Question Authority vs. Trust Science

Astral Codex Ten has an interesting piece on the subject, using Don't Look Up (spoilers) as the launching point. I haven't seen Don't Look Up, but the analysis that follows strikes me as quite sound; an excerpt:

Progressivism, like conservatism and every other political philosophy, is big and complicated and self-contradictory. It tells a lot of stories to define and justify itself. Here are two of them:

First, a story of scruffy hippies and activists protesting the Man, that embodiment of capitalism and conformism and respectability. Think Stonewall, where gay people on the margins of society spat in the face of their supposed betters and demanded their rights. Even academics are part of this tradition: Chomsky and Herman's Manufacturing Consent accuses the mainstream media of being the Man. It's jingoist and obsessed with justifying America's foreign adventures; we need brave truth-tellers to point out where it goes wrong. Environmentalism shares some of this same ethos. In Erin Brockovich, a giant corporation is poisoning people, lying about it, and has bribed or corrupted everyone else into taking their side. Only one brave activist is able to put the pieces together and stand up for ordinary people. [I would add that, even apart from progressivism in general, modern progressive Hollywood is all about that, perhaps because audiences generally like to root for the feisty mavericks over the clumsy establishment. -EV]

Second, a story that comes out of the Creationism Wars of the early 00s. We are the "reality-based community", the sane people, the normal people, the people with college degrees and non-spittle-covered keyboards. They are unwashed uneducated lunatics who think that evolution is a lie and Obama was born in Kenya and vaccines cause autism and COVID isn't real. Maybe they should have been clued in by the fact that 100% of smart people and institutions are on our side, and they are just a couple of weirdos who don't even agree with each other consistently. If this narrative has a movie, it must be Idiocracy - though a runner up might be Behind the Curve, the documentary about flat-earthers.

The first narrative says "there's a consensus reality constructed by respectable people, and a few wild-eyed weirdos saying they've seen through the veil and it's all lies…and you should trust the weirdos!" The second starts the same way, but ends "…and you should trust consensus reality!" They're not actually contradictory - you could be talking about different questions! You are talking about different questions! But they're contradictory at the mythic narrative level where they're trying to operate. On that level, there should always be a good guy and a bad guy, and you should be able to tell who's who by their facial hair or at least the color of their clothing. You shouldn't have to learn a bunch of facts about the biochemistry of hexavalent chromium (or whatever it was Erin Brockovich was investigating) to resolve the object-level issue; nobody has time for that!

Is it a problem that people have two contradictory narratives at the same time? Take it from a psychiatrist: not at all. People are great at this. Loads of men are walking around with stories like "women are perfect angels" and "women are terrifying demons" in their heads all the time, totally untroubled by the contradiction. Different situations will activate one schema or the other; one that activates both might just never come up….

Read the whole piece.

Comments

[Longtobefree]

Or we can just patronize films that are made to provide entertainment, not political propaganda.

[jdgalt1]

The slogan "trust the science" is a contradiction in terms. This is because "science" is not a particular group of persons or institutions; science is a method, and that method directs us to be skeptical and test ALL assertions. Similarly, "the science is settled" can never be true.

What the so-called progressives actually want you to trust in is the half-dozen Big Media multinationals that control 90% of all communications industries worldwide. In particular, they want you to accept what they say on the evening news as "mainstream," even though vicious lies replaced objective journalism there some years ago. I put mainstream in quotes because the majority of Americans no longer trust those media, and likely never will again. And without that trust, the views they try to sell aren't mainstream.

They also no longer define who is "respectable."

[Rossami]

I'm reading a book that has a great quote about science.

Scientists are often seen as turbonerds, but the philosophical foundation of science are actually those of pure punk-rock anarchy; never respect authority, never take anyone's word on anything and test all the things you think you know to confirm or deny them for yourself.

Anyone who says "trust Science" or "the Science is settled" has automatically lost the debate because the very act of saying that demonstrates that they don't understand what science is in the first place.

[hobie]

As long as those who question science honestly have at least some education in the matter then your assertion is fine. If they are just angry dingbats 'researching' on their phone while taking a shit...not fine.

[Ersatz]

why is that latter scenario not 'fine'? you have a problem with people living free and possibly not thinking the way you approve of?

or perhaps people should be allowed to be incompetent? but at what? which things are we allowed to be mistaken about and which things are we allowed to misbehave towards....? who decides.... you?

[hobie]

You know, Mr. Ersazt...fine. You go ahead and listen to anyone who has a compelling story, some 'likes' and is selling vitamin supplements.

[Joe_dallas]

If you cant question the science, then it is not science.

[Purple Martin]

The reason you are 100% correct is that science has a built-in process to question the science. You may have heard it referred to as The Scientific Method.

Acknowledging hiccups at times (and outright purposeful distortion at others), the scientific method as leveraged primarily through the infrastructure of Big Science—primarily university, government, and business-sponsored R&D centers doing the work; with results captured and disseminated through hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific journals—works pretty well.

Most people tend to agree...until the outcome of acknowledged scientific consensus—which is not only "the Science is settled"—conflicts with deeply-held beliefs. That's the phenomenon of "you can't reason a man out of something he wasn't reasoned into.'

[Rossami]

Re: "works pretty well" - Apparently, you need to update yourself on the Reproducibility Crisis, Purple. You might also want to read up on some of the cross-disciplinary critiques of what is more-and-more being called "pal-review" and on 'publication bias'. There are some very good articles on both.

The Scientific Method remains strong. Our current implementation of it has some serious weaknesses.

[Rossami]

Since that's approximately the same level of "research" done by the angry dingbats ranting that we must "trust science", I don't think the assertion loses it's validity either way.

[Seamus]

And when I'm researching on my phone while taking a shit, how do I determine which scientists I ought to listen to?

[WashRep]

"... science is a method, and that method directs us to be skeptical and test ALL assertions."
A perfect example of this is the fact that Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Special Theory are even now being tested again and again using the latest techniques. And they will be as long as I can envision in the future. That's how science is supposed to work.
A terrible example is the current COVID "science". Mr Science Fauchi has told us so many contradictory "facts" that no one knows what to believe. Big Tech, allied with Big Pharma is all out for maximum profits even when one drug maker's product seems to be an excellent therapeutic (but just pennies a dose) but a threat to their bottom line.

