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>I think you can only have a meaningful debate with an expert if you are humble and you have done your homework. Would the symmetrical statement, that you can

>I think you can only have a meaningful debate with an expert if you are humble and you have done your homework. Would the symmetrical statement, that you can only meaningfully agree with an expert if you are humble and have done your homework, be true? I don't generally get the sense that "skeptics" of whatever color are less informed than the orthodox. To take myself as an example---I don't really know how vaccines work. I know the broad strokes---the immune system reacts to the dead pathogens and is better-prepared when I actually get infected---but that's just, like something someone told me, I'd have no idea how to verify that specific mechanism of T-cells and B-cells, oh my. If I were to argue with an anti-vaxxer, I would be "right," and they would be "wrong," but it wouldn't be because I was pro-science, but because I was pro-expert.

js8 6y ago
> Would the symmetrical statement, that you can only meaningfully believe an expert if you are humble and have done your homework, be true? Yes and no. Yes, because as you point out, you need to be able to verify if you are to really trust someone. No, because the society is largely built on trust anyway, and as long as you can trust other people to verify the claims then you don't need to verify everything yourself. (That probably explains why so many libertarians have certain anti-scientific beliefs, if you don't have trust in the society at large, there is no way you can verify all the research.) > I don't generally get the sense that "skeptics" of whatever color are less informed than the orthodox. I get the sense of that a lot in the global warming debate. If the deniers understood the basics of the theory of global warming, for example, that it predicts (and we observe) stratospheric cooling and polar amplification, they could never claim that it could be the sun. With vaccines I think it is similar. I don't know much but I would bet there are classical experiments and observations that establish how the immune system works, and these pretty much lead you to the current theory. Which brings us to a point - if someone argues too much against a scientific theory, but are unable to create a decent competing alternative, it is probably a sign they either haven't done their homework, or they don't understand that scientific theories are supposed to be only the best available explanations, not anything more.
comex 6y ago
I'd say that believing experts is more an act of philosophy than an act of science. In an area where you're not an expert, you can't meaningfully agree with the experts – but you can meaningfully understand the limits of your own knowledge, take notice of the track record of science in general, and conclude that, in the absence of more specific knowledge, believing the experts is a good Bayesian prior. And the same applies in the other direction. In the absence of knowledge, you can't meaningfully disagree with the experts, but occasionally there are enough warning signs that you can meaningfully choose to be skeptical. (For example, a lack of rigor in the field.)
- ysavir 6y ago
  >I'd say that believing experts is more an act of philosophy than an act of science. Not philosophy. Faith.
  - wwright 6y ago
    Have you read about the Munchausen Trilemma? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      I’ve always found that very boring since it seems obvious to me that logical truths require the axiomatic argument, scientific truths require the regressive argument, and reductionism doesn’t allow for complex supernatural claims to transcend from merely needing axiomatic support to affecting scientific truths. It feels like one of those things in philosophy that religious people greatly exaggerate the importance of.
      - ukj 6y ago
        Well, no - it's the foundational problem of knowledge/epistemology. How you choose to "solve" it is up to you. The solution computer scientists like a lot is coherentism. You pull yourself up by the bootstraps - like we do with self-hosting compilers. Of course, it's just a conceptual game (like all philosophy). The idea of "prove to me that you know..." seems a bit like "Jump for me... Higher!"
mattigames 6y ago
> Would the symmetrical statement, that you can only meaningfully agree with an expert if you are humble and have done your homework, be true? Not really, because the experts agree on millions of details that I can look up -even if I don't fully understand them- meanwhile the other side (e.g antivaxxers) don't agree in anything significant and asking them simple basic questions unmask they know nothing about the subject (e.g. ask an antivaxxer some highschool chemistry questions about mercury). So unless you believe it's a giant conspiracy involving every expert in the world plus your highschool teachers plus a lot of books it's easy to claim that I meaningfully agree with the experts even if I don't understand the subject as much as them.
- antepodius 6y ago
  One side of an issue being coordinated doesn't necessarily mean what they're saying it's true, just that they've managed to coordinate their beliefs more. Medieval monks agreed on many details of theology.
  - visarga 6y ago
    Medieval monks couldn't even agree on 'How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on_the_head_of_a_pin%3F#:~:text=%5BD%5Doctors%20declare%20that%20in,the%20point%20of%20a%20needle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on_t.... Why were there so many sects, religions and religious wars if they agreed so well? On the other hand, the speed of light is the same under any system of reference, any regime, culture or religion.
    - dexen 6y ago
      Ah yes, the angels on hairpin. The debate was about inifinite vs. finite, not about a particular number. It was couched in the terms of angels rather than physical items specificaly to avoid preconceived notions about our physical world - notions which were limited, and recognized as limited, back then. Do we even recognize our notions as limited in our beautiful early XXI century...?
    - 6y ago
nift 6y ago
I might be thinking about this wrong, but does one have to "agree" rather than be indifferent with an expert? I mean I don't agree or disagree with wearing face masks, but it's very clear the consensus among "experts" is that wearing masks is a good thing to prevent spreading a virus such as covid-19. My point is more, to me wearing a mask is the "way it is" because the scientific community thinks it is through peer review etc. In my kind disagreement / agreement does not come into the question? I'm more questioning if the consensus is based on proper peer reviewed articles. And if was really concerned about the question I might research these, hopefully, publicly available papers. In the case of vaccine / anti - vaccine my opinion is not really relevant (whether I agree or disagree), but the consensus is that vaccines helps us. If you think this consensus is wrong it's on you to prove otherwise instead of simply saying "it's my opinion". And the way you do this is to pursue research that can disprove vaccines are good? The point of science is opinions don't matter, results do? Maybe I'm being too academic about everything.
- jjgreen 6y ago
