81–90 of 164 posts
Opposing an "appeal to authority" is not the claim that "all opinions have equal weight", it's that "all opinions should be heard ." Ideas aren't weighed, anyhow, they're either falsified, or not. If you cannot explain your idea to an intelligent layman then this is prima facie evidence that you do not understand it yourself.
You notice it's rarely the physics professors, or the (good) programming teachers, or the medical profs going, 'Our students don't respect our expertise any more'? Expertise needs to grant you a visible advantage in some way, or of course people aren't going to respect it. You can respect experts with computers very easily, they can do things you can't, or they can do things you can much more easily. Expertise in oth…
You don't know many clinicians, do you?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The author of the article feels like he is the victim of resentment at the hands of his students (references to "intellectual valet" and so forth). I don't think students are necessarily in the wrong -- most are probably in college to get a job, and they're right to resent the stranglehold that universities have on social prestige and career respectability. They end up taking it out on the professors, because, well,…
> Danish university students tend not to have the same weird adversarial relationship with higher education My general impression is that Europeans pay a lot less for their higher education. I suspect that matters a lot.
What this "death of expertise" has brought us is not a closing door into a world of knowledge, but rather an empowerment of common humanity, so that anyone has access to the same information that "experts" have.
Since I'm from the U.S., I'm curious what the attitude is around the world. Does the layman have a lot of resentment towards the "expert" in other countries?
I find it interesting that he mentions these controversial figures. It seems to me while he does present interesting arguments for the resentment shown towards experts, I think it's far more pertinent to discuss the greater death of ethics among experts. I think this is the primary cause, the lack of ethics, of distrusting experts when I speak to relatives and friends.
People, experts and laymen, obviously can't study all fields of knowledge so they put their "faith" in others. An expert in Biology is most likely a layman in Physics, so they implicitly trust their Physicists friends when relaying scientific progress. A physician is obviously an expert at medicine but most likely a poor software developer so they implicitly trust their software developer friends to advise them.
Perhaps I'm conflating institutional expertise with a mastery of one's field. However, the ethical issue still exists.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Danish university students tend not to have the same weird adversarial relationship with higher education My general impression is that Europeans pay a lot less for their higher education. I suspect that matters a lot.
Yes and this generates other tensions: those who fail the almost free higher education are totally left behind, with almost nochance to catch up (statistically speaking).
You notice it's rarely the physics professors, or the (good) programming teachers, or the medical profs going, 'Our students don't respect our expertise any more'? Expertise needs to grant you a visible advantage in some way, or of course people aren't going to respect it. You can respect experts with computers very easily, they can do things you can't, or they can do things you can much more easily. Expertise in oth…
It's hard to take your claim seriously that people readily respect technical expertise, when I see "Twitter is just caching" repeated on this very site all the time.
https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&start=0&q=t...
I've not been able to find a great many massively uninformed comments about it. Admittedly I only went two pages back, but it was starting to get to the X years ago stuff, so... I lost interest at that point ^^
Do you have a significant number of sources?
The trouble I had was in the first sentence: > I am (or at least think I am) an expert. Not on everything, but in a particular area of human knowledge, specifically social science and public policy. At least as far as the US is concerned, public policy encompasses everything. So as far as I can tell, this person really is claiming to be an expert on everything. "Social science" does not fair much better. NOAD helpful…
Here: http://www.usnwc.edu/Academics/Faculty/Thomas-M--Nichols,-Ph... >Thomas M. Nichols is a professor of national security affairs in the National Security Decision Making Department, where is also the Course Director for Security, Strategy, and Forces. A former Secretary of the Navy Fellow at the Naval War College, he previously taught international relations and Soviet/Russian affairs at Dartmouth College and Geo…
I think I know a lot about Android, but it ain't gonna cost that much if I'm wrong.
I think what the author misses is the large institutional structure that restricts the supply of experts and (as a result) enhances their prestige. These days, with the growing availability of technical information, existing systems of licensure, credentialing, and professionalization are breeding resentment on both sides of the lectern. The author's focus in the article is on the layman's resentment for the expert.…
I don't think you're correct. Ph.D.s are being produced at a 10:1 ratio relative to actual tenure track positions. If anything, Ph.D.s are being massively overproduced for a society that does not know what to do with (or want to pay for) the overqualified.
http://www.economist.com/node/17723223
http://www.astrobetter.com/nature-on-phd-overproduction/
http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2013/02/01/the-overproduction...