You recast his argument as proposing specialization, though he nowhere uses the word “specialize” or any variant, and I think it is misleading, overly forgiving actually, to think of it as specialization, as I will explain.
One of the main early proponents of the idea of specialization, who is responsible for its current well-deserved high esteem, was Adam Smith, but he was talking about specialization within a market. Now, in a market, is very strongly the case that non-specialists constantly judge the quality of your work, because shoddy specialized work is quickly perceptible to a non-specialist. For example, I know nothing about how cars are built these days, but I can easily tell whether my car runs, whether it breaks down, whether repairs are expensive, how much gas it uses, and so on. There is little, perhaps nothing at all, that really matters about the quality of a car that cannot ultimately be discovered by non-specialists without all that much difficulty.
So in the case of specialization in a market, the output of specialists is thoroughly and intensely judged by non-specialists, and they are competent to judge. What Robin Hanson is proposing is not this. He is not proposing a system of specialization in which the output of specialists is thoroughly and intensely judged by non-specialists who are competent to judge. He is proposing something close to the opposite of this. He is proposing that nonspecialists should not consider themselves competent to judge the output of specialists. He is proposing that specialists be deferred to, and that non-specialists, if they find the output of specialists to be of unacceptable quality, ignore their own senses and reason and accept the output anyway. He could not be clearer:
You should mostly just avoid having opinions on the subject. But if you must have reliable opinions, average expert opinions are probably still your best bet.
The system of specialization that he advocates is massively different from the rightly highly-valued system of specialization in the marketplace, in which every specialist is continually judged by his non-specialist customers. What Hanson advocates is deferring to authority. He does not clearly explain who these authorities are—sometimes he uses the word “academic” and sometimes the word “expert”. He briefly mentions that a person who has educated himself in the subject can learn how to identify an expert. But this is inconsistent with his overall message—for, if it were really up to each individual to decide for himself who is and who is not an “expert”, then that would completely undermine Hanson’s recommendation that one defer to “experts”, since, obviously, if I am allowed by Hanson to pick who I consider an “expert”, I am likely to pick the people who I find convincing, and therefore the people who I agree with, in which case I have in effect placed my own opinion back on the throne from which he has taken pains to remove it. This seems an inconsistency, and I resolve it by understanding Hanson to mean that we must defer to authority defined, not by ourselves, but by some outside system for establishing authority. And since he uses the term, “academic”, what can he mean but the process that defines academics—most importantly, the process of tenure.
Long story short, Hanson is advocating a system that decides truth by process of tenure. The problem with tenure is that old, tenured faculty decide who will be tenured, and they are likely to do so in a way that preserves dogma indefinitely. We have a long-lasting and extreme model of this: the Roman Catholic Church selects priests and selects Popes by a similar process, and we can see the results. If the universities have managed to escape the fate of the Church, I think it is because they have failed to perfectly implement the system which Hanson appears to advocate. Universities, after all, must teach students, and students are outsiders, they are non-academic customers who are continually judging the quality of a college and deciding where to attend. I can go on to explain how this healthy influence has lately been deteriorating, especially in certain departments, but my comment has gone on long enough.
True that I was guessing with the specialization resolution. Also true that another way you can resolve it is by saying that Hanson thinks you should listen to academics, and since Robin himself is an esteemed academic, he is allowed to have such opinions. I am forgiving because based on his other writings (e.g., love for prediction markets), I don’t think the latter possibility is the case; I don’t think in general Hanson wants “truth by tenure”, as you describe. Also I think Hanson would agree it is a stretch to say that his specialty is labor econ.
I think what we all want here are good rating systems to judge ideas. I am guilty of this too (see above), but it’s not clear that bickering over whose sol’n to the current mess is less inconsistent is going to get us anywhere.
I think it’s not entirely clear what exactly you mean by “specialization.” In my post, I’m not addressing the question of when (if ever) it is advisable to stick your nose into topics outside of your own area of expertise, which is a fascinating topic in its own right. Rather, I am assuming that you have decided to do so and that your goal is to form a maximally accurate opinion about some such question.
So overall, I think my post is orthogonal to the issue of how much you should push yourself towards specialization, except insofar as it stops being relevant if you decide to pursue the most extreme and absolute specialization possible.
