According to an influential Enlightenment ideal, one shouldn't rely epistemically on other people's say-so, at least not if one is in a position to evaluate the relevant evidence for oneself. However, in much recent work in social epistemology, we are urged to dispense with this ideal, which is seen as stemming from a misguided focus on isolated individuals to the exclusion of groups and communities. In this paper, I argue that that an emphasis on the social nature of inquiry (...) should not lead us to entirely abandon the Enlightenment ideal of epistemically autonomous agents. Specifically, I suggest that it is an appropriate ideal for those who serve as experts in a given epistemic community, and develop a notion of expert acceptance to make sense of this. I go on to show that, all other things being equal, this kind of epistemic autonomy among experts makes their joint testimony more reliable, which in turn brings epistemic benefits both to laypeople and to experts in other fields. (shrink)

There is, in some quarters, concern about high–level machine intelligence and superintelligent AI coming up in a few decades, bringing with it significant risks for humanity. In other quarters, these issues are ignored or considered science fiction. We wanted to clarify what the distribution of opinions actually is, what probability the best experts currently assign to high–level machine intelligence coming up within a particular time–frame, which risks they see with that development, and how fast they see these developing. We (...) thus designed a brief questionnaire and distributed it to four groups of experts in 2012/2013. The median estimate of respondents was for a one in two chance that high-level machine intelligence will be developed around 2040-2050, rising to a nine in ten chance by 2075. Experts expect that systems will move on to superintelligence in less than 30 years thereafter. They estimate the chance is about one in three that this development turns out to be ‘bad’ or ‘extremely bad’ for humanity. (shrink)

An electoral evaluation of a set of expert opinions proceeds by treating the experts as voters. Although this method allows us to formalise our naive views about how to take expert advice, the formalisations are plagued by paradoxes which parallel those found in literature on social aggregation devices. This parallel suggests that our naive views about taking expert advice are in as much need of revision as our naive views about deriving group preferences from individual preferences. * I am (...) indebted to Joseph Hanna for a number of criticisms and corrections to a previous draft. (shrink)

Experts have been claimed to perceive risks in a different way than the general public. It is likely that experts often see risks in their own field of expertise as smaller than the public does, but that does not imply that their risk perception is also driven by other factors. Topical experts and general risk assessors are two quite different types of experts. Still, common assertions as to the simple structure of expert risk perception, said to (...) be related only to technical or statistical risk estimates, builds on a meager database consisting of 15 general risk assessors. Results from a study reported here show that the factors explaining experts’ risk perception are similar to those of a comparable group of nontopical experts with a similar level of technological literacy and to the general public, and that the level of explained variance is quite comparable for experts and the general public. (shrink)

Following Snyderman and Rothman, we surveyed expert opinions on the current state of intelligence research. This report examines expert opinions on causes of international differences in student assessment and psychometric IQ test results. Experts were surveyed about the importance of culture, genes, education, wealth, health, geography, climate, politics, modernization, sampling error, test knowledge, discrimination, test bias, and migration. The importance of these factors was evaluated for diverse countries, regions, and groups including Finland, East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Europe, (...) the Arabian-Muslim world, Latin America, Israel, Jews in the West, Roma, and Muslim immigrants. Education was rated by N = 71 experts as the most important cause of international ability differences. Genes were rated as the second most relevant factor but also had the highest variability in ratings. Culture, health, wealth, modernization, and politics were the next most important factors, whereas other factors such as geography, climate, test bias, and sampling error were less important. The paper concludes with a discussion of limitations of the survey. (shrink)

Sixty-five computer science and computer information systems students were surveyed to ascertain their ethical beliefs on seven scenarios and nineteen ethical problems. All seven scenarios incorporated computer-related problems facing programmers and managers in the high tech world. Hypotheses were tested for significant differences between the students'' beliefs and the beliefs of experts in the field who responded to the same scenarios. The first two hypothesis tested whether female and male high tech students have the same ethical beliefs as the (...) experts who first examined these scenarios. The female students did not agree with the experts in seven of the nineteen problems while the male students did not agree with the experts in eight of the nineteen problems. Both computer information systems and computer science majors disagreed with the experts in ten cases. The last three hypotheses tested whether students from different income levels agreed with the experts. All three groups disagreed significantly with the experts on eight problems. (shrink)

Although the research on compassion is growing, there is a lack of knowledge about how non-expert people perceive compassion. Therefore, the aim of the study was to explore compassion from the perspective of non-experts. Our sample consisted of 56 non-expert participants in 10 focus groups and we conducted a Consensual Qualitative Research analysis with two members of a core team and one auditor. In general, compassion was described as a mixture of non-specified positive emotions and specified negative emotions. (...) Compassion was related to empathy. In terms of behaviours, compassion was revealed to help, support, favour, mental closeness, and interest. Compassion is displayed mainly to people close to us in situations of suffering. However, people tend to evaluate beforehand whether the situation and person deserve compassion. Moreover, people are cautious about being exploited through compassion. To sum up, our findings support a multidimensional definition of compassion. (shrink)

