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I agree with John and Aristotle. Look to the message and not to the messenger.
And, like any good trial lawyer, it is my obligation to present the message skilfully. If you want an example, look at the Plaintiff's initial presentation in the Dover School Board trial.
Regards,
Jack
I
vOn Mon, 21 May 2007, Michael Edmiston wrote:
John Denker has responded to my questions by saying I am asking about a form
of "appeal to authority." He goes on to restate a paragraph we've seen
before about an expert's statement being wrong if it's wrong and a
10-year-old non-expert being right if he's right.
Yes, of course I'm asking about how much we trust authority; that's the
point of my questions. And of course an expert can make wrong statements,
either accidentally or intentionally, and of course a 10-year old can make a
lucky guess and be correct. How does that help the discussion?
If you don't have the ability or time or money to figure something out
yourself, who are you going to trust? That an expert could be wrong and a
10-year old could be correct are not going to make me start asking
ten-year-olds advice about global warming, or to diagnose what is wrong with
my car, or why I have indigestion, or how to manage my retirement portfolio.
As people with less authority, or fewer credentials, or less experience
interact with those who have the authority, credentials, experience I would
hope the authority figures would be honest, talk about uncertainty, explain
the ways that less experienced scientists misunderstand the data or the