Believing in experts

[Stewy]

(07-02-2023, 10:27 AM)GMDino Wrote: You are not wrong.  Being diligent and looking into things is great!  But you, for example, who has a background in that are of study doing is one thing.  My accountant friend who "knows" things will search until he finds one article to disprove a trove of supporting article as his "proof".

I don't believe I said to follow the experts blindly and I agree that even if they did everything "right" it is worthwhile to continue to investigate the subject.  That *IS* what science is to me.

Yeah well, I've gotten some push back in this thread, and it wasn't my intent to suggest we dismiss or ignore "experts" completely.  

One doesn't have to be a scientist to do things like find the job title of the author or the source of their information.  if they didn't provide links to that information, it is a huge red flag.  If they works for a politically leaning organization or a workspace that is ultra "this" or "that", then that is suspect.  

The worst these days are people who read blog read opinions (that come off as truth) on other "news" articles and then create huge click bait followings that then seem like legitimate news sources.  This is a huge problem in our Social Media world.  Example:  Our daughter is ultra liberal, but not broadly informed.  The govt would do something, she'd over react.  My wife and I would go to the changed actual law, actual news article, etc. and then the arguments would start, where she would be unaware of omissions that her source conveniently left out, partial summaries that mislead for a political commentary or just out right lies.  As she is indigent enough to dig in, every time she would come to us with political hysteria, we'd start asking her the source, were there links to AP articles, Reuters govt documents or peer reviewed information.  At first the answer was always no, and she'd try to push it aside to express her outrage and hysteria.  However, after 4-5 times in a row of us quickly looking up the actual/original source of the information, it was clear she was being mislead - EVERY time.

Summary:  You don't need a college degree to question the information you've read.  Google can reveal who holds an authors leash and an author's motivation very quickly.  YOU just have to give a shit to not be mislead and manipulated.