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Stephen Diamond's avatar

Surely belief in the ignorance of experts doesn't make one scientific!

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Wayne Radinsky's avatar

"Many economist solutions share a common feature: a focus on outcomes." [...] "And now I finally think I see a common cause: an ancient human habit of strong deference to the prestigious."

Or: maybe prestige is not the explanation. I think the reason people don't care about outcomes is morality. What I mean by this is, for example, if changing a law produces a better outcome, but people feel it allows morally "wrong" behavior, then people are against changing the law.

Now, maybe Hanson is one step ahead of me and arguing people are forming their moral beliefs based on "prestige". I'm not sure. He never uses the word "morality" (or related words like "moral") in the piece, but he uses "believe" many times.

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