I am not comfortable with that point of view. Growing up people used to always say "question authority" and that seems like the responsible thing to teach. But on the other hand, does it really make sense for everyone to do their own diligence in every matter?
The thing that has caused me to question this the most is crypto-currency scams. I don't mean generally, just the things we would all agree are clearly scams and kind of obviously so. They so often tell you: "do your own research". I think its a version of the poorly written Nigerian scam letter. The idea is a person with the right skill or knowledge will see its a scam right away and not bother them. People who are careless enough, dumb enough desperate enough will still be suckered and there are plenty of them. So the obvious scammers is completely comfortable saying "do your own research" and know that he filters out everyone but the suckers.
I wonder if sometimes most of us are better off just trusting the people who are experts most of the time? Skepticism is good but you can't really form your own exper opinion on every question you will face.
"But on the other hand, does it really make sense for everyone to do their own diligence in every matter?"
It probably depends on what is at stake. I don't particularly care about superconductors, but I do care about my knees, and when one doctor several years ago wanted to operate me, I sought a second opinion elsewhere. Sure enough, the other clinic told me that this can be treated conservatively.
I canceled the operation and, 6 years later, I have zero problems, zero pain and can walk just fine, even up/downstairs. I am not sure what the operation would do; knees are sensitive joints and don't like to be cut open.
> you can't really form your own exper[t] opinion on every question you will face.
noone can be an expert in all fields, but you can seek multiple opinions from multiple experts, and generally the consensus is likely to be correct. Esp. if those experts are far apart, and unlikely to be colluding or associated.
The trick is how to do it efficiently, and not to fall into confirmation bias (aka, seeking only experts that agree with your preconceived notions).
even just the task of finding multiple experts qualified to hold an opinion on a topic can be overwhelming. for a lot of things (like, for example, superconductivity) i'm not even qualified to determine if somebody should count as an expert or not.
this is the reason why things like scientific journals exist. it's embarrasing that Nature had to retract this paper, but on balance they're still doing a way better job of judging this subject matter than i would.
The thing that has caused me to question this the most is crypto-currency scams. I don't mean generally, just the things we would all agree are clearly scams and kind of obviously so. They so often tell you: "do your own research". I think its a version of the poorly written Nigerian scam letter. The idea is a person with the right skill or knowledge will see its a scam right away and not bother them. People who are careless enough, dumb enough desperate enough will still be suckered and there are plenty of them. So the obvious scammers is completely comfortable saying "do your own research" and know that he filters out everyone but the suckers.
I wonder if sometimes most of us are better off just trusting the people who are experts most of the time? Skepticism is good but you can't really form your own exper opinion on every question you will face.