"You see a subordinate making a mistake."
"Your cab driver took a wrong turn."
I suspect that some form of the amnesia effect is necessary for us to function in a complex society.
Just because one journalist sucks doesn't mean the next one does, and slagging on the next guy only because the former one did a poor job amounts to a combination of genetic and adhom fallacies. Editors were never intended to be subject matter experts on everything their writers write about - stick to scientific journals if that's the level of assurance you want. (And depending on how you feel about the reproduction crisis, even that might be questionable.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear#Criticism_from_s...
> Several scientists whose research had been referenced in the novel stated that Crichton had distorted it in the novel.
What do you think Crichton's genuine intent was in including misleading footnotes referencing real scientific studies in a book about a real scientific phenomenon he's on record as denying the severity of?
If your point is that Crichton is a jerk or a climate change denier, I don't disagree. It jibes with what I've heard. Much beyond that, I'm not sure it's possible for us to interpret his motivations accurately.
Is there a better name for this though? from behavioral sciences or psychology?
"Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true--except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge."
"You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. . . In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."