
The Limits of Expertise - imartin2k
https://quillette.com/2018/06/04/the-limits-of-expertise/
======
smacktoward
_> Nobody says, “I want someone unqualified to be my president, therefore I
also want someone unqualified to be my surgeon.” Nobody doubts the value of
the expertise of an engineer or a pilot._

If planes were crashing every other day, you'd better believe people would be
doubting pilots. Trust is _earned_ , not owed. And the reason people have
trouble trusting our political and economic elites is because _they keep
crashing the damn plane._

~~~
s3m4j
That's almost a rhetorical question, but...

How do you define " _crashing the plane_ " here ? There's only one plane and
it's still going. History hasn't ended.

~~~
rsj_hn
There is a way to measure economic and political performance other than "I
have not yet annihilated the planet" \-- I mean, that's a pretty low bar. In
Italy, GDP per capita is below what it was since the Euro was introduced[1] in
2000. In the U.S., In 2014 the middle class was poorer than it was in 1989[2].
Real median household income has been flat for since 1965, increasing by only
$4000 in chained 2016 dollars over that 50 year period[3], whereas the costs
of necessities such as housing, college tuition, and healthcare have gone up
much faster than income, creating a lot of anxiety.

When things get better for a majority of the people (rather than just for the
top), the population is happy with their leadership. When there is a record of
failure, then cries of "well, we didn't kill off all life on earth" and "we
are experts" are not well received as reasons to keep the current regime in
power.

[1][https://tradingeconomics.com/italy/gdp-per-
capita](https://tradingeconomics.com/italy/gdp-per-capita)
[2][https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/01/the-m...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/01/the-
middle-class-is-poorer-today-than-it-was-
in-1989/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.47178ce86b11) [3]
[https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2017/09/1...](https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2017/09/19/u-s-
household-incomes-a-50-year-perspective)

~~~
Latteland
Comparing those two years is a little misleading, but I do agree with the
concept we haven't done that well as a society in growing wealth for average
people. You have to look at longer term trends than comparing one year with
the post-stagnation a few years after the worst crash in 80 years. Indeed the
chart in that story comparing 1989 through 2013 shows that in most of those
years it was better than 1989. I'd like to see the moving 3 or 4 year average
comparing the 1980s to the last few years.

------
dilap
I'm committing the sin of commenting w/o having read the article yet, so this
might be duplicative or orthogonal, but:

Without feedback, there is no real expertise. Most experts are in domains w/o
feedback, so they are mostly full of shit.

Good blog posts exploring this topic a bit:

[https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2018/05/dominic-cummings-on-
fi...](https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2018/05/dominic-cummings-on-fighting-
physics.html)

(above is a summary/intro to following:)

[https://dominiccummings.com/2018/05/22/effective-
action-4a-e...](https://dominiccummings.com/2018/05/22/effective-
action-4a-expertise-from-fighting-and-physics-to-economics-politics-and-
government/)

~~~
nateabele
_Yes_! I _did_ read the article, and was about to say something similar. The
article makes the following argument:

> _In short, people value expertise in closed systems, but are distrustful of
> expertise in open systems. A typical example of a closed system would be a
> car engine or a knee joint._

What about economics or investments? That's a massively open system on which
people trust experts all the time. The true deciding factor is whether
following (or rejecting) expert advice _costs you something_. If you have a
brain tumor, an incompetent neurosurgeon is going to cost you a lot more than
an incompetent president.

