I guess that depends upon what you mean by “recognizing”.
Wrong. We should never trust anybody, especially on the internet, just because of credentials. Always verify.
Rose-colored glasses. Experts are also people with biases. High academic accolades can also breed a kind of pride and arrogance. This goes in both directions. Don’t believe something just because an expert tells you to.
I thought we might try a test run on curated discussion. I’m open to people submitting constructive comments, but will move clutter elsewhere.
For my part, if I’m writing on statistical subjects or math, my knowledge and experience should be recognized and carry more weight on that subject. I have limited expertise on biomedical subjects, and no particular expertise in any number of topics, where I should acknowledge I am not an expert.
Someone with expertise should be allow to shoot down the “2+2=5” propositions quickly, so we can move on tho more productive discussion.
This isn’t free-for-all Internet, we have pretty tight control of membership and passing trolls are quickly eliminated. Our members with expertise are pretty easy to confirm from public sources (publications, employment, etc.).
Lots of things can breed pride and arrogance. Ignorance questioning knowledge can also occur, and is generally the greater problem. An expert often has more invested in giving correct answers than those who know less. There may still be some biases, of course, but generally less bias - or some other expert will correct them.
What do you mean by “weight”? Does it mean that you expect people to assume you’re right when you speak on these matters, and if they don’t make that assumption, they’re failing to recognize your expertise?
This turns out to be subjective. Many people here would classify my YEC beliefs as a ‘2+2=5’ proposition. So that means the biblical point of view gets ‘shot down’ so more “productive” conversation can be had.
I’m not going to name any names, but in my experience that’s not the case. At least, not all the time. And the unfortunate thing is that even experts can act like trolls.
Yes… like being deemed an expert. That’s not to say I’m against education by any means. But it’s inherently unhealthy to begin to view those with education as a “higher class” or a “secular priesthood”. That is what has been developing in our society for quite some time now.
Again this is a view from rose-colored glasses when it comes to experts. A clarification needs to be made: there’s a big difference between an expert speaking on a matter with little worldview implication (like the exact boiling point of alcohol), and that same expert speaking on a matter with large worldview implications. Experts are human, and are perhaps even more so than the average person (due to their reliance on ‘consensus’), susceptible to groupthink.
I don’t think that’s what @Dan_Eastwood meant. Yes, most people will assume that he is right. But Dan also knows that other people will point out any mistakes that they see. And I’m pretty sure that Dan won’t mind if some folk do extra checking just to be sure.
I don’t think I do that. ‘2+2=5’ is an abstract non-empirical proposition, and is such that we can be certain it is false (assuming the usual meanings of terms). Your YEC beliefs, by contrast, are empirical. Yes, I disagree with them. But I do not have the same certainty about empirical claims as I can have with mathematical claims.
I wouldn’t even agree with this. My YEC beliefs are based primarily on historical testimony (in this case, infallible historical testimony). This is not empirical. I do believe that we can find a lot of confirmation of this historical testimony in the form of forensic clues, but this is historical, not empirical science. It’s not repeatable. Biases come massively into play in the interpretation of these clues.
Not all claims about reality are empirical, but @PDPrice and his colleagues certainly do make empirical claims. I do think it’s valuable he acknowledges that core of this isn’t empiricism for him, but how he reads Scripture.
Kurt Wise and Todd Wood are first, committed YECs then second, committed scientists. Their doubts about the YEC paradigm (esp, Wood) have come at price. He is an honest individual saying that if evolutionary theory are correct, you still have a mountain to climb, and his honesty doesn’t think you will actually “get there”. Why don’t you invite them on. Then we can all stop guessing about their positions and ask them directly. I can [assure] you, you will not find them the friend you think them to be.
[Edit: but I could be wrong]
@Dan_Eastwood I don’t think this discussion is “curated” anymore…too many voices, too many arguments.
This is something I regularly wrestle with on PS. This thread started with a discussion of questioning expertise and has now gone into a sub-topic about what God says and what YECs and others think about evolution. Actually, that sub-topic is very interesting—but if I add to that discussion, am I just another participant derailing a thread?
I’m hesitant to move the posts to start a new thread. That can be almost (or even more) disruptive than adding to the sub-topic tangent. I’ve tried to keep up on the discussions about goals and standards but I admit to feeling some confusion about what is off-topic and when a new thread should be created. (And sometimes the Discourse software can be a bit unwieldy when moving a lot of posts to another thread—especially for someone like me whose Internet connection sometimes drops at the most inconvenient times. So I rarely risk that.)
That said, I admit my culpability in adding to the sub-thread with this:
That nicely summarizes why I left the “creation science” community of my younger years. I constantly found myself uncomfortable with those who placed their favorite YEC traditions, pseudo-exegesis, and bizarre interpretations above what God has so abundantly revealed in his scriptures and in his creation. I was bothered by this ongoing confusion between one’s personal tradition-bound hermeneutic and Biblical inerrancy. (“What I say the text should mean” = “What God says” equivalences finally pushed me over the edge. I still have good friends within that 1960’s “creation science” community who consider the late Drs. Gish, Morris, and Whitcomb the unquestionable authorities on these topics.)