Previous studies have demonstrated that inversion effect and left-side bias are stable expertise markers in Chinese character processing among adults. However, it is less clear how these markers develop early on. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the development of the two markers by comparing primary school-aged students of three age groups and adults in tests of inversion effect and left-sided bias effect. The results replicated that both effects during Chinese character processing were present among adults. However, more importantly, (...) the effects were different among primary school-aged students in different grades: the inversion effect was found as early as in Grade 1, but the left-side bias effect did not emerge in Grade 1 and as approximated that of adults until Grade 3. The study suggested a potential dissociation in developing different aspects of expertise during Chinese character processing in early childhood. (shrink)

For years analysts have recognized the error of assuming that experts in medical science are also experts in deciding the clinically correct course for patients. This paper extends the analysis of the use of the consensus of experts to their use in public policy groups such as NIH Consensus Development panels. After arguing that technical experts cannot be expected to be expert on public policy decisions, the author extends the criticism to the use of the (...) consensus of experts in estimating facts to provide a basis for policy decisions. It is argued that to the extent that (a) experts' views regarding a body of facts can be expected to correlate with their values relevant to those facts; and (b) the values of experts differ from the values of lay people, even the estimates of the facts given by the consensus of expert panels can be expected to differ from the estimates lay people would have given had they had the relevant scientific expertise. Keywords: consensus, expertise, fact/value distinction, NIH Consensus Development Panels CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Existing research shows that people can improve their decision skills by learning what experts paid attention to when faced with the same problem. However, in domains like financial education, effective instruction requires frequent, personalized feedback given at the point of decision, which makes it time‐consuming for experts to provide and thus, prohibitively costly. We address this by demonstrating an automated feedback mechanism that allows amateur decision‐makers to learn what information to attend to from one another, rather than from (...) an expert. In the first experiment, eye movements of N = 100 subjects were recorded while they repeatedly performed a standard behavioral finance investment task. Consistent with previous studies, we found that a significant proportion of subjects were affected by decision bias. In the second experiment, a different group of N = 100 subjects faced the same task but, after each choice, they received individual, machine learning‐generated feedback on whether their pre‐decision eye movements resembled those made by Experiment 1 subjects prior to good decisions. As a result, Experiment 2 subjects learned to analyze information similarly to their successful peers, which in turn reduced their decision bias. Furthermore, subjects with low Cognitive Reflection Test scores gained more from the proposed form of process feedback than from standard behavioral feedback based on decision outcomes. (shrink)

I offer two interpretations of independence between experts: (i) independence as deciding autonomously, and (ii) independence as having different perspectives. I argue that when experts are grouped together, independence of both kinds is valuable for the same reason: they reduce the likelihood of erroneous consensus by enabling a greater variety of critical viewpoints. In offering this argument, I show that a purported proof from Finnur Dellsén that groups of more autonomous experts are more reliable does not (...) work. It relies on a flawed ceteris paribus assumption, as well as a false equivalence between autonomy and probabilistic independence. A purely formal proof that more autonomous experts are more reliable is in fact not possible – substantive claims about how more autonomous groups reason are required. My alternative argument for the value of autonomy between experts rests on the claim that groups that triangulate a greater range of critical viewpoints will be less likely to accept hypotheses in error. As well as clarifying what makes autonomy between experts valuable, this mechanism of critical triangulation, gives us reason to value groups of experts that cover a wide range of relevant skills and knowledge. This justifies my second interpretation of expert independence. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a notable increase in the production of scientific expertise by large multidisciplinary groups. The issue we address is how reports may be written by such groups in spite of their size and of formidable obstacles: complexity of subject matter, uncertainty, and scientific disagreement. Our focus is on the International Panel on Climate Change, unquestionably the best-known case of such collective scientific expertise. What we show is that the organization of work within the IPCC aims (...) to make it possible to produce documents that are indeed expert reports. To do so, we first put forward the epistemic norms that apply to expert reports in general, that is, the properties that reports should have in order to be useful and to help decision-making. Section 2 claims that these properties are: intelligibility, relevance and accuracy. Based on this analysis, section 3 points to the difficulties of having IPCC reports indeed satisfying these norms. We then show how the organization of work within the IPCC aims at and to a large extent secures intelligibility, relevance and accuracy, with the result that IPCC reports can be relied on for decision-making. Section 4 focuses on the fundamentals of IPCC’s work organization--that is, division of labour within the IPCC--while section 5 investigates three frameworks that were introduced over the course of the functioning of the IPCC: the reviewing procedure of IPCC reports, the language that IPCC authors use to express uncertainty and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. Concluding remarks are offered in section 6. (shrink)

In this paper, I will try to answer the question: How are we supposed to assess the expert’s opinion in an argument from the position of an outsider to the specialized field? by placing it in the larger context of the political status of epistemic authority. In order to do this I will first sketch the actual debate around the problem of expertise in a democracy and relate this to the issue of the status of science in society. Secondly, I (...) will review how Douglas Walton’s pragma-dialectical approach offers a practical procedure to assess the expert bias from a nonprofessional’s perspective. Thirdly, I will introduce the problem of group bias using insights from Bohman and Fischer and show how Walton’s solution does not address this specific type of bias. Lastly, I will try proposing a revision of Walton’s solution in order to address this problem. In order to make the explanation more easy to follow I will use a case study concerning the medical expertise in the public debate on second-hand smoke. (shrink)

