I often here the analogy to sports when it comes to expertise. And if it often applies, but not always. Epistemology is simply the study of "the nature, origin

I often here the analogy to sports when it comes to expertise. And if it often applies, but not always. Epistemology is simply the study of "the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues." [1] We all do epistemology, all the time, whether we choose to think about it or not. In sports, we have minor leagues, where the stakes are lower. As the political climate (and the unfortunate affect of things like QAnon) demonstrates, the stakes aren't always lower just because epistemology is done poorly. Something similar can be said of rhetoric. I applaud this article for not falling a trap we have also seen too often recently, the Appeal to Authority [2]. The author judges someone else's argument solely on the merits, rather than that person's background. To steal the original authors metaphor: Babe Ruth still had to go up to the plate and take a swing. Babe Ruth was an expert baseball player because he hit a lot of home runs. It would bizarre if the opposite were true - that is, if Babe Ruth was given a lot of home runs because he was an expert. And yet, we have experts that try to dismiss plausible (perhaps likely, perhaps unlikely, but nevertheless plausible) scenarios without any explanation as to why they choose to do that. [3][4] And it is incumbent of all of us in a free society to be able to read something presented to us and realize, though we may not be experts, even if the conclusion is right, the argument along the way isn't. > My point is we're all engaged in this kind of desperate project of trying to feel like we're having new important insights, in a world full of people who are much smarter than we are... Partly this is all for the greater good... I would argue "intellectual exercise" is a better term. I've come to the conclusion that even if it's not read by many people, public professions are still valuable. As an American who is generally more "conservative" but also finds Trump abhorrent, I wish I had written more random internet posts in the summer of 2015 about how, even from a traditional conservative perspective, Trump is terrible, for the World, for the US, and for Conservatism. Perhaps it would have changed a few people's minds. Maybe it wouldn't have changed anyone's minds, but planted a seed of doubt in people's blind faith for that man. I'm a complete amateur when it comes to all the relevant subjects. Yet, it still seems like it would have been a good thing to do. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority 3. https://apnews.com/article/who-report-animals-source-covid-19-coronavirus-8a839c179c330c56fa46a763b7286a7f https://apnews.com/article/who-report-animals-source-covid-1... 4. https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-world-news-health-science-coronavirus-pandemic-c0c594f9060f676c0ea48c2d1c69daec https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-world-news-health-scien...