The heuristic assumes the field is sound. In an upcoming post, I’ll talk about signs a field may have unsound bases, and what to expect there.
My initial reaction is “are there significant fields for which the advice is necessary (it’s not obvious to most readers that experts are on the right track) and for which either of these, let alone both, are true?” A few examples of things which you think your readers are incorrectly down-weighting expert opinion would help a lot.
Your given examples aren’t about fields, but individuals, and the first two seem like morally-relevant fields—that’s fine, but specifying what questions and what expertise-differential levels you’re using (and where the boundary conditions are where it’s neutral whether to defer or to think originally) would go a long way.
My initial reaction is “are there significant fields for which the advice is necessary (it’s not obvious to most readers that experts are on the right track) and for which either of these, let alone both, are true?” A few examples of things which you think your readers are incorrectly down-weighting expert opinion would help a lot.
Your given examples aren’t about fields, but individuals, and the first two seem like morally-relevant fields—that’s fine, but specifying what questions and what expertise-differential levels you’re using (and where the boundary conditions are where it’s neutral whether to defer or to think originally) would go a long way.
A good example: Economics. While some of the work is tainted by ideology, most aren’t. And this leads to a few conclusions.
Capitalism is the best system of economics in practice, with a government.
Tariffs aren’t good things, contra Trump.