The Death of Expertise

[bilby]

http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/

I have been thinking about this for a while, but unsurprisingly, it took an expert to sum it up so effectively.

Just because everyone has the right to an opinion, That does not imply that all opinions are equal.

Sometimes we are just wrong. And the first rule of Dunning-Kruger club is 'You don't know when you are in Dunning-Kruger club'.

1: We can all stipulate: the expert isn’t always right.

2: But an expert is far more likely to be right than you are. On a question of factual interpretation or evaluation, it shouldn’t engender insecurity or anxiety to think that an expert’s view is likely to be better-informed than yours. (Because, likely, it is.)

3: Experts come in many flavors. Education enables it, but practitioners in a field acquire expertise through experience; usually the combination of the two is the mark of a true expert in a field. But if you have neither education nor experience, you might want to consider exactly what it is you’re bringing to the argument.

4: In any discussion, you have a positive obligation to learn at least enough to make the conversation possible. The University of Google doesn’t count. Remember: having a strong opinion about something isn’t the same as knowing something.

5: And yes, your political opinions have value. Of course they do: you’re a member of a democracy and what you want is as important as what any other voter wants. As a layman, however, your political analysis, has far less value, and probably isn’t — indeed, almost certainly isn’t — as good as you think it is.

And, of course, these points also apply in other areas of expertise - the author is a political analyst, but were he instead a physicist, he could just as reasonably said "5: And yes, your physics opinions have value. Of course they do: you’re a member of a democracy and what you understand is as important as what any other voter understands. As a layman, however, your physical analysis, has far less value, and probably isn’t — indeed, almost certainly isn’t — as good as you think it is."

You are entitled to imagine that Quantum physics might enable psychic abilities (for example); but you are also entitled to be (and probably are) deeply wrong.

 

[untermensche]

Not all areas of expertise are the same thing.

Theologians have a great deal of expertise on what the gods have been doing.

Tom Cruise has an expertise in Scientology.

 

[rousseau]

I don't disagree, but I always have to wonder when people make claims like 'expertise is dying'. The thing with that is I'm not sure there was ever a time when experts were universally respected.

Rather, I think you have a situation where well-educated, well-supported citizens who live in a country with a healthy, objective free press are more likely to rely on expert opinion, and when the converse is true people are more likely to rely on hearsay and superstition.

So in a place like, say, the U.S., it appears like there is a death of expertise, but what's really happening is a decline of the economy, with increasing ignorance as a corollary. People are not only not being taught to think critically, but there are actual attacks on their critical thinking skills.

Whereas in other places with robust, healthy economies, people are being taught critical thinking skills and so expertise is more respected.

It's a fair point, though. Most people have little concept of what the term 'fact' means, and that you can only know something to be true when you've confirmed definitively that it's actually true. I think teaching people basic logic skills might be helpful. If [x] and [y] then [z]. If not [x] then [r].

 

[untermensche]

Experts for most of history were people who could do something, not people who just knew things that had no use to most people.

In capitalist systems most of those who can do something are working for some corporation or specialized company.

And they are the tools for people that have an expertise in how to get themselves put in charge, or put themselves in charge, an expertise in politics, and not much more.

It is really the capitalist that devalues expertise and reduces experts to replaceable tools for plans not of their own.

How many great engineers and scientists have been reduced to weapon making tools?

 

[Speakpigeon]

http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/

I have been thinking about this for a while, but unsurprisingly, it took an expert to sum it up so effectively.

Just because everyone has the right to an opinion, That does not imply that all opinions are equal.

Sometimes we are just wrong. And the first rule of Dunning-Kruger club is 'You don't know when you are in Dunning-Kruger club'.

1: We can all stipulate: the expert isn’t always right.

2: But an expert is far more likely to be right than you are. On a question of factual interpretation or evaluation, it shouldn’t engender insecurity or anxiety to think that an expert’s view is likely to be better-informed than yours. (Because, likely, it is.)

3: Experts come in many flavors. Education enables it, but practitioners in a field acquire expertise through experience; usually the combination of the two is the mark of a true expert in a field. But if you have neither education nor experience, you might want to consider exactly what it is you’re bringing to the argument.