I also found it interesting that when fallible humans examine and interpret the scripture evidence, their publications are all too often assumed infallible (as long as they are YEC authorities) but when fallible humans examine and interpret the scientific evidence, their publications are assumed fallible (if they are not committed YECs.) This appears to suggest that what God reveals in his scriptures is always reliable and clear----while what God reveals in his creation is both unreliable and unclear (and, basically, should be ignored if it doesn’t fit YEC expectations.) This double-standard is exasperating. It is also ironic considering how often even born-again Bible-affirming Christ-followers can disagree in their exegesis of Genesis while scientists of varied personal beliefs nevertheless are remarkably consistent in how they interpret the scientific evidence. Yes, it tends to be opposite of what so many YECs assume (My own academic career included experience in both science and humanities faculties as well as seminary appointments. So unlike a lot of my YEC colleagues, I have some years of first-hand observations to draw on.)
YECs often fail to grasp that what God has revealed in his creation is reliable as testimony of the earth’s history—just as what God has revealed in his scriptures is reliable. (Of course, the evidence we observe in creation is far more abundant and detailed. Meanwhile, the Bible tells us very little about geological history. That’s not its purpose. Despite Bible inerrancy statements which double down on the Bible as authoritative in science, relying on the Bible as a scientific authority is a relatively recent phenomenon which would have baffled first-century Christian followers.)
Part of that verification is ascertaining the trust or weighting experts place in other experts, in another word, recognition. Such trust is hard won and readily lost.
How do you intend to verify? Personally rerun the experiment? Pursue doctorates in every specialty known to man? Sure, you can and should scour the literature for dissenting opinions, but the experts usually agree on much more that their finer points of divergence. Some degree of trust in experts is essential, or nobody would ever have a baseline from which to conduct further research. That trust is far from blind; no matter how august the expert, if she is wrong, other experts, and more importantly other experiments and observations, will eventually demonstrate her work to be wrong.
The experts here, with regards to the big picture, are generally convinced of the conventional description of the age and history of the earth. Do you believe they ignore the full picture, and ignore the inherent implausibility of evolution? Why? If researchers are so perversely mistaken on the foundations of their life’s work, in what sense would you even respect their expertise? What do they do all day to become experts? Would they not rather be, frankly, either idiots or participating in some global mass delusion, to misapprehend six thousand years as thirteen billion? How in your mind do the experts get it not just wrong, but so massively wrong?
Perhaps I may be allowed to add a thought - happy to have removed or hidden if it just adds clutter. Also not expecting a response. Just some thoughts for considerstion
Expertise is definitely a subjective notion, but what should be clear is that if someone is actively working in a field academically then this is very different from someone who avidly reads the literature. I have found that it is easy enough to think you understand someone’s position, only to realise that you haven’t got a grasp at all of what underlies their position. There is simply too much literature to read to really get a good grasp on more than a very very small amount of a subject if you have a day job in a something unrelated
There is also a huge difference between writing papers that are peer-reviewed and challenged, compared to reading material. The former requires an active pressure towards getting things right, the latter doesn’t. There is also a pressure towards staying up to date on the latest research as some fields can be quite fast moving.
As an example. I try to read as much as I can on relevance theory, but this means I cannot even touch a lot of the other theories as I don’t have enough time in the day. In other words, I don’t have time to study systemic functional linguistics. With relevance theory I try to read particularly in its relation to biblical languages and studies, this means I don’t have time to read as deeply on its application to humour, or irony etc. So even in that “focussed” reading of linguistics I am surface level.
Someone who has been through years of academic study will hopefully have a grasp of the much wider background and related areas behind their interest, as they will have had time.
This is not to say that you can’t challenge an “expert”. It is to say that you have to be remarkably humble about it given the issues above.
What is “curated” supposed to mean again?
Except for all the ones that aren’t. (Sorry, you said “here”. What’s the relevance of that?)
Yes.
This is a theological question with a theological answer.
In what sense do you respect the expertise of Dr. John Sanford, Dr. Robert Carter, Dr. Don Batten, Dr. Jim Mason, Dr Jonathan Sarfati … and so forth?
It doesn’t work to try to make your decisions about life’s most important questions (how did we get here, where do we go when we die, etc.) based upon somebody’s supposed expertise. You’re going to have to do thinking of your own.
How do you intend to verify? Personally rerun the experiment? Pursue doctorates in every specialty known to man? Sure, you can and should scour the literature for dissenting opinions, but the experts usually agree on much more that their finer points of divergence.
One way to verify in a scientific context is to see if there’s a group of experts who dissent from the view you’re being told. Then, listen to them in their own words (not the caricature presented of them by their opponents). Evaluate why they disagree. Naturally, you cannot reproduce all the experiments yourself, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
You have rejected the possibility you could be wrong. You are essentially claiming your own understanding of the Word of God to be infallible, and there is no evidence that would convince you otherwise. This is why discussion of scientific evidence with you is a wasteful pursuit.
No, I am saying I have considered that the other claims may be right, and I have rejected them. I do believe I am right.
I also believe God’s word can be understood and is not unclear on these matters. The fact that some group of people disagrees is not a refutation of this.
Yeah, TOTAL fail. I should never have started in without comment approval turned on. Fixable!
@PDPrice I moved this to Conversation so that comments will require approval. I don’t have time to weed out comments just now, but can do that this afternoon.
You can help by indicating with comments you think should stay (maybe just like them?). I an also inclined to keep comments you have already replied to, unless you indicate otherwise?
I don’t know what you mean by this. Are you asking me to “curate” this discussion by deciding which comments I think are relevant? I didn’t know I was signing on for that.