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That’s a nice maxim and all but in actual reality, the vast majority of people on the vast majority of topics have to use heuristics to build (and disconfirm) t
by ethanbond 3y ago
That’s a nice maxim and all but in actual reality, the vast majority of people on the vast majority of topics have to use heuristics to build (and disconfirm) their beliefs. The people who are actually close enough to a topic to even be able to judge an idea “on the merits” are few and far between. If you want people to have an accurate model of reality, you have to care about maintaining heuristics that at least somewhat track with the consensus (or the lack thereof) of the underlying group of people who actually have a chance of knowing things from first principles and direct experience.
Deliberately sampling an “unbiased” subset of an actually biased underlying population is not just allowing the heuristic to stray from reality, it’s deliberately destroying that heuristic and deliberately misleading people. In imaginary “everyone can/should judge on own merits”-land, that’s perfectly fine. In reality, where almost no one can actually judge almost anything of substance on its merits, you are actively sabotaging truth-seeking.
The way that fringe scientist gets to declare s/he is right is by convincing their peers of it, not by convincing the public in a format that violates the heuristics the public has to rely on. Of course everyone should always be open to this possibility, most of all their peers (and to your point they often aren’t!)
- squigz 3y agoI wish more people understood this - that most (all?) people are missing the required years of knowledge and understanding of nuance to be able to judge an idea "on its merits", particularly scientific/technological ideas. Trusting expert consensus - while certainly not perfect - is the only logical (and relatively safe) way forward. What's of even more concern to me is the prevalence of this in the HN crowd - ostensibly a bunch of very intelligent people with expert knowledge in their respective fields and who thus understand what goes into actually understanding something...
- Der_Einzige 3y agoGell-mann amnesia effect is a powerful drug.
- squigz 3y agoCould you please elaborate on what you mean by this?
- leereeves 3y agoScientists get to declare they are right by finding evidence that their theory works. Convincing their peers makes that easier (they'll have more resources and help in the search for evidence), but ultimately the evidence should be clear to everyone. Do germs grow in a heated, sealed flask? No. Clear evidence for germ theory, disproving the accepted view at the time, spontaneous generation. Do nuclear fission and modern electronics work? Clear evidence for quantum physics, even though Einstein argued against it till the end. Is GPS accurate before or after adjusting for time passing faster in orbit? (After.) Clear evidence for general relativity, despite how wild it seems. On the other hand, when a group of people collectively tell you their ideas are right, and that other ideas are "fringe", without clear evidence, that's an ideology or a religion.
- logicchains 3y agoTo quote Max Planck: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with.". Groupthink holds back science.