Attack on/Defence of Science split from EP141

[eytanz]

Actually, I was going to comment that my favorite thing about the story was the portrayal of the scientists.  It's a prevalent and dangerous fallacy in Western culture that anyone with "Doctor" in front of their name is perfectly objective, unbiased and knowledgeable about whatever they happen to be talking about at the moment.  In this way scientists are often treated like shamans or priests who have all the answers and don't need to say how they got them.  This story portrayed scientists as people with the same sort of concerns and biases that everyone else has.

True, it's possible and quite likely to go all the other way. But that doesn't excuse being so sloppy here. It's not the fact that they were biased that bothered me. They were biased to a degree that most people are not. They were not arguing about anything, not trying to convince each other. They were just spouting random causes.

Also, you have to seperate personal bias from professional behavior. As I and other have complained above, the whole "we must have an expalantion for this before we go public or we won't get funding" is just not how the scientific community works. There are whole different sets of levels of publications you go through, different forums to address, and no real scientist would be ignorant of that. Of course, it's always possible that a scientist would let his or her personal biases override their professional behavior, and try to suppress information or not publish it, maybe to prevent a collegue from being proven right. But a scientific institution that has three scientists who act that way is just ridiculous.

It's perfectly plausible to have scientists who are biased and let that color their judgements. That can (and has been) the basis of many good stories. But this isn't one of them (at least as far as that aspect goes. As I've also said, I did quite enjoy the love story angle).

[Czhorat]

Actually, I was going to comment that my favorite thing about the story was the portrayal of the scientists.  It's a prevalent and dangerous fallacy in Western culture that anyone with "Doctor" in front of their name is perfectly objective, unbiased and knowledgeable about whatever they happen to be talking about at the moment.  In this way scientists are often treated like shamans or priests who have all the answers and don't need to say how they got them.  This story portrayed scientists as people with the same sort of concerns and biases that everyone else has.

I disagree about biases in society. There's a strain of right-wing anti-intellectual populism that insists that experts don't know anything more than anybody else. You can find it, for example, in opposition to laws against corporal punishment applied to very young children. Child development experts say that a child under the age of three does not best learn by being hit and can not even connect the punishment with whatever he or she did wrong. The right-wing answer to this is always something along the lines of "who are they to know better than me how to raise my children?" Experts who've spent countless thousands of hours studying the topic, that's who. Similarly, opposition to global warming or the teaching of evolution by people who aren't climatologists or biologists. Scientists and other experts are often wrong and are humans with biases, but their opinions within their areas of expertise are worth more than those of the layperson.

The one insists on a hoax because admitting that Creationism could be right will make him a laughingstock.  The other will not accept the possibility of a hoax because (presumably) she secretly wants Creationism to be proved.  The third scientist will not accept either option because the idea of time travel so appeals to his imagination.  Cartoonish?  Maybe, but I find it absolutely refreshing after seeing unnamed "scientists" and "experts" quoted as absolute authorities on everything every day in the Associated Press.

What bothered me and, I think, eyetanz is that there wasn't even an attempt to make the debate sound scientific. It's the find of the century from a huge dig, but only three people know about it. Once alleged scientist decides to throw away decades of accumulated evidence for evolution because some of those people at the Creationist institute "have good credentials". She even bothers to hand-wave away the evidence against her position; she and the other two scientists just don't seem to realize it exists. The discussion devolves into a shouting match and never gets back on track. I know grade school kids who act more like scientists than these.

[Mr. Tweedy]

I disagree about biases in society. There's a strain of right-wing anti-intellectual populism that insists that experts don't know anything more than anybody else. You can find it, for example, in opposition to laws against corporal punishment applied to very young children. Child development experts say that a child under the age of three does not best learn by being hit and can not even connect the punishment with whatever he or she did wrong. The right-wing answer to this is always something along the lines of "who are they to know better than me how to raise my children?" Experts who've spent countless thousands of hours studying the topic, that's who.

