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Comment by mattigames | Hacker News Reader

> Would the symmetrical statement, that you can only meaningfully agree with an expert if you are humble and have done your homework, be true?

Not really, because the experts agree on millions of details that I can look up -even if I don't fully understand them- meanwhile the other side (e.g antivaxxers) don't agree in anything significant and asking them simple basic questions unmask they know nothing about the subject (e.g. ask an antivaxxer some highschool chemistry questions about mercury). So unless you believe it's a giant conspiracy involving every expert in the world plus your highschool teachers plus a lot of books it's easy to claim that I meaningfully agree with the experts even if I don't understand the subject as much as them.

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One side of an issue being coordinated doesn't necessarily mean what they're saying it's true, just that they've managed to coordinate their beliefs more. Medieval monks agreed on many details of theology.

Medieval monks couldn't even agree on 'How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on_t....

Why were there so many sects, religions and religious wars if they agreed so well?

On the other hand, the speed of light is the same under any system of reference, any regime, culture or religion.

Ah yes, the angels on hairpin.

The debate was about inifinite vs. finite, not about a particular number. It was couched in the terms of angels rather than physical items specificaly to avoid preconceived notions about our physical world - notions which were limited, and recognized as limited, back then. Do we even recognize our notions as limited in our beautiful early XXI century...?

They disagreed on details, and yet agreed on much. Modern scientists agree on much, but disagree on many details, including many questions of great importance. There's even a good old schism in the interpretation of quantum mechanics!

The universality of an object-level truth has little to do with the coherence and marketing of groups claiming it, and worse, claiming ownership of it. To not realize this is to worship the false idol of Science, rather than the scientific method.

All indicators of things that are good and right and true eventually become disconnected from the things they originally indicated, and become tools of power. 'Science', as a word and an idea, is as much a buzzword and cudgel of politics as it is a reference to the search for truth. There is no escape from the inevitable transmutation of our words and symbols into political weapons: the only thing we can do is mitigate the problem by pre-empting it, inventing new words, changing categories, speaking in new metaphors that haven't been turned into applause lights yet. You have to stay a step ahead of the churning masses.

‘true’ is hard to define. If we stick to scientific truth, that domain is a small part of people’s day to day existence:

e.g. science can’t prove ‘does this person love me?’ ‘which flower arrangement is better?’ ‘what color should I paint my walls?’

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