Gail Collins. David Brooks. William Kristol. Thomas Friedman. With stiff competition like that, it's hard to believe, but I think that Nick Kristof may get the prize for having typed the stupidest thing ever written by a Times columnist. It starts off almost reasonably, but it isn't:Ever wonder how financial experts could lead the world over the economic cliff?Uh, no. That can't be right. Kristof has started to set up a false dichotomy between knowledge/experience and judgment. As the column goes on, that false dichotomy morphs into an accepted fact. And so, after discussing some studies, Kristof is led to this (with apologies to Somerby) spectacular howler:
One explanation is that so-called experts turn out to be, in many situations, a stunningly poor source of expertise. There’s evidence that what matters in making a sound forecast or decision isn’t so much knowledge or experience as good judgment — or, to be more precise, the way a person’s mind works.Other studies have confirmed the general sense that expertise is overrated.Well, I'm gonna remember that the next time I'm looking for a string quartet to play my music. Or the next time I need to have surgery on my abdomen. Or hey! when I need to call a plumber, why I'll just call the most famous plumber in the land! Who cares if he's not even a licensed plumber?
This is one of the silliest pseudo-American myths, pure Norman Rockwell, that the average Joe (never a Jane) can perceive The Bigger Truth that somehow eludes the so-called pointy-headed experts. No one really believes it about anything really important in a personal sense. Kristof isn't gonna let me fix his car if it breaks down, despite the fact that, if I say so myself, I usually have darn good judgment, generally. (Note: sarcasm). But the myth persists about the Big Stuff, the notion that anyone with the right attitude can make the right decision when it comes to "solving" the financial crisis, invading Iraq, or running a country.
It's dangerous bullshit. Of course, judgment matters. But judgment without expertise and knowledge is suspiciously close to what is meant by...I believe the technical term is " wild guess." If judgment is mostly what matters, generally - which is exactly what Kristof is saying - then everyone's opinion is worth the same. The brain surgeon who looks at Terri Schiavo's brain images is no more qualified to determine whether she is in a persistent vegetative state than the ignorant television anchor who tries to tell the doctor that she may recover. (This actually happened. Anyone have the link?)
And it's a simple step from this kind of flattening of authority to the construction of totally bogus experts. For example, take the case of Middle Eastern "expert" Laurie Mylroie. According to Peter Bergen (in a private email), despite her Harvard degree, Mylroie has never bothered to learn Arabic. Nevermind, that this clueless paranoid was doing analytical work for the US government as late as 2007: after all, Bush was in power so the hiring of long-discredited neocon nuts was common. No, the real problem is that for the longest time, no one - and I mean no one, including prominent liberals I discussed this with - believed that an "expert's" failure to learn Arabic meant s/he could not actually be an expert on the Middle East.
Indeed, it takes good judgment to make a sound decision. It also takes knowledge and expertise. Real knowledge and expertise. And exactly what is meant by these concepts - judgment, knowledge, expertise - is very fuzzy. But from what I can tell, Kristof completely misunderstood the point of Tetlock's book. It's not that expertise generally doesn't matter as much as judgment. Rather, it's that certain cognitive styles provide more accurate analyses than others of expert knowledge, including the evaluation of who is an expert.
I have no doubt that is true and that future studies will further refine not only the notion of good judgment, but also what is meant by genuine expertise. But to create a dichotomy, as Kristof does, between expertise and judgment is simply idiotic. It leads to a decadent, brain-dead populism. It gives us, in all his glory, Joe the Plumber. And folks, that's the last thing this country needs.
Yglesias: WSJ Says Bayh Wants to Shake Up Status Quo By Protecting Business Interests
Here’s a curious report from The Wall Street Journal’s Naftali Bendavid and Greg Hitt:
Mr. Bayh and his group are well positioned to force changes in the president’s budget and on other contentious issues such as health care and climate change. Their stated goal is to rein in deficits and to protect business interests.