As one approach to examining the way ethical decisions are made, we asked experts and novices to review a set of scenarios that depict some important ethical tensions in research. The method employed was “protocol analysis,” a talk-aloud technique pioneered by cognitive scientists for the analysis of expert performance. The participants were asked to verbalize their normally unexpressed thought processes as they responded to the scenarios, and to make recommendations for courses of action. We found that experts spent (...) more time working through the decision-making process than novices and also raised substantially more concerns than novices. Differences also exist among the three groups of experts. (shrink)

The focus of the article is the project of British sociologists H. Collins and R. Evans on the Study of Expertise and Experience (SEE). The author of this article attempts to explicate the contexts of talking about expertise as a sociopolitical phenomenon. On the one hand, expertise is discussed in one line of research as an important component of socio-political processes. Expertise is defined in terms of power, its ability to influence decision-making processes in a legitimising way is increasing. On (...) the other hand, the socio-ontological status of expertise is leveled due to the democratisation of access to information and the divergence of the modes of co-existence of science and politics, which is why, according to the researchers, expertise is in crisis. In these contexts, the author turns to the SEE project, which seeks to address the side effects of the proliferation of constructivist sociologies of knowledge and science. By questioning the ability of groups to access the truth and formulate expert judgements on its behalf, constructivist sociology removed the expert as a bearer of specified knowledge from the intellectual scene. Collins and Evans put expertise back on the research agenda; they propose a normative typology of expertise. The author of the article reconstructs the logic of constructing classifications of expertise and problematising two of its key types - interactional and contributory expertise. The article describes in detail the philosophical assumptions behind the concept of interactional expertise. The claims of this concept - as the author of the project sees it - to describe not only a common type of expertise, but also to become one of the conceptual resources for describing society are questionable, due to linguistic reductionism. Collins and Evans reproduce classic problems of sociological theory within the primary distinction of types of expertise. (shrink)

As one approach to examining the way ethical decisions are made, we asked experts and novices to review a set of scenarios that depict some important ethical tensions in research. The method employed was “protocol analysis,” a talk-aloud technique pioneered by cognitive scientists for the analysis of expert performance. The participants were asked to verbalize their normally unexpressed thought processes as they responded to the scenarios, and to make recommendations for courses of action. We found that experts spent (...) more time working through the decision-making process than novices and also raised substantially more concerns than novices. Differences also exist among the three groups of experts. (shrink)

This article reports the findings of a one-year project examining British press coverage of the genetically modified food debate during the first half of 2003, and both expert and non-expert reactions to that coverage. Two pro-GM newspapers and two anti-GM newspapers were selected for analysis, and all articles mentioning GM during the period in question were stored in a machine readable database. This was then analyzed using corpus linguistic and discourse analytic techniques to reveal recurrent wording, themes and content. This (...) text analysis was complemented by 12 interviews with experts involved in the communication of GM issues, and 12 focus-group sessions in which members of the public reacted to selected newspaper texts and other GM material. Both in the press and in public reaction, the issue of GM was found to be intimately associated with other political events of the time, notably the invasion of Iraq. Except among experts, there was little awareness of the official national debate and issues were approached in more general terms. Pro-GM characterization of the issues as primarily scientific, both by newspapers and experts, was rejected by the anti-GM press and campaigners, and by the focus-group participants. They assessed the issues in a more global frame, rejecting scientists and companies as unreliable. In addition, they linked both US and British GM policy to the invasion of Iraq, and, by analogy, rejected pro-GM arguments as untrustworthy. (shrink)

Experts provide an alternative source of information to classical data collection methods such as surveys. They can provide additional insight into problems, supplement existing data, or provide insights when classical data collection is troublesome. In this paper, we explore the (dis)similarities between expert judgments and data collected by traditional data collection methods regarding the development of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSSs) in children with burn injuries. By means of an elicitation procedure, the experts’ domain expertise is formalized and represented (...) in the form of probability distributions. The method is used to obtain beliefs from 14 experts, including nurses and psychologists. Those beliefs are contrasted with questionnaire data collected on the same issue. The individual and aggregated expert judgments are contrasted with the questionnaire data by means of Kullback–Leibler divergences. The aggregated judgments of the group that mainly includes psychologists resemble the questionnaire data more than almost all of the individual expert judgments. (shrink)

Expert reasoning is responsible for some of the most stunning human achievements, but also for some of the most disastrous decisions ever made. The argumentative theory of reasoning has proven very effective at explaining the pattern of reasoning’s successes and failures. In the present article, it is expanded to account for expert reasoning. The argumentative theory predicts that reasoning should display a strong confirmation bias. If argument quality is not sufficiently high in a domain, the confirmation bias will make (...) class='Hi'>experts tap into their vast knowledge to defend whatever opinion they hold, with polarization and overconfidence as expected results. By contrast, experts should benefit even more from the power of group discussion to make the best of the confirmation bias—when they genuinely disagree that is, otherwise polarization is again likely to ensue. When experts interact with laymen other mechanisms can take the lead, in particular trust calibration and consistency checking. They can yield poor outcomes if experts do not have a sustained interaction with laymen, or if the laymen have strong opinions when they witness a debate between experts. Seeing reasoning as a mechanism of epistemic vigilance aimed at finding and evaluating arguments helps make better sense of expert reasoning performance, be it in individual ratiocination, in debates with other experts, or in interactions with laymen. (shrink)

