> It seems to me that both Alexander and the author of this post are, actually, members of the same church - the church of those who believe that people can draw correct conclusions from a smattering of data without the necessary scholarship and expertise, and that you can understand something complicated without putting in all the effort required to understand it. It's the Church of Dunning–Kruger Dilettantism.

We are all like that, we have no other options, haven't we? I mean, either we try to understand the world around us, or we are not. We can't be experts in everything, so in most cases we are go by Danning-Kruger Dilettantism.

Scott made the dilettantism into a profession, he has its methods and he sharpens them. He debates things with other dilettantes, and it helps them to improve themselves. To me, personally, it is one of the main attractions of the blog. I'm dilettante in a lot of topics, but still I don't want to simply ignore them, because I'm not an expert.

> What is interesting to me is that someone who's not particularly knowledgeable on the subject of crime took the time to write a long rebuttal to another post about crime written by someone else who knows just as little.

It is not about crime really. The author we discussing talks about methodology, they are on a meta level of a discussion, the crime discussion is just one data point for a meta-discussion.

Your post is the part of the same meta-discussion about methodology, though your attack comes from the other direction.

> We can't be experts in everything, so in most cases we are go by Danning-Kruger Dilettantism.

Or care enough to find out what the experts say? Surely that's the best way to start understanding the world around us. And if the experts don't agree on an answer, the people who know less probably won't contribute much, but at least it raises the level of discussion.

> Scott made the dilettantism into a profession, he has its methods and he sharpens them. He debates things with other dilettantes, and it helps them to improve themselves.

I won't judge the methods people use to improve themselves, but I can say that this is not a good method of getting closer to the truth, just in case that is also something they're interested in beside self betterment. No amount of thought or debate can substitute scholarship.

> The author we discussing talks about methodology

Methodology of what? Self-improvement or getting to the bottom of why people think there's a rise in crime? Because if it's the latter, a better methodology than either would surely begin with studying the subject more seriously.