Why Do Experts Disagree?

Jeffrey Friedman's Power Without Knowledge argues forcefully that there are inherent limitations to the predictability of human action, due to a circumstance he calls "ideational heterogeneity." However, our resources for predicting human action somewhat reliably in the light of ideat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Critical review (New York, N.Y.) N.Y.), 2020-07, Vol.32 (1-3), p.218-241
Main Author: Reiss, Julian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
epistocracy
expert disagreement
Heterogeneity
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Social sciences
spiral of conviction
Technocracy
value pluralism
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Summary:Jeffrey Friedman's Power Without Knowledge argues forcefully that there are inherent limitations to the predictability of human action, due to a circumstance he calls "ideational heterogeneity." However, our resources for predicting human action somewhat reliably in the light of ideational heterogeneity have not been exhausted yet, and there are no in-principle barriers to progress in tackling the problem. There are, however, other strong reasons to think that disagreement among epistocrats is bound to persist, such that it will be difficult to decide who has "the right answer" to a given technocratic problem. These reasons have to do with competing visions of the good society, fact/value entanglement, and the fragility of the facts of the social sciences.
ISSN:0891-3811
1933-8007
DOI:10.1080/08913811.2020.1872948