Because the experts are human, and thus fallible and sometimes wrong.
Wasn't Galileo one of few people who disagreed with the geocentric view? Well, the "experts" at the time held the view, but they were wrong.
That's true.
This is a rather general question. Why would anyone deliberately disagree with the consensus of experts--on anything?
Now, if you yourself are an expert in the same field, and if you see good reason to disagree--oh, OK. You've looked at the information on the basis of which the consensus has been formed and you've formed a different view. No problem.
But I'm not an expert in everything. In almost nothing am I an expert. Why, then, would I disagree with the consensus of economists about the Law of Supply and Demand? Why would I disagree with the consensus of life scientists about evolution's having occurred? Why would I disagree with the consensus of physicists that the universe is expanding? It's different where there's no broad consensus. There *is* a reason for the joke, "If you laid all the economists in the world end-to-end, they'd point in different directions." On some matters, there is no broad consensus of the experts. But on others, there is; and where there is, why would anyone who was not himself an expert disagree with it? You might choose to withhold belief--OK. But why would anyone who was not an expert *disagree with it*?
Expert opinion--the consensus of experts--gives us our best, most likely to be accurate, picture of the world. Is it correct in every detail? Probably not. For any given detail, is it more likely to be correct than any alternative view? Of course.
So why disagree with it?
Why engage your mind on any topic if only experts are the only ones allowed to question anything?
Also true. But experts have just studied the topic at hand thoroghly, so they have a valid opinion.
Also true. But experts have just studied the topic at hand thoroghly, so they have a valid opinion.
And yet, even grand master's can miss something. Are you or anyone suggesting there are a specific few who are error-free that should not be questioned? At what point does descent become something that should be avoided? Anyone take a pole on what the experts think, do we have a list of names? Are there specific beliefs that you have to be able to articulate well to be considered as an expert? There a list of topics that, if you hold a critical view of you, can lose your expert title regardless of degrees?
Also true. But experts have just studied the topic at hand thoroghly, so they have a valid opinion.
And yet, even grand master's can miss something. Are you or anyone suggesting there are a specific few who are error-free that should not be questioned? At what point does descent become something that should be avoided? Anyone take a pole on what the experts think, do we have a list of names? Are there specific beliefs that you have to be able to articulate well to be considered as an expert? There a list of topics that, if you hold a critical view of you, can lose your expert title regardless of degrees?
I wasn't saying that experts are flawless, they just make less mistakes than normal people. Not because the normal people are dumb, but the experts have studied the topic more. Everyone's idea is worth considering, but experts tend to have a more correct look at the situation. You know?
Also true. But experts have just studied the topic at hand thoroghly, so they have a valid opinion.
And yet, even grand master's can miss something. Are you or anyone suggesting there are a specific few who are error-free that should not be questioned? At what point does descent become something that should be avoided? Anyone take a pole on what the experts think, do we have a list of names? Are there specific beliefs that you have to be able to articulate well to be considered as an expert? There a list of topics that, if you hold a critical view of you, can lose your expert title regardless of degrees?
I wasn't saying that experts are flawless, they just make less mistakes than normal people. Not because the normal people are dumb, but the experts have studied the topic more. Everyone's idea is worth considering, but experts tend to have a more correct look at the situation. You know?
Experts are normal people, no different than anyone else. Admittedly we call them experts for a reason, but still, even highly educated people in the same fields can disagree with each other.
Also true. But experts have just studied the topic at hand thoroghly, so they have a valid opinion.
And yet, even grand master's can miss something. Are you or anyone suggesting there are a specific few who are error-free that should not be questioned? At what point does descent become something that should be avoided? Anyone take a pole on what the experts think, do we have a list of names? Are there specific beliefs that you have to be able to articulate well to be considered as an expert? There a list of topics that, if you hold a critical view of you, can lose your expert title regardless of degrees?
I wasn't saying that experts are flawless, they just make less mistakes than normal people. Not because the normal people are dumb, but the experts have studied the topic more. Everyone's idea is worth considering, but experts tend to have a more correct look at the situation. You know?
I apologies if I came off argumentative, didn't mean to.
Because the experts are human, and thus fallible and sometimes wrong.
