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Comment by skh | Hacker News Reader

Science gets it wrong sometimes. New information requires revision. The best we can do is go by consensus expert opinion. There will always be some probabilty of error but we needn’t be afraid to declare some things dangerous and wrong.

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> There will always be some probability of error but we needn’t be afraid to declare some things dangerous and wrong.

But, who is we in this case? And what specifically are some things and how narrowly are they defined?

> The best we can do is go by consensus expert opinion.

Is that really the best we can do? How many times in history has consensus expert opinion been found later to be dangerous and wrong?

Should we assign that task to an AI or a customer service drone of unknown education and experience?

Or, should we assume that any reader of any particular "dangerous and wrong" things might be a better judge of whether those things are, in fact, "dangerous and wrong" as applied to their specific circumstance?

We is you, me, and society at large. Yes, it really is the best we can do. If a very large majority of the people who study an area of science agree on a conclusion in that area then it’s more likely they are right than someone who has no expertise in that area. Clearly if a large majority of the experts in an area of science agree on something then it suggests that if a person were to educate themself in that area to the point of being an expert then they’d agree with the conclusion too.

Non experts deciding for themselves what is right/wrong is a recipe for disaster. Peoples’ intuition is usually wrong without a lot of experience to back it up. It’s why we don’t let just anyone practice medicine or structural engineering. Expertise matters and the opinions of experts matter much more than a nonexpert’s opinion.

>> But, who is we in this case? And what specifically are some things and how narrowly are they defined?

> We is you, me, and society at large.

But that is not who would be passing judgment in this brave new world of customer service reps and AI. Do we just ban everything mildly controversial?

> Expertise matters and the opinions of experts matter much more than a nonexpert’s opinion.

Are you a qualified, cited expert in this area that you are holding forth on?

> If a very large majority of the people who study an area of science agree on a conclusion in that area then it’s more likely they are right than someone who has no expertise in that area.

There is some room for intelligent debate in nearly any 'consensus' opinion. Some percentage of even experts nearly always disagree with the consensus, and consensus has often been proven wrong. If society went along with the expert scientific opinion concerning eugenics, for example, many of us might not even be alive today.

> Non experts deciding for themselves what is right/wrong is a recipe for disaster. Peoples’ intuition is usually wrong without a lot of experience to back it up.

Non-experts deciding for themselves what is right/wrong is exactly how the world has existed for thousands of years. You seem to be saying that the answer is to just shut down this debate if it occurs among the great unwashed.

> It’s why we don’t let just anyone practice medicine or structural engineering. Expertise matters and the opinions of experts matter much more than a nonexpert’s opinion.

And, yet, we do. In most free jurisdictions, you are free to practice medicine on yourself or do design your own structure or home.

Of course people are free to practice medicine on themselves. They are free to make up their own minds on what they think is right/wrong. They ought not be free, in my opinion, to unduly influence others. At least not necessarily free to spout off whatever ideas they think are correct. Of course this quickly gets into grey areas and situations where the right amount of suppression of ideas gets tricky. It’s OK for government to get involved in this too. For instance we don’t allow peddlers of snake oil to make whatever claims they desire to make. This is a good thing.

I’ll restate my point in a different way. When government is deciding what types of scientific information peddling ought to be banned or regulated it’s best for our leaders to consult the experts of that area.

> .. this quickly gets into grey areas and situations where the right amount of suppression of ideas gets tricky.

"Suppression of ideas" is a grey area? I have no words.

I should have said speech instead of ideas. I think it’s clear from what I wrote what I was getting at. All societies regulate speech. I don’t know anyone who thinks speech should never be regulated.

If speeches are regulated to this extent then it hampers society from discovering others experiences and learning from them.

> For instance we don’t allow peddlers of snake oil to make whatever claims they desire

The important word here is “peddlers”. We regulate the sale of medical products. (And advertising related to such a sale.)

But we do not regulate who may join in the argument about (say) whether stress causes ulcers, or low-fat diets prevent heart attacks. The self-proclaimed experts have at various points in time been quite sure about these things. But thankfully their self-confidence did not result in a ban on people questioning the data.

We don’t allow people selling certain homeopathic remedies to make certain medical claims while selling the product. So we do regulate speech.

Society should be following reasoning from first principles rather than relying on opinions of anyone.

