By its fruit the tree is known, and the tree of expertise hasn’t been doing well lately. As Nassim Taleb recently observed: “With psychology papers replicating less than 40%, dietary advice reversing after 30 years of fatphobia, macroeconomic analysis working worse than astrology, the appointment of Bernanke who was less than clueless of the risks, and pharmaceutical trials replicating at best only 1/3 of the time, people are perfectly entitled to rely on their own ancestral instinct and listen to their grandmothers.”
We’ve noticed.
One reason for this is the pressure to keep producing publications in order to get funding or advance through the academic pecking order.
Volume is preferred, though it often appears that reviewers don’t read the publications being listed in one’s proposal. Anyone who takes the time to write a good paper is often seen as unproductive or, worse, a lousy researcher.
The result is a deluge of publications, many of which are mediocre.
The consequences of mal-expertise are vastly amplified and disbursed due to the widespread intrusion of the state in all its institutional and legislative reach. Limiting these pseudo-experts to private academic discipline would help lesson their reach and influence, allowing time for inevitable testing of hypotheses disproving the junk. The modern welfare state, with all its ponzi “affluence” has enabled the hysterical at the expense of the mundane which is what good science is all about.
The crisis in trust for “expertise” lies largely at the foot of the media and political classes for misrepresenting who actually constitutes an “expert”. There are some areas of endeavour in which one may reasonably be considered to have acquired an advanced level of skill, knowledge or acumen that would justify the lay public or policymakers giving greater weight to your considered opinion, typically the STEM areas; and other areas of endeavour in which no one can really claim any special insights, most notoriously, economic forecasting. Chaotic systems simply do not lend themselves to any reasonable predictability by definition. No amount of pseudoscientific or pseudo academic verbiage or posturing will change that. Anyone claiming to have such powers is simply blowing smoke and should be regarded appropriately.
Memere was 95 and was hale almost until the day she died. I’d be a fool to ignore her advice. I stopped listening to the distance running, kale eating, distilled water slurping, 45 year old heart atrack victims long ago.
Flu vaccine.
That’s all I gotta say.
Well said. And my personal pet peeve can be summed-up as …”Correlation is NOT causation”. Each and every day of the year, I read or hear the media proclaim a new “study” … by “scientists” … which reports on some statistical predilection of some such nonsense. Most all of these studies are pushed by groups with a bias and desired outcome. Our “experts” have become common garden variety shills.
In a related story … how’s that “Arab Spring” thing coming along ?
“how’s that “Arab Spring” thing coming along ?”
Obama managed to get 1/2 million Syrians killed and brought anarchy to Libya. Peace Prize – such irony.
This just in: Snowflakes react to being called snowflakes by acting like snowflakes. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5151733/Calling-youngsters-snowflakes-damages-mental-health.html
Those belonging the the cult of expertise (technocrats) always come back with the argument that not believing in *all* claims of expertise means you don’t think *any* expertise exists. Pilots, surgeons, engineers, etc. It’s such a ridiculous argument. Of course there are still credible experts but it’s a very short list and it is mostly applied science types, tradesmen, techs where results can be objectively verified. S/he can fly a plane, fix the plumbing, repair the machine, perform the surgery successfully.
The problem is that there is a gigantic pool of political and academic shysters who want to claim the expert title and then demand people must automatically defer to their ideological pronouncements. When this doesn’t happen the shysters start insulting people by calling them anti-intellectual. Nope, not being gullible and easily led by nonsense is not the same as being anti-intellectual, no matter how many times the shysters insist it is. Technocrats need better arguments…and better experts.
The problem is that there is a gigantic pool of political and academic shysters who want to claim the expert title and then demand people must automatically defer to their ideological pronouncements. When this doesn’t happen the shysters start insulting people by calling them anti-intellectual.
I’m sure we can think of certain well-known Canadian celebrity. I won’t mention any names but his initials are David Suzuki.
A prime example of 1) an expert who preaches one thing but practices the exact opposite 2) thinks being knowledgeable about one small area makes him an expert in many others areas. He doesn’t think it’s just his opinion, which everyone has the right to express, it’s unquestionable truth that you must accept or you’re evil.
// people are perfectly entitled to rely on their own ancestral instinct and listen to their grandmothers //
+
Entitled perhaps, but advised?
“Feed a cold, starve a fever”, Vicks Vaporub everywhere, diagnosing by the colour of your snot, just dip that soother in screech & sugar …..
May as well do haruscpicy.
Why quit smoking if you have no use for experts?
Just light up & wait for the Ice Age.
