Aside from economics, I sense a pervasive mistrust of all authoritative voices. That includes government, all politicians, the news mdia and blogs. It could be a real opportunity for false prophets, because, at hearrt people long to trust something and to believe in the truthftulness of someone. I worry a lot about who will sieze this opportunity.

People, regardless of their level of education, tend to respond to incentives. So if we’re wondering why experts who wind up being wrong so frequently refuse to admit to it, perhaps we should look at the incentives they face.

What happens to people who admit error in the political arena?

Scenario #1: If we wanted to encourage a willingness to admit error, then the response to such admissions would be supportive and diagnostic. Those who admit error would be invited to collaborate in a process of finding the cause of the error so that it could not recur and so that the advocate could be more effective in the future.

Scenario #2: If, however, we wanted to discourage people from admitting error, we would punish those who did. We would subject them to a humiliating process where their previous opponents laughed at them or kept saying, “I told you so”. We would cite their error as a reason to exclude or marginalize them from future deliberations.

Now, which of these is closer to what we actually do? Clearly, #2 is much closer to how the current political environment operates. Admitting error does not, in fact, maintain credibilty, but rather forfeits it indefinitely, as opponents then wield a rhetorical club with which they can beat up the error-admitter whenever another difference of opinion arises. The combative, nasty, and zero-sum nature of current political combat makes it a strategic blunder to admit error and thus give your equally-fallible-but-less-honest-about-it opponents an unfair advantage.

Thus, it is completely unsurprising that those who err (left OR right — both have plenty of errors) so often refuse to admit to error.

This is I think the essential argument that progressive bloggers are making – no one is fessing up.

Well, it seems to me that they take that fight a bit too far. Such a point is far, but does not warrant a complete war and almost an automatical dismissal of whatever it is experts say.

As humans we always make mistakes and errors of judgement. However, to pretend that that is not true is the mark of an idiot – not an intellectual. In my business career I ran an operation with $25 billion in revenue and 30,000 employees. From middle management on up. I forced people to make predictions on strategy, tactics and how products should perform. When things turned out different, I wanted explanations. If I got excuses – they were out the door that day. When they understood and admitted their errors, I shook their hand and told them to”go get’em next time”. I’ve read a lot of pundits who I would have “shown the door”.

This is I think the essential argument that progressive bloggers are making – no one is fessing up.