> What I see here is that those with critical thinking skills will do just fine.
The problem is that it's extremely easy to overvalue one's own critical-thinking skills, and so think that one is immune when one isn't. (In fact, when experts are fooled in areas that they think are covered by their expertise, then they tend to be worse fooled than non-experts.)
I think this is a typical example of populist mumbo-jumbo. How can you call an expert someone who can’t consciously decide their own confidence intervals?
However it’s so much easier to then for a non-expert to say that their half-baked solution worked due to the survivorship bias.
This point is incredibly popular because non-experts have less to loose by making dumb choices in the first place and there are way more non-experts, thus the whole set of non-experts can afford to be the fireflies in any industry.
> This point is incredibly popular because non-experts have less to loose by making dumb choices in the first place and there are way more non-experts, thus the whole set of non-experts can afford to be the fireflies in any industry.
Or the "experts" have more invested in their "expertise" or are more indoctrinated in their view and more stubborn to move from it.
If you look at the history of math, medicine, economics, physics, etc, the biggest detractors of new ideas, new information, etc were the experts.
Take Cantor and his proof of countable and uncountable infinities. It's was the experts within academia who attacked him relentlessly. So much so that it sent Cantor to a mental asylum.
Oh please. Who else in the history of (say) physics would you expect to be the biggest detractors of new physics? Botanists?
Cantor works as an example. Who was it that eventually adopted his ideas?
Experts aren't infallible, but they are (almost definitionally) the ones doing the work to move their field closer to truth. They may miss the mark sometimes, maybe often, but they're also the only ones hitting the mark.
General and special relativity had detractors until experiments.
Newton and his physics was criticized. An "invisible force" called gravity that mysteriously acts on objects across distances?
We could go back to copernicus, galileo and eventually to aristotlean physics.
> Cantor works as an example. Who was it that eventually adopted his ideas?
What's your point?
> Experts aren't infallible, but they are (almost definitionally) the ones doing the work to move their field closer to truth.
But that's not the point. You made it sound like all experts are. I proved to you that it is not the case. Many times, it's the experts doing their damnednest to prevent progress. It's a small group of experts who fight and succeed against established expert dogma.
> They may miss the mark sometimes, maybe often, but they're also the only ones hitting the mark.
Who is they. You act like "they" are all working towards a common objective. I showed you that's not true. Many times, sadly, experts work hard to maintain the status quo.
I suggest you look up a book on philosophy or history of science. It'll be an eye-opener. It seems like you still cling to the silly "perfect" idea of experts.
> How can you call an expert someone who can’t consciously decide their own confidence intervals?
Well, you don't have to call them that, but most people whom others call experts are overconfident in this quantifiable way. See, for example, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-thinking-cle... . You probably can't do it as well as you think you can either.
If you collect enough monkeys with typewriters they will eventually finish writing War and Peace. That doesn’t mean that Tolstoy is overconfident in his abilities.
Also you are literally referencing a blog of a science which has serious troubles with the replication or it’s own studies.
The problem is that it's extremely easy to overvalue one's own critical-thinking skills, and so think that one is immune when one isn't. (In fact, when experts are fooled in areas that they think are covered by their expertise, then they tend to be worse fooled than non-experts.)