Wasn't Galileo one of few people who disagreed with the geocentric view? Well, the "experts" at the time held the view, but they were wrong.
Human knowledge may be imperfect but it does evolve over time. And the process by which we develop & expand our knowledge of the natural world has itself become much more rigorous.
At the time that even intelligent & educated people believed the earth to be at the centre of the heavens, there was no such thing as the scientific method as we understand it today. And those who studied the heavens in the Middle Ages (experts in their own way) recognised a number of inconsistencies in their observations.
The most notable of those was the apparent retrograde motion of Mars, relative to our position on earth. Astronomers of the time had to invent ever more elaborate explanations for these inconsistencies, until in the end the Geocentric model was no longer sustainable. And of course observations such as the orbiting of moons around Jupiter, refuted the claim that only our planet had satellites.
It's exactly those kinds of inconsistencies that modern scientists are constantly on the look out for & if a theory such as evolution had one on the scale of the retrograde motion of Mars, it would be unlikely to survive.
Also true. But experts have just studied the topic at hand thoroghly, so they have a valid opinion.
And yet, even grand master's can miss something. Are you or anyone suggesting there are a specific few who are error-free that should not be questioned? At what point does descent become something that should be avoided? Anyone take a pole on what the experts think, do we have a list of names? Are there specific beliefs that you have to be able to articulate well to be considered as an expert? There a list of topics that, if you hold a critical view of you, can lose your expert title regardless of degrees?
But imagine if 100 GM's were playing on a vote chess team, would you think it was within the bounds of probablilty for them all to make the same mistake, that not one of them would spot the error in the suggested move & raise this as an objection to why the remainder should not vote for it?
And once the error was pointed out, isn't it reasonable that the other GM's would recognise it?
This is analogous to the process of peer review that takes place in all scientific disciplines.
Experts are normal people, no different than anyone else. Admittedly we call them experts for a reason, but still, even highly educated people in the same fields can disagree with each other.
Are you insinuating that expertise has little real value? And do you acknowledge that experts are not marooned on their own little islands of specialist knowledge, they're constantly challenged by other experts in their own field.
In the world of science at least, those who propose hypotheses that are poorly thought through & supported by little, or poor, evidence can expect to be ridiculed mercilessly.
A few points.
(1) We should distinguish between experts, on one hand, and authority figures, on the other. Experts are experts because they have *expertise*. They have studied the subject matter, long and hard. They have discussed their fields of expertise--or, these days, more often subfields, or even specializations--with other experts, who have also studied the subject matter long and hard. Simply put, they know more about the subject, much more, than you or I do.
It's different with authority figures. Authority figures are sometimes experts, but sometimes, they're not. President Trump is a rather extreme example of an authority figure who is not an expert. Medical experts will not suggest injecting yourself with disinfectant, but Trump would. "Question authority" is a really good maxim to live by. "Question experts"--less so.
(2) There's believing something wholeheartedly, with full conviction--amen, hallelujah!--and no, you shouldn't believe with such force every single thing that even the broad consensus of experts tells you. The skeptical attitude is good. I promote it. But you *should* assign epistemic likelihoods partly on the basis of the reliability of your sources, and experts are the best sources, apart from seeing it for yourself (and occasionally, depending on what it is, even then). Wherever there is a clear, well-established, broad consensus of the experts, you *should* either assign that consensus view a higher likelihood of being true than alternatives, giving it a reasonably high likelihood of being at least broadly correct (the way Newtonian physics is broadly correct for ordinary speeds and masses) despite the possibility and even likelihood that it will in various ways require emendation, or else take the extremely skeptical position of simply not accepting anything you haven't seen with your own eyes to be true.
In fact, we use the word "believe" in two different ways. One way, what philosophers call the qualitative way and what I like to call the toggle-switch way, answers the question, "Do you believe that X?" Yes, you believe; no, you don't. Like a toggle switch. The other is what philosophers call the quantitative way and what I like to call the dimmer-switch way and answers the question, "How strongly do you believe that X?" It is a matter of degree--you might believe pretty strongly but still have significant doubt or uncertainty. It seems to me that the answer to "Do you believe that X" is appropriately "Yes" once your answer to the second question is something like "Strongly enough to treat any remaining doubt or uncertainty as negligible or insignificant, at least until I learn more." But even if you don't want to accept the consensus of experts that much, you should still be willing to believe it to the extent that you find it reasonably likely and more likely than the currently available alternatives.
