{"id":32929,"date":"2016-01-05T06:18:47","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T11:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=32929"},"modified":"2016-01-05T06:18:47","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T11:18:47","slug":"skepticism-and-consensus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/01\/skepticism-and-consensus.html","title":{"rendered":"Skepticism and Consensus"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"blogsy-1451527842512.9753\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-32930\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2015\/12\/Bertrand-Russell-on-Skepticism-1024x576.png\" alt=\"Bertrand Russell on Skepticism\" width=\"515\" height=\"290\"><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #141823\">\u201cNevertheless the opinion o<\/span><span style=\"color: #141823\">f experts, when it is unanimous, must be accepted by non-experts as more likely to be right than the opposite opinion. The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Bertrand Russell, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0415325080\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0415325080&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkId=M7KCROHGZAWZRKGN\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">\u201cOn The Value of Scepticism\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Of related interest, see <a title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/danutm.wordpress.com\/2015\/12\/30\/tom-nichols-the-death-of-expertise\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">the article by Tom Nichols on the death of expertise<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cNevertheless the opinion of experts, when it is unanimous, must be accepted by non-experts as more likely to be right than the opposite opinion. The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":32930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119,74],"tags":[1118,2145,3272,10859,10870,11379,11381],"class_list":["post-32929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academia","category-philosophy","tag-bertrand-russell","tag-consensus","tag-experts","tag-scepticism","tag-scholars","tag-skepticism","tag-skeptics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Skepticism and Consensus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&quot;Nevertheless the opinion of experts, when it is unanimous, must be accepted by non-experts as more likely to be right than the opposite opinion. 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