|
|
|
|
Editor's Choice -- Ismaili Digest -- Experts and Hazar Imam on thinking for yourself In a 2003, Hazar Imam wrote "The true test [of education] is the ability of students and graduates to engage with what they do not know and to work out a solution." Notice he addressed his remark to everyone, since everyone is either a student or a graduate. You may be wondering what this has to do with experts, or our faith. Actually, it has a lot to do with both. Notice Hazar Imam said to engage in what you don't know and work out the solution, yourself. This means you need the confidence to think for yourself, assess the expert advice yourself, and then draw a final conclusion (the "solution") yourself. However, today instead of studying what we don't know and making decisions about it, we defer to experts. Whatever the problem, there's an expert who'll speak with an air of confidence, certainty and authority that's hard to argue against. And yet, we've all seen some experts perform miracles while others fail spectacularly. Why? Well, it all depends on the nature of the problem or issue. Experts shine in what are known as "closed systems," where the variables are well understood and the system's behaviour can be predicted with high confidence. Experts in closed systems consistently get things right and we call them "professionals." They're people who have high competence and deep experience in a narrow domain. People like engineers, surgeons, pilots, carpenters, photographers, athletes, etc. However, there's another class of systems known as "open systems" where the variables are not, and cannot be well understood. Economics, politics, societal issues, psychology, health and the human body, climate change are examples of open systems. Open system behaviour cannot be predicted reliably, no matter the expert's confidence. Since open system "experts" consistently fail, they create computer models to help out. However, these models are nothing more than the expert's very limited knowledge cemented in software. If an expert doesn't understand the variables, a computer can't magically fix this. The articles below help shine a light on when experts are useful, when they are not, why models fail, and long term research proving experts' epic failures with open systems. And here's why this is important to faith. Truth is a personal experience that requires intellectual effort and work. We think truth can be shared with explainations, but it can't. Only the evidence that points to truth can be shared. It's shared with the hope that we will receive insight and understand it and, when we do, that's our personal "aha moment." But that "aha moment" is only possible when we think for ourselves, assess the evidence for ourselves, and then draw a final conclusion ourselves. When we don't think for ourselves we must blindly trust others. In other words, Hazar Imam's remark, that we "work out a solution" for ourselves, is how we avoid blind faith in experts or religion, which the Qur'an warns us about. Best regards
Ismaili Digest |
|
|
|
|
|
The Limits of Expertise
QUILLETTE.COM -- People value expertise in closed systems, but distrust expertise in open systems.... Engineers, surgeons, pilots, are 'trusted' experts operating in closed systems.... Open systems are those that are 'exposed to the elements,' ... The economy, climate and politics are open systems. No matter how much you know, there is not only always more to know, but also an utterly unpredictable slide towards chaos as these things interact.... The erosion of trust in expertise has arisen exclusively from experts in open systems. ...
Continued Here » http://isma.li/45i4Yh
|
|
|
|
|
The Peculiar Blindness of Experts
THEATLANTIC.COM -- Philip E. Tetlock decided to put expert political and economic predictions to the test. He collected forecasts from 284 highly educated experts who averaged more than 12 years of experience in their specialties. The project lasted 20 years, with 82,361 probability estimates about the future. The result: The experts were, by and large, horrific forecasters. Their areas of specialty, years of experience, and (for some) access to classified information made no difference. They were bad at short-term forecasting and bad at long-term forecasting. They were bad at forecasting in every domain. Even faced with their results, many experts never admitted systematic flaws in their judgment. One subgroup of scholars, however, did ...
Continued Here » http://isma.li/oWrn4X
|
|
|
|
|
What Experts Do and Don't Know
[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- QUILLETTE.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: In 2002, Hazar Imam said "I have been amazed and thrilled frankly, at the capacities of even the completely illiterate populations, to express themselves about the correct priority that should be addressed. And if you follow their agenda, nine times out of ten, you'll get it right!"] ARTICLE: In his book Intellectuals and Society, Thomas Sowell calls "mundane knowledge" the local, everyday facts that ordinary people know about their own circumstances ... A huge quantity of detailed and specific knowledge which no small group of experts could ever hope to learn. ...
