News Should we trust experts to guide us concerning matters in their field?

[Al68]

Your point? It's always happened, so it's fine?

Huh? I said it has always happened, so the fact that it happens isn't disputed.

 

[xxChrisxx]

Note to all! This is NOT a global warming thread. Please post your discussion about climate change or GW in one of the several threads on that topic.

I am simply deleting all posts discussing global warming.

Please read the topic of threads before posting. This thread is about the distrust of experts in their field.

Indeed it is, shame really as I'm quite pleased with the last couple of posts. Hope you soft deleted it, that way you can pm it me so I can stick it on one of the other threads.

To be ontopic: Yes, trust experts over someone who doesn't know what they are talking about.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

When you start behaving like a crackpot and dismissing or accepting ANYTHING out of hand, you've left all realm of science behind. AGW is NOT accepted without evidence. There is NO debate as to the warming, there is some dabate as the the level of human involvement. However when it is made out that the ENTIRE FIELD is corrupt and doing it 'for the cash' is in no way a scientific discussion.

It is quite possible for someone to have a genuine belief on the subject (in either direction), perhaps due in part to personal benefit, and allow that belief to influence their work and interpretation of evidence. It is a phenomenon which has been scientifically observed and has been something scientists have been enjoined to avoid since long before it was a proven phenomenon.

The idea that scientists may be influenced by opportunities for funding and research projects is not a direct allegation of corruption. And of course I have never seen an AGW proponent blush at calling the skeptics out and alleging that they are just "doing it for the cash". Any one would be right to question the veracity of science from those who seem to lack dispassion in their subject matter from either side of a debate and we have seen plenty of passion on both.

 

[sylas]

There's a nice little paradox inherent in this topic. I'll phrase it like this:

Trust the experts, because the experts don't.​

What makes technical subject work is not a population of experts who are all completely trustworthy; but a population of experts who don't trust each other and double check everything for themselves. A non-expert could try that as well; but they usually are not as good at it. As you develop your own expertise, you can get better and better at checking the experts for yourself, and trust becomes less important.

I've got a long standing interest in the matter of how science works and cases where there is widespread popular distrust of experts in some field of science. The peer review system depends on the capacity of experts to check one another; when experts are distrusted then so to are the scientific publications peer reviewed by experts.

One of the amusing things that can happen is when some community that is at odds with conventional expertise tries to set up a kind of parallel world in which they can look like experts without being continually rejected by the journals they distrust. There are some fascinating examples of journals, in a range of different fields, which have been set up to look like a science journal and give scope to publish stuff on a particular topic that has a bit of trouble getting into the real journals.

I've documented a number of examples of this in my PF blog: https://www.physicsforums.com/blog.php?b=1476 . The journals considered cover a range of areas, and I'm soliciting additions to the list.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[xxChrisxx]

It is quite possible for someone to have a genuine belief on the subject (in either direction), perhaps due in part to personal benefit, and allow that belief to influence their work and interpretation of evidence. It is a phenomenon which has been scientifically observed and has been something scientists have been enjoined to avoid since long before it was a proven phenomenon.

Wanting desperately to be right about something, and falsifying/doctering/not reporting/fuzzing/whatever evidence to mislead people are two worlds that are very far apart.

Any expert who takes to becoming less than 100% honest in their work, should be kicked out. As people (the public) has to have faith that you will not try to mislead them for your own gain. When it comes to light that one 'expert' has done thins, it tarnishes everyones reputation.

The idea that scientists may be influenced by opportunities for funding and research projects is not a direct allegation of corruption. And of course I have never seen an AGW proponent blush at calling the skeptics out and alleging that they are just "doing it for the cash". Any one would be right to question the veracity of science from those who seem to lack dispassion in their subject matter from either side of a debate and we have seen plenty of passion on both.

Yeah.

Speaking of passion I've got to stop posting on GD. It is going to get me banned sooner rather than later. I'm just glad its a forum so I can take time to mull things over before posting them.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Wanting desperately to be right about something, and falsifying/doctering/not reporting/fuzzing/whatever evidence to mislead people are two worlds that are very far apart.

Any expert who takes to becoming less than 100% honest in their work, should be kicked out. As people (the public) has to have faith that you will not try to mislead them for your own gain. When it comes to light that one 'expert' has done thins, it tarnishes everyones reputation.

There are of course also the honest individuals who simply get too wrapped up in their own theories and may inadvertently skew the data to support them or ignore data that does not while rationalizing why they did these things. I would imagine that there are many ways to look at statistics and it may not be very hard to find patterns or trends that are not there (I am not saying this is what is happening mind you). I would guess that this is normally a contained mistake and not something that tends to happen across an entire field. I would not consider it impossible though I am certainly skeptical of this sort of skepticism.

Speaking of passion I've got to stop posting on GD. It is going to get me banned sooner rather than later. I'm just glad its a forum so I can take time to mull things over before posting them.

