Experts

I suppose I am sceptic of experts. I will listen to an expert but before accepting his/her word, I seek a second opinion, usually these days by investigating the subject on the internet. With economics, there is usually at least 2 views but often a consensus of forecasts which, quite often, are based on 'other things being equal'. If other things are not equal, the forecast go oft awry.

Expert scepticism isn't new. The Royal Society motto is 'Nullius in verba', taken to mean 'take nobody's word for it'. The Society says: 'It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment'. The latter may not, of course, be possible outside the natural sciences but I like the general idea.

Yup THE UKIP donor. without which UKIP would not have been able to campaign and get us into this fine mess Stanley. For months before the referendum UKIP aka leave campaign were able to rent a high street shop in a very sleepy corner of Wales, and fill it with T shirts etc. It was not often staffed as UKIP don't actually have many members. c30k in the whole country if you look at the votes cast in the leadership election. I could see it at recent "counts" - the candidates usually turn up with supporters but ours just turned up with a family member or two.

You may call it a fine mess Jess but over 17 million people are happy that we are leaving the EU.

jessM* Mansplaining That is a brilliant term.

That leaves something like 53million who are not necessarily convinced it is a good idea* Roses*.

Yes quite. And apparently so many of those who voted in June have now died, that those who voted leave and are still living are outnumbered by remain voters. (source is social media) evonews.com/world-news/2016/dec/09/over-120000-brexit-voters-in-favour-of-leave-have-died-since-the-referendum/

It shows no signs at all of not being colossal mess that will set this country back a decade or more. Not to mention making us look stupid.

I have to say M0nica has it right. Experts do know their subjects, and usually are prepared to put +- limits on figures. But the media want certainties, so they distort what the original message was.
This isn't helped by the BBC having to put two sides to every announcement even if one side is represented by 99 experts, and the other is someone who once met one of the Kardashians

17 million plus 53 million = 70 million
Number of people eligible to vote in referendum = 46.5 million

Who are the other 23.5 million?
Does that include people like my 4 year old DGD?
I must admit I didn't ask for her opinion

Not a Brexiter btw, just by the figures that get bandied around.

So, someone has claimed on Twitter that 123,441 voters from the ‘leave’ side have died since 23 June, while just 29,792 ‘remain’ voters have died since the Brexit vote.

That has confused me even more - how does anyone know?
I thought the vote was between a person and the ballot box or did they have to sign a death-bed confession that they voted Brexit?

That is beyond ludicrous

Oh - I see, the figures have been extrapolated by a scientist, Steve Lawrence, an expert so they must be right

(love the death-bed confession scenario...!)

Well I'm still waiting for the emergency budget that was predicted by the 'experts' and property prices are till rising.

Experts still have their own individual opinions which are not necessarily shared by other experts in the same field. In court cases it is possible for prosecution and defence to call their own experts and each will give a differing opinion, an economics expert in favour of leaving the EU will give a different opinion to another economic expert who is in favour of staying. It's no wonder those of us who don't presume to be experts to anything get confused!

I doubt there is anyone anywhere who is an expert on the future.

But we all constantly make decisions based on what we confidently expect to happen in the future.

I am just about to make some soup for supper based on my confident future prediction that DH, who has just gone out to get the car washed, will return as expected in about 45 minutes.

We all look at the weather forecast but nobody is surprised when it is wrong. The future is uncertain. Maybe we just get used to believing that it isn't.

Weather forecasting is very much better than it used to be, as a result of improvements in the science of meteorology.

It makes me so cross when people ignore warnings about man made climate change which are already causing devastation across the globe. People suffer just because no one wants to hear the truth and it's the future generations who are left with the mess.

I am usually ready to listen to an expert although most disappoint after a while, but a basis in science leads me to think that others also apply the rules before stating any facts.
What is the evidence against what the expert is promoting as truth. Were the variables examined and taken into consideration.
What *granny 23' writes about domestic abuse rings a bell with me. I worked voluntarily in this field for 25 years in Germany and inspite of many experts on this subject no one was ever really listened to, as we always had to come up
with an answer to a problem which was not going to cost much.

Nobody knows what the effect of the Uk leaving the EU will be. In our German newspaper there was a long article about the Poles and Latvians in Boston. The Poles were our Allies in WWII which gives then a privileged position. I rememebr going to the Polish Club dances in Sheffield in the 60s, and now noone speaks to them at work, or buys their bread.

Whatever happens if Brexit is successful, people won't be happy, because the mind-set will not change and the world cannot go back to 60 years ago when we all lived in Little all-white England.

I don't think it's correct that no one speaks to Polish people or buys from them MargaretX. It certainly isn't true of where I live, and my children wouldn't be here if their Polish grandfather hadn't come to Britain during the war.

What mind-set do you mean? And are you just speaking for ex-pat Remainers?

I was thinking of the U.K. population - including those not qualified to vote for a variety of reasons (age, EU Nationals, youngsters not quite old enough to register last year etc) and the Brits who at the moment live in the EU and who therefore have an interest in the result of the referendum and including those unable to vote - some because of length of time abroad but many did not receive the voting papers in time -It is probably a conservative number but I confess I did not get a calculator out and check all figures!

I think the state many people worked themselves to over the EU referendum was ridiculous. I voted remain, but as the majority voted to leave I wish people would stop fighting past battles and just get together to sort out us leaving as soon as possible in an as orderly manner as possible.

Personally, once the decision was made, I think we should have said we would leave when the financial year was up and then go, worry about the effects on the country later. I get the impression that is what the majority of ordinary voting Brexiteers wanted. Where else would a member of a club that had decided to resign from it negotiate the terms of its leaving?

Shall we stop all this silly numbers and percentages game?The majority of votes were for us leaving the EU, and that is what we will shortly be doing.

It really is time that people got used to it.