| > how does one determine what "best" is for multiple subjects? Perhaps invert the question - how to recognize "not-best"? If it's on a consensus list of common misconceptions, it's not-best. Science textbooks, web and outreach content, are thus often not-best. If the topic isn't the author's direct research or professional focus, it's likely non-best. People badly underestimate how rapidly expertise degrades as you blur from focus to subfield, let alone to broader field. Journalism is pervasively not-best. If the author won't be embarrassed by serving not-best, it likely is. Beware communities where avoiding not-best embarrassment isn't a dominating incentive. > not exact sciences. Most content fails even the newspaper test, that any professional familiar with the topic will recognize that it's wrong. This applies as much to science and engineering as to whatever. Not-best. "Soft" fields do have challenges. Subcultures with incompatible "this work is great/trash" evaluations. Integration of diverse perspectives in general. But note that agreement and uncertainty is often poorly characterized. A description of "A, B, and C" rather than "A. And also B and C, orders-of-magnitude down.". "B vs C!" rather than "A. And A.B vs A.C." Leaving out the important insight, the foundational context, is common. And sloppy argumentation. Not-best. Basically, there's opportunity for very atypically extensive pruning of not-best before becoming constrained by uncertainty rather than by effort. Once you eliminate the not-best, whatever remains, however imperfect, is... far less wretched than usual. |