  On the face-masks, the majority of experts do think it's a good thing, but there is not really any solid evidence. The WHO June 5th statement on this: At present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID-19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. Indeed, interviewed on BBC Radio 4 last week, Professor Venki Ramakrishnan, president of the Royal Society (the UK "academy of science") declared that to ask for such evidence would be "methodological fetishism", we are expected, no demanded, to accept the opinions of experts. So I'll stand with Feynman on this.
  - taneq 6y ago
    There’s at least as much double-blind scientific trial based evidence of face mask effectiveness as there is the effectiveness of parachutes.
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
morsch 6y ago
> Would the symmetrical statement, that you can only meaningfully agree with an expert if you are humble and have done your homework, be true? Yes. But agreeing or disagreeing is not the only option. In [1] the authors suggest that the crustal anisotropy is decoupled from horizontal basal tractions and, instead, created by upper mantle vertical loading, which generates pressure gradients that drive channelized flow in the mid-lower crust. Do you agree or disagree? The truth is, you probably don't have a position on the issue. If pressed, you might defer to the expert opinion that crustal anisotropy is created by upper mantle vertical loading. But that's not the same as agreeing with it. It's just saying "I don't know, but here's what somebody else says". Of course, agree/disagree/defer is still too rigid: you can humbly tend to agree (based on some homework) while mostly deferring, etc. [1] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/28/eabb0476 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/28/eabb0476
sammorrowdrums 6y ago
Well, the stats on life expectancy over time, cases of infectious diseases and analysis of vaccination programme efficacy are acceptable evidence. You don't need to understand the mechanism of vaccines, to see data of the effects. Luckily the effective application of science frequently allows us to see that the consensus did in fact improve something, and that even if it's not 100% correct or you don't understand all the nuance, the fact that repeatable and extensive datasets are available for many scientific claims will work in its place. Of course there are huge exceptions to this, but it's not always true that you need to understand to have an opinion else it is simply faith. It can be knowable and verifiably effective. You don't need to understand combustion engines to know that they transfer energy. You don't need to trust that scientists made them more efficient when you can measure distance travelled and volume of fuel required.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
visarga 6y ago
> but it wouldn't be because I was pro- science , but because I was pro expert. They do the same but they pick different 'experts': priests, politicians, bloggers, media pundits. We can't escape the fact that we need to rely on other people's opinions to make our own, we can't understand everything from scratch.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  The difference is that choosing experts is itself amenable to scientific analysis. If you assume people are acting with good intentions, this differentiates the case of experts with scientific knowledge vs experts without. If you assume bad intentions, then all possible expert panels can’t be trusted anyway. I think when people try to elevate non-scientific experts to the level of scientific experts on a scientific issue, really they are trying to make it tribal and specifically remove objectivity and evidence, when they perceive it as a threat to their tribal commitments and ways of life. You can of course subvert scientific experts to do the same, but with science you have the option to let objectivity win. No other way of constructing expert panels has that option besides scientific inquiry.
mlthoughts2018 6y ago
I disagree. It would be because you’re pro-science. Even your simplistic explanation about reacting to dead pathogen, and something about t cells and b cells, is a model. It underlies at least some class of hypotheses that are amenable to be proven wrong or augmented with further evidence. To believe in science is not to “know” static facts of a mechanism. It is to constantly reevaluate your best available hypotheses under the requirement of evidence. Memorizing facts often leads people into trouble. Creationist authors for a long time have given exhaustive biochemical accounts of the blood coagulation cascade as their own form of evidence of intelligent design. The statement of the facts has not much to do with science, rather it’s the choice to propose beliefs drawn from them, and whether this remains rooted in disconfirming your own hypotheses with intellectual honesty or becomes an unfalsifiable just-so story to reaffirm a believe you’ve otherwise arbitrarily chosen for non-scientific reasons.
xpaqui 6y ago
Check mate.
epr 6y ago
Undoubtedly, one of the largest problems since the dawn of humanity is the refusal to admit "I don't know". This is what is most frustrating to me regarding a variety of subjects including religion (and atheism for that matter), climate change, economics, and others. My formative experiences that communicated the scope of this problem were my time in high school and college when my fellow students seemed to be absolutely terrified to ask any questions. Even the smallest admission that "I'm sorry professor, I didn't understand that. Could you explain it again?" or something to that effect was not ever even considered for probably 80% of students. I believe this is intimately related to how commonly people hold very strong opinions, while either understanding absolutely nothing about the subject when there is plenty of information available (economics, climate change), or where there is no evidence to even address (religion, atheism). They seemingly adopt the popular view of their peers, and rarely consider questioning anything. I won't pretend I have some way to solve this problem, as it seems inherent to humanity, but I believe this is causing the effects that Feynman is lamenting in the article, and I'm also not at all convinced that this problem is peculiar to modern times.
- netcan 6y ago
  I think it's an inability, rather than refusal. It's not outright impossible to say "this is unknown," but it does conflict with the way our mind naturally works. We don't leave "i don't know" holes. We don't think in terms of degrees of confidence. We think in terms of facts, abstract theories... at least "we" as groups. There wasn't really a time in the past when people didn't know what the stars were. They always had a view of the world that was complete internally, including "what are stars" knowledge. Even science, in the philosophically ideal sense, works by theories overtaking earlier theories. We don't go from unknowledge to knowledge. We go from bad knowledge to better, truer knowledge over time. Interestingly, science in the squishier sense does have more ability to recognize holes in knowledge. Physics has distinct holes in its knowledge base that they are trying to answer. As a human, deciding to do an experiment or study something requires a "we don't know" posture. Epistemologically though, science doesn't have this posture. It totally falls apart as you distance from hard sciences though. They don't tend to have "quantum theory of gravity" like holes that they are trying to fill.
DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
As the comment one level above mentions, trusting experts is basically just a heuristic.

