[kragen]

yes, but this means that if you divide people into those with controversial opinions, and those without, you should direct 100% of your listening to the first group. at some point you will have to be more selective than that, but that's clearly the first step

[TOMDM]

The cutting edge of progress is going to be found in controversy, but the "boring" established fact is often correct.

Non controversial people are worth listening to as well.

[threatofrain]

There's also a question of who is best poised to extract value from professional or expert controversy. IMO generally not amateurs.

[kragen]

clearly. ideally, in a field you don't know well, you would listen to only the uncontroversial opinions of people who also have controversial opinions, which you should ignore since you're not equipped to evaluate them

[mr_mitm]

You can't make that division. Controversialness is not binary. Almost every researcher has a few controversial ideas, that's just natural when trying to push the envelope. Unfortunately, some like to be controversial for the sake of being controversial, and some are so far out there that it would be a waste of time to listen to them.

[kragen]

having controversial ideas is unavoidable when you think, and sure, you can have more or less of them. but if you have none then you're not thinking and there's no benefit in listening to you

[mr_mitm]

Unless I misunderstood you, you're saying that every undergrad textbook is not worth reading, which cannot be right. Are you assuming everyone is already aware of all the uncontroversial opinions?

I listened to many uncontroversial opinions in undergrad and grad school, and it was well worth it because they were all new to me. It's like Picasso said: you need to know the rules before you can break them. Learn the uncontroversial status quo first, then listen to the uncontroversial stuff or come up with your own. Skipping the uncontroversial would be a mistake.

[kragen]

you have a point. while biology textbooks might be controversial among creationists, and physics textbooks might be controversial among flat-earthers, in mainstream society the only thing controversial about them is the idea that they're worth devoting attention to

on the other hand, if the authors of the textbooks don't have any controversial ideas, they probably aren't qualified to write the textbooks and will fill them with their half-understood memories of what someone else told them, which is more likely than not false in the first place. (examples abound: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/01/16/1...) ideally you want the authors of your textbooks to habitually practice the kind of critical thinking that will enable them to avoid filling the textbooks with errors, and which also guarantees that they will have controversial opinions

case in point: you're a lot better off learning chemistry from linus pauling's physical chemistry than from 95% of current textbooks, both because it's better written and because it's better thought out and more carefully written. as far as i can tell, the book doesn't have any controversial opinions in it, but pauling notoriously did; at some point he became convinced megadoses of vitamin c were great for your health. i'm pretty sure he was wrong about that, but at the time it was controversial

[saagarjha]

I said “many”, not all. There’s plenty of leeway to listen to established experts on boring things. You don’t have to be at the cutting edge of every single field, all the time. Nobody needs to listen to controversial opinions about the shape of the planet.

[kragen]

i've known a number of established experts in different fields, and they all had controversial opinions. sometimes not in the fields they were recognized in, but somewhere

[bazoom42]

This is how you become a flat-earther.