Okay, that's exactly what I mean.  The idea that a kid under three cannot connect wrongdoing with punishment is stupid (stupid).  I happen to be raising a 20 month old and my accumulated experimental data tells me that she knows very well when she is doing something that merits punishment.  She knows that throwing toys at her little sister merits a spanking.  You can see standing there, thinking about it, weighing the pleasure of throwing a Weeble against the pain of a spanking.  Sometimes she decides not to throw it.  When she yields to temptation and does throw, she immediately turns and runs from the scene of the crime, because she knows that a spanking is coming.  This is one of the many, many cases in which "experts" tell me something that completely contradicts my own experience, observation and logic.

I have two options available to me: 1.) Accept on blind faith that Norah does not understand cause and effect (even though my observation clearly shows that she does) or 2.) conclude that "experts" are full of shit.

Another obvious example: Over the past thirty years, the "expert" opinion about global warming has totally changed.  In the 1970s the experts said we were on the cusp of a new ice age and that glaciers would be plowing through NYC within a few years.  Now the experts say catastrophic warming is going flood NYC.  (NYC can't win, it seems.)  Are the experts now just that much smarter than the experts 30 years ago?  If so, then why should we expect the experts today are right?  Isn't it quite likely that the experts of 2040 will be saying something that blatantly contradicts the experts of 2007, just as the experts of 2007 contradict the experts of 1975?

Science marches on you say?  We know more now than we knew then?  Perhaps, but every generation's experts have said that.

So, for myself: I will not blindly trust the word of self-proclaimed experts.  I have my own brain and my city has a library.  I use both.  You can call that "right-wing anti-intellectual populism" if you please.

[eytanz]

So, for myself: I will not blindly trust the word of self-proclaimed experts.  I have my own brain and my city has a library.  I use both.  You can call that "right-wing anti-intellectual populism" if you please.

No, I call that being rational and skeptical, which is laudable rather than objectionable. Except for the part about the experts being "self-proclaimed", which is a different issue.

But at the same time, being skeptical and questioning received wisdom is not an excuse to trivialize those experts.

Being a scientist isn't about being right or wrong. It's about applying knowledge in a methodological way. There have been a lot of cases where it failed, but many, many more cases where it was right. Do you question the "experts" that developed the technology that allows these forums to exist and for you to read it?

The whole *point* of science is that what was known 20 years ago is less than what is known now. It's always about getting better. Now, sure, a lot of times there will be mistakes, and herd mentality sets in, and all those flaws of human nature show up. But the reason these are so problematic are because the scientists themselves don't realize this - they think they are being critical and methodological when they stopped doing either.

There were two things wrong with the scientists in this story. As myself and others said above, the description of the grant and publication culture is just wrong. I'm not defending the current culture - there is a lot of stuff wrong with it - but it just isn't the one depicted in this story. You work in advertising, right? If I were to write a story about advertising agents that get their campaign ideas by sacrificing a goat and reading its entrails for signals, you would not take that as an accurate depiction of advertising, even if the characters themselves were positive. That's about as accurate as this story was.

The other thing that was wrong, is that the scientists here are not even lying to themselves about being scientific. They are not being biased by anything - they have totally abandoned all scientific discourse and replaced it with the kind of discourse that science becomes when it has been filtered down to USA today. Compare this story to The Giving Plague. The characters in that story were also scientists. And they had agendas, personal and political, that affected their science quite blatently. But they didn't just throw the agendas at each other to the exclusion of the actual science. They engaged in scientific debate *AND* were biased at the same time.

This story is a caricature of scientists. You may appreciate the caricature, which is fine. But you should recognize that it is a caricature, and nowhere near a realistic portrayal of how these issues actually come into play.

[Mr. Tweedy]

Being a scientist isn't about being right or wrong. It's about applying knowledge in a methodological way.

Yes!!!  Quick, run and tell that to the people at ABC, CNN, the Associated Press, Time, my junior-high biology teacher and please, please, tell it to my senator.

Do you question the "experts" that developed the technology that allows these forums to exist and for you to read it?

Yes.  And the evidence of my observation leads me to conclude that, yes, those people are indeed experts, because the forum works.  They have proved their expertise.  When "experts" ask me to believe things that either don't make sense or for which they have sketchy proof, then I doubt that they are experts in anything but name.  If someone claimed to be an expert programmer but was unable to write a working forum, then I would conclude that they were a charlatan.