In the parlance of _Antifragile_ (which I cannot recommend highly enough for
anyone who works with people & systems—so, most of us), the question turns on
whether you have 'skin in the game'.

~~~
mcguire
" _What about economics or investments?_ "

Those are exactly the experts who are being most strongly questioned. They are
the ones who predicted economic disaster from Brexit and Trump's bizarro-land
policies, and yet the wheels have not come off. (Yet.) Therefore, they must
not know what they're talking about, right?

------
throw2016
You must differentiate technical and scientific expertise from things like
economic theorizing. You can't build a bridge without expertise or a car or a
plane. Those need serious expertise, experience and certainty of the 1+1=2
variety. No one is questioning this expertise.

But things like economics, what are they experts in? In the general markets,
stock markets, free markets, policy, risk, trade, banking, money, human
behavior? They seem to lack an understanding of why things happen, and yet are
happy to make sweeping judgements that seem to push very specific ideologies
based on dubious assumptions of human behavior. And here is the problem,
nothing in their course material make them experts in human behavior.

This is what is causing the public loss of confidence along with the media and
think tanks who push these narratives. And the economics profession at the
moment is going through a crisis of confidence, a lot of the models have been
revealed to be based on completely unrealistic assumptions, data is fudged,
and things like GDP, globalization and the neoliberal ideology that have been
pushed as 'unquestioned truth' are now under the scanner.

------
sna1l
The limits of expertise seem to be due to the lack of skin in the game for
these so called experts.

Source: [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/beware-
fau...](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/beware-faux-experts-
who-dont-pay-for-their-actions-nassim-taleb-says)

~~~
Fricken
The executives at Blockbuster had skin in the game, they were experts, they
got their asses kicked. Last election the Democrats had skin in the game, they
were experts, they got their asses kicked. Recently the institutional Tesla
shorts had skin in the game, they are experts, they got their asses kicked. So
what does having skin in the game have to do with anything? Not much.

I have a feeling you didn't read the article, though, because it goes off on a
different tangent. It asks us to differentiate between experts in closed
systems, such as engineers, pilots, and surgeons, whose expertise goes largely
unchallenged, and experts in open systems, which are far more complex and
unpredictable.

The article suggests that anyone who claims to be an expert in an open system,
and is self-assured in their expertise, is someone to be skeptical of. Open
systems should be approached with humility. It's possible to be _less wrong_
about the behaviors of open systems, but there's no reasonable expectation
that you'll ever be right.

~~~
whitepoplar
The point isn't that skin in the game causes better decision-making, the point
is that the losers exit the gene pool. If you walk into any restaurant in the
United States, you can bet the food is of better quality than that of a
Soviet-era cafeteria. The difference? One group has skin in the game and must
compete or die. One group doesn't. Skin in the game ensures the health of the
restaurant industry (as measured by, say, quality of food), not the health of
any one restaurant.

As for your assertion re: experts in "closed" vs "open" systems, the issue is
less one of "open" systems requiring humility, and more that "open" systems
are statistically filled with BS artists. Why? Because they don't have the
filtering mechanism that gets rid of those people. A fake dentist can't pull
the wool over patients' eyes for long, but a macroeconomist can do just that
for his entire career.

~~~
mcguire
Are you asserting that _all_ economists and financial goobs are "BS artists,"
or merely most? Is there a way to tell the difference better than "he hasn't
gone belly up yet"?

~~~
Retra
They're only asserting that _some_ economists could get away with being "BS
artists," so inevitably, some do. Obviously that hurts the study of economics
as a whole, because if you can get away with BS, that means people can't tell
what is and is not BS, so non-BS looks like BS and has to compete on points
other than merit.

~~~
maneesh
Certainly Taleb is referring to all economists, give or take a handful, not
just some.

~~~
Retra
That doesn't matter. The point still stands so long as it is true for at least
one economist.

------
lodi
> Engineers, surgeons, pilots, all these kinds of ‘trusted’ experts operate in
> closed systems.

Unfortunately, the prosperity of the "traditional medicine" industry is
evidence that people don't even trust their surgeons/doctors.

~~~
throwawaymath
Yes, I've absolutely lost trust in doctors and physicians. My wife suffered a
minor knee injury while we were trail running last year. She went to a
specialist (orthopedic surgeon) who performed an x-ray and told her he
couldn't see any damage. He formally diagnosed the problem as chondromalacia
patellae ("runner's knee") and sent her on her way with a cortisone shot and a
referral to a physical therapy practice.

