consensus isn't meaningless, its generally a good indicator. rare exceptions prove the rule etc.
also the statement "we have to be allowed to question everything"
this is true, however your questioning is fairly useless. The questioning of a soccer mom that read on facebook that greenhouse gas reduction gives her child's left toe autism means very little. A less jokey example, the questionings of someone who has no education on a topic are not very likely to be grounded in a quality observation or hypothesis. That person is not making any scientific advances, they are not contributing to scientific advances. Their questioning does not have anything backing it up and even if they have some decent reason for questioning it that could turn out to be true, they don't have the technical knowledge or skill to process that information in a useful manner, they can neither reliably come to useful conclusions from it nor properly formulate their conclusions into useful statements or hypothesis.
All good points and well said. I just want to add that people often like to point out the “underdog win” when they are in that position to show- “hey look, you’re laughing but they laughed at these guys and they were right!” True… but people also laughed at the dudes who believed you could gather orgasm energy and travel to the moon, people laugh at flat earthers and… well… for every story you can dig up where some “wild card” came out of left field and proved some idea the “consensus” thought was insane, we can find at least 20, maybe 100+ cases where the modern “scientists” everyone said were wrong… were totally wrong. Science evolves as new info is gained but we go with the most likely or repeatable version we have at a given time. It’s a huge fallacy to believe that because some people are right when “everyone” says they are wrong, anyone who people think is wrong must be right. In those terms it should be obvious how silly the defense here is.
That being said, even people who know nothing on a subject can ask good questions. They might not even be able to understand the answer but if they ask those who do know the subject sometimes those people take the answer and work with it. On the flip side this is also how you learn about something. If you know nothing about a subject but hear something you think is fishy and question it; you learn about said subject. That doesn't make you an expert right off the bat but just because you're not contributing to scientific advances doesn't mean you shouldn't question things. Asking the questions, valid, stupid, ignorant, or genuine is better than not asking at all. After all that soccer mom may be an idiot but hopefully after she's told, no it does not, she'll at least be less ignorant than she was before. Many of today's problems occur because people aren't asking. Instead they just take it as fact and heaven help you if you question them.
Good points to clarify. Thank you. Agreed- asking questions is a good thing overall and a big part of learning. I think ego is a part of the issue in the senses that people are often self conscious about seeming “dumb,” and that many of us, as we age, go through phases where we feel like we have knowledge and experience in life, as the kids once would say- “we are feeling ourselves” and so we aren’t looking to actually learn. A question can be a way of learning but it is also a way of exerting power (the judge questions you, congress questions you, teachers ask questions like: “where are you going?” But generally it doesn’t work the other way around.) and questions can be a weapon of sorts- not asked in earnest but more as a passive form of attack or a “gotcha..” in examples such as where one might say: “I don’t think that schedule makes sense because it doesn’t account for Johns work days…” they might say: “what about John?”
While the latter may come from genuine curiosity- like: “do you know something I don’t?” Or “did John tell you something?”
It’s more generally, at least subconsciously, a form of flex. Aimed to undermine in ways like pointing out you didn’t think of something or that you will answer “I don’t know..” which then gives doubt to your capabilities or the suitability of an idea. If there is this gap or omission- what else was left out..?
We can broad group a concept of “questions people don’t really want or care about the answer to..” or “leading questions” which aren’t really meant to gain information for the asker, when someone is campaigning “diversity” and is asked: “what about that time you voted against XYZ diversity bill..?” It usually doesn’t mean they actually are looking for the other side of the story- they are calling out what they already decided was hypocrisy so others can see it and you’ll be forced to “backpedal” or “trapped” without an answer.
So I agree- if we approach things from a genuine perspective of trying to learn, questioning what we don’t understand is generally a good thing- but by the same token it is still a part of the overall problem being discussed here. It’s a touch complex itself- but if all we do is “ask” then we are just looking to be handed an answer. We either have to take the answer or reject it. When we question a source we don’t trust, the answer isn’t likely to be trusted anyway if it contradicts what we believe already. So I’m such cases the question can be said to be in bad faith, or largely pointless beyond perhaps use for “cross examination” of an individual but not necessarily an issue. For example-
If we ask a murderer if they committed a murder, a spouse of they are cheating, a company of their product is dangerous- they will generally either say “yes” or “no.” In most cases their self interest would encourage an answer of “no” wether true or not.