I respond to Hanson’s response here.
You recast his argument as proposing specialization, though he nowhere uses the word “specialize” or any variant, and I think it is misleading, overly forgiving actually, to think of it as specialization, as I will explain.
One of the main early proponents of the idea of specialization, who is responsible for its current well-deserved high esteem, was Adam Smith, but he was talking about specialization within a market. Now, in a market, is very strongly the case that non-specialists constantly judge the quality of your work, because shoddy specialized work is quickly perceptible to a non-specialist. For example, I know nothing about how cars are built these days, but I can easily tell whether my car runs, whether it breaks down, whether repairs are expensive, how much gas it uses, and so on. There is little, perhaps nothing at all, that really matters about the quality of a car that cannot ultimately be discovered by non-specialists without all that much difficulty.
So in the case of specialization in a market, the output of specialists is thoroughly and intensely judged by non-specialists, and they are competent to judge. What Robin Hanson is proposing is not this. He is not proposing a system of specialization in which the output of specialists is thoroughly and intensely judged by non-specialists who are competent to judge. He is proposing something close to the opposite of this. He is proposing that nonspecialists should not consider themselves competent to judge the output of specialists. He is proposing that specialists be deferred to, and that non-specialists, if they find the output of specialists to be of unacceptable quality, ignore their own senses and reason and accept the output anyway. He could not be clearer:
The system of specialization that he advocates is massively different from the rightly highly-valued system of specialization in the marketplace, in which every specialist is continually judged by his non-specialist customers. What Hanson advocates is deferring to authority. He does not clearly explain who these authorities are—sometimes he uses the word “academic” and sometimes the word “expert”. He briefly mentions that a person who has educated himself in the subject can learn how to identify an expert. But this is inconsistent with his overall message—for, if it were really up to each individual to decide for himself who is and who is not an “expert”, then that would completely undermine Hanson’s recommendation that one defer to “experts”, since, obviously, if I am allowed by Hanson to pick who I consider an “expert”, I am likely to pick the people who I find convincing, and therefore the people who I agree with, in which case I have in effect placed my own opinion back on the throne from which he has taken pains to remove it. This seems an inconsistency, and I resolve it by understanding Hanson to mean that we must defer to authority defined, not by ourselves, but by some outside system for establishing authority. And since he uses the term, “academic”, what can he mean but the process that defines academics—most importantly, the process of tenure.
Long story short, Hanson is advocating a system that decides truth by process of tenure. The problem with tenure is that old, tenured faculty decide who will be tenured, and they are likely to do so in a way that preserves dogma indefinitely. We have a long-lasting and extreme model of this: the Roman Catholic Church selects priests and selects Popes by a similar process, and we can see the results. If the universities have managed to escape the fate of the Church, I think it is because they have failed to perfectly implement the system which Hanson appears to advocate. Universities, after all, must teach students, and students are outsiders, they are non-academic customers who are continually judging the quality of a college and deciding where to attend. I can go on to explain how this healthy influence has lately been deteriorating, especially in certain departments, but my comment has gone on long enough.
True that I was guessing with the specialization resolution. Also true that another way you can resolve it is by saying that Hanson thinks you should listen to academics, and since Robin himself is an esteemed academic, he is allowed to have such opinions. I am forgiving because based on his other writings (e.g., love for prediction markets), I don’t think the latter possibility is the case; I don’t think in general Hanson wants “truth by tenure”, as you describe. Also I think Hanson would agree it is a stretch to say that his specialty is labor econ.
I think what we all want here are good rating systems to judge ideas. I am guilty of this too (see above), but it’s not clear that bickering over whose sol’n to the current mess is less inconsistent is going to get us anywhere.
Andy,
I think it’s not entirely clear what exactly you mean by “specialization.” In my post, I’m not addressing the question of when (if ever) it is advisable to stick your nose into topics outside of your own area of expertise, which is a fascinating topic in its own right. Rather, I am assuming that you have decided to do so and that your goal is to form a maximally accurate opinion about some such question.
So overall, I think my post is orthogonal to the issue of how much you should push yourself towards specialization, except insofar as it stops being relevant if you decide to pursue the most extreme and absolute specialization possible.