Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (48166)	5/24/2002 2:44:34 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Yeah, you are in a lot of trouble, buster. One of the things that is, in fact, an important element of "critical thinking" is the acknowledgement that we depend a lot on authority to provide us with facts and techniques that we can neither verify for ourselves, nor independently generate. A good deal of what we "know" is based on faith, not in the sense of a "leap" beyond reason, but in the sense of trust in an authority, presumably well- founded. We are fortunate to live in an age of highly reliably information, because of technical resources, improved methods of acquiring and judging evidence, and the fact that we are rich enough as societies to dedicate a lot of resources to the accumulation of knowledge. That is even more a reason to be conservative about sources. Peer review is still the best way of validating someone's researches, and although today's controversy might be tomorrow's settled fact, it is safest to deal in well- established fact and highly critiqued theory from the community of scholars. Certainly, controversial assertion should be flagged for what they are.