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>But it isn’t arguments or votes or opinion that herald the acceptance of a scientific explanation: it’s the evidence. Follow it wherever it leads. But you can

>But it isn’t arguments or votes or opinion that herald the acceptance of a scientific explanation: it’s the evidence. Follow it wherever it leads. But you cannot actually do that. You cannot be an expert in every field and actually follow the evidence to make up your own conclusion (which btw does not guarantee that your interpretation of the evidence is correct). As an aspiring physicist I feel helpless every time I'm at the doctor's office. I cannot just "follow the evidence". Heck I cannot "follow the evidence" on anything in physics unrelated to my field. This is more generally an economics problem about information asymmetry and it will become more prominent as professions become increasingly sophisticated and specialized. I don't think better access to information makes up for it, either, because there is just as much misinformation. The solution seems to me to build ever more complex social institutions with complex trust relationships which I know makes some cryptofans cringe.

fapjacks 12y ago
It is a distant cousin of the "if you don't like software X, write your own", which is often impossible because we don't have ninety-hour days and the technical wherewithal to accomplish such a task.
- Qwertious 12y ago
  Which is itself related to "if you don't like open-source software X, you can just fork it", which has the same problems. I find it interesting in that it's a useful argument, but only at a communal level - if the entire community hates the direction of a project (e.g. OpenOffice), they can fork it and take it in a different direction. You're still boned as a discerning individual if you dislike the program, though.
  - ahomescu1 12y ago
    > I find it interesting in that it's a useful argument, but only at a communal level - if the entire community hates the direction of a project (e.g. OpenOffice), they can fork it and take it in a different direction. You can take leadership of the community and lead by example: fork it yourself and start hacking, then try to get more people to join.
emptytheory 12y ago
"You cannot be an expert in every field and actually follow the evidence to make up your own conclusion (which btw does not guarantee that your interpretation of the evidence is correct)." It's pretty easy to follow the evidence in most situations, actually. That doesn't make me an expert. That makes me a person who understands the methodology of science, logic, and statistics. You have to know precisely what your assumptions (observations) are and how to make correct conclusions from those assumptions. The only constraints are your time, your determination, and your ability to get the original research (a constraint is not "guaranteeing your interpretation is correct"). Some people are highly opinionated and don't have the understanding to match. That doesn't mean you can't have any sort of understanding as a non-expert. "As an aspiring physicist I feel helpless every time I'm at the doctor's office. I cannot just "follow the evidence"." Doctors aren't necessarily better trained at making inferences and recommendations. Consider their education. Some of them are very poor thinkers.
- ics 12y ago
  > The only constraints are your time and your determination. ...The combination of which is often a luxury that experts in one field cannot afford, thus the statement that one cannot be an expert in every field. "Cannot" is most likely being used for practicality, not in the literal sense of information being totally unfathomable given infinite time and determination. You both have good points but they really needn't conflict so harshly.
  - woodman 12y ago
    > You both have good points but they really needn't conflict so harshly. I disagree, lumberjack's point is essentially an appeal to authority - which is dark-age style thinking. Just represent everything in a machine readable set of axioms, problem solved. You don't need to be an expert in every field, you just need to have a basic understanding of first order logic.
    - ics 12y ago
      > Just represent everything in a machine readable set of axioms, problem solved. We all look forward to the day that you or anyone else can do this. emptytheory's suggestion: have tons of time and determination to solve the problem. Caveat: the problem has already been solved and applied by many experts many times, where the main criticism is that some of the time these experts' application over repeated attempts is not 100% consistent. Your suggestion: encode all necessary knowledge to solve the problem so that a computer can solve it for you. Caveat: this is either being done already by domain experts, or you must go out of your way to navigate the problem based on logic and not experience (tedious, but potentially very rewarding) so as to encode this information yourself (taking some unknown amount of time). Caveat in all cases: You are just as apt to fuck up along the way as anyone else who possesses the same logical faculties as you, which presumably at least some other experts in question would. lumberjack's argument may not possess the logical upper hand, but it is a valid concern for people who are mortal, employed (or otherwise occupied with their time), and without access to a medical library. Perhaps the best way to put this is, I look forward to the day when you can prove their reasoning wrong in such a reproducible way rather than completely dismissing a conclusion due to some fault along the way.
pdonis 12y ago
> You cannot be an expert in every field and actually follow the evidence to make up your own conclusion (which btw does not guarantee that your interpretation of the evidence is correct). This is true; but it doesn't mean that trusting experts is necessarily going to make you any better off. If the experts themselves aren't following the evidence, either because they have an ideological axe to grind or because there simply isn't enough evidence to be helpful, their opinions won't be of any more value than yours. > I feel helpless every time I'm at the doctor's office. I cannot just "follow the evidence". And many doctors can't either. Medicine is not a very advanced science compared to your field, physics. In fact, there are practically no sciences which are as advanced as physics. So if you're expecting that experts in other fields are basing their advice on the sort of evidence and predictive theories that you're used to seeing in physics, you're going to be very disappointed.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
return0 12y ago
You're talking about trusting experts, which is a different thing. Doctors and judges are not selected by popular vote, but by formal exams, therefore you have a reason to trust them, even if they are wildly unpopular otherwise.

fapjacks 12y ago

It is a distant cousin of the "if you don't like software X, write your own", which is often impossible because we don't have ninety-hour days and the technical wherewithal to accomplish such a task.

