If an expert offers an opinion in an area that he is not an expert in, then he does not offer an expert opinion.

Good article. The POV espoused here is not a common one, and I think it’s important, even if I don’t think you should take it too far.

There’s two simple ways I think you can take it too far: muzzling yourself completely, and not intervening in the epistemic trespasses of others.

If you’re very aware of this issue, it becomes very easy to — very quickly — believe that you have little right to talk about anything except whichever narrow areas you might claim expertise in; even then, with enough humility, you might feel you have no expertise to claim at all. This completely destroys your self-confidence (in my experience), and inhibits personal growth. Instead, moderation is a better approach.

The other issue is that if you’re keenly aware of this issue, you will often be the best equipped person in the room to call others out for this or to spot issues in their novice arguments. An abject refusal to weigh in on issues you are not an expert in may become an abdication of responsibility.

I feel like it would be wrong for me to comment here.

I get the message, but it feels too binary to me. In their example, I agree that an expert in statistics would be more appropriate especially in a high stakes environment where someone’s life and freedom is at risk. In general, I have no problems with experts speaking on topics in which they are not experts in. Their insight could be valid and correct, not because they are an expert in another field, but they used a methodology that got them to a valid conclusion. I think it’s important for the recipient to know they should evaluate and scrutinize a conclusion from an expert in a differing field. To not accept it because they are an expert in another field, and to not reject it because they are an expert in another field.

This is an interesting debate, and one that I feel is missing a key component. In general, we expect experts in a field to be knowledgeable, but even then, an expert's opinion is only more valid than a layman's because of specialized knowledge or experience; either learned from another expert, or observed directly.

If a so called "expert" made an assertion without presenting citation or evidence, I think it's perfectly reasonable to challenge that assertion. If a layman made an assertion and did provide evidence, I would consider that compelling enough to at least speak to an expert about it.

I find this an ironic/appropriate perspective in a sub on philosophy. My impression of undergrad intro to philosophy was that it was rife with epistemic trespassing. Some issue would be brought up for debate, and scientific or economic details would be conveniently omitted for the sake of argument. Or people would argue about an issue that could probably have been resolved if either party simply knew more about the issue.

I see it on this sub as well, plenty of people that seem very intelligent, making otherwise cogent arguments that are made completely undermined or irrelevant by deep knowledge of the subject matter.

I'm probably doing it now, since I also don't have deep knowledge of philosophy.

Eh, not the best example. I would certainly expect a doctor to know that some things are genes. And siblings you know, share genetrics. He just fucked up the statistics of something within his field of expertise. This was his lane and he rear ended this lady.

But the irony of having this topic broached on /r/philosophy of all places. Do you know how how often people here pretend they're experts on anything scientific? As soon as science enters the discussion, this place goes to pot.

This is the precise reason why people shouldn’t listen to programmers about anything other than programming. We’re all idiots with God complexes because so much of the world has computers in it these days, but make no mistake, we’re all idiots

Ooh, I recently read a paper on this: Mark Satta’s “Epistemic Trepassing and Expert Witness Testimony” in the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy.

Epistemic humility is a thing of the past

Just a reminder reddit; Technocracy is explicitly anti-democratic

I enjoyed reading your article and I think the point made is a very important one. I feel we get this more and more in the public discourse, with people like Joe Rogan (or L. Fridman, Andrew Huberman) inviting guests to their podcasts and discussing topics way way outside of their field of expertise. Because of large listening base, these people start spouting their own uninformed opinions on variety of topics, and un-critical listener will think they are listening to experts...

Interesting article that identifies an issue but does not really provide a solution, but only sows division. I don't pretend to be an expert in anything and therefore my inquiring mind treads wherever it wants. However when asked my views I would be honest and state I am no expert in [Insert Topic]. So what is the solution? Being honest with oneself and humble.

If you cross into my lane, indicate first your intentions and be prepared to give way.

I work in a hospital and see this extensively every day. Considering the venue its a little disconcerting, yeah? Doctors (med and psych), nurses, social workers, physical/occupational therapists, almost every day I can see one of them answer a question in another disciplines absence or speak with certainty about something outside of their field. Sometimes people think they know. Sometimes theyre afraid to say "To be honest sir/ma'am, I cant really answer that but will direct it to someone who can". Even if they are correct it's still dangerous. I'm a social worker and I couldn't imagine answering a medical question. Even if it's something common or that I'm certain of, you won't catch me in a professional setting talking out of my ass. I have no problem saying "I don't know" to a stranger.

To reduce any more redditors committing epistemic trespassing with regards to this case, the proposed case is about Sally Clark and a more detailed breakdown of the case can be found here. There were other problems with the case, including the prosecutor's fallacy and ecologic fallacy.

There are other problems with the statistics in that example that the author doesn’t mention. One in 73’000’000 seems like a low likely-hood, but there are other factors.

First of all, courts exist to pass judgement on exceptional circumstances amongst a large population. 73’000’000 is pretty close to the population on Great Britain, so we would actually expect this to happen to someone, possibly even 2 or 3 people if they are unlucky.

The other problem is combined probability of everything strange that might happen. If we start using this kind of reasoning in court, every possible unlikely occurrence could be considered a crime. Even if each are extremely unlikely (like one in 10 billion) the chance of any one of them occurring accumulates to also become rather inevitable. One in 10 billion occurrences happen all the time, perhaps just not the particular one you’re thinking of at the moment. So we can’t just say that we will convict on every 1 in 10 billion occurrence that raises criminal suspicions.

