Wedekind.ES@PARC-MAXC@sri-unix (10/20/82)
I enjoy and value the speculative discussions by members of this digest much more than the strictly reportorial (?) ones, and don't buy the "leave it to the experts" approach to things in general. At the same time recent discussions made me think that mixing a little humility with our audacity wouldn't hurt. It might be worthwhile deciding how much you agree with this (hopefully not misremembered) paraphrase from B. Russel: 1) Where the experts are agreed the opposite opinion should not be held to be certain. 2) Where the experts disagree a lay person should not hold any opinion to be certain. 3) Where the experts agree that there is no basis for a conclusion the lay person would be wise to withhold judgement. I know that some of us ARE the experts, and in any case I can think of few groups of people that need this reminder less, but it seems like something worth thinking about. Now, back to the theorizing! Jerry