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It's probably fair to say experts as a group are failing their duty, and americans are losing trust in them. How America Lost Faith in Expertise: https://www.

• pwinnski 4y ago
  Sure, but you're relying on reporting here, which seems a bit circular, no? WSB has predicted a spike in inflation six times out of the last one. They also predicted that their wife's boyfriend would ride a rocketship to the moon. In addition, it's by no means settled that the economists mentioned in that opinion piece were wrong: inflation is currently a worldwide phenomenon seemingly tied more to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and supply-chain disruption than any US-specific increase in the money supply. The extent is debatable, but the linked opinion piece is offering a simple critique of a complex situation. Reporters wrote many articles demonstrating their lack of understanding of statistics and polling after 2016, yes. Psychological "science" has been largely-garbage since the beginning, which is why it is often described as a "soft science," a charitable way of saying "not really science." The seratonin survey specifically is debated, and seems like another example of reports over-reporting the limited findings of the review. There will always be examples of failures at almost every level, and I don't think there are more failures now than in decades past, but we are primed in a variety of ways to now believe that it is a new and somehow dangerous thing. If you're describing "experts as a group" and meaning "reporters," then no question, reporters have been getting things wrong for a very, very, very long time. As a general rule of thumb, have you ever seen any news reporting ever get things about computers right? And if not--I certainly haven't--why should I not assume that doctors feel the same about medical things, lawyers feel the same about legal things, and so on. Reporting is a skill, but that skill is writing and communication. It's not expertise. Americans are losing trust in institutions for many reasons, but I don't think those institutions are failing more spectacularly than they have in the past. I think the loss of faith is more subtle than that. And specifically, many Americans are replacing that lost faith in institutions with the most ludicrous faith in bizarre nonsensical theories of everything, seemingly with the reasoning that "if any experts are wrong about anything, then they must all be wrong about everything." Most of us got most of our general news from one of three or four news readers, and so we mostly shared similar opinions. People shouted around the edges about details, but that was easy to tune out since it wasn't on one of the big three TV networks. Then 24-hour cable news and the internet changed the way any of us consume news, and I suggest that has much more to do with changing attitudes than any specific details of "experts failing." Again, we all want simple explanations, and it's easier to believe no experts know anything than to accept that life is so complicated that future events are often hard to predict with perfect accuracy, but most of the time, most "experts" are mostly right, so we don't notice that they were only mostly right, not perfectly right. P.S. Still, great list of links, so I upvoted you despite disagreeing.