Experts

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

jessM* Mansplaining That is a brilliant term.

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

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.

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.

The Guardian said Arron Banks, UKIP donor, presumably that is correct.

Well, the OP said the new UKIP leader so I assumed Nuttall, but perhaps absent meant Arron Banks?

I think most people use common sense. I want an expert medical practitioner and I know the difference between that and a quack. Anyway an "expert" means you don't have to think for your self and develop some critical judgement and the bonus is that you can blame someone when the information is incorrect.

Disparagement is the order of the day and when "experts" like Arron Banks consider themselves to know more about Roman history than a classical scholar I despair. It seems that we have begun to equate money and power with truth and intellectual rigour.

Nobody can claim to accurately predict the future in any field, there are always black swan events, events that cannot be forecast, that can disrupt plans but I would always give more credence to the person who knows their field to one who doesn't. If I am ill, I am more likely to accept the views of a specialist consultant when he tells me how a condition will develop in the future, than that of a lawyer, even one who works in medical law.

We all make predictions and act on them all the time. I am currently planning for Christmas, in expectation that everything will happen as in previous years but there could always be unexpected events to disrupt it. Illness, accidents, DD's Christmas shift pattern suffering a last minute change, unlikely, it hasn't happened in 10 years but... But if Black swan events were regular events they wouldn't be Black Swan events.

When planning for the future you look at all the possible outcomes and their probabilities and make decisions on that basis. On a personal level you are your own expert, for bigger things you look to an expert in the relevant field. Life wouldn't function if we did not continually make assessments of what will happen in the future and act on those assessments.

Economics is not an exact science and no-one can accurately predict what influences world events will have on any situation.

Someone who is an academic historian is only an expert on their area of interest. If they choose to extrapolate to current events, that's an opinion. Not an expert opinion.

I agree, and the trouble is that they believe, because they are experts in their field, that they are experts in everything else too; they have a degree of confidence which comes from knowing their own field thoroughly and expounding to possibly awe-struck students. Therefore they then believe they have the knowledge in other fields to tell others what they should be thinking, how they should be acting and disparage those who disagree.

Until, of course, they change their minds

michelle quite a number of economists, did see the crash coming, but nobody wanted to hear them. An expert can give information but they cannot make the person receiving the information take any notice of it.

Warnings that the economy was overheating had been around in the media since about 2000. But no-one wanted to know. So many people were making so much money, especially banks and financial institutions that they just wanted the good times to roll on. They couldn't believe they would ever end. In the end they did so they turned on the experts and blamed them for not warning them. But the experts did publish warnings, but nobody wanted to listen to them.

The Queen asked the wrong people the question. She should have asked the bankers and politicians who ignored the advice, why.

i do rather like the recently invented term "mansplaining" which is when a man condescends to explain something to a woman who knows more than he does about the topic.
I think the term "expert" is overused and over-extended. An expert in some expert of quilting may be someone with a lifetime of practical experience.
An "expert" on retroviruses on the other hand, would be someone who had spent a couple of decades reading research and doing research into a highly specialised and difficult subject.
Someone who is an academic historian is only an expert on their area of interest. If they choose to extrapolate to current events, that's an opinion. Not an expert opinion.
There is a huge problem with politicians in that few of them have had a scientific or similar training and education. Therefore their grasp of what "evidence" is and what conclusions you should draw is, in general, very limited. They tend to form policy on the basis of their opinions not on evidence. Journalists too, keep picking up snippets of research (preliminary study on mice, usually) and splashing them across front pages with headlines like "Cure for dementia!"

I think we should take a scientific approach and believe only what hard evidence shows us. Anything else is opinion and should rightly be challenged at every step. After all, when facts are unproven, then everyone is as 'expert' as the next man - although the people who are usually right seem to be women.
Naturally, that last comment is open to discussion and disagreement

Oh, Granny23 I take my hat off to you! That must have been soooo frustrating, to have your knowledge swept to one side for the dumbing down of the story.

Back in the day I was an 'expert' in 'Domestic violence in Scotland' having been a WA worker for, eventually, 18+ years, read and digested everything published on the topic and fully conversant with all relevant Matrimonial and Housing law, Benefits, etc. I lectured to and trained Police, housing, welfare and health workers - was a Board member of a programme designed for abusive men, a specialised Housing Association and a group who managed to amend a Matrimonial Homes Act.

However, when I was interviewed for TV, radio or newspapers or on the panel at a conference, my knowledge was usually ignored, not reported or skewed. Instead all mentions of DA had to be accompanied by a picture in silhouette of a woman washing dishes and the recounting of one woman's personal story, which might, or might not be relevant to the aspect under discussion.

The definition of an expert is someone who knows a bit about something and very little about everything or words to that affect. Some so called experts I wouldn't give house room too and most celebrities I've never even heard of. Everyone has an opinion but that doesn't make them an expert

Great post, Absent. Get well soon, Anya.
I think some of it must be partly because of the 24 hour rolling news - producers feel under pressure to put someone in front of a camera or microphone, so whoever is available is grabbed. I was horrified to read that about the UKIP p**l*ck arguing with Mary Beard. What arrogance!
I also think the word celebrity is over used. I think it's appropriate for those people who are famous for being famous, but sometimes it's used for people with talent and I don't think the two should be confused.

And Gagagran, how right the Queen was re: the financial crash. Anyone could see it coming. Any of us who were young adults in the 70s could see the signs (again) of an overheated economy. It's a pity the expert economists couldn't.

I agree with M0nica, a lot of "expert" opinion is channelled through press offices, where soundbite is more important than information. The rise and rise of total rubbish on social media is also a concern. A large number of people now get their information from facebook and "faction " and are no longer educated to search for proof.