No idea where you get the idea about soothsayers from, it seems very far from what I said. If there are no meaningful non-scientific insights that can be made on anything, it's a wonder we survived until the scientific revolution without actually knowing anything other than what the shaman told us
Soothsayers come from the very category you have created and defined, the category of non-scientific insightful experts. I felt it important to illustrate exactly what that category entails. The category literally contains *anyone* considered to be an insightful expert by *anyone*. So, while it includes your hypothetical top salesperson and a plumber, it would also include a Korean saju reader, and Donald J. Trump.
If you are in some way excluding the saju reader and Donald Trump from this category you have created, then I would argue that you are using science to do it.
Here is but one example in one country that relates to confidence given to "soothsayers":
Unlike in the West, where fortune tellers are often seen as phony characters out to scam those desperate to learn what the stars have in store for them, clairvoyants hold an everyday relevance in South Korea.
In fact, there are some 300,000 fortune tellers in the country, in addition to 150,000 mudang (or shamans), who provide clairvoyance by communicating with spirits in addition to performing traditional ceremonies such as exorcisms.
According to a report by Trend Monitor, a Korean market research firm, more than two-thirds of those surveyed stated that they see a fortune teller at least once a year. Many of these Koreans visit between December and February, to see what awaits them in the new solar and lunar years.
Major crossroads in life are also a common time for a divinely steer. University students consult tarot readers at career fairs to determine potential employers. Businessmen might opt to have a reading to select an auspicious date to launch a new venture. Couples check their compatibility before marriage, and even politicians have controversially turned to clairvoyants for guidance.
What I said (minor edits for clarity):
And we need to accept [there are fields of science] where it is not [very] reliable, and that in complex domains (lets say economics) trying to force reality into a form that can be quantified 'scientifically' often misses out or distorts [aspects of] reality in a manner that can render the information actively harmful (plenty examples of "scientific" theories leading to errors and even financial crises often because they make people overconfident in their accuracy).
Is there any of that you disagree with? If you want an example:
Long-Term Capital Management - Wikipedia
Yeah, I’m gonna have to disagree. It seems you are carefully curating anecdotes that fit the picture you wish to paint as opposed to presenting a full and honest portrayal.
Wherever there is a dearth of necessary data or information upon which to make an accurate determination, accuracy will suffer. The less the data or the lower the quality of data the worse it will be. That is merely a fact of life. As far as science goes, it is part of the principles and standards of science to attach the appropriate level of confidence in such low accuracy situations. If decisions in the real world need to be made in a low data, low information environment, then one makes the best assessment with what little information is available, and if there is risk involved, make the best determination of risk associated with acting on various options as well as not acting at all.
Take your Long-Term Capital Management example. The investment company is trying to devise quantitative models to predict the behavior of complex markets. The model or models that they developed are essentially experiments, an experiment that worked until it didn’t, at which point *something new was learned*. This however, was not done in an academic or theoretical setting, this was an investment company, and quoting from your reference, that would “basically place a bet” on the models predictions. This example has more to do with gambling and has little bearing on the value of science.
Beyond this, cherry-picking anecdotal examples of what, in your subjective opinion, you consider to be a “misuse of science” will not necessarily be considered a “misuse of science” by others, nor does it give an accurate measure or extent of the alleged problem, nor does it accurately compare and contrast it to negative outcomes overall, or that occur when scientific understanding should be used, but is not. In your investment example, how many bad trades and fortunes lost have occurred relying on “non-scientific intuitive expertise”? I find your argument wanting.
My conclusion to the above, therefore:
Sometimes non-scientific insights, expertise, experiences, heuristics and so forth are [imperfect, but may be] the best we have [in certain specific circumstances], but when people think "more scientific [must always] = better" we increase the chances of error.
The amount of equivocation here is incredible. Logically impossible to be wrong, but as a consequence saying nothing meaningful.
In what way are these non-scientific insights, etc “better” and for whom? Are they objectively better, or are they better because they match one's subjective preferences? If they are objectively better, how do we know? Why is there confidence in the insight or experience? Going back to the stock market, according to research in 2020 by the S&P Dow Jones Indices 88.99% of large-cap US funds have underperformed the S&P500 index over the previous ten years. Funds that are run or managed with the insights and expertise of fund managers. If “non-scientific insights, etc” are really just statistically hit-or-miss, how is that overall objectively better?
An example of what I mean by non-scientific insights:
Who would you put your money on in a sales competition, the best salesperson in a given industry or a leading academic expert on persuasion science?
The salesperson will be using experience, heuristics, intuition, etc. perhaps combined with some scientific insights, and they will be better than the scientist.
Your example here centers around human behavior and recognizing the particular emotional intelligence of the top performer of a particular activity, sales. It is more than clear at this point in our overall understanding of the world, that intellectual ability and potential is not a uniform and identical ability across all individuals in a given population. We also fully recognize that no matter how smart someone may be, they can still get things wrong. There is *always* a need to mitigate human fallibility when things matter.
The philosophy/science part involves the understanding the how and why of this individual being able to outperform the majority of their peers, as it is not by magic or some dark art beyond the ken of science.
Let’s look at some factors that a rational skeptic might consider when presented with your anecdote that should be considered when trying to evaluate the “why” of your salesperson's success. One factor might be access to quality leads. Is the top salesperson in a position to get first choice (for any number of reasons) on potential leads? Is the market booming for the product being sold such that it is selling itself, and our “top performer” has simply had the luck of landing a few high volume clients that push that salesperson's sales to the top of the rankings? Has our “top performer” been tested in selling other products in other industries and markets?
So if we can accept that non-scientific insights exist, and that many decisions we need to make don't have nice, accurate scientifically prescribed courses of action to follow, sometimes generic human expertise based on a range of non-scientific insights, expertise, experiences, heuristics and so forth is the best we have.
Whatever you want to call insights or experience, if it is real (not chance or lucky guess) then it is within the realm of possibility for science/philosophy to understand and explain the why and the how. Your “non-scientific” knowledge is only knowledge if it is demonstrated to be so. If it is demonstrated then it has been empirically verified and therefore falls within a scientific framework.
Yes, in the real world, we have to make choices without all the facts and without full understanding. Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we get it wrong (which can be viewed as a form of empirical trial and error evaluation). I think for most folks, when making such decisions, the desire is to be as well informed as possible and avoid making blind guesses in complete ignorance, especially when there is risk involved. In that respect, the greater the amount of verified knowledge related to the choice the better, in my subjective opinion.
That is the consequence of living in an opaque world we only party understand and can only minimally control.
Your subjective assessment is duly noted.