As it happens, the cortisone shot significantly increased her discomfort and
pain pretty much permanently. She was warned it might be more painful for two
weeks, but she still has to ice it regularly. She also left the physical
therapist she was referred to because the attentiveness and level of care was
lacking (she was often left with an intern, and there was no itinerary for
weekly progression to recovery). She didn't see any progress on twice weekly
appointments.

This left her pretty despondent, unfortunately. It wasn't until I went to
several running subreddits and asked for strong recommendations for results-
oriented physical therapists that we found a practice where she's actually
seeing progress. After nearly a year she's just now starting to run again.
Throughout this entire process, neither of us have felt particularly cared for
or listened to. We're fortunate that we can spend the money on a place that
doesn't accept any insurance just to see really strong care.

What really drove me up a wall personally is that this level of expertise
_does exist._ Professional athletes routinely recover from far more
significant injuries because they're under the proper direction and recovery
regimen. But that kind of expertise isn't easily available even if you know to
look for it. Instead people get shuffled around from one crappy doctor's
office to another by their uninterested insurance agency, until they gradually
lose hope and stop bothering. Then they end up in they're late 30s and 40s
unable to exercise because they got a bad whatever in their 20s that no one
cared enough to help them through.

It's also difficult to trust a profession which appears to systematically
disrespect clients' time. This past week I had a morning appointment with my
doctor. Despite arriving on time I didn't actually get to see him until two
hours later. There's nothing I can really do about it, because I can't find
any indication it will be like this until after experiencing it with a doctor.
It's not as though this is an unsolved problem. Restaurants routinely plan to
have reservations available on time so they're ready for guest arrival.

I can recognize that doctors have much more domain knowledge and experience
than I do. But that makes it even more grievous when I have to pick up their
slack in patient care. The level of accountability and care seems to be
completely hit or miss.

EDIT: Thinking about it more, the article's premise about the trustworthiness
of "closed-system experts" seems to be incorrect across the board. As an
example, I once had a malfunctioning air conditioner that survived through two
summers and _three different mechanics_. Apparently fixing a Honda Civic's air
conditioner was too complex a task for their expertise. These days I just take
my car to the dealership so I know it's fixed. I don't even mind overpaying as
long as I don't have to deal with the anxiety of repeated disappointment. I
can't imagine the desperation and anxiety of those who are at the mercy of
these kinds of experts for much more serious problems. That kind of
frustration is how you create supervillains.

~~~
gowld
You're really comparing the availability of a fleet minimally skilled servers
and a moderately skilled line cooks, to a single medical doctor's appointment?

~~~
throwawaymath
As a matter of fact yes, I am. I am unmoved by your implicit appeal to supply
and demand.

I am also expressing a complete and utter lack of sympathy for their inability
to respect patients' time. A doctor refusing to schedule me in the near term
because he knows he can't fit me in is an unfortunate artifact of an
inefficient healthcare system. But a doctor who knows this and still tries to
fit me in - just so he can make me waste the better part of a morning waiting
for an "appointment" and not even sit down when he finally does make it to see
me - is entirely responsible for wasting my time.