(3) <Personal rant> There is such a thing as being skeptical, and there is such a thing as setting the bar for even tentative belief way too high. But there is also such a thing as setting different standards for different beliefs, and frankly, this is what drives me up a wall in discussions of evolution with religious believers. Often, it seems they set the bar for belief really low for the most improbable of beliefs--beliefs in miracles and resurrections and the existence of supernatural beings--but for evolution, it's as though they would have to personally live millions and millions of years and watch it happen before they would even think of accepting that it has happened. I don't mind setting a high bar for belief, but I do mind resetting the bar to a ridiculously low level for the most unlikely of beliefs. If someone wants to doubt the broad consensus of the best-informed people in the world about life science, then they ought also to doubt the word of an ancient book in which sickness is thought to be caused by demons. The setting of wildly differing heights of the justificational bars is completely inappropriate, and it does drive me up a wall to see what seem to be generally reasonable human beings doing it.
Experts are normal people, no different than anyone else. Admittedly we call them experts for a reason, but still, even highly educated people in the same fields can disagree with each other.
Are you insinuating that expertise has little real value? And do you acknowledge that experts are not marooned on their own little islands of specialist knowledge, they're constantly challenged by other experts in their own field.
In the world of science at least, those who propose hypotheses that are poorly thought through & supported by little, or poor, evidence can expect to be ridiculed mercilessly.
Yes. Scientists do not hear their colleagues' proposals and think, "Hey, I like that. And he's my friend. I'm going to endorse that! Hey, everybody, let's make this what we teach all our students!" No. They are hypercritical of both their own and other scientists' proposed hypotheses and theories, and those proposals only gain traction if they are well-defended. And if they differ from whatever is currently accepted, then observations and experiments have to be designed to decide between the two--these are called "crucial experiments." Theory A says you'll observe X; theory B says you'll observe Y; OK, which do you really observe?
Many Web pages give criticisms of evolutionary theory as though their authors thought, "Hey, look at this objection I just thought up! Those stupid scientists never thought of this, I'll bet!" Well, yes, those "stupid scientists" did think of the objection, and they did seriously consider it, and they did figure out how properly to reply to it, and they did show that no, it doesn't defeat the theory of evolution. Over and over, we see this. Some of them appear in Darwin's own writings.
*Scientists do not simply ignore possible criticisms of their theories.* Second Law of Thermodynamics? Um, no, doesn't hurt evolutionary theory. Crocoducks? Um, no, doesn't hurt evolutionary theory. Irreducible complexity? Um, no, doesn't hurt evolutionary theory. (One you might think of is this: Human beings have forty-six chromosomes. The other great apes have forty-seven chromosomes each. How, then, can we all have a common ancestor? Good question! But, um, here's how: human chromosome number two turns out to be two chromosomes spliced together. Somewhere in the course of human divergence from the other great apes, two of those forty-seven chromosomes got spliced together--such things do happen, we know--giving us forty-six. Voila! Question answered!)
Now, I am not saying that you should just uncritically accept everything scientists or other experts tell you. By all means, think critically. Hold off on accepting something that sounds fishy. OK, fine. But...well, let me tell you what sometimes happens with me, in physics. I think up some objection to relativity theory, or to quantum theory. And it seems to me to be a pretty killer objection! But--what do I do? I write to my physics professor friend. I do *NOT* say, "I've just shown all of modern physics to be wrong!" No. I say, "Now, I'm sure this has been thought of before and that physicists have a good answer to this, but I don't know what that answer is, and, not knowing the answer, I'm very puzzled. What is the answer?" And almost invariably, he knows the answer right off the bat--because, you know, he's a physicist--he's an expert. (Even then, he's not a top-notch physicist--he's not an expert's expert--and occasionally, he doesn't know right away what the answer is. Doesn't mean I've destroyed all of modern physics!)
