I just expect that any "expert" whose intuition I'm supposed to trust will be able to justify their opinion when push comes to shove. Don't expect them to just

I just expect that any "expert" whose intuition I'm supposed to trust will be able to justify their opinion when push comes to shove. Don't expect them to justify it solely on your terms, however. If you're breaking into a new market or operating under asymmetric information pressure with significant uncertainty -- or even just regular old data starvation -- appealing to similar but difficult-to-quantify means of supporting one's intuition may be crucial. It would be better for all concerned if the person making a claim could always articulate their reasoning in toto, but under the pressures of time, you may occasionally need to rely upon a person's track record, and trust them. Because their track record under similar conditions is a prior -- that, too, is data. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence -- but people with an extraordinary track record can sometimes be trusted to make extraordinary judgments with ordinary data.