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What makes someone an expert, though? Is it credentials? Experience? Status in the community? Very often, that's the problem: the popular media often wi

What makes someone an expert, though? Is it credentials? Experience? Status in the community? Very often, that's the problem: the popular media often will deem someone as an "expert" when they really have little idea of what they're talking about, but are good at providing soundbites or generating controversy. Even among experts, there is often little agreement in some important fields. You mention monetary policy, yet economics is notorious for having huge disagreements among freshwater and saltwater economists on basic fundamentals. Let's not even get into the pseudo-science of nutrition. Salt will kill you! Cholesterol bad! Fundamentally I would narrow down the problem with expertise into two broad issues: a) Much expert knowledge is taught and/or acquired in a very narrow & deep manner, there's very little integrative or synthesized world views, and so it's hard to communicate across these intellectual bulkheads and discover expert beliefs in a narrow discipline may make no sense in a broader context b) Science and politics do not mix, even though we try to constantly. The results are usually disastrous.

beefman 16y ago
An expert is a person who has become a major voice on an active mailing list.* Next question. :) Science and politics don't mix, but policy will have to become more scientific if society is going to continue to improve itself. I think the Chinese understand this. Many of those who've risen to expert status in the U.S. today have done so after years of public mistrust of science (starting in 1969) and adoption of the ex novo "democracy" I described. IOW, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Macroeconomics is one of the biggest pseudosciences out there. But I'd still rather have Bernanke answering to the four most bitterly opposed macro bloggers than the House committee he just had to answer to. We recently saw the public exert unprecedented pressure on the Fed, via a discourse that resembled raw sewage. Would you rather have Dodd-Frank, or something that originated at a mechanism design conference? * Sigh: or writes a widely-cited blog.
- parasubvert 16y ago
  My point about science and polticw was that there are attempts for politics to become more scientific, but politicians (along with big business managers, to a degree) want definitive answers, not equivocation and hypotheses that haven't been proven. Thus we get "scientists" guiding them based on their political views, charisma or communication skills, not on the actual evidence. I am not advocating for anti-intellectualism, but I am notimg that there is a reason for mistrust of science: it too can be abused to push an agenda by "acting" before the science can give you clear answers. Examples include Jean Mayer and Ancel Keys in nutrition (heavily influenced The first US policy on nutrition via George McGovern in the early 70s); Greenspan in economics (free money for far too long, pushing the belief the financial market wouldn't screw itself over even though they have time and again) On the other hand I'm actually kind of happy that the Internet has made a meritocracy of expertise via blogs and mailing lists - credentials are too easily abused.

beefman 16y ago

An expert is a person who has become a major voice on an active mailing list.* Next question. :) Science and politics don't mix, but policy will have to become more scientific if society is going to continue to improve itself. I think the Chinese understand this. Many of those who've risen to expert status in the U.S. today have done so after years of public mistrust of science (starting in 1969) and adoption of the ex novo "democracy" I described. IOW, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Macroeconomics is one of the biggest pseudosciences out there. But I'd still rather have Bernanke answering to the four most bitterly opposed macro bloggers than the House committee he just had to answer to. We recently saw the public exert unprecedented pressure on the Fed, via a discourse that resembled raw sewage. Would you rather have Dodd-Frank, or something that originated at a mechanism design conference? * Sigh: or writes a widely-cited blog.

parasubvert 16y ago
My point about science and polticw was that there are attempts for politics to become more scientific, but politicians (along with big business managers, to a degree) want definitive answers, not equivocation and hypotheses that haven't been proven. Thus we get "scientists" guiding them based on their political views, charisma or communication skills, not on the actual evidence. I am not advocating for anti-intellectualism, but I am notimg that there is a reason for mistrust of science: it too can be abused to push an agenda by "acting" before the science can give you clear answers. Examples include Jean Mayer and Ancel Keys in nutrition (heavily influenced The first US policy on nutrition via George McGovern in the early 70s); Greenspan in economics (free money for far too long, pushing the belief the financial market wouldn't screw itself over even though they have time and again) On the other hand I'm actually kind of happy that the Internet has made a meritocracy of expertise via blogs and mailing lists - credentials are too easily abused.