From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Jul 27 2002 - 12:53:01 MDT
Louis writes
> Lee wrote:
> > Actually, when I'm first reading something---most of the
> > time---I definitely don't want to know the authoritativeness
> > of the writer precisely because I'm afraid that I'll give him
> > or her too much [or too little] credit.
>
> Funny. That's exactly the reason I DO want to know the authority of the
> writer, so I DON'T give them too much credit to someone who has no
> knowledge of the field they are talking about.
Yes, it's odd, that we describe our approaches in such diametrically
opposite ways. Another variable to keep in mind would be our particular
motive for attending to some argument or other. If it's an area that
I have almost no knowledge about, then yes, I guess I'm the same way
you are: it would be nice to read about backgammon from an acknowledged
authority on the game since I know absolutely zero about it. It's
even reassuring if I'm studying a book on Go, about which I do know
quite a bit, to understand the dan rating of the writer (though often
peer review allows very good exposition even by amateurs, as we
occasionally see in physics books).
But the psychological difference between us is apparently real,
as evinced by your last remark: you worry that you'll give too
much credit to someone who doesn't know what they're talking
about. Perhaps you have too little faith in your own critical
faculties, or I have too much faith in mine.
> > And one always has to be very careful too: reading Einstein's
> > views on quantum mechanics, or Eric Thompson's views on Mayan
> > decipherment, are misleading to say the least, even though
> > each was unchallengeably the greatest authority in the world
> > in their respective fields.
>
> Exactly my point. You have to know what field they are in, so you know
> how credible their answers are.
No, I think that you misunderstood my point. While Einstein's forte
*within* physics we can now see was not quantum mechanics, recall that
he easily was the greatest physicist of the 20th century and was one
of the earliest to utilize quantum concepts (which, as you probably
know was what he really got the Nobel Prize for for 1905 work).
Likewise in my other example, Eric Thompson was regarded as *the*
expert in the whole world as regarded the meaning of the Mayan
hieroglyphs, yet he was so dead wrong for a couple of decades, before
his death, that some think he actually retarded the final successful
decipherment.
Lee
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