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Re: hard vs soft evidence; appeal to authority, etc.



On Friday, Sep 10, 2004, at 14:19 America/New_York, John Denker wrote:

Hi --

I have re-thought, revised, expanded, and re-organized my
note about the proper and improper uses of appeal to
authority, credentials, et cetera.

I understand it now in terms of separate scales for hard
evidence and soft evidence. Soft evidence is not useless,
if it's all you've got, but hard evidence always outweighs
soft evidence.

Thanks to Tim Folkerts and other members of this group for
helping me think more clearly about all this.

http://www.av8n.com/physics/authority.htm

In reading John's piece I was thinking about common
situations in which one is not qualified to perform hard
evidence experiments. In such cases one has nothing
better than the best soft evidence. I am thinking about
controversial claims made by people working with
fancy accelerators or telescopes. Most of us have no
access to such devices; most of us are not trained to
use such devices.

What percentage of Modern Physics teachers, for
example, know about quarks and glouns on the
basis of hard evidence? What percentage of
astronomy teachers know about how elements are
synthesized in stars on the basis of hard evidence?
In many areas of physics, on the other hand, hard
evidence can be generated in a lab. But only a small
fraction of what students learn in a given course can
be introduced in that way.

I agree with what John wrote; it applies to situations
in which one deals with people who share the same
background, and who have access to tools of hard
evidence. That is not a situation in which a typical
physics teacher finds himself or herself.
Ludwik Kowalski