a four (4) point screening test to weigh the soundness of proposed expert opinion:

1.Is the claimant credentialed & in good standing within the field that he is making the claim? (1 or 0)

2. Has claimant’s statement(s) been submitted to peer-review? And is the review accepted with a majority of reviewers within the field? (1 or 0)

3. If no to above, is claimant’s statement(s) within two standard deviations (2 SD rule) of a representative sample of the field? (1 or 0)(note: the 2SD rule comes from Ian Ayres book SUPERCRUNCHERS")

4. Does the claimant have a record of predictive claims? What is the track record (accuracy) of these predictions?

plug in the score of the 'expert' and receive a weighted (i.e. predictive accuracy is given more weight) ranking of the expert's claim.

ER = A+B+C+D x PR

ER = Expertise Ratio (higher is better)PR = Prediction ratio

Examples: 1+0+0 = 1 X 0.25 = 0.25 Very low ranking – Not worthy of review nor acceptance 1+0+1 = 2 x 0.45 = 0.9 moderate ranking 1+1+1 = 3 x 0.33 = 0.99

remember a high score does not necessarily entail objectivity, only that soundness of opinions are not all equal!

While this is very crude it may at least provide food for thought on how to filter the more sound from the less sound claims being made constantly. I originally worked on this after reviewing how my emotions differed greatly between the 'new's segments' & the weather report. i truly felt informed during the weather report, whereas i felt the range of emotions (anger, worry, sadness, fear, etc)during the rest of the news broadcast.......

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