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What I see here is that those with critical thinking skills will do just fine. Those without the ability to winnow information sources and make reasoned judgmen

by adamc 7y ago

What I see here is that those with critical thinking skills will do just fine. Those without the ability to winnow information sources and make reasoned judgments will suffer, relative to news organizations as gatekeepers (the prior regime).

JadeNB 7y ago
> What I see here is that those with critical thinking skills will do just fine. The problem is that it's extremely easy to overvalue one's own critical-thinking skills, and so think that one is immune when one isn't. (In fact, when experts are fooled in areas that they think are covered by their expertise, then they tend to be worse fooled than non-experts.)
- heavenlyblue 7y ago
  I think this is a typical example of populist mumbo-jumbo. How can you call an expert someone who can’t consciously decide their own confidence intervals? However it’s so much easier to then for a non-expert to say that their half-baked solution worked due to the survivorship bias. This point is incredibly popular because non-experts have less to loose by making dumb choices in the first place and there are way more non-experts, thus the whole set of non-experts can afford to be the fireflies in any industry.
  - dntbnmpls 7y ago
    > This point is incredibly popular because non-experts have less to loose by making dumb choices in the first place and there are way more non-experts, thus the whole set of non-experts can afford to be the fireflies in any industry. Or the "experts" have more invested in their "expertise" or are more indoctrinated in their view and more stubborn to move from it. If you look at the history of math, medicine, economics, physics, etc, the biggest detractors of new ideas, new information, etc were the experts. Take Cantor and his proof of countable and uncountable infinities. It's was the experts within academia who attacked him relentlessly. So much so that it sent Cantor to a mental asylum.
    - jmoss20 7y ago
      Oh please. Who else in the history of (say) physics would you expect to be the biggest detractors of new physics? Botanists? Cantor works as an example. Who was it that eventually adopted his ideas? Experts aren't infallible, but they are (almost definitionally) the ones doing the work to move their field closer to truth. They may miss the mark sometimes, maybe often, but they're also the only ones hitting the mark.
      - dntbnmpls 7y ago
        > Who else in the history of (say) physics would you expect to be the biggest detractors of new physics? Lots of physicists are detractors of "new physics" https://gizmodo.com/the-dirtiest-fight-in-physics-is-about-the-universe-its-1828562461 https://gizmodo.com/the-dirtiest-fight-in-physics-is-about-t... String theory has tons of detractors. General and special relativity had detractors until experiments. Newton and his physics was criticized. An "invisible force" called gravity that mysteriously acts on objects across distances? We could go back to copernicus, galileo and eventually to aristotlean physics. > Cantor works as an example. Who was it that eventually adopted his ideas? What's your point? > Experts aren't infallible, but they are (almost definitionally) the ones doing the work to move their field closer to truth. But that's not the point. You made it sound like all experts are. I proved to you that it is not the case. Many times, it's the experts doing their damnednest to prevent progress. It's a small group of experts who fight and succeed against established expert dogma. > They may miss the mark sometimes, maybe often, but they're also the only ones hitting the mark. Who is they. You act like "they" are all working towards a common objective. I showed you that's not true. Many times, sadly, experts work hard to maintain the status quo. I suggest you look up a book on philosophy or history of science. It'll be an eye-opener. It seems like you still cling to the silly "perfect" idea of experts.
    - heavenlyblue 7y ago
      >> Take Cantor and his proof of countable and uncountable infinities. But the non-experts would not even understand him. As a matter of fact the more non-expert the person is, the higher the probability they would burn Cantor alive for not working in the fields instead.
  - JadeNB 7y ago
    > How can you call an expert someone who can’t consciously decide their own confidence intervals? Well, you don't have to call them that, but most people whom others call experts are overconfident in this quantifiable way. See, for example, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-thinking-clearly/201306/the-overconfidence-effect https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-thinking-cle... . You probably can't do it as well as you think you can either.
    - heavenlyblue 7y ago
      If you collect enough monkeys with typewriters they will eventually finish writing War and Peace. That doesn’t mean that Tolstoy is overconfident in his abilities. Also you are literally referencing a blog of a science which has serious troubles with the replication or it’s own studies.
wilde 7y ago
Nah. The stronger your reasoning skills, the more likely it is you'll succumb to motivated reasoning. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992

by adamc 7y ago

JadeNB 7y ago

> What I see here is that those with critical thinking skills will do just fine. The problem is that it's extremely easy to overvalue one's own critical-thinking skills, and so think that one is immune when one isn't. (In fact, when experts are fooled in areas that they think are covered by their expertise, then they tend to be worse fooled than non-experts.)