This story is a caricature of scientists. You may appreciate the caricature, which is fine. But you should recognize that it is a caricature, and nowhere near a realistic portrayal of how these issues actually come into play.

Oh, I know it's a caricature.  I appreciate it as a telling satire, not as an accurate portrayal.

[sirana]

I'm sorry if I got that that wrong and I really hope I did, but Mr. Tweedy, did I just read you correctly that you hit your 20 month old daughter?

[eytanz]

Being a scientist isn't about being right or wrong. It's about applying knowledge in a methodological way.

Yes!!!  Quick, run and tell that to the people at ABC, CNN, the Associated Press, Time, my junior-high biology teacher and please, please, tell it to my senator.

Why? Are any of those people scientists?

This story is a caricature of scientists. You may appreciate the caricature, which is fine. But you should recognize that it is a caricature, and nowhere near a realistic portrayal of how these issues actually come into play.

Oh, I know it's a caricature.  I appreciate it as a telling satire, not as an accurate portrayal.

Ok, point sort of granted, in that if you choose to view this story as satire, then my objections don't hold. Whether it's a "telling" satire is a different matter.

I wrote in my first post that the scientists here feel like TV scientists. I still think that's the case. It feels like it was written by someone who gets their understanding of scientists from ABC, CNN, the Associated Press, Time, their biology teachers, and their senators, not like a satire of scientists spent by anyone who actually had spent some time with actual scientists and seen how they work.

[Mr. Tweedy]

Being a scientist isn't about being right or wrong. It's about applying knowledge in a methodological way.

Yes!!!  Quick, run and tell that to the people at ABC, CNN, the Associated Press, Time, my junior-high biology teacher and please, please, tell it to my senator.

Why? Are any of those people scientists?

No.  They are people who mold the public perception of science and/or make laws based on their own understandings of what science is and what it's proven.  These people do damage when they fail to distinguish between what science has demonstrated and what particular scientists are claiming.  If scientist are regarded (by lay-people) as infallible, then that distinction vanishes.

[deflective]

Over the past thirty years, the "expert" opinion about global warming has totally changed.  In the 1970s the experts said we were on the cusp of a new ice age and that glaciers would be plowing through NYC within a few years.  Now the experts say catastrophic warming is going flood NYC.

i hesitate to respond to what looks like a deliberate troll but discussion here is generally pretty genuine.

you've linked to an article that's beginning includes the phrase "this hypothesis never had significant scientific support" and used it to claim a change in scientific opinion. you've done this by linking directly to the part of the article that refers to journalistic coverage.

i appreciate the point you were trying to make: you know your own daughter better than people who have never met her. but you've made that point in such a way that, in a scientific forum, you would have damaged your credibility. maybe permanently.

a difference in rigor is what separates casual argument from scientific debate (actual scientific debate, not the theater that gets played out in the media) and it was what was missing from the dialog. eytanz *edit: and Czhorat* provided excellent examples of this early in the thread.

[eytanz]

No.  They are people who mold the public perception of science and/or make laws based on their own understandings of what science is and what it's proven.  These people do damage when they fail to distinguish between what science has demonstrated and what particular scientists are claiming.  If scientist are regarded (by lay-people) as infallible, then that distinction vanishes.

Ok, I get that. But given that, I get the following message from the story: "For years the media and the politicians have simplified science and presented it in black-and-white terms. Here is a story where the scientists really act the way in that manner. But that isn't really important to the plot other than the fact that is a catalyst for the main protagonist to discover his wife is a time-traveller."

How is that a telling satire? Satire is supposed to take something ridiculous and show that it is ridiculous. This story seems to just play it straight.

[Mr. Tweedy]

I concede that I am not a professional scientist and am not at all involved in work of the scientists I do know.  My perceptions of scientists comes almost completely from magazines, news stories and popular science books.  Consequently, it is possible that my perceptions are completely wrong and come entirely from shallow media coverage, badly-written books and disingenuous filmmakers.

That said, my perception of scientist is such that I find this story to offer an apt satire.

EDIT: No, actually I take that back.  I know that many "experts" are total charlatans.  Like the gynecologist who diagnosed my wife's endometriosis as psychosomatic.  Like the doctor who diagnosed some children I know as developmentally disable just because no one had ever taught them to read.  Like the psychiatrist who tells me friend that the solution to her depression is to take drugs and attend therapy rather than cease her self-destructive lifestyle.

