Abstract:

The "process-performance-paradox" suggests that scientific experts' special predictive authority does not go beyond informing about relevant (nomological) results of science. With a stylized model of boundedly rational decision-making we illustrate why it could hardly be otherwise, link this model to classical insights on (education in) the practical disciplines, and illustrate why empirical as well as applied sciences are distinct from practical disciplines like management, law or medicine. Though experts trained in the ways of such disciplines cannot claim that their advice expresses findings of science it may, at least in repetitive situations, still be superior to listen to them rather than to lay-persons.