Experts should be better at explaining the reasoning behind their opinions from first principles, but we should not trust them until they do so. Experts can make mistakes and have biases, often to new ideas.

My area of expertise is mathematics. A number of times I’ve explained to someone that the concept of infinite sets is a well defined one. There is a definition and it allows us to work with such sets. I provided the (from my perspective) simple definition and an explanation but to no avail. My point is that often times people outside of the area just don’t understand it. Personally I don’t care if someone doesn’t understand something but I do care if their misunderstanding becomes normative and endangers others.

Pre-internet nutjobs existed in all communities. Cranks and whatnot. This is nothing new. What is new is the scale at which such people can propagate their nonsense. The cost of convincing others your are right has drastically declined. The speed at which such stupidity can spread has greatly increased.

We have entered an era in which regulation of stupid, crackpot ideas may need to happen. If and when we do decide to crackdown on this it’s best to rely on expert opinion. This is of course just an opinion of mine.

I submit to you that the vast majority of what you believe is due to knowledge you gained form others and not from first principles as you put it.

But in mathematics the experts really do know what they are talking about, for the most part. Many things aren't like this.

Just today there was a thread on mental illness, and the crazy grab-bag of ideas which passes for expert consensus:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19198396

And if that's not crazy enough, look up what they believed 60 years ago. Should those have been locked in, by government force? Or should we be free to mock the shrinks for their delusions of understanding, if we wish?

In an area as concrete and black/white as mathematics it’s still hard to convince some non experts that we really do know what we are talking about. Imagine how much harder it is in trying to convince anti vaxers to vaccinate. When society makes policy it’s best not to treat everyone’s opinion as equal. We are not able to always correctly deduce what is the best course of action on our own when it’s an area we have no expertise in.

I used be a fundamentalist, right wing Christian. Absolutely convinced that evolution was wrong. Eventually I was able to take the blinders off and ask myself, “Why is it that the overwhelming majority of people who study biology at the advanced level agree with evolution?”. It takes a great deal of arrogance to dismiss a conclusion that the overwhelming majority of the experts in a given area agree upon. Of course people get it wrong sometimes but we have to navigate life with imperfect information/knowledge. Who else do we rely upon? Keep in mind I’m not saying believe whatever an expert says. I’m saying that if the overwhelming majority of experts in a given area agree on something then that carries a tremendous amount of weight.

My wife is a psychiatrist. betulaq’s comment in the link you provided is one worth looking at.

But which year's crop of psychiatrist ideas should we enshrine in law? In 1950 there were rebels who didn't buy the consensus, and their ideas won, things improved. Why wouldn't this change have been prevented?

Or worse, how do you know that the evolution side would win the battle to be selected as the official experts on this matter? We have these fights over school boards right now, and sometimes the biblical literalists have more votes. Who gets to decide the how the head-count of experts is to be conducted? I think it pays to imagine these weapons being used by our enemies.

I don't know the solution to the anti-vax madness, but I think censorship is a much bigger battle.

I’ve only been talking about topics in which the overwhelming majority of experts in that area agree upon. If each year’s class of residency graduates in psychiatry all have different opinions on a given topic then this clearly is not in the scope of my comments. Also, I acknowledged that sometimes experts get it wrong. My point is that this fact ought not disuade someone from relying upon consensus expert opinion. Few people have expertise in an area of science and very few have expertise in more than one area of science. We need to rely on what others tell us to be true. I don’t know anyone who has personally run the Michelson-Morley experiment but I know the overwhelming majority of physicists agree the results of the experiment. I’m not arrogant enough to think they are wrong.

If 99% of oncologists think you have cancer then I hope you get treatment for cancer. And if 99% of them think option A is your best hope then I suggest you take their advice. You don’t have to. They may be wrong but in this world of uncertainty and imperfect information it’s the best option.

And the expert opinion is as usual: more studies need to be funded.

'Peoples’ intuition is usually wrong without a lot of experience to back it up' -- people's understandings are based on their own and their social circle experiences. What's make you think its always wrong? Do you mean we keep our brain shut and feeling suppressed about anything that's not coherent with experts opinion? That's what happen in Autocratic government.

I never suggested, hinted, or implied that peoples’ non-expert intuition is always wrong. I never suggested, or implied that people keep their brains shut and feelings suppressed if those feelings are not in line with expert opinion.

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