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A Nobel Doesn’t Make You an Expert: Lessons in Science and Spin

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday August 29 2017, @10:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-watches-the-watchers? dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

In 1979, there was a partial meltdown at a nuclear plant on Three Mile Island, in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. I was a young newspaper editor at the time, and I was caught up in coverage of the resulting debate about whether nuclear power could ever be safe. I have long forgotten the details of that episode, except for one troubling thought that occurred to me in the middle of it: The experts we relied on to tell us whether a given design was safe, or indeed whether nuclear power generally was safe, were people with advanced degrees in nuclear engineering and experience running nuclear plants. That is, we were relying on people who made their living from nuclear power to tell us if nuclear power was safe. If they started saying out loud that anything about the nuclear enterprise was iffy, they risked putting themselves out of business.

I mention this not because I think the engineers lied to the public. I don't. Nor do I think nuclear power is so dangerous it should be rejected as an energy source. I mention it because it shows how hard it can be to make sense of information from experts.

Trust in institutions and expertise has taken a lot of knocks in the last decade. Can society recover it? Are we all called to a higher effort to vet the information we are given, or is there another, better remedy?

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by crafoo on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:45PM (1 child)

    by crafoo (6639) on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:45PM (#560785)

    Confidence has taken a hit? Really? I don't think so. Maybe among poorly-educated poly-sci majors.
    The rest of us, with even a tiny bit of critical reasoning skills are perfectly capable of checking the scoreboard.

    How does following quack pseudoscience, feel-good new-age bullshit, and making life decisions according to the untested theories of a career academic communist agitator work out? Why, let's just take a look. I'm sure you can find a few around town that are pushing 40+ now. Look for the bitter tat'ed up cashier at Burger King. Or check out Steve Jobs EoL decisions. LOL!

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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 29 2017, @01:35PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 29 2017, @01:35PM (#560808) Journal

    The rest of us, a tiny minority, with even a tiny bit of critical reasoning skills are perfectly capable of checking the scoreboard

    FTFY - it's good to have a perspective, makes one realize that "the ability to check the scoreboard" is inconsequential - today, their ignorance is better than your knowledge and capability (at least on short term).

    (no, it's not an elitist position. I'd be ecstatic to be an insignificant one of a majority able to think critically)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford