Wednesday, January 24, 2018

AGW discussion 103

The Coyote blogger posted something that I'd like to discuss here.

The proposition is why doubt the experts, especially if you are not an expert yourself.  It is not exactly the terminology used, but I think it is an adequate paraphrasing.

People might get the idea that to do so is a bit presumptuous of me, or of anyone else who might dare challenging the experts.

To respond to that, if it were to ever be posed to moi, which it hasn't, I would say the following:
  • Who decides that somebody is an expert?  Who decides that somebody is not an expert?
  • Why depend upon experts when you have a mind of your own?
  • Why discuss things like the weather, when anybody can dispute it?  The discussion goes nowhere.
  • Who defends science?  Who is attacking science?
  • In short, what are your assumptions?  What are your premises for believing what you believe?
  • To put it even shorter, how do you know what you know?  ( There is a word used in philosophy, which I cannot remember at the moment.  It is the study of knowledge and how we know what we know.----- epistemology!)
Yet another way of putting it is why the hell not challenge the experts?  Science has advanced on that very front of resistance.  If you cannot challenge the current wisdom, we would all still be stuck in the Dark Ages, and that is a fact.


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