So this person who not only provides their prior work history but also links to primary source material in multiple places through the whole list, AND includes comments about where things are still unsure or developing, somehow _doesn't_ meet your criteria?

I'd think that compared to the vast majority of material posted anywhere, this discussion is of much higher quality and veracity.

"My comment is a response to the wording of parent comment, not the article itself."

... how do you judge the nice explanation? Why wouldn't you want to hear from someone who studied/works in something over someone who is a random observer?

I am saying trusting someone blindly because they are an expert is bad.

A nice explanation is one that is backed by science in this case.

And who determines what a "nice explanation" is, and what is or isn't backed by science? Another expert that you then have to trust?

When dealing with technical topics that require deep study, unless you're some kind of genius with an abundance of free time, it is impossible to judge the quality of someones argument without you yourself also being a mini-expert in the same field.

Specifically, for things like medical advice I look to the experts because medicine has been around for a few centuries and is backed with science.

New concepts such as cryptocurrency I just walk away.

My comments are about how a lot of people tend to put the person ( + credentials) before the soundness of their arguments.

(edit: The scientific method is well documented. This is a good place to start if one wants to learn about it, https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Scientific_Outlook....)

>My comments are about how a lot of people tend to put the person ( + credentials) before the soundness of their arguments.

Ok fair enough. So what is the argument that you feel was not sound? And who said that they believed the argument was sound because of 'credentialism'?

>(edit: The scientific method is well documented. This is a good place to start if one wants to learn about it, https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Scientific_Outlook....)

I don't know what a "well documented" philosophy book has to do with anything. That doesn't get you anywhere close to understanding deeply technical topics. Today's cutting edge science is deeply technical and you cannot gain knowledge simply by reasoning about it. You have to be an expert yourself to even begin to comprehend complex topics. A good educator can simplify a topic and make it approachable - like I suppose what Neil deGrasse Tyson does, but you are no closer to actually grasping the math or other details without going to grad school ... or putting in an equal amount of work at home using the library and self-study.

okay, but what do you do when you need an explanation but aren't knowledgeable enough to verify the reasoning?

An expert with good communication skills.

So you'd like to see "someone who has the qualifications explain so clearly" the issue?

Because that's what your original reply was taking issue with.

In general, trusting based on the letters behind a person's name is bad.

I am cultivating the habit of weighing the validity of the argument instead of implied trust based on a person's name or degrees.

But you said you wanted to hear from an expert. How do you imagine a non-expert can select an expert without indulging in something that could easily be called credentialism by a cranky internet commenter?

A good explanation not something from someone who claims to be an expert.

There are all sorts of people giving good explanations on almost any topic. Only some of them know what they're talking about. And there are plenty of experts who aren't very good at explaining, as they have spent their time and energy on gaining expertise.

So your heuristic easily leads to believing all sorts of nonsense. Antivaxxers, for example, frequently point to glib people with plausible-sounding explanations whose flaws are not at all obvious to the casual observer.

Unfortunately, the medical field is one place where credentialism is mandated and good for society. I would never let a "self-trained" doctor anywhere near me the way we accept bootcamp developers.

And for what it's worth, I'm incredibly wary of bootcamp developers too. I've seen too many terrible ones to not assume the worst without good proof otherwise.

The medical field relies on "training" more than just a degree. Fortunately, it's not a credentials based industry.

My comment is a response to the wording of parent comment, not the article itself.

Yes, but the training ends up converting to a license or title if you've completed it properly, and we judge whether or not a person is competent in that field based on whether or not they hold that title or license. For example, when quoting experts they're qualified as,"so-and-so is a board certified X," which is credentialism. But we have belief that the credential required training and knowledge, and that it was accredited by a board/panel of trained experts. But we trust those experts to be adjudicators of expertise because of their credentials. It's turtles all the way down.

I didn't call a "Board certified Physician" as credentialism. The previous commenter did. I never brought medicine to support my case against credentialism.

Credentialism is rejecting a sound argument or explanation because the author is perceived to lack credentials.

What you're doing here is the opposite.

I was right.

You seem confused.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/credentialism

"belief in or reliance on academic or other formal qualifications as the best measure of a person's intelligence or ability to do a particular job."

It's also accepting a weak argument because of the credentials of the author. I thought that was trivially understood, but I guess not.

Which is also not what you're doing; your case appears to be that credentials are a reason to reject a sound explanation or argument, which is absurd.

Now you are bringing in your own narrative to a dictionary definition. My case is that the parent comment seems to put credentials before a valid argument, which is what I am against. Credentials are not a proxy for a sound argument.

Dictionaries aren't weapons.

Dictionaries are references to look up words before opening mouths.

You have both on that page.

Listen, if you're going to cut off quotes to make up an imagined problem then you're not contributing. The very next words are "so clearly" which hits your "nice explanation" part.

Listen, I'm going to tell you this because feedback is important and this is for your benefit: low brow dismissals are easy. You can always make up an imagined way to disagree with someone and it is almost always useless.

Here's an example of one of these lowbrow dismissals with your comment:

> "nice explanation"

> Why does the explanation have to be nice? I'd rather have someone tell me the truth rudely rather than tell me lies kindly.

Behold the incredible worthlessness of that response! It is fucking idiotic. People who interpret things literally are not talented, they are crippled.

The original comment first addresses the credentials of the author before giving any valid feedback on the points in the article.

People do this a lot subconsciously and it affects the way we consume information.

Instead I prefer to first understand how valid the argument is before looking at who said it.

Unfortunately most people are wired to "like" based on who says a thing more than how valid their arguments are...