I actually feel quite comfortable saying that a not insignificant percentage of people with impressive credentials are dishonest or incompetent, based on my experience with them even if on nothing else.

[eytanz]

So, do you always tend to judge large groups of people by the worst examples of them?

[Mr. Tweedy]

So, do you always tend to judge large groups of people by the worst examples of them?

No.  But if I know that if a significant number of people within a group are incompetent, then membership in that group is not, of itself, enough to impress me.

That a manager is a manager does mean he is good at managing.  That a preacher is a preacher does not mean he is good at preaching.  That a governor is a governor does not mean he is good at governing.  That a scientist is a scientist does not mean that he is good at science.

In any of those four categories (or most any other), it is my opinion that there are a significant number of people who do not deserve the respect their titles afford them and that it is therefore foolish to assume honesty or competence on the basis of titles.

And I leave this argument here.  There was too much fun stuff in this story for the discussion to be consumed by this particular issue.

[qwints]

 I know that many "experts" are total charlatans. Like the gynecologist who diagnosed my wife's endometriosis as psychosomatic.  Like the doctor who diagnosed some children I know as developmentally disable just because no one had ever taught them to read.  Like the psychiatrist who tells me friend that the solution to her depression is to take drugs and attend therapy rather than cease her self-destructive lifestyle. 

I actually feel quite comfortable saying that a not insignificant percentage of people with impressive credentials are dishonest or incompetent, based on my experience with them even if on nothing else.

Being wrong on one occasion doesn't mean that someone is a charlatan. Experts aren't perfect. You may have encountered some people who treated you poorly and were wrong but that doesn't even mean that they were poorly informed much less that their entire field is idiotic. And your trust of managers over scientists is laughable. Hard science is an incredibly difficult field, and while there are some who call themselves scientists who do a poor job, there is no doubt in my mind that anyone who can consistently publish in peer reviewed journals is good at what they do.

Also, linking to a wikipedia article on a newsweek article says nothing about what the scientific consensus says then or now. I really expected better of you Mr. Tweedy.

As to how this relates to the story, while I believe that the motivations depicted in the story could quite possibly be present in scientists, they wouldn't couch their arguments in the way depicted in the story. The dialog in the story is just them yelling that I'm right because nothing else is possible.

[Czhorat]

Okay, that's exactly what I mean.  The idea that a kid under three cannot connect wrongdoing with punishment is stupid (stupid).  I happen to be raising a 20 month old and my accumulated experimental data tells me that she knows very well when she is doing something that merits punishment.  She knows that throwing toys at her little sister merits a spanking.  You can see standing there, thinking about it, weighing the pleasure of throwing a Weeble against the pain of a spanking.  Sometimes she decides not to throw it.  When she yields to temptation and does throw, she immediately turns and runs from the scene of the crime, because she knows that a spanking is coming.  This is one of the many, many cases in which "experts" tell me something that completely contradicts my own experience, observation and logic.

You're almost not even worth replying to. In the case of hitting your young child it is quite possible that the look on your face, verbal cues, and having been told "no" before are what stops her, not fear of physical assault. I'm surprised that you even need to resort to corporal punishment if you have the advantage of telepathy; I have a 13 month old girl and a thirtysomething year old wife, and I can't tell what either of them is thinking simply by looking at them.

The sad thing about your position here is that it falls apart even if we accept your initial incorrect premise as true. It is possible to discipline children without physically harming them. What, then, is the purpose of using physical pain? There's no doubt that it sends a message that power comes from physical strength and that violence is a solution to problems. It also has, in scientific studies, been linked to increased risk of anti-social and violent behavior later in life. If there's even a chance of this, why risk it?

I also find it sad that you seem proud of the fact that your twenty-month-old is developing a fear of you. I find it incomprehensible that you seem proud of this.

So far as global warming is concerned, today's experts aren't "smarter". They know more. How do you form opinions on things like global climate if not by listening to experts in the field? Roll dice?

And, finally, one more bit of bias I feel the need to correct.

... Like the psychiatrist who tells me friend that the solution to her depression is to take drugs and attend therapy rather than cease her self-destructive lifestyle.

