Thomas Sowell lends a little sense to the question of experts and opinions.
Conflicts of interest are unavoidable in the real world, but that does not mean one can lie for justice–one of the bad habits of ideologues.
That is why JunkScience.com exists, to expose lying for justice, among other intellectual forms of dishonesty.
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2013/12/31/hit-piece-journalism-n1770006?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
agreed. what can I say, I have been an expert innumerable times in court and elsewhere.
The quality and reliability of an opinion is the measure of the man, the expert, the scientist.
John Dale Dunn MD JD Consultant Emergency Services/Peer Review Civilian Faculty, Emergency Medicine Residency Carl R. Darnall Army Med Center Fort Hood, Texas Medical Officer, Sheriff Bobby Grubbs Brown County, Texas 325 784 6697 (h) 642 5073 (c)
I suppose it is a matter of who pays and which side you are on. I’ve used consultants for a long time. They provide expertise and/or manpower I didn’t have. Sometimes, they’ve provided credibility with regulatory agencies that a person from evil old industry doesn’t have. I liked Sowell’s piece, but then I like most of what he has written.
Data set release is something that Stan Young is working on.
The Data Quality Act is supposed to assure integrity, but it is honored more in the breach.
They have a hundred excuses for not releasing their data. talk to Stan at the National Inst of Statistical Science.
John Dale Dunn MD JD Consultant Emergency Services/Peer Review Civilian Faculty, Emergency Medicine Residency Carl R. Darnall Army Med Center Fort Hood, Texas Medical Officer, Sheriff Bobby Grubbs Brown County, Texas 325 784 6697 (h) 642 5073 (c)
EPA funds a lot of environmental research and, it appears, it is a matter of policy that researchers funded by them do not provide their data sets to the EPA so that the data is secure from FOI.