[Joe_dallas]

WashRep
January.5.2022 at 9:52 pmA terrible example is the current COVID "science". Mr Science Fauchi"

I will add that the history of respiratory viruses have been well known for a few decades with the studies of pandemics going back to the 1800's , granted with large advances in knowledge. However, so much of the well known science was discarded / ignored in pursuit of political agenda's. The most common example is the foolish belief that a respiratory virus could be eradicated or substantially controlled by the forced mitigation protocols.

Anyone with a basic knowledge of the history of pandemics and respiratory viruses, knew that was futile.

Going forward, there seems to be an inordinate belief that vaccines that are currently only marginally effective will somehow deliver the suppression of the virus to the point of ending this pandemic.
In the meantime, there seems to be intentional disregard for the history of pandemics which shows that they typically wind down substantially after the 3rd wave , which in covid's case will likely be late winter of 2022.

So should we trust the experts that have ignored history or trust the laymen that have good basic knowledge of history.

[David Nieporent]

We should trust the experts who have actual subject matter knowledge, rather than self-appointed pundits on the Internet who read Wikipedia and watched a Tiktok and mistakenly think they have good knowledge of history.

[Rossami]

You are missing the point, David. You shouldn't even trust the experts. And you definitely shouldn't trust anyone, regardless of their claimed expertise, who says "trust science" or "the science is settled".

You might, however, be able to trust people who say 'here's the data, here's my methodology and here are my conclusions - which, since you have my data and methodology, you can check for yourself.'

[Joe_dallas]

David - I just pointed out an example where the experts have been dead wrong.

I have been pillored on this website since march 2020 for stating that masking has little to no benefit in reducing the spread of covid. Studies after studies from "experts " showing my internet opinion was wrong. Now 20 months later, It is pretty conclusive that at the population level, the masking and other mitigation protocols have had close to zero benefit.

So again - should we trust the experts that have ignored history or trust the laymen that have good basic knowledge of history.

[Sarcastr0]

Now 20 months later, It is pretty conclusive that at the population level, the masking and other mitigation protocols have had close to zero benefit.

That is not pretty conclusive. You doubling down on what you already believed via a second, additional lay narrative is not something becoming conclusive.

[Joe_dallas]

Sarcastr0
January.6.2022 at 3:41 pm
That data shows otherwise

[Joe_dallas]

Further - my current unsophisticated opinion is that while vaccines have reduced the severity of covid, the ultimate long term solution is consistent with same opinion I have held since march 2020 which is natural immunity is going to be best solution.

We should have a glimpse of the results with my "internet pundit opinion" as the current wave winds down in late winter of 2022 and then judge the severity of the 4th wave which will likely start in the mid to late summer in the southern states and the fall of 2022 in the northern states.

[Seamus]

And how do I identify the real "experts"? The consensus scientists who say that stomach ulcers are caused by stress and eating spicy food, or those wingnuts with a cool new theory that they're caused by bacteria?

[Purple Martin]

The slogan "trust the science" is a contradiction in terms.

But the good Professor Volokh's recommendation to read the whole essay is correct. While the extract works in illustrating the principle George Orwell named "Doublethink" (or, when it's less successful, Cognitive Dissonance), Scott Anderson better addressed jdgalt1 in this extract from his closing:

You should absolutely trust Science. But Science is not clearly visible, like a comet bearing down on you. Science is like the Gnostic God. It exists, somewhere out there, perfect in itself. It is pure and right and beautiful. If you could hear it, it would certainly speak Truth. Yet here we are, in the stupid material universe, seeing through a glass darkly. Good sometimes looks like evil, evil often looks like good, and there’s some jerk with the head of a lion and the body of a snake psyching us out at every turn. Do we trust the priests? The scriptures? The Inner Light of our own hearts? “Just trust in God”. NOT HELPFUL.

What do you do? I guess you do the principled philosophy thing. You collide the two narratives, integrate them, and try to build something useful out of the debris, while constantly being tripped up by fuzzy boundaries and edge cases. The rationalist community has been trying this for fifteen years, and so far what we’ve got is some combination of “these math lectures describe what to do perfectly in theory, shame we disagree on how to apply them to the real world” and “prediction markets seem maybe good” and “turns out the people who obsess over this are often trustworthy on object-level questions” . Other people have been chipping away at the same question for longer and developed Arts of their own, but no one seems fully satisfied.

In conclusion, if there is a comet headed towards Earth, you should probably take some kind of action to deflect it, even if a tech company CEO says not to worry. I believe a metaphorical comet is headed towards Earth right now, and a literal tech company CEO is telling you not to worry, and he is wrong. Half of you will agree with me, half of you will say I’m wrong, and all the narratives and heuristics in the world won’t get us one step closer to consensus, let alone truth.

[Sarcastr0]

Some random thoughts.

I haven't seen the movie but I hear it's a bit smug and anvilicious for a very nuanced jumping off point. But it seems to serve.

There is a lot of middle ground between blind trust and jettisoning the idea of expertise.

What I see a lot of is people picking and choosing which experts they choose. I won't believe the scientists, but I will believe this blog by a guy who sounds scientific.

Or, worse, the odd discarding of statistics in favor of your own experience/common sense. Which is okay if you're making decisions about yourself - assumption of the risk and all that - but not great if your actions have collective consequences.

I even see this about speech on college campuses. People insisting they've read too many articles of anecdotes for the anecdotes to not to be universally true.

Humans are bad at stats. We love confirmation bias.

Finally, I don't much like the continuum people draw between science and religion. If someone believes something you think is really wrong, that doesn't mean they're doing religion.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"There is a lot of middle ground between blind trust and jettisoning the idea of expertise."

Of course, nobody is suggesting either. Everybody thinks that expert opinion should be one factor in making a judgement, but not dispositive.

And often, when someone thinks that someone else is giving too little weight to purported expertise, they will accuse the other of jettisoning the idea of expertise.

