But it certainly raises the priors. Corollarily, if you haven't studied something intently it is actually quite probable that you don't understand it.

My study of magic has rendered me no more magical than the rest. I wish economists would be as honest.

I can't hear you over the sound of your filthy and oppressive fiat currency rattling in your pockets.

That's an unnecessarily mean-spirited way to say "I disagree", along with no explanation as to why you think parent is wrong. Here, have a downvote.

I didn't interpret it as mean (but I see why someone could) but it raises a point different from 'I disagree'. "I studied this stuff intently" is a simple appeal to authority and does not make an argument credible. In this case, it does not tell anyone why central banking is the best idea since sanitation which is a very strong claim that needs some better support.

I agree that studying doesn't automatically make one an authority, and comes across as an appeal to authority. OTOH, prefacing the statement I replied to with "Obviously..." just came across to me as "it's obvious, because you don't know what you're talking about". Maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

I think OP is trying to say, studying golf does not make a golfer.

What the purpose of studying something then, if at the end you still don't understand it?

Just the fun of it?

Learning other stuff in the process?

Gaining a better idea of what the thing you study entails, even if you don't understand it fully yet?

I don't even know how to argue with that...can't do anything against bad faith I guess

Huh? Where's the bad faith?

What I mean is, you can study something even if you know that you won't understand it at the end of your studies. There's even stuff that you can have a full career in and still not understand completely, like Quantum Mechanics.

It's not a guarantee that by studying something you'll understand it, but learning more about it can be valuable in itself.

For example I can study some X technique in a language, e.g Monads, and know when to apply it and what it does, and be quite productive with it, even if I don't yet understand it (or never get to understanding type theory).

this comment seemed unnecessarily mean :(