Mises said that everyone must learn economics because public policy is set by public opinion. It's an unrealistic demand, but it might be warranted, absent the death of democracy.
Another comment: "expert" sometimes has a bad connotation, and for good reason. Even though I'm an engineer and I learned carpentry from my grandfather, a carpenter; it turns out that during construction of an Independence Day float, the computer programmer was right about the structural integrity of my design and it was his modification that saved the day. So, my caution falls under two headings: First, that expertise is spotty, even within a profession, and that the moniker of "expert" cannot broadly be applied. Person A can be right about X, and person B can be wrong, even though B has spent years studying the matter and A has only devoted an afternoon. In short, anyone can be right (or wrong) about anything. Prima facie, the expert is probably in a better position to know. But maybe not. Second, and maybe an entire essay is warranted here, specialization (as opposed to division of labor) is the antithesis of the scholarly ideal of the Renaissance man. In some cases, it is warranted to give authoritative weight to the opinions of amateurs precisely when they lean to the latter category and embody the classical definition of "amateur". Conversely, I am very suspicious of the professional specialist who doesn't play a musical instrument, make wine at home, dabble in the garden, etc. My experience is that I have learned the most in life from amateurs. Gil Guillory, P.E. Process Design and Project Engineering KBR, KT-3131B email [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone 713-753-2724(w) or 281-362-8061(h) or 281-620-6995(m) fax 713-753-3508 or 713-753-5353 > -----Original Message----- > From: john hull [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2003 12:29 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: News Coverage and bad economics > > > --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > "As Steven Landsburg has pointed out, why is it that > everyone feels entitled to speak about economic > matters when they are not economists? No one asks non > doctors to get up and speak about medical issues....." > > What about "alternative" medicine? When I was doing > traffic, every Tom, Dick, & Harry to come in the door > seemed to earnestly believe that driving a car was > sufficient qualification for deciding speed limits & > stop sign patterns. I imagine every profession can > legitimately offer up the same complaint, although that > doesn't make it any less frusterating. > > (One of the engineers I worked for frequently > complained about every layperson thinking she was an > expert, yet he also frequently offered up his > expertise on things he knew nothing about, like > psychology & finance. He never got the irony.) > > > __________________________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
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