That brings up a good point about somewhere where people will get confused. There are some things that it makes sense to trust scientists on. If you’re talking evolution, then DerTrihs is right. If however you are talking the evolutionary history of a particular species, then this kind of trust is misplaced - not because anyone is lying, but just because the facts aren’t in yet. The problem comes when this area on the edge gets press. String theory, for example, is on the edge, and no one who knows anything about it is going to trust what anyone says, since there is so much that is unknown. But a lot of people miss the difference between this and the Big Bang, so we get comments about “haw haw, scientists are so stupid to be working on string theory.”
In the Times, at least, I’ve seen science reporters be very sensitive to this issue, so that any new discovery gets a comment from someone in the field who is not associated with it. I still claim any reasonably smart person can convince him or herself about the accuracy of the authorities opinions on the big, well understood issues, but they may have trouble distinguishing what is understood from what isn’t, especially when you have creationists and other idiots trying to make it seem that some of these are open to question.
The papers I see are on the edge, of course, since no one is interested in hearing about what we call “dead horse” topics.
Actually, I didn’t leave it out – I included it the quote. 
Anyway, it seems that you’re implying that your knowledge of the existence of the rule book makes it easier for you to accept Madden as an authority. Okay, fair enough. But then, your analogy is really bad. It was in response to my comment:
What is the “rule book” of scientific research, who wrote it, and where can I get a copy? Seriously, why are you comparing science to American football? Does science have rule changes like this:
Also,
I didn’t ask why you don’t know the rules. Your reason for not knowing the rules today is lame, and it’s inconsistent with this:
And, as for the 14 billion years, you say:
Interesting that you didn’t just point to the “rule book”. :rolleyes: And, again, you have missed the point, which is: On what basis do I accept the figure of “14 billion”? How do I verify it?
Why “should” they? And, what if they “try” but they don’t succeed? Should they accept the science, or should they dismiss it because they don’t understand it? If they accept it, on what basis should they make that decision other than the authority of the scientific community?
Thanks for admitting your mistake. 
I wasn’t completely sure myself, but I know (even though I haven’t verified it …) that the weak force is much weaker than the electromagnetic force which causes the protons to repel each other, so something else must be holding the nucleus together. (Also, indirectly explains why neutrons are in the nucleus.)
I could, but I haven’t, and, yet, I still accept wave/particle duality, because that’s what the experts have told me, and I accept their evidence.
Are you suggesting that I shouldn’t accept any scientific finding unless I confirm it myself? Or, perhaps you’re saying that if I confirm a few of the findings then I should be confident in accepting the others, especially if I do *some *reading of the underlying principles? That’s fair. Sort of.
The rule book is the scientific literature, and books popularizing the literature. The analogy breaks down a bit because football rules are invented and scientific ones are discovered, but there are plenty of instances where the “rules” change, sometimes quite drastically. In the beginning of the 20th century many astronomers thought that all stars were in one galaxy, there was even a debate about this.
I don’t understand how it is inconsistent. Joe can read a newspaper article on cosmology and understand it perfectly well. I can watch a football game and understand it perfectly well. If something in the article, or the game, seems odd, we can both go to some popularized sources to get more background. If that isn’t good enough, we can go to primary sources, though that will take more effort. I don’t know why my not knowing football rules or caring is lame; I’m a geek and proud of it. If that is lame, so be it. Sports is my worst Trivial Pursuit category by far.
Come on now. What makes you comfortable in terms of verification depends only on you. I can’t point you to any particular book or paper and say that should be enough for you to feel comfortable. And I doubt if any single person can verify all the literature. They may look at the critical papers, but these depend on other papers which depend on other papers and so on. Ditto when we reach the limits of our ability. I think we are getting very far away from an appeal to authority here, which I’ve always thought of as an excuse not to look at a subject. I’ve used Mathematica to solve equations I’d have no hope of solving myself (certainly not in reasonable time) - is that an appeal to authority?
I hesitate to bring up religion again, but the big difference here is that in religion you run up against some sort of unverifiable revelation, so we can’t check on what God said to Moses no matter what, while in science we can always go back to first principles and even reverify if needed. That only refers to the deep basics of religion. If the Pope writes something about Aquinas which we disagree with, we can go back and check it. We don’t have to appeal to the authority of the Pope to know what Aquinas said.
You are still missing the point. What’s lame is not the fact that you don’t know sports. What’s lame is your reason for not knowing: “because when and where I was a kid, baseball ruled, plus I went to a high school and a college without football teams.” What about today? The only reason that you don’t know the rules of football is that you’re not interested in knowing them, just like many people are not interested in knowing basic scientific principles. And, you’ve implied in this thread that those people are just lazy, and, possibly, stupid.
What about someone whose worst Trivial Pursuit category is Science and Nature and best category is Sports? Is their excuse: I’m a jock and proud of it? :dubious:
How on earth can you determine what someone else understands perfectly well? And, not just someone else, but, by implication, everyone else?
How can you understand it “perfectly well” when you, yourself, say that you don’t understand the rules?
