11 ms·

"You cannot be an expert in every field and actually follow the evidence to make up your own conclusion (which btw does not guarantee that your interpretation o

"You cannot be an expert in every field and actually follow the evidence to make up your own conclusion (which btw does not guarantee that your interpretation of the evidence is correct)." It's pretty easy to follow the evidence in most situations, actually. That doesn't make me an expert. That makes me a person who understands the methodology of science, logic, and statistics. You have to know precisely what your assumptions (observations) are and how to make correct conclusions from those assumptions. The only constraints are your time, your determination, and your ability to get the original research (a constraint is not "guaranteeing your interpretation is correct"). Some people are highly opinionated and don't have the understanding to match. That doesn't mean you can't have any sort of understanding as a non-expert. "As an aspiring physicist I feel helpless every time I'm at the doctor's office. I cannot just "follow the evidence"." Doctors aren't necessarily better trained at making inferences and recommendations. Consider their education. Some of them are very poor thinkers.

ics 12y ago
> The only constraints are your time and your determination. ...The combination of which is often a luxury that experts in one field cannot afford, thus the statement that one cannot be an expert in every field. "Cannot" is most likely being used for practicality, not in the literal sense of information being totally unfathomable given infinite time and determination. You both have good points but they really needn't conflict so harshly.
- woodman 12y ago
  > You both have good points but they really needn't conflict so harshly. I disagree, lumberjack's point is essentially an appeal to authority - which is dark-age style thinking. Just represent everything in a machine readable set of axioms, problem solved. You don't need to be an expert in every field, you just need to have a basic understanding of first order logic.
  - ics 12y ago
    > Just represent everything in a machine readable set of axioms, problem solved. We all look forward to the day that you or anyone else can do this. emptytheory's suggestion: have tons of time and determination to solve the problem. Caveat: the problem has already been solved and applied by many experts many times, where the main criticism is that some of the time these experts' application over repeated attempts is not 100% consistent. Your suggestion: encode all necessary knowledge to solve the problem so that a computer can solve it for you. Caveat: this is either being done already by domain experts, or you must go out of your way to navigate the problem based on logic and not experience (tedious, but potentially very rewarding) so as to encode this information yourself (taking some unknown amount of time). Caveat in all cases: You are just as apt to fuck up along the way as anyone else who possesses the same logical faculties as you, which presumably at least some other experts in question would. lumberjack's argument may not possess the logical upper hand, but it is a valid concern for people who are mortal, employed (or otherwise occupied with their time), and without access to a medical library. Perhaps the best way to put this is, I look forward to the day when you can prove their reasoning wrong in such a reproducible way rather than completely dismissing a conclusion due to some fault along the way.
    - woodman 12y ago
      > I look forward to the day when you can prove their reasoning wrong in such a reproducible way rather than completely dismissing a conclusion due to some fault along the way. A set of axioms with a reasoner would do both of those things. That will be web 3.0, it is being worked on.
  - Qwertious 12y ago
    I disagree, this is a "fallacy fallacy" - you named a fallacy which lumberjack (apparently) used, but that doesn't actually make the argument wrong. And you seem to ignore the fact that getting a degree takes most people multiple years, and that "student" is an occupation. If you follow the evidence, people can't learn everything because it takes way too much time.
    - 12y ago
tjradcliffe 12y ago
> It's pretty easy to follow the evidence in most situations, actually. I'm a physicist who has done work on data analysis in cancer genomics. The depth and complexity of cancer biology is enormous, and "following the evidence" is the work of years. It's easy to follow superficial arguments about specific experiments. It is very, very difficult to get hold of the ambiguous morass that is the true leading edge, which is so far away from the layperson's event horizon they aren't even aware it exists, and so end up believing that it's not that hard to follow the evidence in most situations.
- emptytheory 12y ago
  Give me an example of a nonsuperficial argument. "It is very, very difficult to get hold of the ambiguous morass that is the true leading edge, which is so far away from the layperson's event horizon they aren't even aware it exists, and so end up believing that it's not that hard to follow the evidence in most situations." What are you talking about here? How does that conflict with what I said? In my original post, one thing I asserted is that you should be aware of your assumptions. I don't see the relevance of saying "knowledge of the leading edge is hard to attain" or "the leading edge is ambiguous".
  - emptytheory 12y ago
    If you're going to downvote, please say why. I don't think I ever denied that there are technical fields where coming to a conclusion takes time. Should I be apologizing for my use of "most"? The only point I was trying to make was that "guaranteeing your interpretations are correct" is not a constraint (see my response to lumberjack). As a result, being able to form correct conclusions is possible as a non-expert. Is this a surprising statement to anyone? tjradcliffe's post reads essentially as "non-experts are so unaware/ignorant that they form naive beliefs such as yours". What a constructive comment! Maybe I should just shut up and listen to the experts!

