Can You Trust the Experts?

Sandra Peart (‪@UniversityofRichmond‬) examines the complex relationship between experts and policy-making, advocating for transparency, competition, and ethical guidelines to ensure informed and unbiased decisions.
Learn more about her work at jepson.richmond.edu/faculty/b...

[@neom0nk]

Did I miss something, or was the term expert left undefined? Would have been helpful to frame the conversation a little more.

[@bucketofbarnacles]

Thought-provoking. I’d never heard, nor heard of, Peart, Many thanks. I will be looking her Mill book up!

[@ajones8008]

No one is actually being held accountable for their actions. Even the experts.

[@eugenedebs9547]

Everybody has sold out.

[@AndyElisha]

Some of us are held highly accountable for trivialities. Others, no.

[@shyama5612]

Often experts themselves don't know the limits of their expertise - even assuming they don't have biases due to status seeking, groupthink or conflicts of interest that affect their recommendations.

[@scpatl4now]

Look at who pays them as to whether they are credible.

[@shyama5612]

Expertise is about repeatable predictions and falsifiability. if an expert's recommendation cannot be falsified, how would you know its worth?

[@srikumarmondal3294]

I am not an expert but as much I know J S Mill was also called as one of the "Vulgar Economists" by an infamous guy who was also alive during the 19th century only....

[@Gettothegone]

No. Corporate media loves to refer to “experts”.

[@falsificationism]

Sorry but this is NOT a “complicated” or “hard” question, but her career depends on us believing this is true.
“Trusting” in “experts” is a red herring. Experts, like all people, are humans. The key is to have good feedback and decision-making processes.
Here are a few obvious things that help.
The scientific method
Following the money
Knowing relevant ideologies/cultures
Understanding human biases
Media literacy (understanding spin/PR/hype)
Understanding alleged academic “meritocracy”
Class consciousness

[@srikumarmondal3294]

These things could be explained by the two words only.
And that is "Class Consciousness"

[@falsificationism]

@@srikumarmondal3294 fair enough, I really should have put that at the top.

[@Mr.Buttermaker]

Oh man it’s comments like these that gives me hope for humanity.

[@DLCS-2]

Only trust the experts when they are talking in their field.

[@Gettothegone]

Experts today “busy themselves with unintelligible jargon”. People who study gender studies for 8 years will never understand they’ve been scammed lol.

[@falsificationism]

And even then….
But yes! This is a good one. Don’t just “but she’s a doctor” everything. Like, no dude, she’s a PhD in cell biology and you’re asking her questions about misinformation on Twitter and mars exploration.

[@eugenedebs9547]

Except if they're Doctors, Lawyers or Priests or Economists, or Academics.........

[@eugenedebs9547]

@@falsificationism Perhaps don't take seriously anyone who speaks outside their field-but that's what narcissists do. People get on top of hierarchies for the very reason of being gods.

[@falsificationism]

@@eugenedebs9547 but but but but the only people who are drawn to become influencers are narcissists!! 😏

[@Nine-Signs]

Fairly simple really. If you are in the sciences as an expert your work can be trusted as it is verified and tested to destruction via peer review. On politics or economics these are NOT sciences no matter words like "political science", and so are open to wild internal biases of whomever proposes matters to them / publishes works about them. Even when there is credible statistical data, if it shows for example, a massive negative regarding capitalism few economists, politicians, media, will say a word about that nor state the statistical facts if they go against personal beliefs.
Science has no such problems. Belief one way or the other against reality while publishing works on beliefs alone, is neither a requirement nor a possibility.

[@viktorbabchanik]

What...? Science is no different. Peer review is completely broken.

[@Nine-Signs]

@@viktorbabchanik If you mean by completely broken, that it is not infallible, is capable of allowing mistakes to pass, that is true, but that is also a rarity and even on the occasions where such does happen it soon gets found out the moment other scientists try to apply the peer reviewed science in other fields thus putting the work under scrutiny long after peer review.
Of any profession on this earth, including legal, science has the highest evidential requirement for a discovery to be accepted as factual/correct.

[@a.randomjack6661]

What is she? An expert on experts?
Economy is NOT a science!.

[@eugenedebs9547]

Better described -as in Europe : " Political Economy ".

[@rcmrcm3370]

Interesting how she dodge the corruption of wanted to continue to work and therefore doing what the corrupt interest want without directly taking part in the looting.

[@mvexler]

Are experts more experts or more self interested individuals? On one hand only please😂

[@Mageroeth]

Perhaps these so called experts should stop lying for money.

[@adamj.7572]

Generally speaking, NO