I have many times typed out responses that I would have been less than proud of had I actually posted them. There are probably still several out there that made it through my filter. ;-)

 

[Mark44]

There's a nice little paradox inherent in this topic. I'll phrase it like this:

Trust the experts, because the experts don't.​

Good point. The trouble is that the experts are human, and can sometimes fall into human habits, such as the unwillingness to look at new ideas that shake up the status quo.

One example in this vein is Alfred Wegener, who put forth the concept of continental drift in 1915. His theory was not generally accepted until after WW II, when evidence of magnetic bands on either side of subsurface spreading zones first started to be reported. His theory wasn't accepted by geologists until many years after his death in the 1931, primarily because the evidence he had found was circumstantial. Given that his training was in astronomy and biology, I can't help but think that his theory was discounted at least in part by the geology experts of his time.

Another example in the area of geology is that of J. Harlen Bretz, the geologist who provided an explanation for the unusual topography in Eastern Washington state; namely that glacial Lake Missoula in present-day Montana had drained with extreme rapidity, causing catastrophic floods capable of moving 200 ton boulders in water flowing at 65 mph, as well as a waterfall three times the height of Niagara Falls, and about five times as wide. When Bretz presented his theory to the National Geological Society in Washington, DC, in 1927, the geology "experts" were most eager to quash this challenge to their uniformitarian views. They were not much interested in evidence or seeing the landscape for themselves, so it was not until the late 1950s that his explanation came to be accepted by the majority of experts in geology.

 

[humanino]

One example in this vein is Alfred Wegener

and history remembers him as an expert eventually. To me your example rather proves that "experts" are open minded enough to change their mind when enough evidence has been gathered.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Good point. The trouble is that the experts are human, and can sometimes fall into human habits, such as the unwillingness to look at new ideas that shake up the status quo.

One example in this vein is Alfred Wegener, who put forth the concept of continental drift in 1915. His theory was not generally accepted until after WW II, when evidence of magnetic bands on either side of subsurface spreading zones first started to be reported. His theory wasn't accepted by geologists until many years after his death in the 1931, primarily because the evidence he had found was circumstantial. Given that his training was in astronomy and biology, I can't help but think that his theory was discounted at least in part by the geology experts of his time.

Another example in the area of geology is that of J. Harlen Bretz, the geologist who provided an explanation for the unusual topography in Eastern Washington state; namely that glacial Lake Missoula in present-day Montana had drained with extreme rapidity, causing catastrophic floods capable of moving 200 ton boulders in water flowing at 65 mph, as well as a waterfall three times the height of Niagara Falls, and about five times as wide. When Bretz presented his theory to the National Geological Society in Washington, DC, in 1927, the geology "experts" were most eager to quash this challenge to their uniformitarian views. They were not much interested in evidence or seeing the landscape for themselves, so it was not until the late 1950s that his explanation came to be accepted by the majority of experts in geology.

Another interesting one, which I don't think many people are aware of, was the rejection of the existence of meteorites by the scientific community until the early 1800s. When people reported rocks falling from the sky to the local universities and sent them samples they were dismissed as ignorant bumpkins possibly influenced by the superstitious legend of Thunder Stones. The few instances I have found it mentioned did not explain why exactly they were rejected, I only assume they must have believed that such relatively small objects could not survive entry into the atmosphere.

 

[Integral]

So we have several examples of outsiders making significant contributions to a field. Need I point out that all of these examples are in the infancy of the fields. Indeed Electrical Engineers made significant advances in Quantum Mechanics in its infancy.

Now come up with examples of this happening in a mature science.

Though I must admit that climate science is still pretty young.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

So we have several examples of outsiders making significant contributions to a field. Need I point out that all of these examples are in the infancy of the fields. Indeed Electrical Engineers made significant advances in Quantum Mechanics in its infancy.

Now come up with examples of this happening in a mature science.

Though I must admit that climate science is still pretty young.

I was going to bring up climate science though I didn't want to drag the topic back over to AGW again.

It seems to me that these instances we have mentioned are in fact the opposite of what is happening with AGW. It is not the supposed dogmatism of a scientific community preventing a new idea from being heard. Rather the claim against AGW is the opposite, that it is a new idea that has cropped up as a sort of cult like movement among climate scientists. The issues don't quite compare except that one may infer a supposed arrogance of scientists who always think that they are right.

 

[Chronos]

Climate science is very complicated and it is difficult to quantify and assess the effects of human vs natural contributions to our atmosphere. Let's take C02, for example. The fraction human activity contributes to C02 is about 3.2%.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

 

[sylas]

Climate science is very complicated and it is difficult to quantify and assess the effects of human vs natural contributions to our atmosphere. Let's take C02, for example. The fraction human activity contributes to C02 is about 3.2%.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

This bizarre page is a great example of why you should at least be AWARE of experts. The numbers on that decidedly non-expert page are useless. I'll try a more substantive response in a more appropriate venue; this is not an AGW thread.

 

[arildno]

1. IF we had the time, mental skills&perseverance to delve into every area of interest in order to get to the real facts and problems on our own, THEN we ought to do hust that, not trusting proclaimed experts.

2. Since, however, the antecedent doesn't hold, the consequent need not hold necessarily.