Paul Smeyers’ keynote address to the PESA 2007 Conference, ‘The Entrepreneurial Self and Informal Education: On government intervention and the discourse of experts’ provides a timely call for questioning the governing of the family. This paper draws upon Smeyers’ key concerns to explore both historical and contemporary trends in clustering government agencies, under the guidance of child development experts. The guidance of two expert groups is problematised, with particular attention to an absence of commitment to Māori perspectives (...) of education and child‐rearing. Such an absence reflects, in New Zealand, a dangerous undermining of the historic treaty between the British and Māori. The paper then challenges, with brief reference to Jacques Derrida's discussions on autobiography and Freud's Legacy, the identity of expert groups advocating early intervention in the lives of families measured as a burden on economic and social progress. The paper posits that perhaps it is the developmental expert that requires some form of early intervention. (shrink)

Expert claims routinely “affect, combat, refute, and negate” someone or some faction or grouping of persons. When scientists proclaim the truth of Darwinism, they refute, negate, and whatnot the Christian view of the creation, and thus Christians. When research is done on racial differences, it affects, negates, and so on, those who are negatively characterized. This is why Phillip Kitcher argues that it should be banned. Some truths are too dangerous to ever inquire into, because, he reasons, even by inquiring (...) we legitimate the negation that racial distinctions already carry. Expert claims also favour or disfavour policies or decisions which have factions or persons supporting them. (shrink)

The philosophy of medicine cum bioethics has become the socially recognized source for moral and epistemic direction in health-care decision-making. Over the last three decades, this field has been accepted politically as an authorized source of guidance for policy and law. The field's political actors have included the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical (...) and Behavioral Research , the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and the new Council on Bioethics; these groups and agencies have set forth rules on issues ranging from the role of humans in biomedical research to the production of human embryos for research, the definition of death, and the permissibility of human cloning. The members of the field are not just scholars and teachers in an academic realm directed to both theoretical and applied issues. They are, in addition, practitioners of a conceptual and moral trade that possesses a legal and political standing. This essay critically addresses the sudden emergence of bioethics as a societally recognized source of moral guidance, a source replete with authorized moral experts. Attention is directed to moral and conceptual assumptions that have led the philosophy of medicine, and especially bioethics, to acquire a quasi-juridical/political role in guiding clinical choices, framing health-care policy, and directing court holdings. (shrink)

Studies in the psychology of visual expertise have tended to focus on a limited set of expert domains, such as radiology and athletics. Conclusions drawn from these data indicate that experts use parafoveal vision to process images holistically. In this study, we examined a novel, as-of-yet-unstudied class of visual experts—architects—expecting similar results. However, the results indicate that architects, though visual experts, may not employ the holistic processing strategy observed in their previously studied counterparts. Participants (n = 48, (...) 24 architects, 24 naïve) were asked to find targets in chest radiographs and perspective images. All images were presented in both gaze-contingent and normal viewing conditions. Consistent with a holistic processing model, we expected two results: (1) architects would display a greater difference in saccadic amplitude between the gaze- contingent and normal conditions, and (2) architects would spend less time per search than an undergraduate control group. We found that the architects were more accurate in the perspectival task, but they took more time and displayed a lower difference in saccadic amplitude than the controls. Our research indicates a disjunctive conclusion. Either architects are simply different kinds of visual experts than those previously studied, or we have generated a task that employs visual expertise without holistic processing. Our data suggest a healthy skepticism for across-the-board inferences collected from a single domain of expertise to the nature of visual expertise generally. More work is needed to determine whether holism is a feature of all visual expertise. (shrink)

One of the most significant aspects of Internet, in comparison with other sources of information, such as libraries, books, journals, television, radio etcetera, is that it makes expert knowledge much more accessible to non‐experts than the other traditional sources. This phenomenon has often been applauded for its democratizing effects. Unfortunately, there is also a disadvantage. Expert information that was originally intended for a specific group of people ‐ and not in any way processed or adapted to make it fit (...) for a broader audience ‐ can easily be misunderstood and misinterpreted by non‐experts and, when used as a basis for decisions, lead to unhappy consequences. Can these risks be diminished without limiting the informational freedoms of the information providers and without imposing paternalistic measures regarding the receivers of the information? (shrink)

In this article, I present some new group level interpretations of probability, and champion one in particular: a consensus-based variant where group degrees of belief are construed as agreed upon betting quotients rather than shared personal degrees of belief. One notable feature of the account is that it allows us to treat consensus between experts on some matter as being on the union of their relevant background information. In the course of the discussion, I also introduce a novel distinction (...) between intersubjective and interobjective interpretations of probability. (shrink)

In qualitative interviews with a diverse group of experts, the vast majority believed unregulated researchers should seek out independent oversight. Reasons included the need for objectivity, protecting app users from research risks, and consistency in standards for the ethical conduct of research. Concerns included burdening minimal risk research and limitations in current systems of oversight. Literature and analysis supports the use of IRBs even when not required by regulations, and the need for evidence-based improvements in IRB processes.

