Use (and abuse) of expert elicitation in support of decision making for public policy

The elicitation of scientific and technical judgments from experts, in the form of subjective probability distributions, can be a valuable addition to other forms of evidence in support of public policy decision making. This paper explores when it is sensible to perform such elicitation and how that can best be done. A number of key issues are discussed, including topics on which there are, and are not, experts who have knowledge that provides a basis for making informed predictive judgments; the inadequacy of only using qualitative uncertainty language; the role of cognitive heuristics and of overconfidence; the choice of experts; the development, refinement, and iterative testing of elicitation protocols…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: 0949710, SES-0345798, SES-0949710
• JD
  John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
• EP
  Electric Power Research Institute