if i may say something as the resident slow thinker: things are
whizzing by at a good speed on this thread but it seems to me
that certain things are not clear (at least to me!). the examples
and analysis (offered by michael p. and others) seems to touch
upon the dangers of letting experts decide on matters, while jks
argues that within the well-defined scope of their technical
activity, experts are to be left alone and there is no
"democratization possible". to make matters worse (in terms of
the disconnect of rhetoric) jks seems to be thinking of the
hard sciences (though he has mentioned law) while those on the
other side are thinking more generally or less specifically
about the hard sciences.
so the questions that arise are:
a) does jks object to democratization of the choice of research
projects and the disposition of their results? (my hunch is
that he does not)
b) is truth entirely relative especially as we go from the
harder to the softer sciences and humanities? are experts
the final arbiters of truths within their fields? if so, is
that form of truth meaningful in a general context? is there
an act of interpreting the technical truth? who best carries
out that activity? is the expert like a computer? unknowing
of semantics but quick and effective at syntactic
manipulation of symbols?
c) could we trust the expert at least at his symbol manipulation
and the trivial decisions involved within? how about those
non-computational steps that penrose would have us believe
are involved in thought?
(i am trying to evade the questions that follow regarding
reductionism and the use of a well-defined language such as math
for proofs which can then be reviewed say by peers).
--ravi
