not qualify (She called her self The Lady Doctor Reverand Bishop Tutu, no kidding) Cut jib newsletter.

Posted by: simplemind at January 17, 2014 04:28 PM (hTeQK)

407 I love this place bush to the vagaries of being an "expert" in one day Thunderb -- I think we might be soulmates.

Posted by: simplemind at January 17, 2014 04:31 PM (hTeQK)

408 Ace: This is why your blog is my favorite.

Posted by: GreggTex at January 17, 2014 05:04 PM (YEDer)

409 Bravo, Ace.

Posted by: Troll Feeder at January 17, 2014 05:30 PM (Qk7L0)

410 I can't stand experts. Remember Henry the K? The worst ddiplomat ever. How about Krugman, the expert economist? Or Obama, expert of the Constitution? Show me an expert and I'll show you a flim flam artist.

Posted by: Veritas at January 17, 2014 08:07 PM (w9drt)

411 The two big problems with experts: One, Tetlock 2005. We now know expert predictions have a very bad track record. Two, Feynman. He defined science as the ignorance of experts, and he was right.

Posted by: TallDave at January 17, 2014 08:27 PM (lNW+B)

412 I'm pert.  These experts, they had it once, probably not as pert as me though.

Posted by: Speller at January 17, 2014 08:58 PM (J74Py)

413 Most experts are really just forensic historians masquerading as such. They intensely study what has happened in their field up to present day. They try to link past events to current events, and they sound smart by saying "well, this is exactly what it looked like just before Gabriel's Rebellion in 1800..." They have no clue about predicting future events because they often lack real understanding of how the real world works, and how people actually function and respond to external stimuli. Economists are the worst. They have no fucking clue what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone in a year or ten.

Posted by: Brass Bancroft at January 18, 2014 04:13 AM (tTMRX)

414 I'll chalk this expert up as another one who's just butt-hurt that the internet now gives us the ability not to skim Wikipedia to become our own pseudo-expert, but to actually go back and compare the predictions of nobs like him with what actually happened. The track record of 'experts' is deplorable. For example, there are tons of 'experts' in the Obama admin recommending courses of economic action that have hamstrung this country. Do we really think health insurance and income inequality and runaway government spending really lead to prosperity? And do you know how many 'experts' recommended just such a tonic in 2008? Fuck that guy and all his 'expert' cronies.

Posted by: Brass Bancroft at January 18, 2014 04:20 AM (tTMRX)

415 Seek and you will find. If you are afraid of what you will find then "Ask and it is given." Study Bill Clinton and Barak Obama and you will see the proof of asking. Hillary, Mitt, Mccain, and Gore can't get what they want cause they are asking to remove other's free will.

Posted by: Huggy at January 18, 2014 08:11 AM (mKaLW)

416 Why do we not trust the "Experts?"

Because they lie.

Posted by: Great Reagan's Ghost at January 18, 2014 07:51 PM (LsJAk)

417 I have a BS degree and an MBA, have gone to seven colleges, and innumerable courses in the military. I have this to tell you about liberal arts PhDs: They usually embark on their long voyage of scholarship to prove their prejudices. I've never heard a grad student in the humanities say, hey, I was wrong about all that!

Posted by: Tantor at January 19, 2014 08:10 AM (DdwEb)

418 You're not an "expert" until you earn/buy/steal The Megaphone, and you remain an "expert" until reality intrudes or you fumble The Megaphone or someone pries it from your cold, dead hands.

Posted by: Sporf at January 19, 2014 07:30 PM (OfcWx)

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