These are good-faith suggestions for dealing with real problems, but in the spirit of the essay itself, allow me to take issue with it:
First, I don't recall any discussion of roles played by academic and professional institutions and by the media. A dissenting scientist who becomes unemployable or suffers other professional consequencesโฆ
These are good-faith suggestions for dealing with real problems, but in the spirit of the essay itself, allow me to take issue with it:
First, I don't recall any discussion of roles played by academic and professional institutions and by the media. A dissenting scientist who becomes unemployable or suffers other professional consequences will likely censor himself -- and even if he doesn't, how will we know? He'll have no platform. The media have the same sort of gatekeeping power. I don't see how any plan that doesn't account for these factors can have much effect.
Next, it's not clear why having opposing scientists duke an issue out in public is more "democratic" than having them do so before the public's elected representatives. That is the function of those representatives, after all. That said, the idea of organizing adversarial proceedings before those representatives seems a good one.
And attention should be paid to the supporting function of creating materials to help laymen understand the scientific arguments. Furthermore, the organizers should emphasize ideas such as level-of-confidence and effect-size, without which there's not much basis for decision-making. It should, for example, be significant for one side of a debate to demonstrate simply that the other side hasn't made a conclusive case -- even if the first side has no case to make at all.
Along those same lines, the public and its representatives need to be educated about basic statistics and probability, common cognitive biases and other factors that should inform their decisions. It's not that difficult, since we're not talking about calculation but a general sense of proportion, of what it means to know something and of common pitfalls.
Lastly (for now), we should work to make it socially unacceptable for academic and professional organizations to engage in anything outside their narrow purviews. There should be no letters signed by hundreds of doctors/lawyers/chemists/hairdressers on climate change, minority rights or immigration. All the members are encouraged to add their voices to the groups already organized around these topics, or to create new ones if it suits them, ๐ฃ๐ถ๐ต ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ต ๐ข๐ด ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ช๐ณ ๐ฑ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ง๐ฆ๐ด๐ด๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ด. Not only can no good come of it, it automatically casts their professional opinions into doubt, as well it should. Judges should administer the law, doctors should maintain health, scientists should seek and disseminate the truth. If they're doing anything else at the same time, they're not really doing their jobs.
I like your take here, but I disagree (or only partially agree) with the last aspect, about experts staying in their lane.
I don't mind experts making policy recommendations based on the science in their field. I *do* mind the idea that their policy recommendations should be accepted uncritically, or that the expert shouldn't have to persuade the rest of the public that they are right, and *why* they are right. I hate the halo of authority many elites place around other elite experts, who act as if questioning them is evidence of one's ignorance (and, for some benighted souls, evidence of apostasy).
These are good-faith suggestions for dealing with real problems, but in the spirit of the essay itself, allow me to take issue with it:
First, I don't recall any discussion of roles played by academic and professional institutions and by the media. A dissenting scientist who becomes unemployable or suffers other professional consequences will likely censor himself -- and even if he doesn't, how will we know? He'll have no platform. The media have the same sort of gatekeeping power. I don't see how any plan that doesn't account for these factors can have much effect.
Next, it's not clear why having opposing scientists duke an issue out in public is more "democratic" than having them do so before the public's elected representatives. That is the function of those representatives, after all. That said, the idea of organizing adversarial proceedings before those representatives seems a good one.
And attention should be paid to the supporting function of creating materials to help laymen understand the scientific arguments. Furthermore, the organizers should emphasize ideas such as level-of-confidence and effect-size, without which there's not much basis for decision-making. It should, for example, be significant for one side of a debate to demonstrate simply that the other side hasn't made a conclusive case -- even if the first side has no case to make at all.
Along those same lines, the public and its representatives need to be educated about basic statistics and probability, common cognitive biases and other factors that should inform their decisions. It's not that difficult, since we're not talking about calculation but a general sense of proportion, of what it means to know something and of common pitfalls.
Lastly (for now), we should work to make it socially unacceptable for academic and professional organizations to engage in anything outside their narrow purviews. There should be no letters signed by hundreds of doctors/lawyers/chemists/hairdressers on climate change, minority rights or immigration. All the members are encouraged to add their voices to the groups already organized around these topics, or to create new ones if it suits them, ๐ฃ๐ถ๐ต ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ต ๐ข๐ด ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ช๐ณ ๐ฑ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ง๐ฆ๐ด๐ด๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ด. Not only can no good come of it, it automatically casts their professional opinions into doubt, as well it should. Judges should administer the law, doctors should maintain health, scientists should seek and disseminate the truth. If they're doing anything else at the same time, they're not really doing their jobs.
I like your take here, but I disagree (or only partially agree) with the last aspect, about experts staying in their lane.
I don't mind experts making policy recommendations based on the science in their field. I *do* mind the idea that their policy recommendations should be accepted uncritically, or that the expert shouldn't have to persuade the rest of the public that they are right, and *why* they are right. I hate the halo of authority many elites place around other elite experts, who act as if questioning them is evidence of one's ignorance (and, for some benighted souls, evidence of apostasy).
That's fair, but I still maintain that their ๐ฐ๐ณ๐จ๐ข๐ฏ๐ช๐ป๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ด shouldn't be weighing in as such.