| > Wasting intellectual horsepower by refuting bad arguments, experts have less and less time for more productive endeavors I disagree that it's a waste of effort. It may be considered a waste of effort from the experts perspective, but from everyone else perspective, it is a guard against experts keeping the truth for themselves. Experts together are a "black box" to non-experts. If we let them continue refining their ideas, they might forget to think about the common good. Even if they are good intended, at some point the knowledge has to flow between people, but experts often use their own domain language to communicate, and no one but them can argue anymore about their ideas. What people defending X are asking to the experts is that the latters should make their finding understandable by everyone, or some people will be exploited. If a piece of knowledge is true, but not useful to people problems, it doesn't matter to them. To me, people defending X are asking experts how does Y (or even X) is relevant to their lives, and it actually show that neither X or Y matter to them. From there, experts have to admit their are not HELPING people anymore, because they don't solve real world problems, in humanitarian term. Why would you care about the shape of the earth when you are dying because you have no water or food to live ? That's the life of some people on Earth. Why aren't experts thinking about giving them food and water rather than arguing that they are wrong about the shape of the earth ? |
The most annoying thing I've come across is instances where I'm sort of backed into an intellectual as "the guy who knows X", where people fully capable of understanding X to act as repeaters refuse to do so.
However, I understand the compunction at the same time. So I can't really blame them.