If we had in place a social norm demanding an adequate amount of
background knowledge on the topic before anyone voiced an opinion they
expected to be taken seriously, the signal/noise ratio might be somewhat
improved.
Unfortunately that’d skew things towards the status quo.
Advances in knowledge often come from taking a very different angle on a problem, by someone who isn’t immersed—and thus not necessarily knowledgeable in—the existing viewpoints about the problem (e.g. by amateurs or people from different fields).
Ultimately a person’s view should be judged just on its own merits.
Actually, counting personal experience as relevant research would counteract this effect in most situations.
I’d like to hear a workable way of making that happen, though. In my experience, in any controversial situation, admitting to basing an opinion on personal experience just opens yourself up to personal attacks.
Unfortunately that’d skew things towards the status quo.
Advances in knowledge often come from taking a very different angle on a problem, by someone who isn’t immersed—and thus not necessarily knowledgeable in—the existing viewpoints about the problem (e.g. by amateurs or people from different fields).
Ultimately a person’s view should be judged just on its own merits.
Actually, counting personal experience as relevant research would counteract this effect in most situations.
I’d like to hear a workable way of making that happen, though. In my experience, in any controversial situation, admitting to basing an opinion on personal experience just opens yourself up to personal attacks.
IAWY, but
It’s easy to overestimate the size of this effect.
We would expect a priori that more information is useful
We often don’t know how much the person who succeeds where others fail in fact did know.
“The Wright Brothers succeeding despite lack of experience/knowledge” -story is more easily remembered and spread because it’s feels better.