Friday, May 26, 2017

Healthy Skepticism

Experts, experts, experts.  So many to read and hear, so little time.  Empowered by the Internet, millions of us are trying to influence millions of us, myself of course included.  Should you listen to me?  That’s your call.  In fact, I repeatedly have advised that neither I nor any other expert can provide the fine grained advice that any rational person needs to decide whether what is offered is applicable to them.  Everything must be filtered through unique features of yourself and your essential contexts.

To reinforce the reasonableness of my skepticism regarding experts, let’s think about the beliefs of two legendary Nobel Prize winners: Albert Einstein and Paul Krugman.

As many of you know, Einstein vigorously disputed what has come to be called quantum physics.  For instance, in cynically doubting a portion of the theory he infamously wrote in 1926 that God does not play dice with the universe.  At that particular point in time, had interest in quantum physics evaporated, we quite likely would not now have computers, smartphones, the Internet, GPS, or  MRI.     

Paul Krugman, formerly a professor at Princeton University and MIT and presently Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for The New York Times, made some infamous misstatements of his own.  Perhaps the most noteworthy of these was his prognosticating in 1998 that:

The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law"--which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants--becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.

The Krugman quote is supremely ironic in that he made his prediction in an article that he penned entitled, “Why most economists' predictions are wrong.”  No big thing?  For at least thousand years some of the most learned Europeans asserted that the earth is the center of the universe.  When indisputable evidence accumulated to the contrary I am sure that many resisted admitted their mistake.  But I wonder if they had the unmitigated gall of Paul Krugman who in December, 2013 rationalized:

But the main point is that I don't claim any special expertise in technology -- I almost never make technological forecasts, and the only reason there was stuff like that in the 98 piece was because the assignment required that I do that sort of thing.

Shame on Time Magazine then for forcing Krugman, Nobel prize winner and former professor at  Princeton University and MIT, to make a mistake!  He surely is too brilliant to take responsibility for an erroneous statement made of his own volition.

Given human fallibility then, I encourage you to be especially cautious when exposed to information presented under the guise of expertise.  Too often we are lulled into complacency by fancy titles and prominent people.  To maintain any credibility in all of this I must admit that while cautioning you about experts, I implicitly present myself as having some expertise to dispense.

Certainly I am not arrogant or delusional enough to compare myself to Einstein or even to Krugman.  Even after 40 years of psychological practice, I am reluctant to summarily predict what will be best for you.  And since “healthy” skepticism is my default, I could not criticize you for being equally cautious about anything you read that I write, including today’s post.

References

Einstein, Albert (1926).  "I, at any rate, am convinced that [God] does not throw dice."  Letter to Max Born.

Krugman, Paul (1998).  Why most economists' predictions are wrong.  Red Herring Magazine, June.


Yarow, J. (2013).  Paul Krugman Responds To All The People Throwing Around His Old Internet Quote.  Business Insider.  http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-responds-to-internet-quote-2013-12.

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