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Musings Report 2017:24 6-17-17 The Decline of Experts and Faith in Expertise
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The Decline of Experts and Faith in Expertise
Tom Nichols wrote an essay in the March/April 2017 issue of Foreign Affairs entitled How America Lost its Faith in Expertise--and Why That's a Giant Problem.
Nichols decries Americans' rising skepticism of experts, and the public's substitution of relativism (everyone's opinion has equal weight) for the measured hierarchy of expertise (experts' conclusions have weight because they're based on verifiable data and scholarship).
Nichols paints the notion that "my ill-informed view is a worthy as your informed view" as extremely dangerous to a society as complex as ours--a danger that makes common sense: skepticism must be grounded and informed by repeatable experimental data, careful disclosure of the limitations of certitude, and so on.
Evidence must be repeatable by 3rd parties with no financial or career stakes in the outcome.
But Nichols misses the key dynamics in why experts and expertise are in poor repute.
1. Systems and problems are now so complex that in any assessment, expert or amateur, the results are defined by the model, parameters and inputs selected by the assessment.
In other words, structure the model in a certain way, and you get the results you sought.
There are inherent limits to models of complex, inter-connected systems with a multitude of feedbacks. Consider the complexity of the modern global economy and the relative simplicity of the models being used to explain and predict economic behaviors and trends. No wonder the experts have gotten it so wrong.
2. Experts are often wrong, for a variety of reasons. One is the inadequacy of their simplistic models that make a variety of implicit but poorly defined assumptions--in effect, what to include, what not to filter out, what to overweight, what to underweight.
Look at the field of nutrition. A vast array of studies on nutrition, diet and health reach apparently contradictory conclusions, and the consensus of experts on the ideal diet have changed considerably. What was once "good" (margarine) and "bad" (butter) have reversed places.
Is it any wonder that supposedly "factual" results generated by experts have lost traction?
3. Many of the credentialed experts work for private enterprises that benefit financially from the results of "science" (in quotes for the reasons noted above--models, inputs and statistical analysis can all be adjusted to get the desired results).
In other words, who's writing the checks? Consider the large number of STEM employees who toil for Big Tobacco or other cartels profiting from products that have negative impacts on human health.
4. The line between public relations and science has been blurred to the benefit of special interests. Confirmation of previous studies is hyped, conflicting data is underplayed or ignored, and the limits of certainty are left unsaid.
5. Many of our systems' complexities are partially the result of the intrinsic complexities of human behavior--behavior that doesn't model as precisely as the physical world.
Consider the expert-economists' view that "the wealth effect" generates positive growth in the economy. In effect, they are attempting to quantify and manage "animal spirits"--a complex mix of emotions spurred and reinforced by internal perceptions and herd behavior.
Can this even be considered "science", given the inherent impossibility of quantifying internal states and herd/crowd influences? Yes, we can ask people their views in surveys, but does their stated view correspond with their internal state? If so, for how long? Might we get entirely different answers next week? How can we tell if the person is giving us the answer he/she reckons we want to hear?
6. Experts generally have no skin in the game--they can issue assessments and conclusions, and the accuracy of their conclusions doesn't impact their pay, security or standing, unless it is provably fabricated. There's no personal price to espousing a contingent conclusion as "fact" and "scientifically proven," as if nutrition is the equivalent of physics.
7. Probabilities, contingencies and uncertainties are stripped out of expert assessments to make the biggest public-relations/profitability impact. If you actually dig down and study the statistical foundation of Phase III drug trials, for example, you often find serious limits on the applicability of the conclusions: the sample size is small, only a few of the trial patients benefited significantly from the medication, and so on.
Yet the medication is issued as "safe", "reliable" and "helpful"--all claims based on very sketchy statistical foundations. Even worse, testing of the interactions with commonly prescribed medications is inadequate or missing.
8. The public has difficulty sorting "soft science" such as economics and sociology from "hard science" (physics, chemistry) and both of those from highly contingent science such as nutrition and entirely bogus claims that have the veneer of science.
Part of this difficulty can be laid at the feet of those attempting to financially benefit from supposedly scientific studies, and partly at the feet of our educational complex, which typically does a poor job of explaining the limits of experiments, evidence, double-blind studies, self-selected surveys, small sample sizes and the inner workings of probability/certainty.
