Re: [Phys-l] Scientists speaking outside their fields. Was... The Cause of Global Warming...

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 05/21/2007 09:25 AM, Michael Edmiston asked:

> My questions for this group are... what is the role of scientists with respect to issues outside
> their area of expertise?

This is a form of _appeal to authority_.  If you want to
look extra-closely, it can be seen as the /converse/ of the
usual appeal to authority.

As it says at
  http://www.av8n.com/physics/authority.htm#sec-problem

> > If an authority with every possible credential 
> > makes a physically-incorrect argument, it is a
> > physically-incorrect argument. 	  	
> >                                    If a ten-year-old with no credentials whatsoever 
> >                                    makes a physically-correct argument, it 
> >                                    is a physically-correct argument.


> What do we do about the tendency for the public to lump all scientists together.  

Teach everyone that appeal to authority is soft evidence.
Teach them the difference between soft evidence and hard
evidence.  Teach them to think for themselves.
  http://www.av8n.com/physics/authority.htm

> What do we do
> when journalists find one scientist at odds with 99 
> scientists and give journalistic equal weight
> to the 1% view?

Teach them to distrust journalists.

On many occasions I have had firsthand knowledge of something
that was reported in the press.  I think there was maybe once
when the story bore a reasonable resemblance to the facts.

I once watched as a WSJ reporter visited Bell Labs.  He came
with a story already fully formed in his mind.  The first 99
people he interviewed flatly contradicted the reporter's premise.
Finally he found somebody whom he could gull into agreeing with
him.  He ran his article and "substantiated" it with a quote
from that one person.

This is a very, very, very serious matter.  Congress voted to
approve going to war based in part on stories in the press about
weapons of mass destruction ... /not/ based on sworn testimony.

As a tangentially-related matter, I was disgusted by what Richard
Durbin said last week.  "The information we had in the intelligence
committee was not the same information being given to the American
people. I couldn't believe it ... I was angry about it ... frankly,
I couldn't do much about it because, in the intelligence committee,
we are sworn to secrecy."

What a load of self-serving hogwash.  There was nothing to prevent
him from standing in the well of the Senate and saying "Gee, I
think we ought to get some sworn testimony on this subject."

> .... Even though my graduate degree was nuclear physics, is that the only
> field in which I can offer expert testimony?  

Of course not.

One of the great selling points of a degree in physics is that
it lays a foundation for a very wide range of future endeavors.

Look at the number of non-physics Nobel prizes that have gone to
people trained as physicists.