I fully grant that the more explicit you can make your reasoning, the
better you and others can trust it. On the other hand, formal
explicit reasoning takes more time and is more costly. The choice
between them depends on the extra costs and benefits in any given
situation.
I just don't agree that the costs of formal explicit reasoning always
outweigh the benefits as soon as you deal with social issues or try to
persuade other people. Things are really much more complex that
that. Nor do I agree that the predictive value of informal
analysis falls to zero in such contexts.
Our ordinary lives are full of social issues and persuasion contexts
where we appropriately use just as much hueristic analysis as you do
when driving. No need to feel guilty about driving heuristically nor
about heuristic social analysis. But of course one's confidence in
any one prediction should take into account the type of analysis used,
the solidity of the data it was based on, and the strength of
connection perceived between the data and related models and predictions.
Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/