All of which is to say that to some degree, the rising skepticism of experts and expertise is self-inflicted by polarized institutions and for-profit lobbying by those who benefit from the public "buying into" their interpretation of expert assessments.
Consider the range of experts' views on foreign policy. Articles arguing for diametrically opposed policies have equal weightings of credentialed experts. The common-sense approach is to discount both claims of expertise and demand something more than mere credentials as the reason we're supposed to accept a conclusion as being worth more than a randomized opinion.
Experts appear to be complaining that their word is no longer enough. It isn't, and that is a positive development: show us the science, be clear about the limits, contingencies and uncertainties, and accept that human bias is often driven by self-interest that must be identified: cui bono, to whose benefit?
Summary of the Blog This Past Week
Can We See a Bubble If We're Inside the Bubble? 6/16/17
When the System Thwarts Sincere, Hard-Working People, the System Has Failed 6/15/17
The Dead Giveaways of Imperial Decline 6/13/17
We've Lost All Sense of the Common Good 6/12/17
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Confirmed my sister did not have a dread disease suggested by symptoms. What a relief!
Market Musings: What Does the Stock Market Tell Us about Economic "Reality"?
No charts today. I want to discuss the question, what does the stock market tell us about economic "reality", i.e. the real-world economy and the market for equities based in that real-world economy?
The traditional view is the stock market is a discounting mechanism, that is, the market absorbs data about the present and projects that into the future. If growth appears to be slowing, the market discounts future earnings and tends to lower its valuations on stocks.
If growth appears to be picking up, the market increases its expectations of earnigns and boosts valuations.
But even though growth is visibly slowing globally, stock markets keep going up?
What gives?
There are several dynamics in play. One is that human players now account for no more than 10% of market activity; the rest is robots and ETF (exchange traded funds) buying and selling.
Another is that central banks have made stock markets "signaling devices" that are intended to boost the perception of increasing wealth, whether earnings and productivity are actually increasing or not.
The idea is to generate a "wealth effect" that causes people to borrow and spend more as they feel their wealth is increasing.
This is unprecedented. The Swiss Central Bank is now a major shareholder of Apple and Amazon. the Bank of Japan is estimated to own 30% of Japanese ETFs.
Central banks once bought assets such as bonds and futures to stop a crash in its tracks. Now they are buying trillions of dollars in bonds and stocks during so-called "good times" (moderate growth) to keep the market lofting higher even as growth slows or reverses.
This permanent intervention via buying stocks has distorted what the market is communicating. Rather than communicate a sense of hoe the real economy is doing, the market now reflects the will of central banks to keep the market lofting ever higher on the back of central bank purchases.
This has created a disconnect between the market and the real economy, a gulf that widens daily. Can it continue. Yes, as long as central banks keep buying stocks with newly created currency. But there is a cost to this manipulation: there is virtually no information left in the market other than the enthusiasm of central banks to push valuations higher and suppress volatility.
The entire global economy now appears to depend on this stripped-of-information "market" for its survival. It's difficult to see this as healthy or sustainable.
From Left Field
Drug Overdoses Now The Leading Killer Of American Adults Under 50 -- but Big Pharma said these meds were safe and non-addicitive...
There is a magic money tree — it’s called QE -- Monetary policy has had a very damaging effect on pensions
California Über Alles -- bastions of self-reinforcing, self-congratulatory polarization...
The Tyranny of the Administrative State -- elected officialdom has surrendered power to regulatory officialdom...
Groundhog Day -- "The Blockchain is for a different purpose; its aim is to move accountability to the network and out of the hands of a central authority."
The Fundamental Problems with Ethereum -- one POV of many...
Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (The Real Reason For The Forty-Hour Workweek)
"Western economies, particularly that of the United States, have been built in a very calculated manner on gratification, addiction, and unnecessary spending. We spend to cheer ourselves up, to reward ourselves, to celebrate, to fix problems, to elevate our status, and to alleviate boredom."
Stop Pretending You’re Not Rich --aimed at the top 5% who have become significantly wealthier in the past decade...
America Made Me a Feminist -- by a former super-model--interesting cross-cultural point of view...
There Is Life After Civilization Collapse -- as I've been saying...
The Poverty of Entrepreneurship: The Silicon Valley Theory of History -- Attila the Hun was a heckuva entrepreneur...
The Anatomy of Liberal Melancholy -- the twilight of neoliberalism...
"He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.” George Bernard Shaw (via Stephen D.)
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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