This is where democratic discourse comes in. Have you read Mark Sagoff's ECONOMY
OF THE EARTH? I like his analogy to juries, which applies to this case. (He is a
bit weak on the problems of democracy, to put it mildly, but that's another
question.)
Peter
Robin Hanson wrote:
> >But what about situations in which all of the relevant information is
> >already public,
> >and the disagreement centers on how to interpret that information? ... A
> >single
> >skillful interpreter ... is going to be more reliable than a market
> >aggregation ...
> >I would go with, say, Walter Dean Burnham rather than the Iowa election
> >bettors any
> >day, or Martin Carnoy (biases and all) rather than Robin's education
> >reform bettors.
>
> OK, but picking one analyst can't really serve as an ideologically neutral
> forum, right? Typically, people will disagree on who are the best analysts.
> So if we as a society want a neutral institutional forum in which we decide
> which analysts we will rely on, then we want something else.
>
> How to best interpret data, and who the best analysts are, are subjects that
> people have different information on, just as they do regarding different
> data. If we want to give people incentives to be careful and honest in
> aggregating this other information, we might again consider betting markets.
>
> Put another way, if everyone agreed with you about who the best analyst is,
> then a betting market would just parrot that analysts opinions. But if
> people disagree about who the best analyst is, then a betting market might
> give people good incentives to be honest with themselves about who to rely on.