4: In any discussion, you have a positive obligation to learn at least enough to make the conversation possible. The University of Google doesn’t count. Remember: having a strong opinion about something isn’t the same as knowing something.

5: And yes, your political opinions have value. Of course they do: you’re a member of a democracy and what you want is as important as what any other voter wants. As a layman, however, your political analysis, has far less value, and probably isn’t — indeed, almost certainly isn’t — as good as you think it is.

And, of course, these points also apply in other areas of expertise - the author is a political analyst, but were he instead a physicist, he could just as reasonably said "5: And yes, your physics opinions have value. Of course they do: you’re a member of a democracy and what you understand is as important as what any other voter understands. As a layman, however, your physical analysis, has far less value, and probably isn’t — indeed, almost certainly isn’t — as good as you think it is."

You are entitled to imagine that Quantum physics might enable psychic abilities (for example); but you are also entitled to be (and probably are) deeply wrong.

I think it's largely a matter of political and social organisation. Experts have the time to look things into great details and many non-experts are not experts because they don't have the time to do the same. So, there's a divide and it's intrinsic to the way human society works. Add to that freedom of speech and democracy and then the non-experts just do as they please to take as much room as possible in the debate about anything. So, although your assessment is correct, complaining about the situation is a bit like complaining that people get run over by cars when the cross streets.

There's perhaps another aspect to this. Things look no so bad in France, at least as far as I can tell. So, possibly, you're a bit sensitive to the problem because of the specificity of the public life and the way the public discourse has evolved in recent years in America, where, you know, you've just elected the most incompetent president since the creation of the universe. The non-experts in the U.S. now have a megaphone available for them to shout obscenities from the rooftops.

And, I have to say this, most likely you think you yourself have an expertise and you just react as one of the gang. You see the cons very well, not so much the pros.

Still, I broadly agree with you, with the caveat that on occasions, it is the experts who are wrong and the non-expert who is right, often just out of being in the right place at the right time.

And there's a second caveat, which is that some people look like experts yet aren't, if they are wrong for example. And some people who look like non-experts because they don't have the title, the language etc. are nonetheless the real experts because they've developed their own, in-house, expertise, and they got better at it than the official experts. Not very often that, but still.
EB

 

[untermensche]

In short: Some so-called "experts" are sometimes merely unthinking sheep.

If they can do something like remove your appendix or design a bridge that will not fall down or fix your car they have proof of their expertise and to question them is absurd.

 

[bilby]

http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/

I have been thinking about this for a while, but unsurprisingly, it took an expert to sum it up so effectively.

Just because everyone has the right to an opinion, That does not imply that all opinions are equal.

Sometimes we are just wrong. And the first rule of Dunning-Kruger club is 'You don't know when you are in Dunning-Kruger club'.



And, of course, these points also apply in other areas of expertise - the author is a political analyst, but were he instead a physicist, he could just as reasonably said "5: And yes, your physics opinions have value. Of course they do: you’re a member of a democracy and what you understand is as important as what any other voter understands. As a layman, however, your physical analysis, has far less value, and probably isn’t — indeed, almost certainly isn’t — as good as you think it is."

You are entitled to imagine that Quantum physics might enable psychic abilities (for example); but you are also entitled to be (and probably are) deeply wrong.

I think it's largely a matter of political and social organisation. Experts have the time to look things into great details and many non-experts are not experts because they don't have the time to do the same. So, there's a divide and it's intrinsic to the way human society works. Add to that freedom of speech and democracy and then the non-experts just do as they please to take as much room as possible in the debate about anything. So, although your assessment is correct, complaining about the situation is a bit like complaining that people get run over by cars when the cross streets.

There's perhaps another aspect to this. Things look no so bad in France, at least as far as I can tell. So, possibly, you're a bit sensitive to the problem because of the specificity of the public life and the way the public discourse has evolved in recent years in America, where, you know, you've just elected the most incompetent president since the creation of the universe. The non-experts in the U.S. now have a megaphone available for them to shout obscenities from the rooftops.

And, I have to say this, most likely you think you yourself have an expertise and you just react as one of the gang. You see the cons very well, not so much the pros.

Still, I broadly agree with you, with the caveat that on occasions, it is the experts who are wrong and the non-expert who is right, often just out of being in the right place at the right time.