ics 12y ago

> The only constraints are your time and your determination. ...The combination of which is often a luxury that experts in one field cannot afford, thus the statement that one cannot be an expert in every field. "Cannot" is most likely being used for practicality, not in the literal sense of information being totally unfathomable given infinite time and determination. You both have good points but they really needn't conflict so harshly.

woodman 12y ago
> You both have good points but they really needn't conflict so harshly. I disagree, lumberjack's point is essentially an appeal to authority - which is dark-age style thinking. Just represent everything in a machine readable set of axioms, problem solved. You don't need to be an expert in every field, you just need to have a basic understanding of first order logic.
- ics 12y ago
  > Just represent everything in a machine readable set of axioms, problem solved. We all look forward to the day that you or anyone else can do this. emptytheory's suggestion: have tons of time and determination to solve the problem. Caveat: the problem has already been solved and applied by many experts many times, where the main criticism is that some of the time these experts' application over repeated attempts is not 100% consistent. Your suggestion: encode all necessary knowledge to solve the problem so that a computer can solve it for you. Caveat: this is either being done already by domain experts, or you must go out of your way to navigate the problem based on logic and not experience (tedious, but potentially very rewarding) so as to encode this information yourself (taking some unknown amount of time). Caveat in all cases: You are just as apt to fuck up along the way as anyone else who possesses the same logical faculties as you, which presumably at least some other experts in question would. lumberjack's argument may not possess the logical upper hand, but it is a valid concern for people who are mortal, employed (or otherwise occupied with their time), and without access to a medical library. Perhaps the best way to put this is, I look forward to the day when you can prove their reasoning wrong in such a reproducible way rather than completely dismissing a conclusion due to some fault along the way.
  - woodman 12y ago
    > I look forward to the day when you can prove their reasoning wrong in such a reproducible way rather than completely dismissing a conclusion due to some fault along the way. A set of axioms with a reasoner would do both of those things. That will be web 3.0, it is being worked on.
- Qwertious 12y ago
  I disagree, this is a "fallacy fallacy" - you named a fallacy which lumberjack (apparently) used, but that doesn't actually make the argument wrong. And you seem to ignore the fact that getting a degree takes most people multiple years, and that "student" is an occupation. If you follow the evidence, people can't learn everything because it takes way too much time.
  - 12y ago

tjradcliffe 12y ago

> It's pretty easy to follow the evidence in most situations, actually. I'm a physicist who has done work on data analysis in cancer genomics. The depth and complexity of cancer biology is enormous, and "following the evidence" is the work of years. It's easy to follow superficial arguments about specific experiments. It is very, very difficult to get hold of the ambiguous morass that is the true leading edge, which is so far away from the layperson's event horizon they aren't even aware it exists, and so end up believing that it's not that hard to follow the evidence in most situations.

emptytheory 12y ago
Give me an example of a nonsuperficial argument. "It is very, very difficult to get hold of the ambiguous morass that is the true leading edge, which is so far away from the layperson's event horizon they aren't even aware it exists, and so end up believing that it's not that hard to follow the evidence in most situations." What are you talking about here? How does that conflict with what I said? In my original post, one thing I asserted is that you should be aware of your assumptions. I don't see the relevance of saying "knowledge of the leading edge is hard to attain" or "the leading edge is ambiguous".
- emptytheory 12y ago
  If you're going to downvote, please say why. I don't think I ever denied that there are technical fields where coming to a conclusion takes time. Should I be apologizing for my use of "most"? The only point I was trying to make was that "guaranteeing your interpretations are correct" is not a constraint (see my response to lumberjack). As a result, being able to form correct conclusions is possible as a non-expert. Is this a surprising statement to anyone? tjradcliffe's post reads essentially as "non-experts are so unaware/ignorant that they form naive beliefs such as yours". What a constructive comment! Maybe I should just shut up and listen to the experts!