The purpose of the current study was to apply and evaluate a procedure to elicit expert judgments about correlations, and to update this information with empirical data. The result is a face-to-face group elicitation procedure with as its central element a trial roulette question that elicits experts' judgments expressed as distributions. During the elicitation procedure, a concordance probability question was used to provide feedback to the experts on their judgments. We evaluated the elicitation procedure in terms of validity (...) and reliability by means of an application with a small sample of experts. Validity means that the elicited distributions accurately represent the experts' judgments. Reliability concerns the consistency of the elicited judgments over time. Four behavioral scientists provided their judgments with respect to the correlation between cognitive potential and academic performance for two separate populations enrolled at a specific school in the Netherlands that provides special education to youth with severe behavioral problems: youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and youth with diagnoses other than ASD. Measures of face-validity, feasibility, convergent validity, coherence, and intra-rater reliability showed promising results. Furthermore, the current study illustrates the use of the elicitation procedure and elicited distributions in a social science application. The elicited distributions were used as a prior for the correlation, and updated with data for both populations collected at the school of interest. The current study shows that the newly developed elicitation procedure combining the trial roulette method with the elicitation of correlations is a promising tool, and that the results of the procedure are useful as prior information in a Bayesian analysis. (shrink)

Expertise is commonly viewed as a professionalized competence in a specific field. Expert professional identities are produced and reproduced through professional training and other socialization mechanisms, which work to generate for a specific group of individuals a specific set of expert skills and knowledge. In this paper, I examine participants’ orientations to their distinct expert professional identities from the perspective of deontic authority. Drawing on 15 video-recorded church workplace meetings between pastors and cantors as data, and conversation analysis as a (...) theoretical and methodological framework, I analyze situations where a non-expert participant makes a proposal that the expert participant orients to as reasonable to comply with. Specifically, I demonstrate how the expert participants respond to these proposals with displays of deontic authority, arguably in an attempt to maintain their expert identities in the face of their de facto compliance with the proposals. In these situations, the expert participants are shown to invoke a past decision of their own, a future decision of their own, or a pattern that is beyond both participants’ control. Each of these practices involves the expert participant balancing resistance and compliance by minimally acknowledging the content of the non-expert participant’s proposal, while excluding the non-expert from those who have deontic authority in the matter. In so doing, the expert speaker implies that the non-expert proposal speaker lacks procedural knowledge about the specific matters about which it is relevant to make proposals to experts and access to the distinct experiential perspective that characterizes expert perception of things. It is thus argued that, in this context, the mere claims of deontic authority, produced without any substantial displays of expert knowledge, can serve the maintenance of expert professional identities. (shrink)

There are many reasons why scientific experts may mask disagreement and endorse a position publicly as “jointly accepted.” In this paper I consider the inner workings of a group of scientists charged with deciding not only a technically difficult issue, but also a matter of social and political importance: the maximum acceptable dose of radiation. I focus on how, in this real world situation, concerns with credibility, authority, and expertise shaped the process by which this group negotiated the competing (...) virtues of reaching consensus versus reporting accurately the nature and degree of disagreement among them. (shrink)

Society has historically not taken a benign view of genetic disease. The laws permitting sterilization of the mentally re tarded~ and those proscribing consanguineous marriages are but two examples. Indeed as far back as the 5th-10th centuries, B.C.E., consanguineous unions were outlawed (Leviticus XVIII, 6). Case law has traditionally tended toward the conservative. It is reactive rather than directive, exerting its influence only after an individual or group has sustained injury and brought suit. In contrast, state legislatures have not been (...) inhibited in enacting statutes. Many of their products can be characterized as hasty, unnecessary, ill-conceived, and based on the heart rather than the head. Moreover the lack of expert consultation sought has also been remarkable. One state legislature, for example, has advocated immunization for sickle cell anemia! Many others have enacted laws for the screening of inborn errors of metabolism, e.g., phenylketon uria, but have poorly defined the lines of responsibility to secure compliance. A spate of specific disease-related bills has emerged in the u.S. Congress, each seeking recognition and appropriations. Sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, Cooley's anemia and Tay-Sachs disease have been among the front-runners for support. Finally, in 1975, Congress has begun to examine an omnibus bill concerning all forms of genetic disease. The bill, termed the National Genetic Diseases Act is, however, still far from being enacted. (shrink)

In the context of academic research, a diversity of ethical issues, conditioned by the different roles of members within these institutions, arise. Previous studies on this topic addressed mainly the perceptions of researchers. However, to our knowledge, no studies have explored the transversal ethical issues from a wider spectrum, including other members of academic institutions as the research ethics board (REB) members, and the research ethics experts. The present study used a descriptive phenomenological approach to document the ethical issues (...) experienced by a heterogeneous group of Canadian researchers, REB members, and research ethics experts. Data collection involved socio-demographic questionnaires and individual semi-structured interviews. Following the triangulation of different perspectives (researchers, REB members and ethics experts), emerging ethical issues were synthesized in ten units of meaning: (1) research integrity, (2) conflicts of interest, (3) respect for research participants, (4) lack of supervision and power imbalances, (5) individualism and performance, (6) inadequate ethical guidance, (7) social injustices, (8) distributive injustices, (9) epistemic injustices, and (10) ethical distress. This study highlighted several problematic elements that can support the identification of future solutions to resolve transversal ethical issues in research that affect the heterogeneous members of the academic community. (shrink)