And if someone thinks the other person is giving too much weight to expertise, they will accuse the other person of blind faith.

But everybody's really just taking the same approach, they just disagree on the specifics.

[Ben_]

Sounds like a good argument for limited government that acts with humility and is willing to forgo some actions to avoid directly causing harm.

[Ersatz]

oh, if only...

[Ben_]

Not causing harm is only for people who want to avoid directly causing harm more than their other goals.

Instead we seem to mostly be governed by the opposite type of people.

[Sarcastr0]

Everybody thinks that expert opinion should be one factor in making a judgement, but not dispositive.

Except those that argue the experts are lying, or who argue their common sense is better than eggheads. Below we have an outright rejection of the utility of statistics.

Maybe it's be better to move away from Covid to, say the Constitution. Plenty of people on this legal blog say 'screw the trained experts, I can read this by myself, and precedents and cases are illegitimate before my insights.'

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Except those that argue the experts are lying, or who argue their common sense is better than eggheads."

No one is arguing that experts are always lying, or the egghead are always wrong.

Sometimes experts lie, and sometimes an opinion base on common sense is better than an expert opinion. The disagreement is over when that is.

"Below we have an outright rejection of the utility of statistics."

No we don't. Presumably you weren't arguing that we should always accept an argument that claims to be grounded in statistics. Bob appears to be arguing that we shouldn't blindly accept arguments that claim to be statistically supported.

[Sarcastr0]

With global warming, plenty argue the experts are always lying.

sometimes an opinion base on common sense is better than an expert opinion
But no one knows when that sometimes occurs. Or, rather, they think they know, but confidence has almost no relation to accuracy of the gut.

Bob responded to my saying people discard statistic with an approving 'statistics can be manipulated.' You are being too kind to him.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's usually not so much a claim that "the" experts are always lying, as that some of them are, and which experts you get to hear is curated.

And it absolutely is curated these days, with platforms taking sides on issues, and censoring the other side.

The argument becomes between those who think the curation is silencing the cranks, and those who think the truth would NEED censorship to prevail.

[Brett Bellmore]

that the truth wouldn't need censorship to prevail.

As soon as the censorship kicks in, you should rationally be suspicious that you're getting a straight story.

[Ersatz]

^THIS^

[Sarcastr0]

Peer review is not censorship.

No one is entitled to a platform.

[Brett Bellmore]

Eh, peer review can be censorship. But I was mostly talking about the media, and social media platforms, which have the last few years been taking positions in controversies, and silencing the other side of those controversies.

[Sarcastr0]

The media being biased is also not censorship.

And we've discussed social media. They have rights as well, your conspiracy theories about hosting services are just that, and when you look at why the actual people were kicked off, it's almost always for saying crazy lies.

[Rossami]

Sure it is, Sarcastr0. Or at least, it can be.

It's just not illegal censorship. As you say, social media companies have rights, too. Their censorship may be morally or socially wrong or counter-productive but it's only illegal when the government does it.

But no, not everyone kicked off their hosting services were saying crazy lies. Some, certainly. Maybe even many. But there are plenty of well-documented examples of folks getting kicked off for saying things that were provably true.

[Sarcastr0]

Censorship as generally understood, is state action. No one is entitled to a private platform.

there are plenty of well-documented examples of folks getting kicked off for saying things that were provably true
Is there?

I'd love to break up twitter just for being anticompetitive. But the idea that it's the only way to get ideas out to the point that it distorts science itself seems to be rather overstating it's power.

[Absaroka]

"Censorship as generally understood, is state action."

FWIW, the ACLU disagrees:

"Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups.
...
Private pressure groups, not the government, promulgated and enforced the infamous Hollywood blacklists during the McCarthy period. But these private censorship campaigns..."

The wiki article titled 'Censorship' says:

" Censorship can be conducted by governments,[5] private institutions and other controlling bodies."

(to be fair, there are also definitions out there that only mention censorship by the government or other authorities)

[Rossami]

I'm curious about the source for your claim of "generally understood". That's not the dictionary definition, it's not the legal definition and it's not the definition used in any of my old college classes on ethics, philosophy or business.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"But no one knows when that sometimes occurs. Or, rather, they think they know, but confidence has almost no relation to accuracy of the gut."

You can have a pretty good idea. For example, if my doctor calls me and tells me that I'm pregnant, I'm going to use common sense and assume that she made a mistake somewhere in the application of her expertise. Probably by looking at the wrong chart.

So sure, you should defer to experts. Except in situations where you shouldn't.

[Sarcastr0]

That's a pretty far out there example, though. We're not talking about uninteresting edge cases.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Lol. Ok, then tell me at what point it stops being an edge case.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't need to draw lines to realize the fallibility of common sense.

That's a lame rhetorical trick.

[Brett Bellmore]

Talking about edge cases is unavoidable. As soon as you resolve not to discuss edge cases, the edge moves.

[Sarcastr0]

This isn't engineering. We all know we're line drawing here; examples that everyone agrees with are useless in this debate.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"With global warming, plenty argue the experts are always lying."

Let's say...they're overstating their case.

There's science. A series of reproducible experiments.
....Then there's the interpretation of the science.
....Then there's the extrapolation of the interpretation.
....Then there's the policy recommendations based on the extrapolation
....Then there are the media statements made based on the political considerations of the policy recommendations

[Sarcastr0]

Plenty argue it's a hoax.

[Ben_]

And when the dumb media predictions don't come true, it looks like a hoax. And the dumb media predictions are essentially indistinguishable from a hoax -- they share characteristics with hoaxes: they are wrong, unserious, and disdain the audience.

Greta and Earth Hour and the rest of the religious trappings aren't doing the science any favors.

[Sarcastr0]

No, Ben, stuff you are super duper sure is wrong is not a hoax.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, you're saying the glaciers did disappear?

[Sarcastr0]

What are you talking about, Brett?

[Absaroka]

"So, you're saying the glaciers did disappear?"

Well, quite a few have receded dramatically, even in my lifetime. I could take you on some hikes in WY and MT and show you.

(and yes, glacial recession isn't universal, but it's pretty widespread)

[Brett Bellmore]

We were told that most of the world's glaciers would be gone by now. It was one of the dumb media predictions that looked like hoax.

