Judgement aggregation in scientific collaborations: The case for waiving expertise

Area of Science:

• Interdisciplinary scientific collaboration
• Epistemology of scientific research
• Philosophy of science

Background:

• Academic disciplines foster specialization, creating narrow research expertise.
• Large-scale scientific endeavors, like gravitational wave detection, necessitate cross-disciplinary collaboration.
• The challenge lies in how collaborators should integrate diverse expert opinions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the aggregation of expert beliefs in interdisciplinary scientific collaborations.
• To analyze the implications of deferring to individual expert opinions within a group.
• To propose an alternative approach for handling conflicting expert claims.

Main Methods:

• Theoretical analysis of belief aggregation mechanisms.
• Exploration of logical frameworks for combining diverse knowledge.
• Examination of assumptions underlying expert deference.

Main Results:

• Demonstrates an impossibility result when aggregating expert beliefs under standard assumptions.
• Shows that the intuitive approach of deferring to experts can be logically flawed.
• Highlights the difficulties in forming a unified group belief from specialized knowledge.

Conclusions:

• The intuitive deference to experts is problematic for collaborative scientific endeavors.
• A new framework is needed for managing conflicting expert claims in science.
• Scientists may need to temporarily set aside their specialized status to achieve consensus.