If we already assume or expect they are inclined to lie, we are probably not inclined to believe them if they say “no.” We have entered with a bias because if they say: “yes,” we will generally accept that answer as true (why would someone say something self damaging of it weren’t true..? Possible but generally less likely..) but a “no” probably won’t put the matter to rest as settled fact. Beyond that- in these examples and others, we are only asking because we already suspect we know the answer- so the bias is clear and the question more a formality in general. The same applies to things like a technical issue. We can ask our mechanic what our car needs, but if we don’t trust the mechanic or believe we know better about our car, we probably won’t go with their recommendation and will instead see their answer as proof of what we suspected- that they can’t be trusted.
So there is an argument that before we participate in open forums that we have or take the time to acquire at least a basic level of knowledge on a subject to allow us to ask questions and understand the answers as opposed to going in to situations simply asking questions and expecting answers be handed to us- when we are likely to reject the answers we receive anyway.
There comes a point where we trust an expert or must become the expert. In most any organization of worth, more “executive leaders” usually can’t do the job or understand everything about what everyone they are responsible for does- but they will tend to have the ability to understand the broad picture of those under their responsibility.
To be in a position to tell engineers what to do or make engineering decisions, one at least needs to understand some fundamental basics of engineering and engineering processes/workflows.
Imagine having a team of engineers or construction workers or computer programmers etc…you ask: “how long will this project take?” They tell you it will take 50 hours. Is that a long time? If you don’t have a basic knowledge of what they are doing or needs done… you don’t know. It could take 10 hours and they are goofing off. You can ask “what do you need to do exactly” “how long does it take?” “why does that take so long” “can it be done faster” etc… but if you don’t have any basic knowledge… it could all be lies to bill more hours or have goof off time etc. you can maybe look at the hours on past projects- but you’d still need to know enough to know which projects were similar enough to compare to, and if they’ve been lying on all their projects you’d just think a 10 hour process took 50 forever.
To the contrary- if you suspect your team is lying and ask your buddy or Google it or whatever and they say the job your team estimated was 80 hours takes 30…. If you’re tram is being honest and that other source doesn’t know what they are talking about or is lying or you don’t know enough to ask the question correctly to reflect the actual work the tram is doing etc… you’re going to believe they are lying and try to force an 80 hour job into 30.
So depending on how involved or in control we want to be, we need to enter the discussion having already acquired enough knowledge to participate in that capacity; or we need to enter the discussion as a bystander and not a participant. Someone there to listen and ask questions but not there to form opinions or express them necessarily.
Now, of course the janitor might have some great ideas. If you bring a bunch of PHDs and experienced technical pros together to design a product or solve an issue, the “folksy” janitor might see some area they are struggling in and say: “well- it looks to me like if you did this…” or perhaps the chemists don’t know how to solve some issue with all their high tech toys and the janitor looks and says: “well shoot- icing? When it gets cold here in winter I’m have this bottle here. I spray this window cleaner on the locks and they don’t ice..” a magical moment where these egg heads realize that a slight tweak or literally a $5 glass cleaner is all their billion dollar space craft needs to fly. It actually can happen- I’m not being sarcastic, just hyperbolic for fun. We all know of the church quotes tens of thousands to fix a bell that a couple church workers fixed with some WD40 etc.
But the thing is… it happens but it is the exception not the rule. They don’t invite the janitor or the jr. Analysts etc. to every high level technical meeting just in case their different perspective and lack of subject knowledge actually lead to bear fruit, because it’s more likely that anything they might say would be useless or counter productive. When the software team discusses how the nature of the authentication protocol of their apps won’t allow single sign on through the users phone Lock Screen- someone belting out: “can we put this on the internet instead?” “Have you tried using Android. My cousin has Android and they say it does all kinds of stuff..” “what is single sign on?” Those questions might help someone learn new things- but they generally don't belong at that meeting. Those are questions that should probably be understood when one gets to the table. If one knows they are going to be in that meeting or wants to participate in the discussion- researching ahead might..
