[extropy-chat] Science and Fools

[Robin Hanson]

At 01:28 AM 3/21/2005, Hal Finney wrote:
>That would extend my rule about not disagreeing with the scientific 
>consensus, to not disagreeing with the consensus in other fields. Isn't 
>there a danger that this broader view is more likely to run into the 
>situation where different fields have very different opinions about some 
>common subject matter?  Religion vs biology on evolution, liberalism vs 
>conservatism on politics?

As I just said to Chris:
>When the experts disagree you have the option to either take the side with 
>one set of experts, or to take an intermediate position of uncertainty 
>between the various expert group positions.  The first choice is a choice 
>to disagree, but perhaps not as problematic as choosing to disagree with 
>experts when those experts mostly disagree with each other.

Hal continued:
>Are you saying that there should be no difference in how you weight
>the information about consensus in a field of study, based on how
>much progress the field has made, and how accurate it has been in
>the past?  Or how would you incorporate that kind of information?

When considering whether to disagree with someone, you must try to infer 
their information, analysis, and rationality relative to you.   There are 
many things that might give you clues about these things, but most of these 
clues are rather weak.  The recent rate of progress in a field is a rather 
weak clue about the analytical ability and rationality of the people in the 
field.  When the field has a consensus, and you are considering disagreeing 
with it, the evidence is usually strong that they have a lot more 
information than you.  So in this situation it is hard to see how the rate 
of progress would make that much difference.

Much more relevant, I think, would be clues about whether some group of 
experts would happily lie to you and to themselves to get paid.  Salesman 
often know a lot more than you about their products, but that doesn't mean 
you should just believe them.  Similar skepticism could often be reasonable 
about the expert advise of astrologers, therapists, and doctors.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323