Continued Here » http://isma.li/f87gTN
|
|
|
|
|
The New Astrology
AEON.CO -- By fetishising mathematical models, economists turned economics into a highly paid pseudoscience. Mathematics imbues economic theory with unearned empirical authority. 'Modelling,' Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman told me, 'is now elevated to the point where things have validity just because you can come up with a model.' Yet when mathematical theory is the ultimate arbiter of truth, it becomes difficult to see the difference between science and pseudoscience. As a scholar of Chinese religion, it struck me that I'd seen this kind of mistake before, in ancient Chinese attitudes towards the astral sciences. ...
Continued Here » http://isma.li/mjQ9Tn
|
|
|
|
|
Jonathan Haidt, Ezra Klein and the Nature of Wicked Problems
[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- AREOMAGAZINE.COM -- We pine for straightforward solutions to complicated political, cultural, [community] and economic challenges and analysts, academics, pundits and politicians respond with an abundance of ideological and policy solutions that appeal to our political preferences. But wicked problems, by their nature, elude definitive, universal answers. They even elude universal definition. Wicked problems are problems that don't just sit there and let you work on them ... Solving a wicked problems requires people who see it from multiple perspectives ... So how do we build a new culture of collaborative perspective-sharing that allows wicked problems to be solved? ...
Continued Here » http://isma.li/JXjPyH
|
|
|
|
|
Off The Beaten Track, Tuesday's Teachings (From Life), Wednesday Wisdom and Monday Madness (@ Ismaili Digest)
These departments of Ismaili Digest were inspired by Hazar Imam's advice to continuously re-examine and expand our viewpoints and perspectives. He said, "knowledge is constantly changing, must ever be challenged and extended" and that we must "constantly review and revise and renew what we think we know." If Hazar Imam's advice resonates with you, then OTBT, TT and WW are for you. In our first year we posted almost 300 videos, articles and quotes of little-known, unconventional, even controversial, knowledge, opinions, wisdom and insights, drawn from all of humanity, relevant to the community's well-being, intellectual growth, best practices and administration. As for Monday Madness, that's your Monday morning smile because "we are a community that welcomes the smile!"
Continued Here » http://isma.li/wmepeG
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Think of Ismaili Digest as the Front Page of all the best Ismaili websites! Ismaili Digest automatically and continuously brings together all new articles, photos, videos, etc. from Ismaili websites -- like The Ismaili, Simerg, IIS, NanoWisdoms, AKDN, Ismailimail, etc. -- so you can see them all at once. Direct links to over 10,000 web-pages from the best Ismaili websites already available. Ismaili Digest saves you (and those who are not tech savvy, such as seniors) the effort of having to visit them one by one to keep up to date, or have your inbox cluttered with emails from each of them when they publish new content. In a busy world, our sense of belonging to our community can wither or fade (particularly with isolated Jamati members). So we hope the simplicity of Ismaili Digest will change this for you. Like many other non-commercial, public-service thematic website aggregators, Ismaili Digest is just a thematic aggregator. We publish short 50-60 word digests of all their content and provide direct links to their original pages saving you time, extra page loads and clicks. For the website publishers, direct links ensure they'll get the maximum number of potential visitors reaching their content so their hard work gets the maximum exposure. Also featured are other important articles, research and opinions relevant to the community's well being, intellectual growth, best practises and administration. And all served with a drop of humour as well, because "we are a community that welcomes the smile!" Ismaili Digest is not associated with any private Ismaili website, whether aggregated by Ismaili Digest or not. All websites Ismaili Digest aggregates are independent websites run by their individual owners and we are not responsible for content they publish. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