It is not only difficult to be a sports expert but also difficult to grow from a sports expert to a sports elite. Professional athletes are often concerned about the differences between an expert and an elite and how to eventually become an elite athlete. To explore the differences in brain neural mechanism between experts and elites in the process of motor behavior and reveal the internal connection between motor performance and brain activity, we collected and analyzed the electroencephalography (...) findings of 14 national archers and 14 provincial archers during aiming and resting states and constructed the EEG brain network of the two archer groups based on weighted phase lag index; the graph theory was used to analyze and compare the network characteristics via local network and global network topologies. The results showed that compared with the expert archers, the elite archers had stronger functional coupling in beta1 and beta2 bands, and the difference was evident in the frontal and central regions; in terms of global characteristics of brain network topology, the average clustering coefficient and global efficiency of elite archers were significantly higher than that of expert archers, and the eigenvector centrality of expert archers was higher; for local characteristics, elite archers had higher local efficient; and the brain network characteristics of expert archers showed a strong correlation with archery performance. This suggests that compared with expert archers, elite archers showed stronger functional coupling, higher integration efficiency of global and local information, and more independent performance in the archery process. These findings reveal the differences in brain electrical network topologies between elite and expert archers in the archery preparation stage, which is expected to provide theoretical reference for further training and promotion of professional athletes. (shrink)

BackgroundNusinersen is one of an increasing number of new, expensive orphan drugs to receive authorization. These drugs strain public healthcare budgets and challenge principles for resource allocation. Nusinersen was introduced in the Norwegian public healthcare system in 2018. A national expert group consisting of physicians was formed to oversee the introduction and continuation of treatment in light of specific start and stop criteria.MethodsWe have studied experiences within the expert group with a special emphasis on their application of the start and (...) stop criteria, rationing of treatment, and experienced moral dilemmas. A research interview with six members of the national expert group was performed, then analysed with manifest content analysis. The analysis was supplemented with publically available sources on priority setting and the process leading up to the introduction of nusinersen and the establishment of the expert group.ResultsSixty-six patients have received treatment within the first 25 months since the national expert group’s establishment. Treatment has not been discontinued for any patient. No patients under 18 years of age have been denied treatment, as those who were referred at this age were all deemed to fulfill the start criteria. The expert group has, however, increased geographical treatment equity and facilitated important cooperation at the national level. Furthermore, it has enhanced open and critical discussions of both medical issues and new ethical dilemmas.ConclusionAlthough facilitating equal access to treatment for SMA patients, the national expert group has not discontinued treatment for any patient. It is suggested that in order for clinicians to be able to ration care for individual patients, they require both adequate support and sufficient formal authority. Start and stop criteria need to be re-evaluated as more knowledge and experience are gained regarding the treatment. (shrink)

Introducción: El examen estatal escrito evalúa la competencia del egresado y debe cumplir los requisitos de su confección y de su análisis informar las deficiencias en el proceso docente educativo para su perfeccionamiento. Objetivo: Caracterizar el examen estatal ordinario escrito y los resultados obtenidos en la Facultad de Estomatología. Camagüey durante el período 2011-2012. Métodos: Se realizó un estudio descriptivo del examen estatal ordinario escrito aplicado a 146 estudiantes. Se elaboró una base de datos con las calificaciones obtenidas, índice académico (...) y una guía con las variables tipo de examen, de preguntas, nivel de asimilación, claridad de formulación, correspondencia con los objetivos de la carrera, clave de calificación y cumplimiento de los criterios de Guilbert, analizados por grupo de expertos. Resultados: En los resultados se aproximó la nota de los excelentes (27,4 %) con el índice académico de los altos rendimientos (28,1 %). La mediana general fue de 86,3. Los temas más explorados fueron Endodoncia (18,8 %), Prótesis y Odontopediatría (10,4 %). Las preguntas con más valor fueron de temas curativos. El nivel de asimilación fue reproductivo y el 35,4 % de preguntas tipo selección múltiple complemento agrupado. Existieron dificultades de diseño del examen y autopreparación de los estudiantes. Conclusiones: Los resultados se aproximaron a los rendimientos académicos. No hubo equidad entre el número, valor de las preguntas por temas y nivel de asimilación. Los errores se asociaron en frecuencia al diseño y redacción de algunas preguntas, insuficiente estudio y en menor grado a la falta de sistematicidad en el proceso docente, que permitieron determinar las deficiencias para su intervención. Introduction: The State written exam evaluates the competence of seniors and must meet the requirements of its preparation and analysis in order to report deficiencies in the educational teaching process for its further development. Objective: To characterize the written regular state exam and the results obtained at the Faculty of Stomatology. Camaguey during the period of 2011-2012. Methods: A descriptive study of the written regular state exam was conducted to 146 students. A data base was developed with the grades obtained, academic index and a guide with the exam- type variables, questions, level of assimilation, clarity of formulation, correspondence with the objectives of the career, key qualification and compliance with the criteria of Guilbert, all analyzed by groups of experts. Results: In the results the excellent notes (27.4%) approached to the academic index of high yield (28.1%). The general average was 86,3. The most explored themes were Endodontics (18.8%), Prosthesis and Pediatric Odontology (10.4%). healing topics were the questions with more value. The level of assimilation was reproductive and 35.4% of multiple choice type questions complement clustered. There were difficulties according to the test design and the students' self study. Conclusions: The results were close to academic performance. There was no equality between the number, value of the questions by topic and level of assimilation. Errors were often associated with the design and wording of some questions, insufficient study and in a lesser extent to the lack of systematic fashion in the teaching process, which allowed to determine deficiencies for its intervention. (shrink)