So, yes, by all means, ask questions--lots of them! And I gather we're fortunate enough to have a couple of actual experts here in this club--tbwp10 and I forget the other--who can give us good answers or who can tell us where to find them. Just remember--there's a lot of information to go through, and unless you're going to spend years and years making yourself an expert on the subject, somewhere along the line, you're just going to have to say, "Oh, I see. They really have thought about this stuff. They really do have reasons why they support evolutionary theory. Oh, I see."
I'm sorry if I sound upset. I've simply encountered this sort of thing before, many times. When I first arrived on chess.com, we had users like necrozoo and Elroch and bramdakota (and I, perhaps, in my small way) who were able to give people lots of information and show what was wrong with various objections to evolutionary theory. That was many years ago! And it still has to be done, because we only get to address a few people at a time here. It makes us think we should write a Chess Dot Com Book Answering Objections to Evolutionary Theory, post it on the site, and point people to it.
But please understand: scientists are not stupid, and scientists do not ignore criticisms of theories, and the *consensus* includes (and is partly determined by, I should think) the top-notch scientists in their fields. So, ask questions, yes. Withhold belief, if you want to. But please, don't *disagree* with that consensus view unless you yourself are an expert. Don't say it's *wrong*. By all means, say, "I don't understand this feature of it." (I have something of that reaction when tbwp10 points me toward a summation of EES, the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. I have more reading to do to understand some things. But that doesn't mean I say it's *wrong*.)
I must be in a bad mood today. I'll leave for now.
Because the experts are human, and thus fallible and sometimes wrong.
Wasn't Galileo one of few people who disagreed with the geocentric view? Well, the "experts" at the time held the view, but they were wrong.
That's why we don't believe what science tells us in the amen, hallelujah way. In my limited experience, scientists haven't even liked to speak of "belief," or of scientific theories' being "true." They speak of "tentative acceptance"--there's always the understanding that they could be getting things wrong--and of scientific theories' "modeling reality" (in fact, I think there's much less to the "truth" vs. "modeling" controversy than is commonly made out; halfway through Bas van Fraassen's book The Scientific Image, in which he had been presenting the contrast between what I think he called "constructive empiricism" and "scientific realism" as stark, he finally said just what he meant by the two, and it turned out his view differed from mine much less than he had made it seem). Either way, though, what we're doing is figuring out how best to describe the world we live in--we're trying to refine our description of it so as to best fit the empirical facts--and experts' best attempt so far is surely the one we should regard with the most favor.
And as stephen_33 pointed out, science has developed a lot since then.
That reminds me to say this: when a broad consensus of the experts is well-established and has been for a while despite efforts to find problems with it, then we should have more confidence in it than if it is a recently-established consensus. Time gives the experts more of a chance to think up alternatives and more of a chance to test the established view. That's why when the consensus on anthropogenic global warming first reached public consciousness, it was not unreasonable to have considerably more doubt about it than one had about evolution's having happened. I would still give evolution's having happened a higher probability--a *really* high probability--than anthropogenic global warming, based on what I have read; but AGW has become, in my limited understanding, considerably better-confirmed than it was just a few decades ago.
Also true. But experts have just studied the topic at hand thoroghly, so they have a valid opinion.
And yet, even grand master's can miss something. Are you or anyone suggesting there are a specific few who are error-free that should not be questioned? At what point does descent become something that should be avoided? Anyone take a pole on what the experts think, do we have a list of names? Are there specific beliefs that you have to be able to articulate well to be considered as an expert? There a list of topics that, if you hold a critical view of you, can lose your expert title regardless of degrees?
I wasn't saying that experts are flawless, they just make less mistakes than normal people. Not because the normal people are dumb, but the experts have studied the topic more. Everyone's idea is worth considering, but experts tend to have a more correct look at the situation. You know?
I apologies if I came off argumentative, didn't mean to.
Your fine.
Experts are normal people, no different than anyone else. Admittedly we call them experts for a reason, but still, even highly educated people in the same fields can disagree with each other.
Are you insinuating that expertise has little real value? And do you acknowledge that experts are not marooned on their own little islands of specialist knowledge, they're constantly challenged by other experts in their own field.
In the world of science at least, those who propose hypotheses that are poorly thought through & supported by little, or poor, evidence can expect to be ridiculed mercilessly.