js8 6y ago

> Would the symmetrical statement, that you can only meaningfully believe an expert if you are humble and have done your homework, be true? Yes and no. Yes, because as you point out, you need to be able to verify if you are to really trust someone. No, because the society is largely built on trust anyway, and as long as you can trust other people to verify the claims then you don't need to verify everything yourself. (That probably explains why so many libertarians have certain anti-scientific beliefs, if you don't have trust in the society at large, there is no way you can verify all the research.) > I don't generally get the sense that "skeptics" of whatever color are less informed than the orthodox. I get the sense of that a lot in the global warming debate. If the deniers understood the basics of the theory of global warming, for example, that it predicts (and we observe) stratospheric cooling and polar amplification, they could never claim that it could be the sun. With vaccines I think it is similar. I don't know much but I would bet there are classical experiments and observations that establish how the immune system works, and these pretty much lead you to the current theory. Which brings us to a point - if someone argues too much against a scientific theory, but are unable to create a decent competing alternative, it is probably a sign they either haven't done their homework, or they don't understand that scientific theories are supposed to be only the best available explanations, not anything more.

comex 6y ago

I'd say that believing experts is more an act of philosophy than an act of science. In an area where you're not an expert, you can't meaningfully agree with the experts – but you can meaningfully understand the limits of your own knowledge, take notice of the track record of science in general, and conclude that, in the absence of more specific knowledge, believing the experts is a good Bayesian prior. And the same applies in the other direction. In the absence of knowledge, you can't meaningfully disagree with the experts, but occasionally there are enough warning signs that you can meaningfully choose to be skeptical. (For example, a lack of rigor in the field.)

