A false statement was recently put forward to me with the back-up assertion that it was the work product of experts at MIT. Would I dare to refute that statement?
Linus Pauling, 1901-1994, was one of the world's greatest physical chemists. Having published more than 1200 papers and books, his credentials were impeccable. However, he went off-the-wall wrong when he put out that massive doses of Vitamin-C would be preventative of disease, particularly preventative of colds.
Edward Teller, 1908-2003, was one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists. Although he disliked the phrase referring to him as "the father of the hydrogen bomb", his credentials were impeccable. However, he went off-the-wall wrong when he put out that satellite deployable x-ray lasers would be imminently available for the Ronald Reagan administration's Star Wars program.
William Shockley, 1910-1989, was one of the world's greatest physicists and inventors. Having partnered in the invention of the transistor at Bell Labs, his credentials were impeccable. However, he went off-the-wall wrong when he put out that intelligence of members of various races could be cataloged in bell curves whose central averages were demonstrably higher or lower versus the races of the subjects themselves.
The underlying pattern seems clear. There can be a human tendency in which someone who has succeeded magnificently in some particular field, someone who has extraordinary knowledge of and expertise in that particular field, becomes convinced of their own personal attributes that can be analytically applied to some other field in which they either have little experience or in which they have some unadmitted motive.
It is as if their successes produce an intoxicating aura of unassailable intellectual prowess, above and beyond the mental processes of those of us in the common herd.
When someone tells you something like "Experts say that ......" and wants you to respond or refute what is often sophistry, don't fall for it. It's all too easy for someone, especially certain politicians having an unscrupulous agenda I'm sad to note, to shop around and find some well credentialed expert somewhere to back up and confirm just about anything.
Please be careful.
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