One of the most robust findings in studies of expertise is that unless the expertise is in callibration itself (eg. gambling) experts are systematically overconfident. In particular they overestimate the relevence of their expertise to things that are not central to their actual professional or academic practice. For example a neurobiologist with no training in information theory may tend to place inordinate trust in their intuition “it is theoretically impossible to recover information from that brain” without realising how different that question is from the fact that they actually do know, “it isn’t possible for us to repair that brain to functioning condition in place”.
In the case of the time turner thread that motivates this post we have an example of believing that some knowledge of General Relativity is sufficient to make one an expert at solving engineering problems in a counterfactual physical reality rather than merely being necessary. The most insightful comments in that thread don’t do anything to challenge the impossibility of mass altering time turner implications. In fact, the point is taken for granted as trivially true and they put the actual (im)practical implications thereof into perspective.
. In particular they overestimate the relevence of their expertise to things that are not central to their actual professional or academic practice.
This.
Expertise is not integrated instantaneously across fields, and to the extent one field relies on another, it can be making basic mistakes corrected elsewhere decades ago.
Next up: The Litany of the Déformation professionnelle.
One of the most robust findings in studies of expertise is that unless the expertise is in callibration itself (eg. gambling) experts are systematically overconfident. In particular they overestimate the relevence of their expertise to things that are not central to their actual professional or academic practice. For example a neurobiologist with no training in information theory may tend to place inordinate trust in their intuition “it is theoretically impossible to recover information from that brain” without realising how different that question is from the fact that they actually do know, “it isn’t possible for us to repair that brain to functioning condition in place”.
In the case of the time turner thread that motivates this post we have an example of believing that some knowledge of General Relativity is sufficient to make one an expert at solving engineering problems in a counterfactual physical reality rather than merely being necessary. The most insightful comments in that thread don’t do anything to challenge the impossibility of mass altering time turner implications. In fact, the point is taken for granted as trivially true and they put the actual (im)practical implications thereof into perspective.
This.
Expertise is not integrated instantaneously across fields, and to the extent one field relies on another, it can be making basic mistakes corrected elsewhere decades ago.
“Send in the clergy, they can move diagonally!”
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1776