Recently I was involved in some talks in two different groups of people. Those two groups had opposing views towards a certain issue (no matter, what it was). Normally you would be inclined to take sides on any one of those two views. In that case I was left completely lost somewhere inbetween because I was no expert in that domain. Both sides' arguments sounded just right and they were conclusive. As a matter of fact, if there is a domain that is heavily disputed two things come together: The foundation of arguments presented as facts and their interpretation leading to a certain opinion.
I'm having difficulties developing any opinion at all in fields mentioned above (which, for me, cover more than 99% of all disputable topics). First, if you are no expert it is hard to verify any fact presented to you, as an argument is only worth as much as the underlying assumption it is based upon. If you can't verify the assumption the argument is only true so far as the path from assumption to the argument is logical. Second, interpreting the given arguments in order to build a view, attitude or opinion is the next source of possible error as you may misinterpret what's given to you.
So eventually you could still have an opinion built upon your personal experience which basically leads to wrong conclusions as single experiences can't necessarily be generalized.
As a conclusion I should tend to reduce the intensity I defend a view on a certain issue by the level of proven foundation it is built upon. Moreover I wonder if having a certain attitude at all is purposeful when trying to solve a problem with lots of unknown variables. It might prevent you from taking new approaches and learning drastically different things.
Does that mean you should have no opinion on topics you are no expert in? Surely not but you should know that your opinion in this case is mostly rooted in your personal history, education and preferences. It is arbitrary and as such rarely worth being defended or, even worse, imposed on others. In contrary, it is matter to examination and through means of discussion could be refined or altered based on newly gained knowledge.
Add to that the fact that nearly every day I discover new things in my very domain that I wasn't aware of previously - which actually reduces the absolute amount of knowledge I have accordingly and you get what I'm talking about. Knowledge is delusive.
Posted by tilman.haerdle at March 4, 2009 11:06 PM