ysavir 6y ago
>I'd say that believing experts is more an act of philosophy than an act of science. Not philosophy. Faith.
- wwright 6y ago
  Have you read about the Munchausen Trilemma? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    I’ve always found that very boring since it seems obvious to me that logical truths require the axiomatic argument, scientific truths require the regressive argument, and reductionism doesn’t allow for complex supernatural claims to transcend from merely needing axiomatic support to affecting scientific truths. It feels like one of those things in philosophy that religious people greatly exaggerate the importance of.
    - ukj 6y ago
      Well, no - it's the foundational problem of knowledge/epistemology. How you choose to "solve" it is up to you. The solution computer scientists like a lot is coherentism. You pull yourself up by the bootstraps - like we do with self-hosting compilers. Of course, it's just a conceptual game (like all philosophy). The idea of "prove to me that you know..." seems a bit like "Jump for me... Higher!"

mattigames 6y ago

> Would the symmetrical statement, that you can only meaningfully agree with an expert if you are humble and have done your homework, be true? Not really, because the experts agree on millions of details that I can look up -even if I don't fully understand them- meanwhile the other side (e.g antivaxxers) don't agree in anything significant and asking them simple basic questions unmask they know nothing about the subject (e.g. ask an antivaxxer some highschool chemistry questions about mercury). So unless you believe it's a giant conspiracy involving every expert in the world plus your highschool teachers plus a lot of books it's easy to claim that I meaningfully agree with the experts even if I don't understand the subject as much as them.

antepodius 6y ago
One side of an issue being coordinated doesn't necessarily mean what they're saying it's true, just that they've managed to coordinate their beliefs more. Medieval monks agreed on many details of theology.
- visarga 6y ago
  Medieval monks couldn't even agree on 'How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on_the_head_of_a_pin%3F#:~:text=%5BD%5Doctors%20declare%20that%20in,the%20point%20of%20a%20needle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on_t.... Why were there so many sects, religions and religious wars if they agreed so well? On the other hand, the speed of light is the same under any system of reference, any regime, culture or religion.
  - dexen 6y ago
    Ah yes, the angels on hairpin. The debate was about inifinite vs. finite, not about a particular number. It was couched in the terms of angels rather than physical items specificaly to avoid preconceived notions about our physical world - notions which were limited, and recognized as limited, back then. Do we even recognize our notions as limited in our beautiful early XXI century...?
  - 6y ago

nift 6y ago

I might be thinking about this wrong, but does one have to "agree" rather than be indifferent with an expert? I mean I don't agree or disagree with wearing face masks, but it's very clear the consensus among "experts" is that wearing masks is a good thing to prevent spreading a virus such as covid-19. My point is more, to me wearing a mask is the "way it is" because the scientific community thinks it is through peer review etc. In my kind disagreement / agreement does not come into the question? I'm more questioning if the consensus is based on proper peer reviewed articles. And if was really concerned about the question I might research these, hopefully, publicly available papers. In the case of vaccine / anti - vaccine my opinion is not really relevant (whether I agree or disagree), but the consensus is that vaccines helps us. If you think this consensus is wrong it's on you to prove otherwise instead of simply saying "it's my opinion". And the way you do this is to pursue research that can disprove vaccines are good? The point of science is opinions don't matter, results do? Maybe I'm being too academic about everything.

jjgreen 6y ago
On the face-masks, the majority of experts do think it's a good thing, but there is not really any solid evidence. The WHO June 5th statement on this: At present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID-19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. Indeed, interviewed on BBC Radio 4 last week, Professor Venki Ramakrishnan, president of the Royal Society (the UK "academy of science") declared that to ask for such evidence would be "methodological fetishism", we are expected, no demanded, to accept the opinions of experts. So I'll stand with Feynman on this.
- taneq 6y ago
  There’s at least as much double-blind scientific trial based evidence of face mask effectiveness as there is the effectiveness of parachutes.
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago

morsch 6y ago

> Would the symmetrical statement, that you can only meaningfully agree with an expert if you are humble and have done your homework, be true? Yes. But agreeing or disagreeing is not the only option. In [1] the authors suggest that the crustal anisotropy is decoupled from horizontal basal tractions and, instead, created by upper mantle vertical loading, which generates pressure gradients that drive channelized flow in the mid-lower crust. Do you agree or disagree? The truth is, you probably don't have a position on the issue. If pressed, you might defer to the expert opinion that crustal anisotropy is created by upper mantle vertical loading. But that's not the same as agreeing with it. It's just saying "I don't know, but here's what somebody else says". Of course, agree/disagree/defer is still too rigid: you can humbly tend to agree (based on some homework) while mostly deferring, etc. [1] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/28/eabb0476 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/28/eabb0476

