[inglor_cz]

So true. I studied algebra and I am fairly acquainted with modern cryptography.

Sometimes I meet "seriously looking" texts that mix cryptographic and information theoretic expressions ("code", "one time pad", "asymmetric", "stream cipher", "entropy", "quantum") in a hodgepodge that does not make any sense, but looks convincing to the amateur reader.

I suppose it is the same with, say, immunology. People can cook up a Sokal-like text that throws all the buzzwords around and look knowledgeable on Facebook, without actually saying anything of value.

[kzzzznot]

It’s quite alarming how much misunderstanding I find in articles the mainstream media channels in my country write about about anything I have professional/deep knowledge in. I wonder how much nonsense I’m reading and perhaps blindly accepting about subjects in which I am not as knowledgeable.

[msrenee]

I run into that all the time. I've got a solid grasp of biology and have a lot of knowledge about animals. It's pretty rare that I find an article that draws the conclusions I feel should be drawn from the information. I had to stop reading an article posted on this site the other day, as early in the article, they claimed that no one knows why plants produce latex. Obviously, that's not true so I went to see how hard the info would be to find and it's right there in the Wikipedia article on natural latex. I can forgive not knowing, but I can't forgive making a claim like that when the information is so accessible.

So what am I being told about economics or international relations that's just completely untrue? I don't even know enough to know what's an obvious lie, so how do I know what to read up on to verify the claims? How do I know that the source I'm using to verify the article isn't complete bunk itself? It's kind of terrifying.

[UncleMeat]

But isn't this evidence that you should rely on the conclusions of experts? What you are describing here is that amateurs fail dramatically to synthesize correct beliefs about a subject, but if you spend years immersed in that subject you are much more capable of doing this correctly.

[datavirtue]

Same. I take raw video with a grain of salt.

[Sebb767]

Even then, the problem is that it's sometimes hard to say whether there is nothing of value in there or whether you just don't get it. At least I read quite a few papers where I knew the information was in there, but it was formulated cryptic enough so that it took me a long time to find out.