"I believe in science."

I do get what you're saying. Seriously. I do. That's the issue. You're fixated on technical definitions. But technical definitions of words/concepts don't exist in reality. They are working models of a specific aspect of reality. And these models are subject to change as the environment (internal or external) changes.

You should check out some writings on process philosophy. Specifically, Whitehead. He talks about how an idea is always confronted by the reality of a moment. At this moment the ideal must become specialized to function within reality. You're really stuck on this very static, political (religious) way of seeing the world.

The idea of an expert is flexible and relative. Just like every other idea. It's not a physical object. Elite is always relative; whether across time or within a specific space. In the case of the former, each successive mathematician has more knowledge than the last, for example. You're talking about them as if they are boogeymen who are tricking everyone into thinking they are of use. No, they are literally of use. They literally solve problems and maintain the systems that enable intergenerational transmission of knowledge.

It doesn't matter if you can "prove" an expert "exists". What would that even look like? Well, we are both depending on all the code and invention that allows us to communicate over the internet. These are the products of experts. How can you live a life furnished by expertise and then say that we can't prove experts exist? You know they exist. And someone can be an expert in preaching a specious religion.

You can't have both. Yes. Reality is the product of consensus. This root of the consensus is in a large part the product of our shared biology i.e. we perceive the world in the same physiological way. It can be "wrong" or "right" depending on your worldview. It just needs to allow us to adapt. But good trying to prove that it's inherently good or bad that humans as a species exist to not. That's best left for religions.

As I said, your blog post is a very simplistic exercise in thinking about very simplistic rendering of something. It's akin to a child realizing that his parents don't know everything and therefore can't tell him what to do. It misses the point that their authority doesn't come from total omniscience. It comes from their relative expertise when compared to the child. In other words, an expert doesn't need to know everything to know more than someone else.

If you want to keep going round and round with your static way of seeing this so you can be right, then go ahead. But remember, that's the kind of closed system used by religions. You're very sure you have an answer, but what was the question?

/r/skeptics Thread Parent Link - hitemansgambit.wordpress.com