You’ve left me very curious as to what high status beliefs you think are inaccurate.
Trouble is, the fact that they are high-status means that contradicting them without a very good supporting argument (and usually even otherwise) will make one sound like a crackpot or extremist of some sort.
Nevertheless, I think there are some examples that shouldn’t sound too controversial. Take for example modern economics, and macroeconomics in particular. Our governments do many things based on what passes for professional scientific expertise in this field, and if this supposed expertise is detached from reality, the policies based on it can result in catastrophically bad consequences in many imaginable ways. Arguably, this has happened in many times and places historically, some arguable examples being the Great Depression and the present global economic crisis.
Now, to put it bluntly, I see no rational reason to believe that macroeconomists have any clue about anything. The greatest luminaries of scholarship in this field always espouse theories that are suspiciously convenient for their ideological agenda, and are apt to dismiss their equally prestigious ideological opponents as crackpots (more or less diplomatically, depending on the occasion). What’s more, even a casual inquiry into the epistemological standards in the field reveals an awfully bad situation, with all signs of cargo cult science plainly obvious.
Accordingly, one is tempted to conclude that all these sophisticated and supposedly scientific economic policies have never been much more than ideologically-driven dilettantism (except for a few elementary principles of political economy that have been well understood since antiquity), and we’re just lucky that the economy is resilient enough not to be damaged by it too catastrophically. But even if one doesn’t draw such a strong conclusion, it certainly seems to me the height of irrationality to worry about petty folkish superstitions that anyone with any intellectual status scoffs at, while at the same time our prosperity is in the hands of people who dabble with it using “expertise” that at least partly consists of evident pseudoscience, but nevertheless gets to be adorned with the most prestigious academic titles.
I can think of many other examples, most of which are likely to be more controversial.
I can think of many other examples, most of which are likely to be more controversial.
One way to initiate discussion about them without lowering your status would be to include them among a larger list of high-status beliefs, with the list sufficiently large that everyone thinks the experts wrong on some of them.
E.g., Say “I think that one or more of the following fifty high status opinions are wrong,” and then make your list.
I can think of many other examples, most of which are likely to be more controversial.
I’ve already read many of your excellent comments and now I’m just too curious about your ideas. Would you mind writing me a PM elucidating your theories?
NMJablonski:
Trouble is, the fact that they are high-status means that contradicting them without a very good supporting argument (and usually even otherwise) will make one sound like a crackpot or extremist of some sort.
Nevertheless, I think there are some examples that shouldn’t sound too controversial. Take for example modern economics, and macroeconomics in particular. Our governments do many things based on what passes for professional scientific expertise in this field, and if this supposed expertise is detached from reality, the policies based on it can result in catastrophically bad consequences in many imaginable ways. Arguably, this has happened in many times and places historically, some arguable examples being the Great Depression and the present global economic crisis.
Now, to put it bluntly, I see no rational reason to believe that macroeconomists have any clue about anything. The greatest luminaries of scholarship in this field always espouse theories that are suspiciously convenient for their ideological agenda, and are apt to dismiss their equally prestigious ideological opponents as crackpots (more or less diplomatically, depending on the occasion). What’s more, even a casual inquiry into the epistemological standards in the field reveals an awfully bad situation, with all signs of cargo cult science plainly obvious.
Accordingly, one is tempted to conclude that all these sophisticated and supposedly scientific economic policies have never been much more than ideologically-driven dilettantism (except for a few elementary principles of political economy that have been well understood since antiquity), and we’re just lucky that the economy is resilient enough not to be damaged by it too catastrophically. But even if one doesn’t draw such a strong conclusion, it certainly seems to me the height of irrationality to worry about petty folkish superstitions that anyone with any intellectual status scoffs at, while at the same time our prosperity is in the hands of people who dabble with it using “expertise” that at least partly consists of evident pseudoscience, but nevertheless gets to be adorned with the most prestigious academic titles.
I can think of many other examples, most of which are likely to be more controversial.
One way to initiate discussion about them without lowering your status would be to include them among a larger list of high-status beliefs, with the list sufficiently large that everyone thinks the experts wrong on some of them.
E.g., Say “I think that one or more of the following fifty high status opinions are wrong,” and then make your list.
I’ve already read many of your excellent comments and now I’m just too curious about your ideas. Would you mind writing me a PM elucidating your theories?