But, *you *haven’t learned about football, and, throughout this thread, you suggest that everyone *should *know the basics about science, rather than relying on scientific authority.
Boy, you are a geek, aren’t you? You don’t even think that it’s necessary to explain what Mathematica is. And, no, I wouldn’t consider that an appeal to authority because you already understand the math – you’re just using the software to save time. (If you don’t understand the math, then, yes, it is an appeal to the authority of the software developer and to those who use it.)
So, what you’re saying is that religious beliefs are, in some ways, different from scientific beliefs? I agree.
No, I’ve never implied that they were either lazy or stupid. In fact I believe I said that there is no way everyone can no about everything. We’re talking about beliefs, here, remember. If someone says that he doesn’t know and doesn’t care how old the universe is, I might think he’s missing out on some cool stuff, but so does everyone. He’s only lazy if he says the universe is 14 billion years old because Carl said it, I believe it, and that’s good enough for me. That’s different from reading an article about it, seeing it is plausible, and considering that good enough.
You’re stretching the analogy here. You don’t have to read the NFL rule book to know what a first down is. You don’t have to read the original papers to know what the Big Bang is. We collect information from all sorts of sources, and in both cases the primary source is available, whether or not we ever choose to look at it. Thanks to this we can trust our authorities more, since we know that if they step out of line someone with access to primary sources can correct them.
You never answered my question about what would constitute verification of the age of the universe for you. Would it involve -
seeing some authority state the age?
reading a popular science article or book that describes the Big Bang?
going back to the original papers?
working out the math yourself?
Well, many people consider science to be the best source of information. For example, in this thread:
Scientists are different from chefs, athletes, governors, mechanics, historical figures, market researchers, TV critics, and zookeepers. Scientists are human, but, apparently, a belief in “Science” is transcendent. (A subscription, though, ranges from $75 to $310 … )
I think you mean what it would take* for me *to accept the current figure for the age of universe. Is that right?
Well, the last two are out of the question.
The first one, on its own, is strange. Would I come across a single sentence in isolation? I don’t think so. Chances are it would be in a popular science article or book, written by someone that I would take as a legitimate authority in interpreting and presenting the Big Bang.
Does that answer your question?
Close enough. I suspect most people would agree with you. The first choice is what I’d consider an appeal to authority. You see a headline “famous scientist says the universe is 14 billion years old” and that’s good enough. Or, famous economist says Cash for Clunkers is the suxor. Or one might skim an article, see this in the lead, and not bother to read and understand the rest.
Do you think choice 2 is an appeal to authority?
To nitpick myself a bit, I’m assuming lack of knowledge. If you’re familiar with the debate, and see that someone whose work you’ve followed says it is 13.5 b.y. old not 14, I don’t consider that an appeal to authority.
BTW, the reason I distinguished the process from the answer is that you can read, understand, and accept an argument that happens to be wrong. That’s trust, sometimes misplaced, but not an example of appeal to authority.
Well, that question is a bit funny because now I have to rely on an authoritative source for “appeal to authority”. :eek:
Actually, I did some online research a few days ago on this very topic and I think that, strictly speaking, choice #2 is not an appeal to authority, but, in practice, it is very close to it. That’s why I’ve said that the decision to accept a scientific concept is based on the authority of the scientific community, not of one specific person, and not even of a small group of scientists, but the overall way in which science is conducted (even if I don’t fully understand how it’s done), and the way that it is presented in the popular literature. But, there is a leap based on trust.
Missed edit window.
BTW, you might have inadvertently come across an important difference in your football analogy. A football game is played in front of thousands or millions of spectators. It happens “live”, with plenty of expert commentary, during and after the game.
Major science experiments are, for all intents and purposes, behind closed doors. For the general public, there’s basically no first-hand experience, and much less information that is easily available and understandable. There is a much bigger gap in knowledge than there is in spectator sports.
Consequently, there’s a greater reliance on trust.
Now this I agree with. It is based in large part on trust, since there is an expectation that science as a whole will discover and correct fraud and mistakes. I’ll also buy the concept of the authority of science as a whole, since the discussion on why it makes sense to accept science (besides the fact that it works) is probably well beyond where most people would want to go - including scientists. We have these discussions here mostly when a creationist type starts blathering about evolution being a religion, but it is assumed for the most part.
I’ll also add that lots of people play football (even if in pickup games) where not a lot of people do science. That’s why science education that emphasizes facts, and labs that are mostly following the directions in a cookbook, do such a poor job of teaching what science is all about.
Except that in this thread, the atheists are disagreeing on what science is and and on how it is accepted by the average person.
It seems that you and I agree. 
One last question: In your opinion, are nuclear reactors evidence that quantum mechanics works?
At last.
I’d have to look it up, but my guess would be that if our understanding of quantum mechanics were seriously wrong, the power output, at least, from a reactor would not match predictions.
I’ve got better evidence anyway. We’re seeing defect mechanisms in the latest generation of ICs which can only be understood using quantum mechanics. It’s the kind of stuff you get when you make insulating layers 3 atoms thick. Don’t ask me any more - I learned this stuff 40 years ago, which was only about 20 years after the invention of the transistor.