No not at all, I'm going to someone who knows what they are talking about seeking their experience and expertise. That said, we are talking about something there are no experts for, how did the universe and life start. No one knows we are all coming to the table with bias, those that believe in natural explanations alone, and those that believe was all done by design. If you were consistent, you would not have dismissed a chemist articulating issues in chemistry due to his bias, and yet you accept the bias of those that agree with you without pause. Not all experts agree, and only listening to one side of the discussion critically isn't really looking at the topic honestly.
Because the experts are human, and thus fallible and sometimes wrong.
Wasn't Galileo one of few people who disagreed with the geocentric view? Well, the "experts" at the time held the view, but they were wrong.
That's why we don't believe what science tells us in the amen, hallelujah way. In my limited experience, scientists haven't even liked to speak of "belief," or of scientific theories' being "true." They speak of "tentative acceptance"--there's always the understanding that they could be getting things wrong--and of scientific theories' "modeling reality" (in fact, I think there's much less to the "truth" vs. "modeling" controversy than is commonly made out; halfway through Bas van Fraassen's book The Scientific Image, in which he had been presenting the contrast between what I think he called "constructive empiricism" and "scientific realism" as stark, he finally said just what he meant by the two, and it turned out his view differed from mine much less than he had made it seem). Either way, though, what we're doing is figuring out how best to describe the world we live in--we're trying to refine our description of it so as to best fit the empirical facts--and experts' best attempt so far is surely the one we should regard with the most favor.
And as stephen_33 pointed out, science has developed a lot since then.
That reminds me to say this: when a broad consensus of the experts is well-established and has been for a while despite efforts to find problems with it, then we should have more confidence in it than if it is a recently-established consensus. Time gives the experts more of a chance to think up alternatives and more of a chance to test the established view. That's why when the consensus on anthropogenic global warming first reached public consciousness, it was not unreasonable to have considerably more doubt about it than one had about evolution's having happened. I would still give evolution's having happened a higher probability--a *really* high probability--than anthropogenic global warming, based on what I have read; but AGW has become, in my limited understanding, considerably better-confirmed than it was just a few decades ago.
You believe that is how we really figure out what is true, if there is a established consensus, once that is done we cannot or should refute something? Isn't the established consensus the one thing that has to change to grasp reality better over some uncommon beliefs that are not true? What do we want here a popular theory or one that reflects reality?
Are you insinuating that expertise has little real value? And do you acknowledge that experts are not marooned on their own little islands of specialist knowledge, they're constantly challenged by other experts in their own field.
In the world of science at least, those who propose hypotheses that are poorly thought through & supported by little, or poor, evidence can expect to be ridiculed mercilessly.
No not at all, I'm going to someone who knows what they are talking about seeking their experience and expertise. That said, we are talking about something there are no experts for, how did the universe and life start. No one knows we are all coming to the table with bias, those that believe in natural explanations alone, and those that believe was all done by design. If you were consistent, you would not have dismissed a chemist articulating issues in chemistry due to his bias, and yet you accept the bias of those that agree with you without pause. Not all experts agree, and only listening to one side of the discussion critically isn't really looking at the topic honestly.
I don't agree with your characterisation of bias here. If among a thousand well informed professionals in some field of science, 999 take a particular view or position but one adopts a contrary view, am I being biased if I gravitate towards the position of the 999? I don't believe so.
In matters where I don't have sufficient understanding & knowledge to make my own assessment, surely I should look to the most reliable & trustworthy professional opinion available? And at this time the consensus among professional scientists seems to be that naturalistic explanations for the way the Universe is ordered will (probably) be forthcoming. Or putting that another way, non-naturalistic explanations are not yet necessitated by anything we observe in nature.
As for your chemist, he most certainly demonstrates bias because he argues for a non-natural origin of life, in the form of some conscious agency, while at the same time (apparently) associating such an agency with the 'God' of Christianity. There's no justification for this whatsoever, even if we take that leap to accepting such an agency.
He shows what might be called 'double-bias' in this because he first insinuates a designer into the discussion & then asociates that designer with his preferred deity. This prejudges the issue twice over!
Are you insinuating that expertise has little real value? And do you acknowledge that experts are not marooned on their own little islands of specialist knowledge, they're constantly challenged by other experts in their own field.