Without their votes, Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders don’t have a majority in the Senate, let alone the 60 votes needed to break Republican filibusters. That gives Mr. Bayh and his group an opportunity to assert themselves.
“We really do need to change business as usual,” Mr. Bayh said in an interview Monday. “People want results.”
The presumption here being that over the past eight years, the political powerhouses in Washington were insufficiently solicitous of business interests, so now we need to change things up by—at last!—paying attention to what executives want? That seems like a strange idea to me. But the Journal has on-the-record quotes from Bayh calling for “change” and “results” whereas the thing about business interests is just the reporter’s characterization. So perhaps Bendavid and Hitt have this wrong, and Bayh doesn’t actually think that the change we need is greater protection for business. Meanwhile, Bayh tells Politico that progressives have nothing to worry about:
“We literally have no agenda,” Bayh shot back. “How can they be threatened by a group that has taken no policy positions?”
This is a pretty good question.
- atrios says it's Because Kicking Around Joe Lieberman Isn't As Fun As It Used To Be
I was going to ask what exactly the point of a congressional group which has taken no positions on anything was, but then I realized the answer was "getting on the teevee and having David Broder say nice things about me."
Still, if Evan Bayh wants to walk around town with a "Kick Me" sign on his back I guess he's free to do so.- BarbinMD says: Leave Evan Bayh Alone!
Poor, put-upon, Evan Bayh. After going on Morning Joe last week to announce that he had formed a Senate version of the Blue Dogs, with a goal of determining:... how centrists in that chamber can assert more leverage on the major policy debates that will dominate this Congress.
... he became one of several targets of an ad campaign by Americans United for Change that urges all Democrats to support the president's budget. And Bayh doesn't like it:
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) is also unhappy with the friendly fire ...
“We literally have no agenda,” Bayh shot back. “How can they be threatened by a group that has taken no policy positions?”
His group has no agenda? Then why is it that last week you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting Bayh as he appeared on one cable news show after another, talking about his group's agenda?
Bottom line, Senator Bayh? Don't complain about the reaction you get after you litter the airways with vague, smiling threats about getting your own way.
- Move On sent me an email:
Dear MoveOn member,President Obama only needs 50 votes in the Senate to pass his visionary, progressive budget. There are 58 Democrats and Independents in the Senate, so it should be gliding through no problem, right?
Wrong. While most Democrats are supporting the president's agenda, some are wavering. They're backing away from key reforms—like making polluters pay to address global warming1 and rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans.2 They're even asking for compromises on major health care reform.3
They've been getting tons and tons of pressure from lobbyists for the big corporate interests—and key Democrats may buckle, right when we need them most. If too many Democrats defect, it will be nearly impossible to fix our broken health care system or create the millions of good, green jobs that will get our economy back on track.
So we're launching a huge new ad campaign to counter the influence of these entrenched special interests. The ads offer a clear choice—vote with American families, or vote with Wall Street. And they ask voters to contact these key members of Congress and make their voices heard. Can you chip in $50 to get our ads on the air?
Barack Obama promised to bring sweeping change to Washington during the campaign, and his budget delivers on that promise. Paul Krugman said it will set America on "a fundamentally new course."4
But the battle to get the budget through Congress is intense. Right now, the people paying the most attention to it are the ones who are working to gut it. They're aiming to quietly kill the provisions that they don't like, and if they get their way, the budget won't make the fundamental changes we need to overcome the challenges facing us.
The plan's fate will be decided by just a few members of Congress. But wherever you live, you can help by funding this emergency ad campaign.
I have to say that I believe tristero took some HUGE liberties with Kristoff's column or never bothered to read it to understand the point he was making. In truth in the end what tristero was saying was pretty similar to what Kristoff had already said. Which is why Kristoff referred to "so called" experts to begin with. Hell Kristoff even took a shot at himself at the end of the article. Sometimes I think people just try to make something out of nothing.
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