I have written many times on this blog about the need to be skeptical of any claims that "the experts" have declared a matter settled. I have used it mostly to dismiss claims about environmentalism¹, but it also applies to economic matters as well². In fact, economics is one of the three reasons I have such skepticism about expertise. But let me explain.

I suppose my first skepticism about "experts" came during my teen years, when my parents divorced. Being a bit unhappy with the way it was effecting my life, I probably seemed rather depressed to my parents, and so, like any good modern parents, they decided to have me speak to an "expert". Being a smart and somewhat prank-prone teen, I decided to feed him a line. So I looked up all the more subtle indicators of bipolar disorder and mimic them (this was back in the book and paper day, it is even easier to pull such pranks today, but back then it took a bit of determination to fool shrinks.) As expected, the therapist followed the generic, quick and easy diagnostic checklist and told my folks I was suffering bipolar disorder. I then told them in private what I had done. They seemed a bit annoyed, but I never saw another therapist.

But that alone would only prove one expert was unworthy of trust, what makes me so skeptical about experts is the fact that I am one. In fact I was once employed entirely to give my "expert opinion" about the feasibility and cost of various programming projects. Now, I could be lazy and say "Any group that includes me is not worth trusting", but I think I will take the high road and instead point out that "experts" are human, and prone to human passions and quirks³. Take my field of computer programming. Think about the trends in hardware design. For years, it was "big iron", mainframes and such, then "clusters", then "distributed systems", now we are back to "big iron", large boxes split into many virtual servers, though clusters are coming back as well. And at each stage, someone was telling us the "experts" agreed that this solution was optimal. In other words, the fashion of the moment had gained the status of rational certainty.

But many will argue that may be true of some fields, or some topics, but most expert opinion is scientific. But I beg to differ.

Let us look at the "objective science" of economics. Back in the 1930's there were a number of competing schools of economics, Keynesian, Austrian, classicists of the non-Austrian school, and so on. So, why did Keynesianism so thoroughly dominate the US? So much so that even our "conservative" schools, such as monetarists are off-shoots of Keynesianism? So much so that even the "far right" schools still teach Keynesian "macro-economics"? Is it because Lord Keynes was proven absolutely correct? Far from it. Even at the time he was writing his theories were roundly criticized⁴. Nor has it been proved by success, as we have seen in the repeated crashes brought about by his theories⁵. No, Keynes was successful because of his adoption as the official doctrine of choice by the US government. As economists tend to work largely in finance or government, and financial firms are beholden to government, the FDR stamp of approval gave Keynes the leg up he needed to become the dominant theory.

Nor is economics alone in being controlled by passions and fashions. I found this interesting article on Neurolinguistic Programming, in which the author provides a pretty good model of the ways in which trends and fads get enshrined in mental health fields. It sounds somewhat similar tot he method I proposed in "The Failure of Peer Review" and in the lost article I described in "A Quiet Day" describing how popular scientific press can drive even "serious" research.

And that is my whole point. I am not saying that experts can never have any valuable insight, nor am I saying science should be ignored. I think science produces incredible results, and I know from personal experience that those who have more experience can be quite helpful. My argument is that we should not  create a "fetish of science" or "cult of experts".  Yes, science is complicated and many fields are involved, but you should still question them, if their arguments go against common sense, you may want to ask for proof. Now, it may involve a lot of asking to get a grasp of their fields, but still, every scientists was once an untaught amateur too, so eventually they should be able to explain their theory so that it can be understood⁶.

And that is my problem. So often, rather than asking for proof, we adopt a "science is for the scientists" position, believe scientists are some other species, born capable of understanding things no mere mortal could, and just take their word for it. And that is dangerous. That leads to nonsense like declaring the AGW debate "over" or turning our economy over to "experts".

So before you accept the argument that "the experts know best", is it not worth asking if they could possibly explain to us mere mortals how they reached the conclusions they did? After all, being humans, experts are prone to as many foibles as the rest of us, and hubris is among the faults to which experts are even more prone. So it may be a good idea, just in case, to make sure they are really as clever as they think.

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1. See "Misusing Numbers", "Another Example", "The Devil is in the Definitions (And Assumptions)", "Bad Logic" and "Yet Another Needless Scare"

2. See "The Limits of "Scientific" Management","Knowing Our Limits","Greed Versus Evil", "The Limits of Econometrics" and  "The Limits of Technocracy".

3.  See  "The Importance of Error", "The Failure of Peer Review" and "Planning For Imperfection" for arguments about the need to take human error into account. It is something we often forget when dealing with supposedly "dispassionate" science.

4. See "Proof Keynes (and Krugman) Are Insane", "Technocrats",  "Some Confirmation", "Has No One Heard Of Lord Say?" and "Protectionism Right and Left".

5. See "Explaining Past Crashes",  "The Inflation Engine",  "Inflation and Uncertainty", "Overlooking the Obvious", "A Thought on the Clinton Surpluses" and "Place Blame Fairly, Regardless of Party", among others.

6. No, I do not think all scientific truth can be reduced to a short sound bite. But in questions such as AGW, where we are being asked to wreck our economy based on computer models, I would expect that people would bother to ask how those models were written and what theory backs them. In fact, if anyone looked into the question, it wouldn't take long to notice many problems, such as the need to constantly "adjust" the models to match observed values. All of which convinces me that those declaring the debate "over" are either in the throes of a cult of science (and some are) or else they are latching on to scientific results which support their preconceived notions, regardless of value.

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POSTSCRIPT

Though not precisely on point, it may be of interest to read "The Importance of Error" as a companion piece to this article.

POSTSCRIPT II

In a footnote above, I describe some as "being in the throes of a cult of science". By that I mean to indicate those environmentalists who are enraptured with a single, specific environmental theory, and trust int hat expert to the exclusion of all contrary evidence.  It is not a phenomenon limited to environmentalism. I have seen similar obsessive dedication to a pet theory among economic theories (eg LaRouchers) and psychological theories (eg General Semantics or Dianetics advocates). In fact it is hard to find a field of human endeavor where there is not some reductionist theory which has a vocal, dedicated cult established around it.  And for those who try to deny their cult status by pointing to my own, or others, and our dedication to various beliefs, I would argue that there is a clear difference. Beliefs may be strong without being cultish. One is only a cult-like follower when he becomes so enamored of a belief that he refuses to recognize any evidence which goes against his cherished beliefs. In some ways this is similar to the utopianism I described in "Utopianism and Disaster", those so ardently committed to a single factor explanation for all questions.

POSTSCRIPT III

Final postscript, I promise.

I don't mean to imply that all who create a fetish of science are also reductionist, single-answer types. It is simply that most who are so ardently committed to a theory tend to be such. But there are many more "well rounded" individuals who still will accept statements by "experts" without critical analysis. For example, those who are happy to turn the economy over to "experts" or those buying into Gore's environmentalism revival meetings. So reductionist theories are hardly the entirety of scientific cults, they are just the most easily identified and so made the best example in the postscripts above.

UPDATE

Of all the items granted scientific credence with insufficient evidence I listed, I can't believe I forgot the one with the most reactions. Though the evidence is remarkably scanty and contradictory at best, the concept that homosexuality is genetic or biological has somehow been accepted as proven in certain circles. You can read my comments on this in "Biology as Justification", "Don't Liberals Notice the Contradictions?", "Follow Up", "Myths of Homosexuality","Correlation and Causation Revisted", "Just Asking For It" and "A Question About Biological Theories of Sexual Identity".