The bias against treatment of mental illness. I suppose it never occurred to anyone to tell your friend to "cease her self-destructive lifestyle"? The purpose of therapy is to help someone develop the tools to do so. The purpose of medication is to help get the brain into a healthier state. To say that someone suffering mental illness should just magically get better because they want to is about as useful as saying that some quack told your diabetic friend to take drugs and watch his diet rather than just metabolize sugars like the rest of us.

[Listener]

I have a 13 month old girl and a thirtysomething year old wife, and I can't tell what either of them is thinking simply by looking at them.

I'm with you on the wife thing, but my daughter is 17.7 months old, and sometimes -- more and more often, actually -- I can tell what she's thinking or what she wants just by looking at her face and taking in her other nonverbal cues.  It's a constant voyage of discovery.

/offtopic

[Tango Alpha Delta]

Good Lord*...

Mr. Tweedy's tendency to point to one or two mistakes made by "experts", and then summarily dismiss all "experts" -- call them all charlatans along the way -- is obviously the root cause of the arguing here. 

So, a gynecologist misdiagnoses your wife: that is not good, but that is not what "charlatan" means.  A charlatan would be a guy PRETENDING to be a gynecologist, who happened to misdiagnose your wife's condition.  (Either way, second opinions are warranted.)  But you wouldn't outlaw doctors altogether and go back to barbers with whiskey and leeches just because some doctors are too tired/harried/distracted by golf/HMO'd to get your diagnosis correct.


And just as you were doing in the "heaven" thread, you're trying to make this into "that explanation was wrong, ergo, the OTHER answer (Mr. Tweedy's) must be correct."  The problem with doing that is that there are far more options on the table than just two, so you can't just leap to yours because you eliminate one other.  That's what the so-called scientists in the story were doing, and that's what all of the real-life scientist types were objecting to.

Science is the PROCESS of trying to find the Answers.  Scientists who claim to have the Answers should know better, and scientists rarely make that claim.  Scientists say "maybe the answer is this," and if it is, they use that knowledge to build on the next answer.  If it isn't, they also use THAT knowledge to build on the next answer.

Yes, laymen should use common sense to try to figure out whether the information they get is accurate... but issuing a blanket statement that any "expert" is a fraud trying to dupe you is just as silly, illogical, and unfounded as saying that a time traveler is responsible for putting a bone in a pit with no other evidence to support the statement.


As for corporal punishment, there are studies and experts on both sides of that issue.  My personal observation is that it isn't the specific kind of punishment that matters, but the follow through on a "threat".  I put it in quotes because I'm sure there is a better term, but that word come with a built in if/then statement.  When teaching our little ones simple lessons like "don't touch the stove", we would say, "No!  Hot!" whenever they reached out.  When they looked at us, smiled impishly, and reached out again -- purposely testing the boundary -- we would repeat, "No!  Hot!" and slap their little hands.  "Slap" does not mean "harm".  "Slap" means, associate this unpleasant feeling with touching the stove.  If they still managed to touch the stove... they got burned... which is what we were trying to avoid.  Next time I tell them "No, Hot!" they remember the pain, and they listen.  I would rather they remember a short-term slap than a long-term blister, but that isn't always up to me.

But my point is, don't confuse spanking with "beating" or plain hitting; every kid is different, and some will only respond to harsher (by your standards) treatment.  The key is making sure you are consistent, follow through on what you say, and don't react out of anger.

*referring to Jack Lord, of course.

[Kurt Faler]

I concede that I am not a professional scientist and am not at all involved in work of the scientists I do know.  My perceptions of scientists comes almost completely from magazines, news stories and popular science books.  Consequently, it is possible that my perceptions are completely wrong and come entirely from shallow media coverage, badly-written books and disingenuous filmmakers.

That said, my perception of scientist is such that I find this story to offer an apt satire.

EDIT: No, actually I take that back.  I know that many "experts" are total charlatans.  Like the gynecologist who diagnosed my wife's endometriosis as psychosomatic.  Like the doctor who diagnosed some children I know as developmentally disable just because no one had ever taught them to read.  Like the psychiatrist who tells me friend that the solution to her depression is to take drugs and attend therapy rather than cease her self-destructive lifestyle.