God I thought that said Epstein trespassing

Expertise is not binary. Experts often have false beliefs within their areas of expertise. And it takes expertise to determine if another person is in fact an expert.

Trespassing implies a “title” to knowledge, a right to the exclusive dominion and control. Thinking of knowledge as a titled asset, like real property, implies there is only one way to gain knowledge, via some chain of custody. This is the same logic behind the gate keeping and credentialism that is responsible for so much economic injustice. And the epistemic errors are similar. It’s a shortcut, sure, but to where?

Telling people to only listen to the “real experts”, is not good advice. It’s much better to promote rigor, logic, skepticism and parsimony as a reliable path to knowledge.

I was just thinking this as I noticed the current top post in /r/science.

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/zslhqp/men_may_not_perceive_domestic_tasks_as_needing/

The damage done to a novices understanding is exponentially inhibited every time an expert commits Epistemic Trespassing. Thus the novice is left at sea with a false map and left for dead.

Epidemiologist here: this is so incredibly common in public health. Every healthcare professional, colleague, family member, and friend is now an expert post-pandemic. 🙄

That's just appeal to authority, to make whatever restrictive conditions apply to have someone called an "expert" and then nobody can talk about anything. Enjoy living with a boot on your neck that's how you lose free speech.

I liked the blog post. I would argue that there is some gray area of expertise here. A general statistician may not necessarily know the specifics of SIDS as well as a pediatrician. Often times people who are experts in their field must offer some fringe knowledge on a subject and so should probably consult with experts who overlap in knowledge, especially when the opinion they are providing could impact the livelihoods, safety and health of others. I think the pandemic was full of a bunch of nonsense, it was weird to watch people on both sides of the perceived fence argue that their specific expertise (in statistics or in public health or in politics or in economics or in medical specialties of infectious diseases or emergency medicine) talk about the pandemic as if their one area of expertise entitled them to making broad sweeping statements to all around that the pandemic should be treated in their preferred way. Yet, at least on a local level, no one I knew was willing to talk to people in other specialties Bout the same issues or figure out how they could come to an agreement or even just an understanding about the different needs based on their expertise. I think this phenomenon you refer to happens at every level interpersonally.

Like I said, good read, thanks!

The issue is related to argumentum ad verecundiam: an argument based on appeal to false or fraudulent authority. Famous example: it has been argued that megadoses of Vitamin C must be beneficial because they were recommended by Linus Pauling, a Nobel Laureate. But he was an inorganic chemist, not a nutritionist; and his prize had nothing to do with Vitamin C.

So Elon Musk.

In my classes, I’ve called it “Peterson Syndrome.” I would never go to a political scientist for therapy, so why the fuck would I go to a clinical therapist for political wisdom?

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The example is given that the jury trusted the pediatrician for statistics but wouldnt for engineering.

I think that sometimes people have a hard time even identifying which concerns fall into which disciplines in the first place.

The article states that pediatricians are novices at statistics, and frankly this surprised me. I did not know that a medical degree involves little knowledge of statistics. I would expect that a doctor should understand the principle of independence since it affects diagnosis.

i want to say though, I would much more trust a pediatricians opinion over a construction workers on statistics, simply because of their general reasoning skills— I see how they can be wrong, but I think they would also be right more than the average person. I get why you wouldn’t want to use this in court— but in everyday life it might be best to take someone who is at least an expert in something with reasoning and logic to find the truth.

in your example the defense is at fault for not objecting to the testimony at the outset.

and or the prosecution is culpable for leading the witness into testimony they were not qualified to give.

probably why the whole thing was over tuned on appeal.

it's not up to the Dr to censor themselves and 'stay in their lane", as you put it, it up to the other actors in the court to discern what the hell is going on.

TLDR the article, beyond the headline, and the comments for context… so forgive the ignorance I might be about to display about the extent of the concept.

I think we can separate logic from epistemic trespassing, though.

As philosophers, we can identify good and bad arguments, regardless of whether they come from experts or not.

Epistemic trespassing is necessary for interdisciplinary work or the creation of new fields. But it is only beneficial if the expert is purposeful in establishing expertise in the interdisciplinary space or the new field. Epistemic trespassing can create significant problems for fields that have been undergoing significant change or have been perennially perceived as loosely defined by non-experts such as race relations.

There was an experiment I saw before where a chess board was displayed with pieces positioned in some pattern (like in some random chess game) to both normal chess players and grandmasters, and they were asked to recall their positions later. As you may guess, the masters did it perfectly and every time, whereas average players scored average.

However, the experimenters repeated the experiment with a positioning pattern that could never occur in a real chess game. Guess what, both grandmasters and normal players scored the same, "Average".

This shows that, even chess masters who can recall any game or piece positions in a game they played with enormous precision, score the same as any person in memory tests. Which only indicates that their good memory is not transmittable to other fields, and that calling someone an expert without specifying the expertise, is just a fallacy that our society feeds on. You can't even obtain a skill in one field, and claim with certainty that you can apply it as an elite in other fields, even the most basic ones like memory.

Nevertheless, I don't think this is always true because the skills and knowledge you gain in one branch of science might be helpful for other branches. Especially in Mathematics, where this helped many mathematicians prove major theorems using prior concepts and theorems in other maths' branches.

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