The Maldives are also supposed to have been under water since 2018.

The best part of the glaciers disappearing predictions is that, as they receded, they revealed how recently they'd been even smaller. The Alps were largely glacier free as recently as 2000 years ago.

[Sarcastr0]

Those predictions may have been before my time.

But taking that as true, do you think that means the whole enterprise is a hoax? Heck, do you think past incorrect predictions renders future predictions invalid? Because then you've discarded all of science.

I'm not a catastrophist, but given what Covid did to our global supply lines, global warming is going to suck due to transition costs alone.

[Joe_dallas]

Absaroka
January.6.2022 at 9:19 am
Flag Comment Mute User
"So, you're saying the glaciers did disappear?"

"Well, quite a few have receded dramatically, even in my lifetime. I could take you on some hikes in WY and MT and show you."

(and yes, glacial recession isn't universal, but it's pretty widespread"

Lots of those receding glaciers are revealing forests that existed during the MWP , such as the mendenhal glacier, columbia ice fields in canada, andes mtns, the alps, etc.

similar with tree lines dating from the mwp 100km north of the present day tree line. those being just a few examples
Yet somehow, the MWP still showing the to cooler in all those paleo climate reconstructions.

couple that with cooler MWP derived from long proxies, none of the long proxies of which show a blade.

These are well known problems with the paleo reconstructions. Is it any wonder that "internet pundits" question the honesty of climate scientists.

[Ben_]

Actually wrong, hyped-up, scaremongering predictions are a hoax or something that's exactly the same as a hoax but with a very slightly different motive.

[Joe_dallas]

Brett Bellmore
January.6.2022 at 11:37 am
"The best part of the glaciers disappearing predictions is that, as they receded, they revealed how recently they'd been even smaller. The Alps were largely glacier free as recently as 2000 years ago."

Marcott's study which is one of the gold standards of the paleo reconstructions shows the planet to be much warmer today than 2k , 5k and 10k years ago.

As brett correctly notes, the Alps were largely ice free 2k years ago, which certainly conflicts with the marcott study. any wonder why internet pundits question the credibility of the paleo reconstructions.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Maybe it's be better to move away from Covid to, say the Constitution."

No it's not. Constitutional analysis is a matter of opinion. Judges' opinions are "correct" because they are judges, not because they are experts and have better opinions.

[Sarcastr0]

You don't think expertise has anything to do with understanding the Constitution?

[TwelveInchPianist]

What I said was that constitutional analysis and science aren't comparable because the former is largely a matter of opinion.

[Sarcastr0]

What is the difference between intuition and opinion? Because at it's margins, science is about informed intuition.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Constitutional analysis is often about pure normative opinion. If someone wants to insist, for example, that the exclusionary rule is wrong in some fundamental sense, and all the judges, etc. have gotten in wrong, then what are you going to say? They're entitled to their opinion.

[Sarcastr0]

Constitutional analysis is often about pure normative opinion
Is it, though? Your often indicates you don't think it always is. And where do those opinions come from, if not some underlying understanding of social behavior?

At the bleeding edge of basic research, we have no quantitative reason to think this compound or that will have the interesting magnetic properties.
Which research project is proposed is opinion. Which is accepted is also opinion.

Is there some deep pattern recognition we don't have conscious access to? Maybe. But until that's understood, the effect of expertise is pretty similar between Constitutional analysis and scientific analysis on the edge.

[hobie]

You are just falling into the tarbaby trap here, Sarcastro. A general example of why experience matters was laid plain to me in 2020 until today. I was once a virologist for 10 years. I ran PCR and know the most intimate molecular functions of protein folding and binding.

So comes now a whole horde of people the world over claiming PCR doesn't work. Vaccines are filled with poisons. Who do judges and scientists think they are being the final arbiters of what is correct? We could be lying.

All this willful ignorance is amusing to me. But nearly all of it is dead wrong.

[Sarcastr0]

Eh, I wouldn't come here if I wasn't a bit into some tar baby action.

[Darth Chocolate]

Given the track record of “experts”, I am surprised the weight most people give them.

For example, the “experts” told us fully 1% of the US population would die of COVID within a year. We are now almost 2 years into it and we have about 0.8 million dead as opposed to the initial projection of over 3 million.

Yet we are supposed to blindly follow their advice.

And if you question it, then you are anti-science.

[hobie]

Read again what you just wrote: 800,000 Americans are dead who would probably otherwise be alive. And you're gleeful over the discrepancy of the predictions?

[Brett Bellmore]

Maybe you should read again. He's gleeful that it was only 0.8 million rather than the expert prediction of 3 million.

An extra 2.2 million lives not extinguished seems a reasonable reason for being gleeful.

[damikesc]

...an even Fauci is now recognizing that how we categorize the people "with" COVID is not useful. "With" and "because of" are vastly different and should be treated as such.

[Ben_]

Have any of the Covidians ever taken that question seriously?

You'd think people who were interested in understanding things would want to know what caused the death of people. Did they die of Covid? Or did they merely test positive for Covid coincident with their death?

The answer is always simply some variation of "shut up". Of course that leads to mistrust.

[hobie]

All of us here know precisely why you are trying to score points with this line of reasoning. But to me it's a bit disgusting to minimize the dead to make it.

[Seamus]

So the fact that the expert predictions were way off may be true, but it's "disgusting" to point that fact out, and we may therefore (indeed, are morally compelled to) disregard it.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Read again what you just wrote: 800,000 Americans are dead who would probably otherwise be alive.

We lose 600-750K every year to obesity-related causes (and COVID notably reaps these types rather efficiently), and never had a similar freakout. My insurance rates have gone up far more due to the nation's obesity epidemic than they ever will from COVID, which means fatties not losing weight is having a negative effect on the community at large.

If public health is really the issue, we should be mandating gym memberships, rather than vaccine passes for one particular shot.

[Brett Bellmore]

And I've made that exact point: If Covid justifies vaccine mandates, and all that's been done in the name of fighting it, what couldn't you justify to fight worse health threats?