.. be prudent. While there are some highly technical or nuanced aspects of things that it’s understandable a non subject matter expert would ask clarification on, questions on fundamentals of complex topics should be asked in a different environment than an important decision making discussion generally because those answers can only be “Children's book” answers like “this is good. This is bad.” That’s not really useful to learn- it’s just parroting. Most rational people- if they don’t know about something and someone they are turning to for expertise- if the two options are “the good option” and the “bad option,” it seems a no brainer to go with the “good option.” If we get slightly less kindergarten and do something like “science for kids” there starts to be all sorts of room for misunderstanding.
Even trained professionals have issues with cognition and numbers. Most people think “50/50” odds are decent. Those are horrible odds. A critical systems engineer might hear “87.4%” and be horrified- but “88%”is acceptable. To most people- a .6% difference would seem like nothing. We tend to need our numbers to be big to take them seriously. Even whole numbers- a 3% lifetime increase of cancer risk- most people are not going to think much of that number- but it’s pretty significant, but also… not? That’s an example of nuance and fallacy. Most people have trouble with numbers too big or small- 100k people die of factor X let’s say- well… compared to 300 million or 7 billion that’s small. We might say more people die of heard disease. Buut… most people have never seen that many people, won’t ever meet that many people. Have never been in a single space with that many people. It’s a huge number but not the largest death toll in human history by far.
So as a whole humans aren’t well equipped to intuitively grasp or even fully comprehend certain things, but knowledge and experience can at least give us a framework to understand the significance of things that if we didn’t know enough, they’d seem insignificant or far less heavy. There brings us back to the start- if we aren’t equipped to see “87.4%” or “100,000l and go “whoa.. that’s bad..” to start- if we have already decided that seems fine and “what’s the big deal…” and we’ve been told- “no- it’s a big deal. Here are the reasons…” and we still think- “this is being blown out of proportion…” then asking an expert, one of the same experts that likely were the source of the original statement or information we are questioning- “what’s the big deal..” will get largely the same answer we already rejected from the same source. When we decide that all these people are in collusion or part of some conspiracy- we aren’t going to trust any of them and even if they all agree…
.. of course they would. Isn’t that the point of conspiracy/collusion? Back to numbers- 4-6 billion people or so have some form of internet access- are connected across the globe. Statistically speaking, no matter how insane or fundamentally ignorant a belief is, we should be able to find at least several hundred, several thousand or more- who will believe the same thing. If 50,000 people all agree that gravity is a scam and we are actually just pushed down by the weight of air above us (we are pushed down by air to a degree yes- science fact- but gravity isn’t a scam and is what holds us to the planet…) if all those people agree gravity is a scam and we do too- we are inclined to believe “how can ALL these people and me be wrong?” Because that’s a lot of people. But… it isn’t. There are millions of scientists on earth- even if all 50,000 of those people were scientists- more than 20x maybe 100x that many scientists would disagree and have evidence to show it. Of course… the topic…
.. at hand being wether that matters, we have to ask. Statistically the odds that 50k beat 4,950,000 in being correct on such a matter is slim- but it does only take one person to come up with evidence that demonstrates what billions believe is likely false. So we can circle that drain all day long- at the end of the day there is a burden of proof and people who can’t understand or refuse to accept a reasonable burden of proof can ask questions all day and go nowhere constructive because you can’t “prove” anything you answer is trust worthy. This is especially so when the “burden of proof” a person uses to determine fact or fiction is what they “feel” is right or what supports what they already think.