sammorrowdrums 6y ago

Well, the stats on life expectancy over time, cases of infectious diseases and analysis of vaccination programme efficacy are acceptable evidence. You don't need to understand the mechanism of vaccines, to see data of the effects. Luckily the effective application of science frequently allows us to see that the consensus did in fact improve something, and that even if it's not 100% correct or you don't understand all the nuance, the fact that repeatable and extensive datasets are available for many scientific claims will work in its place. Of course there are huge exceptions to this, but it's not always true that you need to understand to have an opinion else it is simply faith. It can be knowable and verifiably effective. You don't need to understand combustion engines to know that they transfer energy. You don't need to trust that scientists made them more efficient when you can measure distance travelled and volume of fuel required.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

visarga 6y ago

> but it wouldn't be because I was pro- science , but because I was pro expert. They do the same but they pick different 'experts': priests, politicians, bloggers, media pundits. We can't escape the fact that we need to rely on other people's opinions to make our own, we can't understand everything from scratch.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
The difference is that choosing experts is itself amenable to scientific analysis. If you assume people are acting with good intentions, this differentiates the case of experts with scientific knowledge vs experts without. If you assume bad intentions, then all possible expert panels can’t be trusted anyway. I think when people try to elevate non-scientific experts to the level of scientific experts on a scientific issue, really they are trying to make it tribal and specifically remove objectivity and evidence, when they perceive it as a threat to their tribal commitments and ways of life. You can of course subvert scientific experts to do the same, but with science you have the option to let objectivity win. No other way of constructing expert panels has that option besides scientific inquiry.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago

I disagree. It would be because you’re pro-science. Even your simplistic explanation about reacting to dead pathogen, and something about t cells and b cells, is a model. It underlies at least some class of hypotheses that are amenable to be proven wrong or augmented with further evidence. To believe in science is not to “know” static facts of a mechanism. It is to constantly reevaluate your best available hypotheses under the requirement of evidence. Memorizing facts often leads people into trouble. Creationist authors for a long time have given exhaustive biochemical accounts of the blood coagulation cascade as their own form of evidence of intelligent design. The statement of the facts has not much to do with science, rather it’s the choice to propose beliefs drawn from them, and whether this remains rooted in disconfirming your own hypotheses with intellectual honesty or becomes an unfalsifiable just-so story to reaffirm a believe you’ve otherwise arbitrarily chosen for non-scientific reasons.

xpaqui 6y ago

Check mate.

epr 6y ago

Undoubtedly, one of the largest problems since the dawn of humanity is the refusal to admit "I don't know". This is what is most frustrating to me regarding a variety of subjects including religion (and atheism for that matter), climate change, economics, and others. My formative experiences that communicated the scope of this problem were my time in high school and college when my fellow students seemed to be absolutely terrified to ask any questions. Even the smallest admission that "I'm sorry professor, I didn't understand that. Could you explain it again?" or something to that effect was not ever even considered for probably 80% of students. I believe this is intimately related to how commonly people hold very strong opinions, while either understanding absolutely nothing about the subject when there is plenty of information available (economics, climate change), or where there is no evidence to even address (religion, atheism). They seemingly adopt the popular view of their peers, and rarely consider questioning anything. I won't pretend I have some way to solve this problem, as it seems inherent to humanity, but I believe this is causing the effects that Feynman is lamenting in the article, and I'm also not at all convinced that this problem is peculiar to modern times.

netcan 6y ago
I think it's an inability, rather than refusal. It's not outright impossible to say "this is unknown," but it does conflict with the way our mind naturally works. We don't leave "i don't know" holes. We don't think in terms of degrees of confidence. We think in terms of facts, abstract theories... at least "we" as groups. There wasn't really a time in the past when people didn't know what the stars were. They always had a view of the world that was complete internally, including "what are stars" knowledge. Even science, in the philosophically ideal sense, works by theories overtaking earlier theories. We don't go from unknowledge to knowledge. We go from bad knowledge to better, truer knowledge over time. Interestingly, science in the squishier sense does have more ability to recognize holes in knowledge. Physics has distinct holes in its knowledge base that they are trying to answer. As a human, deciding to do an experiment or study something requires a "we don't know" posture. Epistemologically though, science doesn't have this posture. It totally falls apart as you distance from hard sciences though. They don't tend to have "quantum theory of gravity" like holes that they are trying to fill.

DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago

As the comment one level above mentions, trusting experts is basically just a heuristic.