Because even now, there are worse health threats than Covid.

[Sarcastr0]

Dread is a funny thing - it makes us valuate different deaths differently. Novelty is a big thing in that invisible valuation.

Vaccine mandates are not some new restriction on our rights - they've been a thing for a long time.

The partializing of public health is the new thing. And that's on y'all's side.

[Squirrelloid]

An expert is an expert because they can explain why they have an opinion - that is, make an argument based on facts that leads to the conclusion which is their opinion. And doing this is important, because experts tend to be experts in very narrow domains - if they can't make a persuasive argument for their opinion, they're operating outside their expertise.

At the moment an expert just gives you his opinion without that argument, he's not acting as an expert.

[Absaroka]

Yeah. This is a tough problem. On the one hand, if you line up a bunch of Nobel laureates saying the sun rises in the west, sorry, I'm going to go out tomorrow morning and check. E.g. when the surgeon general said masks only protect health care workers.

OTOH, no one is an expert on everything. It is really easy to overestimate the limitations of your knowledge. Ironically, this is often more pronounced the brighter you are. Really bright people are used to understanding better than most of the people they know - but as the saying goes, if you are one in a million there are 7000 people just like you. Witness brilliant Nobel laureates who get slightly outside their area of expertise and spout nonsense.

"Humans are bad at stats. We love confirmation bias."

Very much so. I was once discussing an issue I have studied fairly deeply with a friend. I mentioned some studies, and his response was 'I don't care about your studies, because for every study you can mention, I can go looking for a study that disagrees'. And of course he is right for any hot button area of study. What he hadn't done, not having a stats background, was asses the relative quality of the studies. I think I posted a link a few weeks ago to Astral Codex Ten's discussion of ivermectin studies. It is a classic example of the amount of work you have to do to begin to asses the quality of studies. If you aren't looking that deeply, you don't know whether the study you are citing is worthwhile or not.

[Sarcastr0]

Well, the sun isn't really rising 😛

I really think personal humility is the key to a lot of these issues.

[Absaroka]

"Well, the sun isn't really rising"

Well, that's what the heliocentric whackos say. But should I believe you or my lying eyes?

"I really think personal humility is the key to a lot of these issues."

I encounter a lot more really bright people than really bright people who are good at gauging the accuracy of their beliefs. People generally either believe X or don't believe X; the rare people who say 'I think it is 70% likely X is true/false' are real gems.

[Sarcastr0]

I work with professional scientists every day.

Intelligence and judgement are not all that related, but intelligent people oftentimes don't realize that.

Wise people tend not to think they're smart when they're not, though.

[Leo Marvin]

+1 to humility.

[David Nieporent]

I haven't seen the movie but I hear it's a bit smug and anvilicious for a very nuanced jumping off point. But it seems to serve.

It had a good enough cast that it was still enjoyable, but, well, let me put it this way:

You remember the Partnership for a Drug Free America commercials? They were more subtle and nuanced than this movie.

[bernard11]

Are we talking about "Don't Look Up?"

I'm streaming it, and have watched a bit more than half. I'm not sure I'll watch the rest.

I suppose it's satire, but it's not particularly funny or incisive.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, that's what I was talking about.

It's not that it's not funny — it is, in parts, even if nuking Hiroshima was more subtle — but that it's incoherent. I won't give it away in case you want to watch the rest (or others here do) but it forgets what its message is and just targets everyone, which actually sends the opposite message from what it means to say.

[Bob from Ohio]

"odd discarding of statistics"

Nothing "odd" about it. statistics can be manipulated like anything else

Like Disraeli said, there are lies, damn lies and statistics

[Absaroka]

Sure, statistics can be manipulated - and frequently are. OTOH, just going with your hunches isn't very reliable either.

[Josh R]

It seems to me that when someone discards statistics by arguing they can be manipulated, most of the time it's because of innumeracy (they don't understand the statistics).

It reminds of what Bill James was up against in the early 80s. People attacked his analyses by claiming stats could be manipulated. But he retorted, quite persuasively, everybody uses statistics and those who claimed his analyses was flawed did not understand the stats.

[not me]

Sometimes it is because they have professional expertise in statistics and (a) see others manipulating their own statistics (b) are afraid others will manipulate their own statistics because they know how easy it would be or (c) manipulate statistics in their professional capacity and are speaking off-the-clock.
Personally I am fortunate to be in situation (b).

[Josh R]

I agree there is fraudulent manipulation. But someone who has the expertise to uncover it would not categorically reject an analysis because stats can be manipulated.

[TwelveInchPianist]

They don't even have to be manipulated. For example, comparing murder rates in two countries doesn't do much good unless you have a very good understanding of how the stats are collected, and most people don't.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Amazingly, progressives are more complicated and nuanced than the cartoon versions right wingers depict.

Scruffy people don’t advance causes. Hippies were not political. Just for starters.

[Bob from Ohio]

Progressives don't have a cartoon vision of conservatives, no siree.

"Hippies were not political."

"Hippies were often pacifists, and participated in non-violent political demonstrations, such as Civil Rights Movement, the marches on Washington D.C., and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, including draft-card burnings and the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests." Wikipedia, Hippies article.

Political does not just mean active in party politics.

[Dan Schiavetta]

That Wikipedia article is incorrect.

I remember this personally. The watchword for hippies was disengagement. Also to be honest they were too much into instant gratification. Hunter S. Thompson, who was on the scene, wrote about this.

[Longtobefree]

"Hippies were not political."

Look around at who is in charge, and how they got there.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Who among today’s leaders was a hippie? Answer: none.

[Stephen Lathrop]

captcrisis, good point.

RESOLVED: Our community is oppressed by the man.

EAST BAY: "Right On!"

THE HAIGHT: "Heavy."

[Dan Schiavetta]

Ha!

Seriously if you wanted real change, the “tune in, turn on, drop out” crowd was not the people to turn to.

In those days I thought of myself as a “short hair radical”. You might also remember the young people who pounded pavements for “Clean Gene” McCarthy in 1968. They were not hippies. Or maybe former hippies who cut their hair and decided to get serious.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem is that "trust the science" easily becomes a mask for, "trust the scientists". It's like the difference between "trust the math" and "trust the accountants".

