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That's the biggest crock of **** I've heard in a while
The ethics of science indeed do demand that the results are not driven by anything other than the observations from the experiment. However, as I said in my previous post, we have entered an era where the scientist is no longer adhering to these ethics and, in fact, are abandoning them with a stunning zeal to in order to capture those grant dollars, push personal causes, or any number of ulterior motives. Not all scientists have abandoned their ethics but the number that have done so should be concerning to us all.
"Experts say" is one of my pet peeves when used by the MSM. You see it all the time in the NYT. More often than not when the 'reporter' is trying to bolster some political argument. Google 'experts say+New York Times" and you get 117 million hits.
Part of the key I think is to distinquish which issues are amenable to expertise and which are not. If the issue is nuclear plant safety, then quoting "expert" opinion is fine. But if the issue is the causes of poverty, or the best way to raise a child, or the merits of jazz vs. blues vs. classical, "experts say" is just a liar's way to say "IMO."
"Experts say" is one of my pet peeves when used by the MSM. You see it all the time in the NYT. More often than not when the 'reporter' is trying to bolster some political argument. Google 'experts say+New York Times" and you get 117 million hits.
Part of the key I think is to distinquish which issues are amenable to expertise and which are not. If the issue is nuclear plant safety, then quoting "expert" opinion is fine. But if the issue is the causes of poverty, or the best way to raise a child, or the merits of jazz vs. blues vs. classical, "experts say" is just a liar's way to say "IMO."
I not sure I follow you. The people I know who are most against 'experts' are not that intelligent. There are plenty of experts you rely on day in and day out, but you just don't know it. Everything in that computer you're using to write this post was designed by an expert. Had people relied on common sense, you'd be drawing pictures on a cave wall right now.
Most of the 'common sense' continually thrown around here is either stupidity or lies. Some examples? The stimulus package didn't work (refuted by the CBO) or that lowering taxes causes net receipt of taxes to go up.
Common sense is fine provided that you have the intelligence to keep it in check. Most people don't, yet feel the need to share poorly founded, uneducated opinions with the world.
Typical liberal who presumes academic superiority and derides "the masses" (whom they suggest to champion) as imbeciles who need the "good shepherd" of liberalism to guide them. People are more intelligent than you think. The assumption of marked intellectual superiority gained by simply pulling the "D" lever in the voting booth does not confer true education, intelligence, or insight. Give me a break.
Liberalism is a mental disorder.
PS- Your champion of Keynesian economics, the Nobel Prize winner Stiglitz, was dead wrong. Now why in the world do we embrace a proven failed economic principle in the US when Greece, Italy, Spain and Protugal have clearly shown us that such principles are clearly wrong?
"Common sense" is simply a quick reasoned opinion based on good information on a subject.
It is perfectly possible for common sense to be wrong. Especially if your basic information is lacking or wrong. On complex subjects, you either spend a lot of time learning about it, or you get the opinion of someone who has. An expert. And since there are a lot of complex subjects out there, no-one can master all of them. The commonsense term for someone who will neither learn about stuff important to his life, nor listen to someone who has is "idiot".
If you've never played chess before, common sense won't take you far against an expert, and real life is a lot more difficult than chess.
Location: Just transplanted to FL from the N GA mountains
3,997 posts, read 4,143,759 times
Reputation: 2677
Quote:
Originally Posted by AnUnidentifiedMale
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It's no surprise that the biggest purveyors of "common sense" are the people who are anti-science, and anti-education. To them, ignorance is better than enlightenment.
But wouldn't common sense tell you, that to ignore science and education, doesn't make sense?
"Common sense" is simply a quick reasoned opinion based on good information on a subject.
It is perfectly possible for common sense to be wrong. Especially if your basic information is lacking or wrong. On complex subjects, you either spend a lot of time learning about it, or you get the opinion of someone who has. An expert. And since there are a lot of complex subjects out there, no-one can master all of them. The commonsense term for someone who will neither learn about stuff important to his life, nor listen to someone who has is "idiot".
If you've never played chess before, common sense won't take you far against an expert, and real life is a lot more difficult than chess.
Well I was never and Admiral in the navy but seem to get by using my common sense in my bass boat. That same admiral might not even be able to back the thing into the lake or get the motor started if he doesn't have common sense.
Location: Democratic Peoples Republic of Redneckistan
11,078 posts, read 15,082,780 times
Reputation: 3937
Common sense isn't very common anymore.
I've seen it on a daily basis.
Taking welders for example...I have hired guys who were just out of school,knew more metalurgical jargon while they were asleep than I know while awake...they talk and talk and talk and then when it's time to actually do the job,they can't pour **** out of a boot with the instructions on the heel and they blow out on the Xray test and I had to send them back from whence they came...but to listen to them I was actually kind of scared for my job sometimes.
That's the way I feel about 99% of the "experts" out there.
I would rather go to a Veterinarian with my medical probs if he had common sense than some airhead Dr. that was just that,an airhead.
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