JamesCole comments on A social norm against unjustified opinions? - Less Wrong

11 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 29 May 2009 11:25AM

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Comment author: JamesCole 29 May 2009 02:01:24PM 4 points [-]

If we had in place a social norm demanding an adequate amount of background knowledge on the topic before anyone voiced an opinion they expected to be taken seriously, the signal/noise ratio might be somewhat improved.

Unfortunately that'd skew things towards the status quo.

Advances in knowledge often come from taking a very different angle on a problem, by someone who isn't immersed -- and thus not necessarily knowledgeable in -- the existing viewpoints about the problem (e.g. by amateurs or people from different fields).

Ultimately a person's view should be judged just on its own merits.

Comment author: AdeleneDawner 29 May 2009 06:11:30PM 1 point [-]

Actually, counting personal experience as relevant research would counteract this effect in most situations.

I'd like to hear a workable way of making that happen, though. In my experience, in any controversial situation, admitting to basing an opinion on personal experience just opens yourself up to personal attacks.

Comment author: Ozymandias_King 31 May 2009 01:37:44PM 0 points [-]

IAWY, but

It's easy to overestimate the size of this effect.

  • We would expect a priori that more information is useful
  • We often don't know how much the person who succeeds where others fail in fact did know.
  • "The Wright Brothers succeeding despite lack of experience/knowledge" -story is more easily remembered and spread because it's feels better.
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