Qwertious 12y ago
Which is itself related to "if you don't like open-source software X, you can just fork it", which has the same problems. I find it interesting in that it's a useful argument, but only at a communal level - if the entire community hates the direction of a project (e.g. OpenOffice), they can fork it and take it in a different direction. You're still boned as a discerning individual if you dislike the program, though.
- ahomescu1 12y ago
  > I find it interesting in that it's a useful argument, but only at a communal level - if the entire community hates the direction of a project (e.g. OpenOffice), they can fork it and take it in a different direction. You can take leadership of the community and lead by example: fork it yourself and start hacking, then try to get more people to join.

emptytheory 12y ago

"You cannot be an expert in every field and actually follow the evidence to make up your own conclusion (which btw does not guarantee that your interpretation of the evidence is correct)." It's pretty easy to follow the evidence in most situations, actually. That doesn't make me an expert. That makes me a person who understands the methodology of science, logic, and statistics. You have to know precisely what your assumptions (observations) are and how to make correct conclusions from those assumptions. The only constraints are your time, your determination, and your ability to get the original research (a constraint is not "guaranteeing your interpretation is correct"). Some people are highly opinionated and don't have the understanding to match. That doesn't mean you can't have any sort of understanding as a non-expert. "As an aspiring physicist I feel helpless every time I'm at the doctor's office. I cannot just "follow the evidence"." Doctors aren't necessarily better trained at making inferences and recommendations. Consider their education. Some of them are very poor thinkers.

ics 12y ago
> The only constraints are your time and your determination. ...The combination of which is often a luxury that experts in one field cannot afford, thus the statement that one cannot be an expert in every field. "Cannot" is most likely being used for practicality, not in the literal sense of information being totally unfathomable given infinite time and determination. You both have good points but they really needn't conflict so harshly.
- woodman 12y ago
  > You both have good points but they really needn't conflict so harshly. I disagree, lumberjack's point is essentially an appeal to authority - which is dark-age style thinking. Just represent everything in a machine readable set of axioms, problem solved. You don't need to be an expert in every field, you just need to have a basic understanding of first order logic.
  - ics 12y ago
    > Just represent everything in a machine readable set of axioms, problem solved. We all look forward to the day that you or anyone else can do this. emptytheory's suggestion: have tons of time and determination to solve the problem. Caveat: the problem has already been solved and applied by many experts many times, where the main criticism is that some of the time these experts' application over repeated attempts is not 100% consistent. Your suggestion: encode all necessary knowledge to solve the problem so that a computer can solve it for you. Caveat: this is either being done already by domain experts, or you must go out of your way to navigate the problem based on logic and not experience (tedious, but potentially very rewarding) so as to encode this information yourself (taking some unknown amount of time). Caveat in all cases: You are just as apt to fuck up along the way as anyone else who possesses the same logical faculties as you, which presumably at least some other experts in question would. lumberjack's argument may not possess the logical upper hand, but it is a valid concern for people who are mortal, employed (or otherwise occupied with their time), and without access to a medical library. Perhaps the best way to put this is, I look forward to the day when you can prove their reasoning wrong in such a reproducible way rather than completely dismissing a conclusion due to some fault along the way.

pdonis 12y ago

> You cannot be an expert in every field and actually follow the evidence to make up your own conclusion (which btw does not guarantee that your interpretation of the evidence is correct). This is true; but it doesn't mean that trusting experts is necessarily going to make you any better off. If the experts themselves aren't following the evidence, either because they have an ideological axe to grind or because there simply isn't enough evidence to be helpful, their opinions won't be of any more value than yours. > I feel helpless every time I'm at the doctor's office. I cannot just "follow the evidence". And many doctors can't either. Medicine is not a very advanced science compared to your field, physics. In fact, there are practically no sciences which are as advanced as physics. So if you're expecting that experts in other fields are basing their advice on the sort of evidence and predictive theories that you're used to seeing in physics, you're going to be very disappointed.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

return0 12y ago

You're talking about trusting experts, which is a different thing. Doctors and judges are not selected by popular vote, but by formal exams, therefore you have a reason to trust them, even if they are wildly unpopular otherwise.