Expertise is not infallible

I believe that expertise is valuable, but expertise is not infallible authority. Science serves society best when it can be questioned openly.

Confidence

High

What could disprove it

Show that treating expert authority as beyond question produces better long-term outcomes than open scrutiny.

Current support

Expert consensus has been wrong before and will be again.

Progress requires challenge, replication, and revision.

Sample: Ioannidis (2005) estimated most published medical research findings may be false positives given bias and sample sizes.

Supporting resources

Studies, data, books, and references that help express and test this belief.

StudyIoannidis — Why most published research findings are false ↗

Landmark paper on replication failure — expert consensus can be wrong and must stay open to challenge.

StudyOpen Science Collaboration — Replication project ↗

Large-scale attempt to replicate psychology studies — many did not reproduce.