The second reason is invalid unless the actor is self-deluding—a smart actor that faces being put out of work would silently adopt a SPR as his decision-making system without admitting to it. Since the superiority of SPR continues in many fields, either relevant actors are consistently not smart, performance is not a significant contributing criterion to their success, or they’re self-deluding ie. overrating their own judgment as the poster stated. [edit] I’d guess a combination of the last two.
Yes, I’d say it’s a combination of the last two points, with emphasis on the second last.
The critical question is whether maximizing the accuracy of your judgments is a practical way to get ahead in a given profession. Sometimes that is indeed the case, and in such fields we indeed see tremendous efforts to automate as much expert work as possible, often with great success, as in the electronics industry. But in professions that operate as more tightly-knit guilds, adherence to accepted standards is much more important than any objective metrics of effectiveness. Stepping outside of standard work procedures is often treated as a serious infraction with potentially severe consequences. (Especially if your non-standard methodology fails in some particular case, as it will sooner or later, and you can’t cover your ass by claiming that you followed all the standard accepted procedures and having your profession back you up organizationally.)
Now, you could try enhancing your work with decision models in secret. But even then, it’s hard to do it in a completely secretive way, and moreover, human minds being what they are, most people can achieve professional success only if they are really sincerely convinced in their expertise and effectiveness. Keeping a public facade is hard for everyone except a very small minority of people.
The second reason is invalid unless the actor is self-deluding—a smart actor that faces being put out of work would silently adopt a SPR as his decision-making system without admitting to it. Since the superiority of SPR continues in many fields, either relevant actors are consistently not smart, performance is not a significant contributing criterion to their success, or they’re self-deluding ie. overrating their own judgment as the poster stated. [edit] I’d guess a combination of the last two.
Yes, I’d say it’s a combination of the last two points, with emphasis on the second last.
The critical question is whether maximizing the accuracy of your judgments is a practical way to get ahead in a given profession. Sometimes that is indeed the case, and in such fields we indeed see tremendous efforts to automate as much expert work as possible, often with great success, as in the electronics industry. But in professions that operate as more tightly-knit guilds, adherence to accepted standards is much more important than any objective metrics of effectiveness. Stepping outside of standard work procedures is often treated as a serious infraction with potentially severe consequences. (Especially if your non-standard methodology fails in some particular case, as it will sooner or later, and you can’t cover your ass by claiming that you followed all the standard accepted procedures and having your profession back you up organizationally.)
Now, you could try enhancing your work with decision models in secret. But even then, it’s hard to do it in a completely secretive way, and moreover, human minds being what they are, most people can achieve professional success only if they are really sincerely convinced in their expertise and effectiveness. Keeping a public facade is hard for everyone except a very small minority of people.