I actually feel quite comfortable saying that a not insignificant percentage of people with impressive credentials are dishonest or incompetent, based on my experience with them even if on nothing else.

There are so many offensive and illogical statements in that post that were you just a troll I would give you a medal. Since your not, I believe, a troll, I will just give you a shake of my head and not bother to read anymore of your posts. I think I can speak for the world by saying "This is why we can't have nice things."

[Thaurismunths]

Good Lord*...

Mr. Tweedy's tendency to point to one or two mistakes made by "experts", and then summarily dismiss all "experts" -- call them all charlatans along the way -- is obviously the root cause of the arguing here. 
---
And just as you were doing in the "heaven" thread, you're trying to make this into "that explanation was wrong, ergo, the OTHER answer (Mr. Tweedy's) must be correct."  The problem with doing that is that there are far more options on the table than just two, so you can't just leap to yours because you eliminate one other.  That's what the so-called scientists in the story were doing, and that's what all of the real-life scientist types were objecting to.

Science is the PROCESS of trying to find the Answers.  Scientists who claim to have the Answers should know better, and scientists rarely make that claim.  Scientists say "maybe the answer is this," and if it is, they use that knowledge to build on the next answer.  If it isn't, they also use THAT knowledge to build on the next answer.

Yes, laymen should use common sense to try to figure out whether the information they get is accurate... but issuing a blanket statement that any "expert" is a fraud trying to dupe you is just as silly, illogical, and unfounded as saying that a time traveler is responsible for putting a bone in a pit with no other evidence to support the statement.

I stumbled on to this blog post the other day and believe it timely.
"I’m a stickler about the use of words like “evidence” and “proof”. So if someone tells you there’s no evidence for some controversial belief, you can be fairly confident that they’re a bad scientist. There’s always evidence, or there wouldn’t be a controversy. If somebody says that “we proved that this was true” or “we set out to prove that this was true” that’s another bad sign. The point here, as [Karl] Popper noted, among others, is that you can never prove anything is true; you can only refute it. So researchers who talk about proving a hypothesis is true rather than testing it make me worried."

"...you can never prove anything is true; you can only refute it." I believe that is the backbone of all of Mr. Tweedy's arguments. He doesn't try to 'prove' anything, or provide 'evidence'. Instead he refutes or outright rejects the evidence of others and demands/provokes others to prove it to him. The end result is that if you can't prove yourself right, but don't pull the same trick on him, then it looks like he's right. It's a jade's trick that's nicely illustrated in Thank You For Smoking.

[eytanz]

I stumbled on to this blog post the other day and believe it timely.
"I’m a stickler about the use of words like “evidence” and “proof”. So if someone tells you there’s no evidence for some controversial belief, you can be fairly confident that they’re a bad scientist. There’s always evidence, or there wouldn’t be a controversy. If somebody says that “we proved that this was true” or “we set out to prove that this was true” that’s another bad sign. The point here, as [Karl] Popper noted, among others, is that you can never prove anything is true; you can only refute it. So researchers who talk about proving a hypothesis is true rather than testing it make me worried."

"...you can never prove anything is true; you can only refute it." I believe that is the backbone of all of Mr. Tweedy's arguments. He doesn't try to 'prove' anything, or provide 'evidence'. Instead he refutes or outright rejects the evidence of others and demands/provokes others to prove it to him. The end result is that if you can't prove yourself right, but don't pull the same trick on him, then it looks like he's right. It's a jade's trick that's nicely illustrated in Thank You For Smoking.

I think that's a fair critique of Tweedy's posting style, but I don't think it's a fair interpretation of the person that blog post is quoting - there's a whole lot of difference between Popper's view of science (which is, the only definitive kind of evidence is negative evidence; positive evidence just shows that your hypothesis is viable, not that it's right) and the rhetorical trick you are mentioning, which involves trying to argue for your point of view simply by negating others.

[shwankie]

I also think it's important to realize to that experts, including doctors, can only work with the information they have available to them.

