4 ms·

Everyone talks about the dentist topic. To me, what this points to is much bigger: Expert knowledge is greatly overrated and researcher-subject effects (biases)

Everyone talks about the dentist topic. To me, what this points to is much bigger: Expert knowledge is greatly overrated and researcher-subject effects (biases) are greatly underrated. Heterogeneity of results in many fields that deal with humans suggests that triangulation (a concept known in the social sciences - e.g. to use many data source, many approaches and many opinions) is perhaps the only solution to offset human subjectivity.

seer 4y ago
I’ve found rating systems a big help. What I usually do for any doctor is visit a famous online forum in bulgaria that’s filled with people’s opinions regarding doctors. Started as just a place where young mothers hang out and talk about various topics, and is practically an institution here already. Since it’s not affiliated with any business / media it has remained surprisingly honest place and most opinions I’ve read ended up being spot on - both positive and negative. Its pretty great for finding out doctor specialists.
pas 4y ago
Is this true for "all fields"? Is there some pattern? Eg. fields that deal with hard data (let's say nephrology) is "better" than fields that stare at blurry Xrays? Or fields where the consequences are relatively light are worse than, let's say fields that revolve around brain surgery? Average years of experience required to practice in that field? Monetary incentives?
- Helmut10001 4y ago
  I would say that anything beyond pure math is affected to a large degree by subjectivity. I have worked across three research fields (architecture, geography, informatics) and all researchers I met from these fields (apart from 1-2 exceptions) are hugely affected by their subjective intra-group beliefs. Not only that, they extrapolate their world view beyond their respective fields, which I find wrong and concerning.
  - pas 4y ago
    Oh, I think it's time to meet pure math folks then :))) > Not only that, they extrapolate their world view beyond their respective fields, which I find wrong and concerning. Does this result in some kind of explicitly noticeable things in their output? Or it's more noticeable on a meta-level via things like publication bias, choice of research topics, etc?
  - dagw 4y ago
    Not only that, they extrapolate their world view beyond their respective fields, which I find wrong and concerning. I find that basically everybody does this, no matter what their field or background

seer 4y ago

I’ve found rating systems a big help. What I usually do for any doctor is visit a famous online forum in bulgaria that’s filled with people’s opinions regarding doctors. Started as just a place where young mothers hang out and talk about various topics, and is practically an institution here already. Since it’s not affiliated with any business / media it has remained surprisingly honest place and most opinions I’ve read ended up being spot on - both positive and negative. Its pretty great for finding out doctor specialists.

pas 4y ago

Is this true for "all fields"? Is there some pattern? Eg. fields that deal with hard data (let's say nephrology) is "better" than fields that stare at blurry Xrays? Or fields where the consequences are relatively light are worse than, let's say fields that revolve around brain surgery? Average years of experience required to practice in that field? Monetary incentives?

Helmut10001 4y ago
I would say that anything beyond pure math is affected to a large degree by subjectivity. I have worked across three research fields (architecture, geography, informatics) and all researchers I met from these fields (apart from 1-2 exceptions) are hugely affected by their subjective intra-group beliefs. Not only that, they extrapolate their world view beyond their respective fields, which I find wrong and concerning.
- pas 4y ago
  Oh, I think it's time to meet pure math folks then :))) > Not only that, they extrapolate their world view beyond their respective fields, which I find wrong and concerning. Does this result in some kind of explicitly noticeable things in their output? Or it's more noticeable on a meta-level via things like publication bias, choice of research topics, etc?
- dagw 4y ago
  Not only that, they extrapolate their world view beyond their respective fields, which I find wrong and concerning. I find that basically everybody does this, no matter what their field or background