The Social Engineering trash upped their Title to Social/Political Scientists, and all have self-awarded Phd’s. The P stands to Pitiful…H stands for Hopeless, D stands for Delusional…..They are trained to convince the weak minded to believe in wild probabilities.. The Movie “Tin Men” Jack Lemon & cast selling Aluminum siding…is an accurate representation of the Academia degree process & ethical (none) practiced..
Many experts are just Pitiful, Hopeless, Delusional sales-Persons.
I get a kick out of Moses Zinimar’s daughter telling us “recent studies say”.
In every emergency some expert rushes to assume control.
Natural human reaction.
However today those with delusions of competency are first to volunteer their “services”.
Those with skill and competency are sliding off to see to their own, knowing the official response will be useless and clueless.
Those of us who have stood before a forest fire, know there is no act of men that can fight the beast,at best we can harass the edges.
However all our poly-Ticks and media clowns insist we can fight this force of nature.And that we can save our towns and infrastructure…
Yet they insist preventative measures,like effective fire breaks,regular preventive burns and fuel reduction are unnecessary and undesirable.
Experts have so demonstrated their ability these past decades to bring forth the;
Definition,X an unknown property, Spurt a drip under pressure.
Turns out a coin toss is more reliable than most “expert opinion”.
Was just reading The Bre-X Fraud ,another case of all the experts agreed.
This winter I was treated to the spectacle of a “Safety Officer” certifying employees as competent to use scissor lifts, this officer doing the training being unable to operate said tool.
Yet these are our experts, credentialed nitwits.
Do as I say,never mind what I do.
Or those immortal project words;
“I do not know what you are doing, but my book says you are doing it wrong”.
Dr B Spock?? Any one remember that “expert”?
No kids, unmarried, yet “competent” to advise mothers world wide as to why they were raising their children incorrectly..
you will live longer and happier if you ignore the “experts” and do everything in moderation.
“a coin toss is more reliable than most “expert opinion”
A monkey with a dart can pick stocks better than financial advisors.
The Suicide of Expertise.
In the realm of foreign affairs, which should be of special interest to the people at Foreign Affairs, recent history has been particularly dreadful. Experts failed to foresee the fall of the Soviet Union, failed to deal especially well with that fall when it took place, and then failed to deal with the rise of Islamic terrorism that led to the 9/11 attacks. Post 9/11, experts botched the reconstruction of Iraq, then botched it again with a premature pullout.
On Syria, experts in Barack Obama’s administration produced a policy that led to countless deaths, millions of refugees flooding Europe, a new haven for Islamic terrorists, and the upending of established power relations in the mideast. In Libya, the experts urged a war, waged without the approval of Congress, to topple strongman Moammar Gadhafi, only to see — again — countless deaths, huge numbers of refugees and another haven for Islamist terror.
It was experts who brought us the housing bubble and the subprime crisis. It was experts who botched the Obamacare rollout. And, of course, the experts didn’t see Brexit coming, and seem to have responded mostly with injured pride and assaults on the intelligence of the electorate, rather than with constructive solutions.
By its fruit the tree is known, and the tree of expertise hasn’t been doing well lately.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/260317/
“In every emergency some expert rushes to assume control.”
If an emergency is unavailable, it must be then created to assume control. Mencken’s hobgoblins are alive and well.
But, the herd senses leaner times, and is slowly but unsurely trimming the fat of statism.
Without a crisis, who needs “experts” or political doofuses to come to the rescue?
But then they would have to get real jobs for the first time in their life.
Easier to play the blame game. Witness Obama. Anemic growth during his tenure was Dubya’s fault, but gives himself the credit for good economic news since his departure. Ah, the phantom presidency. OTOH, he managed to set racial politics aflame with his support of the utterly false narrative cops are actually targeting black men, a la Cambridge and Trayvon. His only legacy may be Antifa and perhaps the destruction of the NFL.
BTW, anyone notice how the 24/7 news cycle has created many more “experts?”
One by one, false narratives are struck down.
Borrowing ourselves rich, a tax is the solution to every “problem,” the poor are tough and can handle carbon taxes and job killing minimum wage laws (most of whom are not “poor” btw), oh and Canada must demonstrate taxaction, I mean climate leadership.
Can the fallacy of big government being good government be struck down in time? The Ontario election will provide a glimpse.
That will be a bellwether to the 2019 federal election. Malhereusment, the boy blunder and his reign of error have a good chance of a second run at the treasury, with their CRA enforcers in tow, in spite of utterly unsustainable debt given the upcoming baby boom economic bust and pension crisis.
We simply can’t afford the parasites any longer, as you would say John. Unfortunately the hurt is big yet big enough for the sheeple to see it.