This is a market for lemons.

~~~
foobarchu
Plus, it's well known that the supply of doctors is artificially restricted by
the limited number of residency slots available each year. I can't have much
sympathy on lack of doctors until the industry does something to stop
strangling their own supply.

------
EADGBE
All hail general-ism!

It works well for most things.

Around the house, I _generally_ have an idea of how to fix things. I only know
enough to know when I should call an expert. It saves a ton of money.

I'd like to consider myself a generalist web developer too, able to build
infrastructure from the ground up, set up the DB, Get a backend API, get some
pages going, etc. I won't pretend I know more about Angular/Java/MySQL/CI
_than you_. But I'm open to how experts do this stuff. I just like learning,
and I enjoy grasping the big concepts more than the minute stuff.

I'm really going places, I tell you. I've got upper management written all
over me.

------
ThomPete
Experts know more and more about less and less until they know everything
about nothing.

Generalists know less and less about more and more until they know nothing
about everything.

The problem with using academic experts is that they are really just
"historians" in the sense that they know what we know works and doesn't work
or what is right or wrong.

Most of them can't predict the future (which have a lot of radical
uncertainty) they only know what has been the case for now and what might be
but with a huge deal of uncertainty (economist are some of the worst offenders
of this or more precisely politicians usage of economists)

When it comes to politics/morals/geopolitics. No one is an expert other than
those who actually make the decisions. You can be factually correct about why
you make a decision and yet still make the wrong one.

Technical experts are different as they are dealing with a solid foundation
that doesn't include much radical uncertainty.

------
squozzer
Part of the problem also seems to be the use of experts not to explain or even
predict but to _manipulate_ events and to hide downsides in service of that
manipulation.

E.g. Free trade - easy to love for consumers, economists, and people whose
jobs aren't so easily transferable. Not so much for factory workers.

The old jobs left, and the new ones which people were assured would
materialize because of all of the new prosperity didn't.

Another part of the problem seems to lie in skepticism and how to properly
apply it. The closest I think anyone in the US comes to seeing a substantive
debate is on the Sunday morning political shows and I'm sure it's still wrong,
wrong, and wrong.

------
keenboy
One other important consideration...

By stating that we're sick of experts the author implies that we don't trust
them. It's important to recognize that there are two sides to trust. 1) are
they competent 2) do they have integrity

Many of the examples in the article are failures of integrity, not failures of
competence (Wall Street investors, Facebook, etc.).

This suggests that the core issue may be lack of ethics/morals rather than
lack of expertise.

------
dabbledash
I don’t think I buy the author’s explanation, at least not entirely. There are
a lot people who don’t respect expertise on things like vaccination.

People have a hard time accepting expertise when the claims of experts are
probabilistic instead of definitive. (Because they will perceive experts as
wrong when <50% probability things do happen or >50% things don’t happen. And
they will see the experts as wishy washy in any case.)

People have a hard time accepting expertise when the claims of experts are
inconsistent with philosophical or political positions that are core to
people’s identities.

------
andyidsinga
THIS :

> However, it is worth drawing a distinction between these two types of
> expertise—the kind people question, and the kind people don’t. In short,
> people value expertise in closed systems, but are distrustful of expertise
> in open systems.

------
andyidsinga
I would add to the list of open systems that are impossible to control,
predict and eventually unravel in the face of chaos: businesses

------
embulldogs99
"suffice it to say, the complex manoeuvring of some extremely bright and
learned people unwittingly triggered the financial crisis." So it wasnt the
bad loans that were given to people who couldnt repay at variable interest
rates prone for increases in the future? If everyone involved was truly
educated, they likely would nothavs taken those loans in the first place...

Dont confuse free market behavior (all people involved in the market) with
that of a highly learned population

~~~
otakucode
The financial crisis also wasn't very "unwitting." The banks knew that placing
first large benefits to selling more loans, and then making it a requirement
to remain employed would lead their employees to issue bad loans. They knew
that loaning out 30x their capital was dangerous. They knew that when they
reclassified garbage-class debt as AAA that they were lying through their
teeth and were essentially guaranteeing a crash. But they also knew that they
wouldn't bear the consequences for it. And they were right. The system in
place makes it ideal optimal behavior to provoke such crashes for those
involved in the financial services industry. It resulted in them receiving $1+
trillion, with nearly no change in regulation. When they want another
trillion, they know they can count on getting it.

------
otakucode
Anti-intellectualism has been on the rise since World War I. It's not about to
stop any time soon without some seriously large-scale event. Prior to WWI
everyone figured science and reason were purely good. WWI showed them this was
not the case, as it created mustard gas, tanks, etc. That sort of cracked the
social conception a bit.