heavenlyblue 7y ago
I think this is a typical example of populist mumbo-jumbo. How can you call an expert someone who can’t consciously decide their own confidence intervals? However it’s so much easier to then for a non-expert to say that their half-baked solution worked due to the survivorship bias. This point is incredibly popular because non-experts have less to loose by making dumb choices in the first place and there are way more non-experts, thus the whole set of non-experts can afford to be the fireflies in any industry.
- dntbnmpls 7y ago
  > This point is incredibly popular because non-experts have less to loose by making dumb choices in the first place and there are way more non-experts, thus the whole set of non-experts can afford to be the fireflies in any industry. Or the "experts" have more invested in their "expertise" or are more indoctrinated in their view and more stubborn to move from it. If you look at the history of math, medicine, economics, physics, etc, the biggest detractors of new ideas, new information, etc were the experts. Take Cantor and his proof of countable and uncountable infinities. It's was the experts within academia who attacked him relentlessly. So much so that it sent Cantor to a mental asylum.
  - jmoss20 7y ago
    Oh please. Who else in the history of (say) physics would you expect to be the biggest detractors of new physics? Botanists? Cantor works as an example. Who was it that eventually adopted his ideas? Experts aren't infallible, but they are (almost definitionally) the ones doing the work to move their field closer to truth. They may miss the mark sometimes, maybe often, but they're also the only ones hitting the mark.
    - dntbnmpls 7y ago
      > Who else in the history of (say) physics would you expect to be the biggest detractors of new physics? Lots of physicists are detractors of "new physics" https://gizmodo.com/the-dirtiest-fight-in-physics-is-about-the-universe-its-1828562461 https://gizmodo.com/the-dirtiest-fight-in-physics-is-about-t... String theory has tons of detractors. General and special relativity had detractors until experiments. Newton and his physics was criticized. An "invisible force" called gravity that mysteriously acts on objects across distances? We could go back to copernicus, galileo and eventually to aristotlean physics. > Cantor works as an example. Who was it that eventually adopted his ideas? What's your point? > Experts aren't infallible, but they are (almost definitionally) the ones doing the work to move their field closer to truth. But that's not the point. You made it sound like all experts are. I proved to you that it is not the case. Many times, it's the experts doing their damnednest to prevent progress. It's a small group of experts who fight and succeed against established expert dogma. > They may miss the mark sometimes, maybe often, but they're also the only ones hitting the mark. Who is they. You act like "they" are all working towards a common objective. I showed you that's not true. Many times, sadly, experts work hard to maintain the status quo. I suggest you look up a book on philosophy or history of science. It'll be an eye-opener. It seems like you still cling to the silly "perfect" idea of experts.
  - heavenlyblue 7y ago
    >> Take Cantor and his proof of countable and uncountable infinities. But the non-experts would not even understand him. As a matter of fact the more non-expert the person is, the higher the probability they would burn Cantor alive for not working in the fields instead.
- JadeNB 7y ago
  > How can you call an expert someone who can’t consciously decide their own confidence intervals? Well, you don't have to call them that, but most people whom others call experts are overconfident in this quantifiable way. See, for example, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-thinking-clearly/201306/the-overconfidence-effect https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-thinking-cle... . You probably can't do it as well as you think you can either.
  - heavenlyblue 7y ago
    If you collect enough monkeys with typewriters they will eventually finish writing War and Peace. That doesn’t mean that Tolstoy is overconfident in his abilities. Also you are literally referencing a blog of a science which has serious troubles with the replication or it’s own studies.

wilde 7y ago

Nah. The stronger your reasoning skills, the more likely it is you'll succumb to motivated reasoning. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992