The biggest advantage experts have to me is when they can quickly point me to the evidence that I can evaluate fastest to arrive at the correct conclusion
I relate to this.
Downside: It is more expensive to evaluate the merits of the evidence than the credentials of the expert.
There simply isn’t enough time to evaluate everything. When it’s really important, I’ll go to a significant amount of trouble. If not, I use heuristics like “how likely is it that something as easy to test as this made it’s way into the school curriculum and is also wrong?” if I have too little time or the subject is of little importance, I may decide the authoritative opinion is more likely to be right than my absolutely not thought out at all opinion, but that’s not the same as trusting authority. That’s more like slapping duct tape on, to me.
Slightly wrong heuristic. Go with “What proportion of things in the curriculum that are this easy to test have been wrong when tested?”
The answer is disturbing. Things like ‘Glass is a slow-flowing liquid’.
Actually ‘Glass is a slow-flowing liquid’ would take decades to test, wouldn’t it? I think you took a different meaning of “easy to test”. I meant something along the lines of “A thing that just about anyone can do in a matter of minutes without spending much money.”
Unless you can think of a fast way to test the glass is a liquid theory?
Unless you can think of a fast way to test the glass is a liquid theory?
Look at old windows that have been in for decades. Do they pile up on the bottom like caramel? No. Myth busted.
More interesting than simple refutation though is “taboo liquid”. Go look at non-newtonian fluids and see all the cool things that matter can do. For example, Ice and rock flow like a liquid on a large enough scale (glaciers, planetary mantle convection).
Look at old windows that have been in for decades. Do they pile up on the bottom like caramel? No. Myth busted.
I actually believed that myth for ages because the panes in my childhood house were thicker on the bottom than on the top, causing visible distortion. Turns out that making perfectly flat sheets of glass was difficult at the time it was built, and that for whatever reason they’d been put in thick side down.
Oh. Yeah. Good point. Obviously I wasn’t thinking too hard about this. Thank you.
Wait, so they put the glass is a liquid theory into school curriculum and it was this easy to test?
I don’t recall that in my own school curriculum. I’ll be thinking about whether to reduce my trust for my own schooling experience. It can’t go much further down after reading John Taylor Gatto, but if the remaining trust that is there is unfounded, I might as well kill it, too.
I relate to this.
There simply isn’t enough time to evaluate everything. When it’s really important, I’ll go to a significant amount of trouble. If not, I use heuristics like “how likely is it that something as easy to test as this made it’s way into the school curriculum and is also wrong?” if I have too little time or the subject is of little importance, I may decide the authoritative opinion is more likely to be right than my absolutely not thought out at all opinion, but that’s not the same as trusting authority. That’s more like slapping duct tape on, to me.
Slightly wrong heuristic. Go with “What proportion of things in the curriculum that are this easy to test have been wrong when tested?” The answer is disturbing. Things like ‘Glass is a slow-flowing liquid’.
Actually ‘Glass is a slow-flowing liquid’ would take decades to test, wouldn’t it? I think you took a different meaning of “easy to test”. I meant something along the lines of “A thing that just about anyone can do in a matter of minutes without spending much money.”
Unless you can think of a fast way to test the glass is a liquid theory?
Look at old windows that have been in for decades. Do they pile up on the bottom like caramel? No. Myth busted.
More interesting than simple refutation though is “taboo liquid”. Go look at non-newtonian fluids and see all the cool things that matter can do. For example, Ice and rock flow like a liquid on a large enough scale (glaciers, planetary mantle convection).
I actually believed that myth for ages because the panes in my childhood house were thicker on the bottom than on the top, causing visible distortion. Turns out that making perfectly flat sheets of glass was difficult at the time it was built, and that for whatever reason they’d been put in thick side down.
Oh. Yeah. Good point. Obviously I wasn’t thinking too hard about this. Thank you.
Wait, so they put the glass is a liquid theory into school curriculum and it was this easy to test?
I don’t recall that in my own school curriculum. I’ll be thinking about whether to reduce my trust for my own schooling experience. It can’t go much further down after reading John Taylor Gatto, but if the remaining trust that is there is unfounded, I might as well kill it, too.
You can’t taboo a word used in the premise.
Non-Newtonian fluids aren’t liquids, except when they are.
Granted, they are pretty cool though.