(This post will be a more in-depth explanation of something I was trying to get across in much of the Rapture of the Nerds essay.)

Tim is a famous geologist. Tom is a famous clown. Tim gives us a theory about rocks. We judge it to be 90% probable. In a parallel universe, Tom gives us the same theory about rocks. We judge it to be 10% probable.

Jim gives us a theory about fish and presents a full technical case that is good — the facts all fit. In a parallel universe, Jom gives us a theory about fish and presents a full technical case that is bad — it needs coincidences or leaps of logic. We judge Jim’s theory to be 90% probable. We judge Jom’s theory to be 10% probable.

These two situations might seem the same. In the first case, we used only indirect evidence — the theorist’s credentials — to assess probabilities. In the second case, we used only direct evidence — the known facts of the matter — to assess probabilities. Both are useful kinds of evidence. But there is an important difference.

Suppose we ask Tim and Tom to make a full technical case. Tim the geologist gives us a full technical case that is, as expected, quite good. Tom the clown, in his own parallel universe, gives us the same full technical case — one much better than we expected from a clown. Since a full technical case relies in no way on authority, we put the same probabilities on Tim’s claim and Tom’s claim. Anything else would be unreasonable.

Suppose we ask Jim and Jom about all of their credentials. It turns out their credentials are exactly the same. Maybe they’re both equally famous clowns, who both took a course in marine biology once — surprising in Jim’s case, given that his arguments are so good. Or maybe they’re both famous marine biologists of exactly equal fame and competence — surprising in Jom’s case, given that his arguments are so bad. None of this matters for our probabilities. Again, we already have a full technical case, and a full technical case relies in no way on authority. Jim’s theory is still 90% probable, Jom’s theory still 10% probable.

So once we knew Tim and Tom’s full technical arguments, their credentials no longer mattered. But once we knew Jim and Jom’s full credentials, their technical arguments still mattered. Technical arguments and credentials are useful types of information individually, but when both types are available, one trumps the other.

If I’m not mistaken (but I need to read up on this!), what I’ve been doing here is just repeating the definition of “screening off” from the theory of causal diagrams. If we have three variables (A, B, C), and A and C are independent conditional on the value of B, then B screens off A from C, and A and C do not cause each other. In the authority example of this post, you could see the causality running as follows. If a theory is true, that causes the technical case for it to be good. If people have good credentials, that causes them to adopt theories for which the technical cases are good. But causality does not run directly from truth to adoption by people with good credentials, or from adoption by people with good credentials to truth.

Maybe this all sounds like a complicated way to make a simple point, but it matters, because people’s intuitions sometimes get it all wrong. If an idea is adopted by silly people, or is not adopted by competent people, that is seen as a “bad point” that is weighed against the “good point” of solid technical argumentation. But this weighing makes no sense — to a rational thinker, the “bad point” counts until the “good point” arrives, and is then annihilated. In real life, everything interesting is a mix of things you’ll always have to take on authority and things you can check for yourself, but you can still apply this insight.

Update: see the comments for some corrections and clarifications.

Update to the Update: Here’s Eliezer Yudkowsky’s reduxification at Overcoming Bias.