Once you shift from trusting the science to trusting the scientists, you've invested them with power, and people abuse power. You have to retain the awareness that sometimes the 'scientists' themselves aren't actually following the science.

[Ben_]

The bigger problem is that the science will say something matters a little bit. And the immediate response by the "trust the science" people is to create a one-size-fits-all policy that vaguely relates the science and send the police out to force everyone to obey the policy.

Did they study whether enforcing the policy and everything that goes with enforcement creates more harm than the nominal benefits the science indicated? Of course not. They don't care.

[Sarcastr0]

No, Ben.

You think you know about policymakers, but you really really don't.

[Ben_]

We know them by what they do and how they act. They don't even pretend to trust or respect the victims/subjects of their policies most of the time.

[Sarcastr0]

You don't know what they do, or how they act.

And despite my explanations and examples, you don't care to learn. You just stick to your spite and victimization, facts bedamned.

[Absaroka]

"You don't know what they do, or how they act."

????

Unless the resulting policy is secret, then yes, the general public does know what policymakers do, and how they act. I mean, they give press conferences, issue news releases, etc.

The policymakers in the Bush II administration invaded Iraq because they thought he had WMD, and because they thought they could instantiate a modern democracy. They did all that right out in the open. Some of them published memoirs. I think I do know what they did and why they did it.

(and sure, stuff goes on behind the scenes - FDR's machinations prior to Pearl Harbor, or Iran-Contra. But even those kinds of things tend to surface eventually)

[Sarcastr0]

Ben thinks policymakers don't do a cost-benefit analysis, and look only for benefit and don't care about the 'victims' of their policies.

He also thinks proper cost-benefit analysis ignores the costs of maintaining the status quo.

He also think policymakers are all bullies on a power trip.

It's not like I think policymakers are infallible, it's more that he thinks they're evil, and won't accept any facts otherwise.

[Brett Bellmore]

Policymakers absolutely do cost benefit analysis. The problem is that it's often in terms of their own costs and benefits. You know, the old agent-principal problem.

[Sarcastr0]

Policymakers these days are generally required to do stakeholder based cost-benefit analyses as part of their decision process.

It's not perfect, but it is not the dismissal you think is happening.

[Ben_]

That's somewhat of an overstatement.

But I certainly don't think they do fair cost-benefit analysis most of the time. I think many times they do something that looks like analysis but with the result already determined, so the "analysis" is crafted to justify the result.

And even if it's "fair" by some objective metric, it doesn't put a high enough negative value on intentionally and directly causing harm.

[Ben_]

"despite my explanations and examples"

Despite assertions with nothing to back them up?

But actually I don't remember seeing any "explanations and examples". So yeah "despite" all that stuff I probably never saw.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

I see it as more —“trust the experts”. The “experts” say we must invade Iraq and wage war against the Taliban or hundreds of thousands of Americans will die in terrorist attacks!!!! Meanwhile the “expert” is fucking some reporter and giving her classified intel and the Real Housewives of Tampa are throwing a hissy fit compromising national security. $5 trillion and 7000 Americans dead and tens of thousands seriously physically and mentally injured and hundreds of thousands of Muslims slaughtered we realize everything in the Global War on Terror since December 2001 didn’t save one life in the homeland. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

[Ben_]

How many more decades before you're able to talk about some other event?

A couple years ago (maybe 2018) I overheard a guy ranting about how he was mad at Nixon. That's a preview of the next 25 years of your future.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

Trump ran against the Bush years in 2016…he continued most of the Obama policies and was very popular among Republicans.

[Titus PUllo]

Just keep sending the drones in...20 years driven by the military industry complex, neocons, elites and wall street. The US has lost its way since the end of the cold war..

[Sarcastr0]

Once you shift from trusting the science to trusting the scientists

This is the war on expertise I was talking about.

At some point, you are a crap judge of whether someone else's science is good or not.

Trust is not always some play for power; that's actually a weird take.

[Michael P]

It's not exactly fair to characterize the people saying "trust the scientists" as being in a war on expertise. They're more like terrorists, targeting innocents in an irregular campaign waged for political goals.

[Sarcastr0]

Trust the science sometimes means 'don't knee-jerk distrust the science just because you don't like what it says.'

[TwelveInchPianist]

Is anybody arguing that we should knee-jerk either way?

[Ben_]

Not in this thread.

But yeah, admonishments to never question authorities are extremely common.

[Sarcastr0]

Anti stats Bob.

Ben on global warming and Covid.

Brett's 'trusting anyone gives them power which will corrupt them.'

[Brett Bellmore]

"May", Sarcastro. "May".

I suppose you're going to claim that accountants never embezzle, and investment advisors never pump stocks for their own profits, and Ponzi scams aren't a thing real fund managers have done, and no politician ever ran on doing one thing when he was planning on doing something different.

Nobody ever abuses trust.

[Sarcastr0]

Do you see how you excluded the middle? That's a tell.

Below you really go well beyond 'may.'

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, that would be a really weird take on what I actually said. Which is that trust confers power, and power tends to corrupt. So you can't just uncritically trust "experts". Especially when you know that your access to experts is actively being manipulated.

Maybe trust but verify, but don't just trust.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"So you can't just uncritically trust "experts""

Yup. I certainly hope Sarcastro isn't claiming that we should uncritically trust experts, but it's not clear what he is arguing if not that.

At some point we're just haggling over price.

[hobie]

So we're at the X-Files level of trust no one. Is that how you fellows live your life now? If a professional lumberjack tells me how to chop down a tree, I'm going to follow his instructions. Why in the hell would I question his instruction and do a general field research on the matter instead?

[Absaroka]

Ever encountered, say, a dishonest auto mechanic who was recommending a bunch of unneeded repairs? Or, once I had a dentist say I needed thousands in dental work. I went to another one who said things looked OK. A few decades later, dentist #2 was right.

Or remember all the foreign policy/military experts that predicted:
a)Desert Storm would be WWI trench warfare all over
b)Operation Iraqi Freedom would result in a vibrant democracy blooming in Iraq.
neither of those predictions proved accurate. And the people making those predictions ... kept on making predictions.