Of course it is horrible that Mr. Tweedy's wife was misdiagnosed, and yes, that particular doctor could also be inept (at best). I have certainly been to doctors, lawyers, and mechanics who are morons. I've also come to realize, however, that it is often the information *I* present that determines the outcome--not ineptness on the "expert's" part. This is true in science, as well. Just because something changes does not mean the scientist's initial conclusion was inept. As technology gets better, and the world becomes more accepting of science instead of burning practitioners at the stake as heretics, the "experts" simply have more information available to them, which may indicate that the theory/conclusion made with initial data needs to be revised. That doesn't make them inept or quacks, it makes them reasonable human beings. It's like growing up: you learn to see the world differently as you have different experiences. Your view will change on everything from how you feel about yourself and others to what kind of job you want. Most people would consider themselves "experts" about themselves, but their changing conclusions as they receive more data doesn't make them charlatans (which is a gross misuse of the word anyway, as pointed out earlier), or inept.

The (mis)diagnosis of Mr. Tweedy's wife was obviously a problem. However, it possible that her initial symptoms-- as presented--would be consistent with more than one thing. Doctors, like other experts, are not omniscient. Painful sex, for example, can be caused by MANY things, including vulvadynia, vagisimus, and endometriosis. And those are just the "medical" causes. Start adding in things like fatigue, lack of hydration, emotional stress/trauma, and there's a lot for a doctor to work through. So, for example, if painful sex was presented as the only symptom by a patient, it could lead to a variety of reasonable conclusions. Should a doctor test for all of those things? That's arguable, but generally it's accepted that you start with the simplest answer and work your way from there. Tests are often expensive and invasive, and unless we want to get into an argument about our nation's healthcare, let's just say that it's not always reasonable to test for everything that may or may not be wrong. Since vagisimus usually also has a large mental aspect to it, often being brought on by stress, trauma, or upbringing, it could be called "psychosematic." Endometriosis is also often severely exacerbated by (and in some cases caused by) stress--which would indeed make it possible to call it psychosematic (not necessarily politic, and not always accurate, but possible in some cases).

Just because someone is an expert doesn't mean they can read minds, or even always ask the "right" questions (in this case, for example, it's a pretty personal thing to talk about and could be embarrassing to some women). They have to go on what they are given, and what they can reasonably extract from the data. My point here is that an "expert's" diagnosis is often relevant to the information they are presented with. It is entirely possible that the above example is of a doctor who should be disbarred. They certainly exist. It is also possible that the doctor was simply not presented with enough information to make an accurate diagnosis. One makes him a moron, one makes him fallible. Neither makes the entire medical profession devoid of relevant knowledge greater than layman.

[qwints]

"psychosematic."

Is this just a typo or are you making a point I'm missing?

As much as I disliked Mr. Tweedy's post about experts, I'm surprised no one has taken his side. There are some pretty legitimate critiques of the idea of experts.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

"psychosematic."

Is this just a typo or are you making a point I'm missing?

As much as I disliked Mr. Tweedy's post about experts, I'm surprised no one has taken his side. There are some pretty legitimate critiques of the idea of experts.

There are, but he didn't make any.  His point wasn't "experts sometimes make mistakes" -- which I think we have all clearly agreed upon -- his point was that the behavior of the scientists in "The Color of a Brontosaurus" is how he imagines all scientists actually behave... a notion of which we have attempted very gently to disabuse him.

[shwankie]

"psychosematic."

Is this just a typo or are you making a point I'm missing?

As much as I disliked Mr. Tweedy's post about experts, I'm surprised no one has taken his side. There are some pretty legitimate critiques of the idea of experts.

Typo. It should have been psychosomatic, of course, and I didn't bother to spell check it because I was rushed (needed to get going, wanted to reply before I forgot).

In good news, I never claimed to be an "expert" in spelling 

[Tango Alpha Delta]

"psychosematic."

Is this just a typo or are you making a point I'm missing?

As much as I disliked Mr. Tweedy's post about experts, I'm surprised no one has taken his side. There are some pretty legitimate critiques of the idea of experts.

Typo. It should have been psychosomatic, of course, and I didn't bother to spell check it because I was rushed (needed to get going, wanted to reply before I forgot).

In good news, I never claimed to be an "expert" in spelling 

Good thing, or we would never be able to trust a spelling expert again!

Just don't go crazy figuring out the shades of meaning in words... that would make you "psychosemantic".