Includes established theories and cutting-edge developments. Presents the work of an international group of experts. Presents the nature, origin, implications, and future course of major unresolved issues in the area.

‘Individualized medicine’ is an emerging paradigm in clinical life science research. We conducted a socio-empirical interview study in a leading German clinical research group, aiming at implementing ‘individualized medicine’ of colorectal cancer. The goal was to investigate moral and social issues related to physician–patient interaction and clinical care, and to identify the points raised, supported and rejected by the physicians and researchers. Up to now there has been only limited insight into how experts dedicated to individualized medicine view its (...) problems. Interviews with researchers and clinicians ( n= 19) were based on a prestructured questionnaire. The content analysis revealed a broad spectrum of opinions. Major findings were (a) disappointments with the limits of the current therapy regimen and clinical practice; (b) problematic impacts on physician–patient relationship; and (c) an informed consent procedure which is mainly based on paternalistic assumptions. According to our analysis, major problems will be uncertainties related to the biomarker's sensitivity and specificity, and the identification of ‘non-responders’. However, the findings also indicate that experts expect evidence-based medicine to replace decisions based on gut feeling or hierarchical structures. (shrink)

[This is the short version of: Müller, Vincent C. and Bostrom, Nick (forthcoming 2016), ‘Future progress in artificial intelligence: A survey of expert opinion’, in Vincent C. Müller (ed.), Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence (Synthese Library 377; Berlin: Springer).] - - - In some quarters, there is intense concern about high–level machine intelligence and superintelligent AI coming up in a few dec- ades, bringing with it significant risks for human- ity; in other quarters, these issues are ignored or considered science (...) fiction. We wanted to clarify what the distribution of opinions actually is, what probability the best experts currently assign to high–level machine intelligence coming up within a particular time–frame, which risks they see with that development and how fast they see these developing. We thus designed a brief questionnaire and distributed it to four groups of experts. Overall, the results show an agreement among experts that AI systems will probably reach overall human ability around 2040-2050 and move on to superintelligence in less than 30 years thereafter. The experts say the probability is about one in three that this development turns out to be ‘bad’ or ‘extremely bad’ for humanity. (shrink)

‘Individualized medicine’ is an emerging paradigm in clinical life science research. We conducted a socio-empirical interview study in a leading German clinical research group, aiming at implementing ‘individualized medicine’ of colorectal cancer. The goal was to investigate moral and social issues related to physician–patient interaction and clinical care, and to identify the points raised, supported and rejected by the physicians and researchers. Up to now there has been only limited insight into how experts dedicated to individualized medicine view its (...) problems. Interviews with researchers and clinicians (n= 19) were based on a prestructured questionnaire. The content analysis revealed a broad spectrum of opinions. Major findings were (a) disappointments with the limits of the current therapy regimen and clinical practice; (b) problematic impacts on physician–patient relationship; and (c) an informed consent procedure which is mainly based on paternalistic assumptions. According to our analysis, major problems will be uncertainties related to the biomarker's sensitivity and specificity, and the identification of ‘non-responders’. However, the findings also indicate that experts expect evidence-based medicine to replace decisions based on gut feeling or hierarchical structures. (shrink)

Experimental research by social and cognitive psychologists has established that cooperative groups solve a wide range of problems better than individuals. Cooperative problem solving groups of scientific researchers, auditors, financial analysts, air crash investigators, and forensic art experts are increasingly important in our complex and interdependent society. This comprehensive textbook--the first of its kind in decades--presents important theories and experimental research about group problem solving. The book focuses on tasks that have demonstrably correct solutions within mathematical, logical, (...) scientific, or verbal systems, including algebra problems, analogies, vocabulary, and logical reasoning problems.The book explores basic concepts in group problem solving, social combination models, group memory, group ability and world knowledge tasks, rule induction problems, letters-to-numbers problems, evidence for positive group-to-individual transfer, and social choice theory. The conclusion proposes ten generalizations that are supported by the theory and research on group problem solving. Group Problem Solving is an essential resource for decision-making research in social and cognitive psychology, but also extremely relevant to multidisciplinary and multicultural problem-solving teams in organizational behavior, business administration, management, and behavioral economics. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that the therapeutic relationship between professionals and patients is one of trust. Nonetheless, some patient groups carry certain social vulnerabilities that can be exacerbated when they extend trust to health-care professionals. In exploring the epistemic and ethical implications of expert status, this paper examines how calls to trust may increase epistemic oppression and perpetuate the vulnerability of people with impairments. It critically evaluates the processes through which epistemic communities are formed or determined, and examines the (...) institutional structure and power relations that contribute to or sustain such self-affirming ideological communities. It also argues for a two-way collaborative approach between professionals and people with impairments that recognizes the role of local knowledge in enhancing professionals’ own understanding of their theoretical framework and promoting responsive practices and policies. (shrink)

