The analysis of expert judgment

Abstract

Expert judgment is a necessary component of technology assessment. But current methods for attempting to integrate expert judgment with social value judgments in the formation of public policy are inappropriate and ineffective. This article advocates the scientific analysis of experts' judgments. Such analysis produces quantitative, pictorial models of expert judgment, thereby providing an explicit and retraceable procedure for a) documenting and comparing reasons for differences in expert judgment, b) helping experts to resolve such differences, and c) conveying information to decision makers in a clear and useful fashion. The proposed approach provides an alternative to the ineffective method of public hearings and recently proposed adversarial approaches such as the "science court." Two studies are described to illustrate this approach. © 1979.