And there's a second caveat, which is that some people look like experts yet aren't, if they are wrong for example. And some people who look like non-experts because they don't have the title, the language etc. are nonetheless the real experts because they've developed their own, in-house, expertise, and they got better at it than the official experts. Not very often that, but still.
EB

While America does get rather more press coverage in my country than France does, I have to take exception to the suggestion that I am or could be in any way responsible for their choice of leaders

I do think that it's important not to confuse expertise and credentials; they are correlated, but far from synonymous.

There are many people with deep expertise, but without a certificate to hang on their wall that says so; and quite a few people with certificates from prestigious bodies who have forgotten half of what they once knew, and failed to keep the rest up to date.

Myself, I am not an expert at all; I am a generalist and depend very much upon experts to provide the deep foundations on which my broad understandings are based.

Perhaps I could claim to be an expert in identifying genuine expertise; but then again, how could I be confident in that ability? If I were sufficiently incompetent, I could falsely believe myself an expert, and never realise my error.

 

[sharon45]

And some people who look like non-experts because they don't have the title, the language etc. are nonetheless the real experts because they've developed their own, in-house, expertise, and they got better at it than the official experts.

I fit more in this range, except I am nowhere near an expert on anything, but I can still beat many of the so-called experts at their own game on numerous occasions.

 

[fromderinside]

Is expertise a competition? I think not. Expertise is a proficiency in a knowledge domain including it's processes.

Bilby your expertise is using your broad range of information effectively when addressing gnat-on-rump-of-elephant issues. Being an expert in using general knowledge and using it to interact on a specialty is most always very interesting and often quite often insightful.

 

[sharon45]

Is expertise a competition?

Of course it is.

 

[untermensche]

Here is an example of expertise in history on Twitter:

 

[sharon45]

That is obviously just a bad joke.

 

[untermensche]

It's just an error on the part of the person posting this tweet for the "history lovers club".

But it's a funny one and ironic coming from a history club.

 

[sharon45]

It's just an error on the part of the person posting this tweet for the "history lovers club".

But it's a funny one and ironic coming from a history club.

You don't see the joke to it? And an error is what people certainly can do, since we all make mistakes.

 

[bilby]

I would like to thank untermensche and Sharon45 for providing such clear examples of people "contributing" to a debate under the belief that they have sufficient subject knowledge to do so, while being so clearly oblivious to the fact that they don't know what they are on about.

Now, having provided your asinine contributions and given everyone a good laugh at your apparent obliviousness, could you please stop derailing my thread?

Thanks.

 

[untermensche]

Your opinions have been noted.

I have yet to see any area in which you have any expertise.

 

[beero1000]

I would like to thank untermensche and Sharon45 for providing such clear examples of people "contributing" to a debate under the belief that they have sufficient subject knowledge to do so, while being so clearly oblivious to the fact that they don't know what they are on about.

Now, having provided your asinine contributions and given everyone a good laugh at your apparent obliviousness, could you please stop derailing my thread?

Thanks.

It's also a pretty good example of the difference between an error and a slip. An expert can still make a slip in their field of expertise, but they are much more unlikely to make an error. That's one reason we should make the distinction between expertise conveyed quickly (say Twitter, a blog, or a discussion board) and expertise conveyed carefully (say a peer-reviewed paper, a class, or a book).

 

[beero1000]

Your opinions have been noted.

I have yet to see any area in which you have any expertise.

Irony.

 

[sharon45]

I would like to thank untermensche and Sharon45 for providing such clear examples of people "contributing" to a debate under the belief that they have sufficient subject knowledge to do so, while being so clearly oblivious to the fact that they don't know what they are on about.

Now, having provided your asinine contributions and given everyone a good laugh at your apparent obliviousness, could you please stop derailing my thread?

Thanks.

Just because you don't get the example, it does not make it a derail. You act like you are close to the only one who has noticed a steep decline in thought over the decades. Practically every time I try to bring up things to get people to think outside of their obvious comfort zones is met with ridicule. That is just more evidence of intellectual stagnation and disease.

 

[untermensche]

Your opinions have been noted.

I have yet to see any area in which you have any expertise.

Irony.

I am a pharmacist.

That is my area of expertise.

I at least have one.