Posts

Expert Identification Problem

-
Image
Recently I've been reading  C. Thi Nguyen , along with  social epistemology more broadly, and have come across what's referred to as the expert identification problem. Here is the main idea: there is a difficulty of determining who genuinely qualifies as an expert in a given domain, especially when non-experts lack the knowledge or skills to make such a determination. This creates an epistemic asymmetry, there is an inherent epistemic gap between experts and non-experts. If non-experts had the expertise needed to evaluate an expert, they would, in a sense, be experts themselves. This creates a circular problem: non-experts are asked to identify who the experts are, but they lack the knowledge to do so effectively. I see this problem as three fold. We must first define critical aspects of "expertise", second we must identify the entities to which that label could possibly refer, and third we must establish criteria/heuristics/rules of thumb that allow us to minimize o
Post a Comment
Read more

The Nature of Agnosticism: Part 4.4

-
Image
The last few posts have been comprised of longer explanations of the dynamics of religious belief. This post will be much briefer, serving more as an appendix. It contains additional features I've found relevant but do not warrant a full length post, mainly because I have better things to do. All of these are considered to be mechanisms that contribute to the persistence of belief in monotheistic religions but they can also be applicable to anything considered a belief system proper. Contrary to religious apologists, belief is not simply a decision. Belief seems to be an emergent phenomenon arising from a complex interaction of cultural, lifestyle, and experiential factors. I am not going account for the formation of these systems, rather I will just explain more features that contribute to the positive feedback loop dynamics maintaining belief. Along the way, we will encounter more bad apologetics that frequently arise.  Taking Credit This might not seem like an obvious causal fac
Post a Comment
Read more