3 ms·

no, that's literally falling for the appeal to authority fallacy. just because a journalist has some experience in a field tells you nothing a priori about how

no, that's literally falling for the appeal to authority fallacy. just because a journalist has some experience in a field tells you nothing a priori about how they evaluate other information in the field. you have to evaluate their ability to evaluate that information to get any insight into how trustworthy they can be.

Sparkle-san 4y ago
You're conveniently ignoring that their writers are often writing within their domains of experience.
- clairity 4y ago
  no, i'm not. i'm saying that it doesn't matter a single iota. in the few domains where i can plausibly claim more than cursory knowledge, there are plenty of people who i give zero credence to, who otherwise claim "expertise". and a science writer is often writing about science far afield of their narrow education/research. the author of this very article is the "automotive editor" at ars, not a marine biologist, or anything close to it. "expert" is a normative (aka political) nominative, not a descriptive one.
  - Sparkle-san 4y ago
    > the author of this very article is the "automotive editor" at ars, not a marine biologist, or anything close to it. The author has a PhD in Pharmacology. Biology is an integral part of Pharmacology.
    - clairity 4y ago
      not marine biology.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      Perhaps, but this is marine biology, which I expect is a bit different. Not to mention that if you click through the author's article history, the most recent three pages of articles he's written (over 100 articles) are exclusively about cars, not science. (Ok, one exception, looks like he wrote an article about Disney's Obi-Wan series.) While I wouldn't say he has no domain knowledge at all, I don't think it's fair to say he has "expertise in marine biology". And he doesn't even write about stuff related to his credentialed field, at least not recently.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    > plenty of people who i give zero credence to, who otherwise claim "expertise". At the risk of committing the sin of No True Scotsman, perhaps these people don't really have the expertise they claim. I would expect a journalist who has actual, real expertise in a particular field to be able to sort out the junk from the newsworthy, at least most of the time. If not, then I don't think their expertise really exists. Sure, everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but I would expect people with real expertise to be at least mostly reliable.

Sparkle-san 4y ago

You're conveniently ignoring that their writers are often writing within their domains of experience.

clairity 4y ago
no, i'm not. i'm saying that it doesn't matter a single iota. in the few domains where i can plausibly claim more than cursory knowledge, there are plenty of people who i give zero credence to, who otherwise claim "expertise". and a science writer is often writing about science far afield of their narrow education/research. the author of this very article is the "automotive editor" at ars, not a marine biologist, or anything close to it. "expert" is a normative (aka political) nominative, not a descriptive one.
- Sparkle-san 4y ago
  > the author of this very article is the "automotive editor" at ars, not a marine biologist, or anything close to it. The author has a PhD in Pharmacology. Biology is an integral part of Pharmacology.
  - clairity 4y ago
    not marine biology.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Perhaps, but this is marine biology, which I expect is a bit different. Not to mention that if you click through the author's article history, the most recent three pages of articles he's written (over 100 articles) are exclusively about cars, not science. (Ok, one exception, looks like he wrote an article about Disney's Obi-Wan series.) While I wouldn't say he has no domain knowledge at all, I don't think it's fair to say he has "expertise in marine biology". And he doesn't even write about stuff related to his credentialed field, at least not recently.
- kelnos 4y ago
  > plenty of people who i give zero credence to, who otherwise claim "expertise". At the risk of committing the sin of No True Scotsman, perhaps these people don't really have the expertise they claim. I would expect a journalist who has actual, real expertise in a particular field to be able to sort out the junk from the newsworthy, at least most of the time. If not, then I don't think their expertise really exists. Sure, everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but I would expect people with real expertise to be at least mostly reliable.