That goes right into the whole "my truth" crap. Which is unfortunately, propagated by many media outlets. And you're right, asking questions while not actually looking for the objective truth but instead the one that fits your narrative is all too common. The older I get the more I dislike it when someone asks a question but either doesn't listen to the answer or has already decided what the answer should be and refuse to understand why your answer isn't the same. I also find I don't have a problem if the answer is "this is what we know so far" or "honestly, we just don't know yet we need more time". Of course I seem to be in a minority on that opinion and alot of people, groups, news agencies etc... are more than happy saying something is an absolute fact, end of, just to seem like an authority on a subject. Then instead of admitting if they were wrong they just gloss over it and pretend they did no such thing.
Agreed. It’s the “cold read” fallacy or the “cheap comedian” strategy- if you throw out 100 bad ones fast enough but land 20 really good ones in that time- a large percent of people will just remember the hits and not the misses. News gave up any vestige of professionalism and decided to be entertainment propaganda and… we largely went for it. Some percentage of those who didn’t bite and saw the lies decided the best place to get “news they could trust” was random strangers and acquaintances- and here we are lol. When someone says: “I don’t know, but I’ll find out…” and followed up, that used to be the sign of someone you could put some level of trust in. They didn’t lie, they were honest and saw it through. Attention spans are short as ever, maybe more so, and we are bombarded with so much ever changing “big news” that people can just leave the questions and details because most folks won’t care in a few days or a week- it’s on to the next thing to pay attention to.
It’s not so bad. If things get much worse we’ll either have to do something to fix it up or people will be so gullible that anyone over a certain age can probably live a lucrative life conning anyone who grows up in the future world of media and 2 hour news cycles lol.
also the statement "we have to be allowed to question everything"
this is true, however your questioning is fairly useless. The questioning of a soccer mom that read on facebook that greenhouse gas reduction gives her child's left toe autism means very little. A less jokey example, the questionings of someone who has no education on a topic are not very likely to be grounded in a quality observation or hypothesis. That person is not making any scientific advances, they are not contributing to scientific advances. Their questioning does not have anything backing it up and even if they have some decent reason for questioning it that could turn out to be true, they don't have the technical knowledge or skill to process that information in a useful manner, they can neither reliably come to useful conclusions from it nor properly formulate their conclusions into useful statements or hypothesis.
It’s more generally, at least subconsciously, a form of flex. Aimed to undermine in ways like pointing out you didn’t think of something or that you will answer “I don’t know..” which then gives doubt to your capabilities or the suitability of an idea. If there is this gap or omission- what else was left out..?
We can broad group a concept of “questions people don’t really want or care about the answer to..” or “leading questions” which aren’t really meant to gain information for the asker, when someone is campaigning “diversity” and is asked: “what about that time you voted against XYZ diversity bill..?” It usually doesn’t mean they actually are looking for the other side of the story- they are calling out what they already decided was hypocrisy so others can see it and you’ll be forced to “backpedal” or “trapped” without an answer.
If we ask a murderer if they committed a murder, a spouse of they are cheating, a company of their product is dangerous- they will generally either say “yes” or “no.” In most cases their self interest would encourage an answer of “no” wether true or not.
There comes a point where we trust an expert or must become the expert. In most any organization of worth, more “executive leaders” usually can’t do the job or understand everything about what everyone they are responsible for does- but they will tend to have the ability to understand the broad picture of those under their responsibility.
Imagine having a team of engineers or construction workers or computer programmers etc…you ask: “how long will this project take?” They tell you it will take 50 hours. Is that a long time? If you don’t have a basic knowledge of what they are doing or needs done… you don’t know. It could take 10 hours and they are goofing off. You can ask “what do you need to do exactly” “how long does it take?” “why does that take so long” “can it be done faster” etc… but if you don’t have any basic knowledge… it could all be lies to bill more hours or have goof off time etc. you can maybe look at the hours on past projects- but you’d still need to know enough to know which projects were similar enough to compare to, and if they’ve been lying on all their projects you’d just think a 10 hour process took 50 forever.
So depending on how involved or in control we want to be, we need to enter the discussion having already acquired enough knowledge to participate in that capacity; or we need to enter the discussion as a bystander and not a participant. Someone there to listen and ask questions but not there to form opinions or express them necessarily.