The concentration camps and the Holocaust after World War II burst that crack
wide open. Eugenics was held up as a purely rational approach to improving
human life, remember. So it's failure was seen as a failure of rationalism and
science (it actually wasn't, people were just cutting corners and over-
extending their observations in invalid ways). The 20th century continued on
like this, people cutting corners and slacking off on scientific rigor, it
causing widespread suffering, then that suffering being laid at the feet of
science for not stopping it. Thalidomide, leaded gasoline, lead paint, Agent
Orange, atomic weapons, failure of centrally planned governance, the list goes
on.

Somewhere along the way, the discussion ended. Reason and science lost. It was
long enough ago that everything we produce today is produced from a
fundamental place that begins with an opposition to intellectualism and
proceeds from there. Just try to find a TV show or movie or other creative
work that doesn't have anti-intellectualism already accepted as being as
evidently true as gravity. You won't be able to do it, at least not in terms
of Western media. I've seen a couple movies from India, strangely enough, that
actually beg a discussion about it, but it comes across as very strange to a
western mind.

Scientists and those who pursue reason are cold, detached, calculating,
uncaring, socially awkward, arrogant, etc. They're not what you want your
children to grow up to be. So they're certainly not who you want making
decisions that govern how you live, what your taxes are spent on, etc. Even
our most "science positive" media, science fiction, is nothing but a cavalcade
of purportedly reason-driven characters leading people into danger through
their hubris, only to be saved at the last moment by a gun-toting musclebound
hero who tells the scientist to shut up and 'follows his heart.' That is the
core of lay anti-intellectualism. If you want to have friends, a loving
family, be connected to your community, be a caring, moral person... you can't
guide your life with reason and science. That's the foundational principle.
There is some incorrect supposition that love is irrational, that being kind
is irrational, that science can't convey value to social utility alongside
other types of utility, etc.

The way I see it, this is the biggest problem facing the human species. And it
might not even have a solution. It might be a flaw in the idea of
civilization. You create a civilization to remove danger from peoples lives.
Danger which created the impetus and desperation great enough to abandon
intuition and trust reason in the first place. So by civilizing, you guarantee
those protected by its umbrella will come to devalue it and distrust it. They
will fail to maintain and expand it. Once it begins to fall, most would think
there might be reconsideration. I disagree. I think it will simply accelerate
the fall. Seeing danger re-assert itself, the response will be to double-down
on intuition, that it is the remaining pieces of infrastructure that endanger
them and that they haven't gone far enough. Eventually, we revert to the
'default state' of humanity - slogging through the mud, racked with disease,
bludgeoning each other to death over whose god is stronger.

------
rhapsodic
This headline speaks for itself:

    
    
      > Ask Your Baby's Permission Before Changing Diaper, 
      > Says Sexual Consent Expert[1]
    

That person is what I would consider the opposite of an expert.

[1] [http://www.newsweek.com/diaper-ask-baby-permission-
changing-...](http://www.newsweek.com/diaper-ask-baby-permission-changing-
says-sexual-consent-expert-918981)

~~~
vec
Wow, that is a crazy headline! I wonder what the article actually says?

> “We work with parents from birth...Just about how to set up a culture of
> consent in their homes. ‘I’m going to change your nappy now, is that OK?’ Of
> course a baby’s not going to respond ‘yes mum, that’s awesome I’d love to
> have my nappy changed'.

> "But if you leave a space and wait for body language and wait to make eye
> contact then you’re letting that child know that their response matters,"
> she said.

> [Snip]

> Carson quoted statistics reflecting how common sexual abuse is among
> children, and said the work her organization does follows international best
> practice in abuse prevention.

> "It teaches children their rights AND their responsibilities and connects
> them with people who care and can help. It invites their parents into the
> discussion and is sensitive to cultural and family values," she said.

This seems ...honestly pretty reasonable and well thought out to me.

You're right. The headline does speak for itself, because it certainly doesn't
speak for the subject of the article.

~~~
RobertRoberts
I appreciate you looking at the article, but we should consider the effects
headlines have on people.

The intentions can't be dismissed just because the article is more reasonable
than the headline.