In the world of science at least, those who propose hypotheses that are poorly thought through & supported by little, or poor, evidence can expect to be ridiculed mercilessly.
No not at all, I'm going to someone who knows what they are talking about seeking their experience and expertise. That said, we are talking about something there are no experts for, how did the universe and life start. No one knows we are all coming to the table with bias, those that believe in natural explanations alone, and those that believe was all done by design. If you were consistent, you would not have dismissed a chemist articulating issues in chemistry due to his bias, and yet you accept the bias of those that agree with you without pause. Not all experts agree, and only listening to one side of the discussion critically isn't really looking at the topic honestly.
I don't agree with your characterisation of bias here. If among a thousand well informed professionals in some field of science, 999 take a particular view or position but one adopts a contrary view, am I being biased if I gravitate towards the position of the 999? I don't believe so.
In matters where I don't have sufficient understanding & knowledge to make my own assessment, surely I should look to the most reliable & trustworthy professional opinion available? And at this time the consensus among professional scientists seems to be that naturalistic explanations for the way the Universe is ordered will (probably) be forthcoming. Or putting that another way, non-naturalistic explanations are not yet necessitated by anything we observe in nature.
As for your chemist, he most certainly demonstrates bias because he argues for a non-natural origin of life, in the form of some conscious agency, while at the same time (apparently) associating such an agency with the 'God' of Christianity. There's no justification for this whatsoever, even if we take that leap to accepting such an agency.
He shows what might be called 'double-bias' in this because he first insinuates a designer into the discussion & then asociates that designer with his preferred deity. This prejudges the issue twice over!
I am using the word bias as it is commonly defined. You may disagree with that but you do so distorting the word bias.
Truthmuse, in post 17, wrote (in small part): "we are talking about something there are no experts for, how did the universe and life start."
MindWalk replies: We should carefully distinguish among the questions asked. (1) How did the universe start? (2) How did life start (here on Earth) (3) Might life have started via a process of abiogenesis? (4) Did life on Earth, once it got started, evolve into its present forms over hundreds of millions or billions of years? (5) By what mechanisms did life evolve?
The answer to (1) is, I think, "Nobody knows." I have my doubts that anyone ever will know. The answer to (2) is, "We do not, at present, know, and we might never know, as there might turn out to be more than one possibility that we have no way of deciding between." The answer to (3) is, "We do not know. Scientists are working on figuring out how it might have happened, but so far, although they have ideas, they do not know how it might have happened in sufficient detail for us to say that it pretty definitely happened." The answer to (4) is, "Overwhelmingly probably yes. The evidence is so strong that it would practically require God to have deliberately deceived the best human investigators for it not to have happened." The answer to (5) is, "We know some of the mechanisms pretty well; others, we're just learning about; but although evolutionary theory might require emendations, it seems pretty well established in its broad outlines and even in many details."
It's especially important to distinguish between *origin* questions (the origin of the universe; the origin of life) and *evolutionary* questions (what's happened to life since it came into being). They're not the same questions, and they don't have the same answers.
This is a rather general question. Why would anyone deliberately disagree with the consensus of experts--on anything?
Now, if you yourself are an expert in the same field, and if you see good reason to disagree--oh, OK. You've looked at the information on the basis of which the consensus has been formed and you've formed a different view. No problem.
But I'm not an expert in everything. In almost nothing am I an expert. Why, then, would I disagree with the consensus of economists about the Law of Supply and Demand? Why would I disagree with the consensus of life scientists about evolution's having occurred? Why would I disagree with the consensus of physicists that the universe is expanding? It's different where there's no broad consensus. There *is* a reason for the joke, "If you laid all the economists in the world end-to-end, they'd point in different directions." On some matters, there is no broad consensus of the experts. But on others, there is; and where there is, why would anyone who was not himself an expert disagree with it? You might choose to withhold belief--OK. But why would anyone who was not an expert *disagree with it*?
Expert opinion--the consensus of experts--gives us our best, most likely to be accurate, picture of the world. Is it correct in every detail? Probably not. For any given detail, is it more likely to be correct than any alternative view? Of course.
So why disagree with it?