This brings up a great point, one that hits me close to home, since I'm adequate at lots of things but not really good at anything.
We have a local wacko who was recently elected to head the Republican party here in Oregon. This was my introduction to him: http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/art-robinson Being a skeptic of everything, myself, I sensed a bit of bias in Maddow's log posts. So, I decided to try to find out if Robinson is/was actually a "good" scientist. Turns out he does have some pretty strong credentials. And, that lead me to a brief biography of Linus Pauling in the Atlantic trashing Pauling's zealous advocacy of vitamin C: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitamin-myth-why-we-think-we-need-supplements/277947/ The info about Robinson also brings up the (lack of) credibility issues surrounding climate deniers ... and pseudo-scientific efforts like those of the Discovery Institute. (I only learned about David Berlinski's association with the Discovry Institute _after_ I'd read and thought highly of his book "Newton's Gift".) Anyway, IN-credible nonsense often seems to accompany credible people. And it's not always merely when the credible person (e.g. David Deutsch) steps outside their domain of expertise. One final point. I've noticed lots of people abusing the fallacy of ad hominem lately. I've always found that examining the source of information to be a good way of estimating how trustable that information is. When the source is a system like a corporation or news outlet, most people seem to agree. But when the source is a person, any attempt to discuss or criticize them, as a source of some particular factoid, results in the accusation of ad hominem. A good example might be Edward Snowden, who I still don't trust ... for reasons I still can't articulate. 8^) But I don't think my critique of his actions or affect is ad hominem. I think such a critique is necessary. So, finally, here's my question. In this age of "outsider everything", shouldn't we be seeing (and methodically classifying) a diversity of trust establishing methods? What new measures of trust do, say, the millenials (or younger) use? Or are we older folk doomed to tsk tsking and yelling "get off my lawn"? Merle Lefkoff wrote at 08/15/2013 03:01 AM:
Outsider journalism, outsider diplomacy, outsider everything is the new norm. The age of elite expertise is over, and good riddance. Control of insight and information has always been an illusion.
-- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella Oil of love, swimming in a zodiac
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