I think it’s worth emphasizing that ideas aren’t “worth investigating” or “not worth investigating” in themselves; different people will have different opportunities to investigate things at different costs, and will have different info and care about the answers to different degrees.
True. We have people like Mythbusters and Michael Shermer to debunk certain pseudoscientific claims, for instance. The effort to do that research is worth it, for them. For most of us, it’s only worth the effort to watch Mythbusters and read Michael Shermer.
My father is a scientist who works in an area with many crackpots (and many misguided but intelligent non-crackpots.) One of his professional duties is to investigate and usually debunk extraordinary claims in his area. It’s worth the effort for him—sometimes there’s nobody else to do the job. But most scientists free ride on his efforts.
We depend on the efforts of these people—those who are willing to investigate extraordinary or minority claims. We assume they’re out there. We assume there’s some investigator who has independent credibility.
The big problem is—what if there isn’t?
If a claim is simply ignored by everyone with independent credibility, and if it’s too much trouble for most of us to investigate ourselves, then even rational actors can make very serious mistakes.
The policy prescription is to think up ways to ensure that someone, somewhere, is bothering to investigate the kinds of claims that would be important if they were true.
I don’t disagree, but I see it as more of a continuum. All else equal, the more people investigating a claim, the better. And more importantly, one careful investigator is worth more than ten superficial investigators (e.g., Shermer on cryonics).
I think it’s worth emphasizing that ideas aren’t “worth investigating” or “not worth investigating” in themselves; different people will have different opportunities to investigate things at different costs, and will have different info and care about the answers to different degrees.
True. We have people like Mythbusters and Michael Shermer to debunk certain pseudoscientific claims, for instance. The effort to do that research is worth it, for them. For most of us, it’s only worth the effort to watch Mythbusters and read Michael Shermer.
My father is a scientist who works in an area with many crackpots (and many misguided but intelligent non-crackpots.) One of his professional duties is to investigate and usually debunk extraordinary claims in his area. It’s worth the effort for him—sometimes there’s nobody else to do the job. But most scientists free ride on his efforts.
We depend on the efforts of these people—those who are willing to investigate extraordinary or minority claims. We assume they’re out there. We assume there’s some investigator who has independent credibility.
The big problem is—what if there isn’t?
If a claim is simply ignored by everyone with independent credibility, and if it’s too much trouble for most of us to investigate ourselves, then even rational actors can make very serious mistakes.
The policy prescription is to think up ways to ensure that someone, somewhere, is bothering to investigate the kinds of claims that would be important if they were true.
I don’t disagree, but I see it as more of a continuum. All else equal, the more people investigating a claim, the better. And more importantly, one careful investigator is worth more than ten superficial investigators (e.g., Shermer on cryonics).