Many fields of study have shown that group discussion generally improves reasoning performance for a wide range of tasks. This article shows that most of the population, including specialists, does not expect group discussion to be as beneficial as it is. Six studies asked participants to solve a standard reasoning problem—the Wason selection task—and to estimate the performance of individuals working alone and in groups. We tested samples of U.S., Indian, and Japanese participants, European managers, and psychologists of reasoning. (...) Every sample underestimated the improvement yielded by group discussion. They did so even after they had been explained the correct answer, or after they had had to solve the problem in groups. These mistaken intuitions could prevent individuals from making the best of institutions that rely on group discussion, from collaborative learning and work teams to deliberative assemblies. (shrink)

BackgroundThe H2020 i-CONSENT project has developed a set of guidelines that offer ethical recommendations and practical tools aimed at making the informed consent process in clinical studies more comprehensive, tailored, and inclusive. An analysis of the appropriateness of some of its novel recommendations was carried out by a group of experts representing different stakeholders.MethodsAn adaptation of the RAND/ucla Appropriateness Method was used to assess the level of agreement on the recommendations among 14 representatives of different stakeholders, including patients, regulators, (...) investigators, ethics experts, and the pharmaceutical industry. The process included two rounds of rating and a virtual meeting.ResultsFifty-three recommendations were evaluated. After the first round, 34 recommendations were judged “appropriate”; 19 were judged “uncertain”; and none was judged “inappropriate”. After the second round, 9 “uncertains” changed to “appropriate”. All recommendations rated medians of 6.5–9 on a 1–9 scale (1 = “extremely inappropriate”, 5 = “uncertain”, 9 = “extremely appropriate”). The sections “General recommendations” and “Gender perspective during the consent process for clinical studies” showed the highest “uncertainty” rating. The four keys to improving the understanding of the ICP in clinical studies are to: (1) consider consent a two-way continuous interaction that begins at the first contact with the potential participant and continues until the end of the study; (2) improve investigators’ communication skills; (3) co-create the information; and (4) use a layered approach, including information to compensate for the potential participant’s possible lack of health literacy and a glossary of terms.ConclusionsThe RAND/ucla method has demonstrated validity for assessing the appropriateness of recommendations in ethical guidelines. The recommendations of the i-CONSENT guidelines were mostly judged “appropriate” by all stakeholders involved in the informed consent process. (shrink)

Local and global dependencies and interactions between individuals, groups and institutions are becoming increasingly opaque and risky. This is due to increased importance of highly complex abstract systems created and supported in order to maintain of transport, communications, finance, energy, media, security infrastructure, as well as social and cultural institutions. These systems require the knowledge and skills of experts. Professionals that not only satisfy identified needs, but also create new thereby contribute the development of cultural narcissism phenomenon. The (...) aim of the book is to discuss relations of experts and mass narcissism, on the background of shaping the knowledge societies and knowledge-based economies, and moreover their transformations towards the societies and economies based on creativity and wisdom. Undertaken analysis is contribute to sociology of expertise and intervention by indicating four selected contemporary issues: dilemmas of the knowledge society development; selection between trust substitutes and its reconstruction methods; transformations of social stratification; and the choice of pathways to socio-economic development. (shrink)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, a considerable amount of people seem to have been lured into believing in conspiracy theories. These people deliberately disregard expert advice by virologists and physicians concerning social behaviour that is aimed at reducing the number of new infections. Disregarding traditional experts and their advice is just one example of what, in the philosophy of science, is referred to as a crisis of expertise – the phenomenon whereby people seem to have lost their trust in traditional (...) expert advice and are looking for alternatives. In the following paper, the trend to use Internet technology as an epistemic alternative will be analysed in detail by investigating the question of whether the Internet really allows people to become epistemically more autonomous. The focus will be on the epistemic and moral vulnerability of people resorting to new media tools instead of relying on traditional expert opinion. It will be shown that some important presuppositions about the Internet and, in particular, social media tools as alternative ways to collect information and find emotional support in a group of like-minded people cannot be maintained. (shrink)

This study introduces and evaluates the GIBAC Learning Model, aimed at enhancing students’ mathematical communication skills in Indonesian secondary schools, achieving an impressive 30% increase in students’ mathematical communication skills as evidenced by the n-gain method and dependent t-test analysis. Grounded in cooperative learning theory and motivation, the model integrates local academic culture and promotes student independence, offering a promising avenue for educational advancement in Indonesia. Employing a Mixed Methods approach, data from three secondary schools were collected via cluster random (...) sampling, encompassing interviews, observations, expert assessments, and questionnaires. Analysis reveals the model’s effectiveness in improving mathematical communication skills, underscoring its relevance to Indonesian educational practices. Practical implications for teachers emphasize the integration of cultural aspects and student autonomy in mathematics education, thereby contributing to the advancement of educational literature through Indonesian innovation and cultural adaptation in pedagogical frameworks. (shrink)