I think I mentioned the book 'The Fortune Sellers' by William Sherden here a few weeks ago. It is a compendium of failed expert predictions - predictions that are no more accurate than tossing coins.

Another good read is 'Superforecasting' by Tetlock. Tl;dr - there are housewives in Topeka that make better - a lot better - predictions than, say, CIA analysts.

Heh. Remember how all the experts accurately predicted the fall of the USSR?

Caveat emptor.

(and if you are felling trees, try 'How To Fell a Tree' by Jepson 🙂 )

[hobie]

By all means operate that way.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Ever encountered, say, a dishonest auto mechanic who was recommending a bunch of unneeded repairs?"

Sure, the Uniroyal guy who tried to tell me he had to replace my entire intake manifold to fix a malfunctioning flow sensor, when any fool could see it was a separate part screwed into the manifold, and it was cheaply available at any auto parts store.

[Ben_]

If he was like you I wouldn't trust what he said about cutting
down a tree.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

You should try harder to not post this type of comment. Just a suggestion.

[Ben_]

No. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Sarcastr0]

I think my comments on this thread have made it quite clear I'm not saying uncritically trust the experts.

And yet here the strawman sits.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I think my comments on this thread have made it quite clear I'm not saying uncritically trust the experts."

So presumably you are saying trust the experts unless other factors cause you to question the experts' opinion.

That's what everybody's saying, but we disagree about when we should question the experts.

[Sarcastr0]

Except there absolutely examples of people in this thread saying don't trust the experts. VC regulars, even.

And you're ignoring all of them.

[Brett Bellmore]

Don't trust the experts, if by "trust" you mean turn off your critical faculties.

[Sarcastr0]

Again, Brett, no one is saying that. But your distinction between science and scientists isn't about critical thinking,.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, and what basis have you got for saying that?

Science is a process. Scientists are people who are supposed to be using that process.

As a process, science is pretty good, I don't know any better approach to finding a workable version of truth about anything.

As people, scientists are as fallible as any other group of people. Scientists have the same share of con men and corner cutters as any other profession. Forget that at your peril.

[Sarcastr0]

The issue is that your version of people are corrupt and unprofessional, and unworthy of trust.

At some point, you can't verify and validate everything you believe. This is not ceding power that will corrupt people. Critical thinking can only get you so far.

In fact, the versions of critical thinking I see here often amount to an appeal to incredulity that's more an appeal to one's particular priors than any actual well-defined cut.

[Brett Bellmore]

"The issue is that your version of people are corrupt and unprofessional, and unworthy of trust. "

No, people are corruptible, it's part of the human condition, so some fraction of people in every single profession are unprofessional, and unworthy of trust. Forget that at your peril.

[Sarcastr0]

Forget that yourself are one of those corruptible people at your peril.

[Josh R]

We rely on the experts because most often we don't have the knowledge. However, whenever we have a rational basis for doubting an expert's conclusion, we should pursue it. And perhaps more importantly, we need leaders who know the right questions to ask the experts in order to both challenge their advice and incorporate it into other considerations (that would apply to the generals in both war and the war against COVID among other things).

[Sarcastr0]

But rationality is something that you can think you have, but you really don't. Again, humility. You can question authority and expertise and maintain humility about your own conclusions and confidence.

Whenever someone says they're bringing an uncommon level of rationality, my red flag goes up.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Off-topic, but a poll of experts by Reuters has determined that the US is the tenth most dangerous country in the world. More dangerous than any country in the western hemisphere, and all but a few counties in Africa and Asia.

It's not what I would expect based on common sense, but surely 550 experts have a better assessment.

[Life of Brian]

Reading the summary for the US is illuminating:

10. UNITED STATES - The only Western nation in the top 10 and joint third with Syria for the risks women face in terms of sexual violence, including rape, sexual harassment, coercion into sex and a lack of access to justice in rape cases. The survey came after the #MeToo campaign went viral last year, with thousands of women using the social media movement to share stories of sexual harassment or abuse.

So pretty much a one-dimensional analysis, based on a flash-in-the-pan movement, and concluding that women in the US are at about the same level of risk as those in Syria. Sounds about right for a bunch of "experts."

[damikesc]

US being worse for women than Iran is something I'd like to see some info on how they came to that conclusion.

...also, who the hell any of those experts?

[Ersatz]

i'm sure they're only the finest experts, organically grown and harvested using eco-friendly mean by Facebook Google and Twitter

[Sarcastr0]

Your objection would do better if you did more than just appeal to incredulity.

10. UNITED STATES - The only Western nation in the top 10 and joint third with Syria for the risks women face in terms of sexual violence, including rape, sexual harassment, coercion into sex and a lack of access to justice in rape cases. The survey came after the #MeToo campaign went viral last year, with thousands of women using the social media movement to share stories of sexual harassment or abuse.

If you bothered to engage, you could easily find a legit objection. Like how there looks to have been some confirmation bias with using #MeToo as some kind of indicative sampling.

Common sense can make you very confident, but it won't convince anyone else who isn't already down to agree with you.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"If you bothered to engage, you could easily find a legit objection. Like how there looks to have been some confirmation bias with using #MeToo as some kind of indicative sampling."

Lol. There also looks to have been some confirmation bias with your analysis.

[Sarcastr0]

...Which side do you think I came down on?

[David Nieporent]

Some things are just so obviously stupid that appeal to incredulity is enough. If I tell you that a poll said that Bryn Mawr College is among the top contenders for the national Division I football championship, do you really need detailed metrics to question that, or can you just use a common sense heuristic?

If someone claims that the US is at the bottom of the OECD for women, maybe that requires some inspection to refute. But if someone claims that there are 187 countries ahead of the U.S., including war-torn African nations, countries governed by sharia, totalitarian communist countries, etc., it's just laughable on its face.

[Sarcastr0]

That depends on what purpose.

If you're discarding a stupid thing for yourself, sure. If you're mocking something your political opposites are doing just for the fun of it, that's a vice, but not the worst of them.

