Re: Opinions as Evidence
Robin Hanson (hanson@hss.caltech.edu)
Thu, 27 Mar 1997 10:03:29 -0800 (PST)
CurtAdams@aol.com writes:
>>>Most people think that a die is less likely to come up 6 if it has
>>>come up 6's the last 3 times. Many people think that the Social
>>>Security Trust fund is significant when compared with Social
>>>Security's debt. ...
>>
>>These are cases where the public thinks one thing, and experts think
>>another. Here it is not clear that the public knows of the expert's
>>opinion. Without that, it is not an example of the phenomena at issue.
>
>...Many of the elements I quoted involve information which is quite easy to
>research and which is genuinely relevant to ordinary people. My point is
>that people generally do not act like good Bayesian agents in usual
>circumstances. ...
So you admit that they are doing well with the info they have
immediately available, but that they are non-Bayesian regarding the
amount of research they do? "Easy to research" is relative to your
education level, and its not at all clear to me that most people would
be well-advised to go do more research on questions like this.
Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/