When you're thinking "in explicit mode" -- seriously trying to assess probabilities, considering the possibility that your own judgement might be in error, etc. -- you should (1) take account of your feelings and hunches and whatnot, but (2) not take them at face value. E.g., Douglas Crockford should think "This is only a gut feeling, but I've found that my gut feelings in this field are right much more often than they're wrong. So my gut feeling is good evidence."
This evidence is (at least in principle) communicable. In fact, it seems like to some extent it's been successfully communicated to you. If Douglas Crockford ever tells you of a gut feeling he has about something related to good Javascript programming style, you will take it seriously and may well modify how you write your code.
Now, if Crockford is operating in system-1 mode instead, just going with what his gut tells him, then indeed his evidence isn't communicable to you. I don't see why this is of more concern than the fact that when a cricket fielder is catching a ball, the information his eyes are feeding him that helps him catch the ball isn't communicable to you.
I don't see why this is of more concern than the fact that when a cricket fielder is catching a ball, the information his eyes are feeding him that helps him catch the ball isn't communicable to you.
Hmm; seems like that's the whole point of the article. When you're evaluating claims, you prefer communicable information because that''s the social standard. The moral is that that's often unnecessary or misguided. So, your response seems like hindsight bias to me.
In this video, Douglas Crockford (JavaScript MASTER) says:
1
I don't think he has "absolutely no evidence". In worlds where DOUGLAS CROCKFORD has a gut feeling about something related to programming, how often does that gut feeling end up being correct? Probably a lot more than 50% of the time. So according to Bayes, his gut feeling is definitely evidence.
The problem isn't that he lacks evidence. It's that he lacks communicable evidence. He can't say "I believe A because X, Y and Z." The best he could do is say, "just trust me, I have a feeling about this".
Well, "just trust me, I have a feeling about this" does qualify as evidence if you have a good track record, but my point is that he can't communicate the rest of the evidence his brain used to produce the resulting belief.
2
How do you handle a situation where you're having a conversation with someone and they say, "I can't explain why I believe X; I just do."
Well, as far as updating beliefs, I think the best you could do is update on the track record of the person. I don't see any way around it. For example, you should update your beliefs when you hear Douglas Crockford say that he has a gut feeling about something related to programming. But I don't see how you could do any further updating of your beliefs. You can't actually see the evidence he used, so you can't use it to update your beliefs. If you do, the Bayes Police will come find you.
Perhaps it's also worth trying to dig the evidence out of the other persons subconscious.
3
Ok, now let's talk about what you shouldn't do. You shouldn't say, "Well if you can't provide any evidence, you shouldn't believe what you do." The problem with that statement is that it assumes that the person has "no evidence". This was addressed in Section 1. It's akin to saying, "Well Douglas Crockford, you're telling me that you believe X and you have a fantastic track record, but I don't know anything about why you believe it, so I'm not going to update my beliefs at all, and you shouldn't either."
Brains are weird and fantastic thingys. They process information and produce outputs in the form of beliefs (amongst other things). Sometimes they're nice and they say, "Ok Adam - here is what you believe, and here is why you believe it". Other times they're not so nice and the conversation goes like this:
Just because brains could be mean doesn't mean they should be discounted.