But if you're bringing it for people who disagree with you to see, assuming everyone shares your incredulity is a bad idea.
As I said, you'll convince no one who doesn't already agree with you.

[Ridgeway]

There are certain claims that everyone, regardless of political persuasion, should find absurd on their face. That they do not is usually a function of ignorance, innumeracy, willful blindness, or a combination of all three.

[Sarcastr0]

Yep, and if you don't indulge what you see as those things you'll never debate, only abuse.

The main problem with communication is other people.

[Titus PUllo]

the movie sucked. as for experts..in the physical world I would differ to an aerospace engineer on aircraft, an electrical engineer with my iPhone, and a civil engineer when I drive across a bridge. For "human actions"..I'm not sure there are any experts..economists are perhaps the worst with "social scientists" not being very social and never practicing science. That said there are experts..hire a guy to to plumbing or paint or hell cut your lawn...those with experience are experts in my mind. But "gender studies and diversity" majors? Not experts in wiping their own ass..

[Sarcastr0]

And here we have prejudging a major without talking to people who are in it, or seeing it's course requirements. This is just your grievance subbing in for knowledge.

Maybe it is a nonsense major. That probably varies from school to school - there's always some nonsense majors out there. But neither you nor I have done the groundwork to know.

[bernard11]

economists are perhaps the worst

I don't suppose you actually know any economics or much of anything about economists or what they do.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I am grateful that my team in the culture war drafted well and consequently did not get stuck with the half-educated, the science-disdaining, the superstitious, the virus-flouting, the antisocial, the incels, the high-functioning autists, and the clingers.

[Ersatz]

your psychiatrist must make a mint off of you...
such hatred
your mother must be proud! i suppose you could just call up to the main floor to confirm for us...?

[Brett Bellmore]

My general rules are:

1) Power corrupts, not always, but that's the tendency.

2) Trust confers power, so point 1 applies to people who are generally trusted.

3) Politics is all about the exercise of power, and so comes largely pre-corrupted.

3a) Politics, being so intimately connected to power, tends to corrupt all it touches.

4) Until we find the light switch in Plato's cave, we have no access to metaphysical truth. (Mathematicians and logicians have a colorable argument to having found the nightlight, anyway.)

4a) So we need a basis for deciding what is truth, and my basis is, "Whatever wins in a free and open argument, in the long run."

5) So, by definition, truth doesn't need to make the argument unfree and closed, truth doesn't need censorship.

6) Lies do, though. So the moment you find somebody making the argument unfree and closed, you should suspect you're being lied to.

[Sarcastr0]

Your postmodernism would turn every market into a bazaar.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, what's your basis for determining what's true, if it's not "Whatever wins in a free and open argument in the long run."? At least that's a test you can apply.

Did you stumble across a flashlight on the cave floor, or something like that?

[Sarcastr0]

You left out experts again.

Pure populism alone is chaos, not truth. Pure elitism is also bad. Checking everything yourself is neither practical nor nearly as infallible as it makes you think you are.

You need a combination of all of them, with a healthy dollop of humility to realize your mix is probably wrong, and what you think is true, however you derived it, is not necessarily so.

[Brett Bellmore]

Your basis for determining what's true is just to believe "experts"? Seriously?

What do you do when there are competing experts? Just believe the ones Facebook doesn't censor?

[Sarcastr0]

What part of 'you need a combination of all of them' did you miss?

You need a mix of:

A. Marketplace of ideas
B. Expert opinion
C. Your own checksums
D. Humility about your confidence level

Your privileging A is almost truth agnostic. Argumentum ad populum is a fallacy.

[Brett Bellmore]

Right, and what I've been saying is that once you have censorship, your marketplace of ideas is already rigged, because you're only being allowed to see 'expert opinion' that agrees with the censor.

Censorship is thus a really big red flag that you should suspect you're being lied to.

It's not categorically impossible for a censor to censor lies in order to promote the truth. But since the truth, in principle doesn't NEED a censor doing that, while lies do, that's not the presumption you should start out with when you discover your inputs are censored.

[Sarcastr0]

The way to get a marketplace of ideas is not to insist every platform has to allow everyone to speak on it.
It's not about truth or lies, it's about freedom of association.

Whatever idealized debating space you envision, we've never had it.

[Doug Huffman]

A mentor, David M. Raup (Principles of Paleontology) taught that the Creationists had the courage to ask questions at least.

[bernard11]

Too bad they refused to listen to the answers.

Not to mention refusing to answer questions directed at them.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

The problem with Creationism isn't that it is right or wrong, but that it isn't Science, in that it doesn't proceed using the scientific method. It is an attempt to find support for a bible-based view of the universe, which is perfectly fine. Just not science.

[DaveM]

All these comments, and no one has yet mentioned the book, "Unsettled? What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters" by Steven E. Koonin. Making an informed distinction between "science" and "The Science" is literally the theme of the book.

From the Introduction:

"'The Science'. We're all supposed to know what 'The Science' says. 'The Science', we're told, is settled. How many times have you heard it?"

"Humans have already broken the earth's climate. Temperatures are rising, sea level is surging, ice is disappearing, and heat waves, storms, droughts, floods, and wildfires are an ever-worsening scourge on the world. Greenhouse gas emissions are causing all of this. And unless they're eliminated promptly by radical changes to society and its energy systems, 'The Science' says Earth is doomed."

"Well ... not quite. Yes, it's true that the globe is warming, and that humans are exerting a warming influence upon it. But beyond that -- to paraphrase the classic movie The Princess Bride: 'I do not think "The Science" says what you think it says.'"

[DaveM]

Here's my personal acid test for fact-based arguments: do your facts attempt to prove causation, or not? If there's no attempt to prove an assertion, then this isn't a factual discussion, it's just you and me sitting at the bar giving each other our opinions. Which can be fun, but should never be mistaken for actual analysis.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

A cynical, disaffected political misfit lathers a carefully cultivated collection of followers along a line that rejects credentials, expertise, reason, science, education and knowledge. . . if this is the best right-wingers can manage -- right-wingers in legal academia, no less -- I am content and the liberal-libertarian victory in the culture war seems secure.

Carry on, clinger.