Professional opinions
As someone who studies the psychological processes of reading and the development of reading-related skills (technical enough?), I have been asked for opinions on educational policies regarding reading and literacy, fortunately only informally. I hesitate, but often end up offering my 2 cents anyways. Deep down, though, I am conflicted on whether or not I should and how much.
Now here is some advice, from Andrew Gelman: Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science: Fred Mosteller’s advice
Anyway, every week he would take his three T.A.’s to lunch to talk about how the course was going and just to get us talking about things. One day he asked us what we thought about some issue of education policy–I don’t remember what it was, but I remember that we each gave our opinions. Fred then told us that, as statisticians, people are interested in our statistical expertise, not in our opinions. So in a professional context we should be giving answers about sampling, measurement, experimentation, data analysis, and so forth–not our off-the-cuff policy opinion, which are not what people were coming to us for.
It’s a respectable position, as numerous commentators said. Nonetheless, if every professional offers their professional opinions within the boundary of their professional expertise, and nothing more, who is there to put all the pieces together?
Professional politicians?