Interview with Dr. Henry Bauer - Part 2

Henry, I am an academic physician specializing in Internal Medicine, now retired. On a number of the topics you mention, I have extensive first-hand knowledge and experience, so I am able to evaluate whether your arguments on those subjects are valid, from the point of view of someone with expertise rather than from ignorance.

The science court paper refers to ideas which are controversial with respect to experts within the field of study. The bulk of the examples used in your interview do not seem to fulfill those criteria, as it is non-experts who regard them as controversial. Other examples, like that of the discovery of the role of H. pylori in gastric ulcers or the nature of the infectious agent in what are now called prion diseases, merely reflect how science changes in response to the strength of the evidence. Science court isn't going to be of much help when there isn't much in the way of evidence to present one way or the other. And once there is, then science court becomes unnecessary.

What you seem to be arguing for, is to find a way to force scientists to treat as valid, controversies manufactured by non-experts from political or ideological concerns. I am interested in examples where this has been a legitimate endeavour - where laypeople identified a valid issue which scientists otherwise ignored. One I was able to come up with was the forced end to the Tuskegee syphilis experiment (http://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-55...l#pid10552).

Linda

Dr. Bauer,

In responding to a post such as this, it should be noted that Linda is under the distinct impression that to have a truly valuable response to any sort of topic, you must be an "expert", which in her eyes seems to be limited to those with advanced degrees in a subject. Certainly, she will attempt to say this is a mischaracterization, but if you have the time to go through her posts in the link she provided (and elsewhere), it becomes readily apparent that that is the case. 

What Linda seems to have trouble coming to grips with, at least with PSI and its related topics, is that the people she seems to consider experts (ie neuroscientists, neurologists, and researchers from related fields) are not in any way experts. The vast majority of them have conducted no research whatsoever into PSI topics, and many/most of them haven't even seriously considered the research done by the actual experts, who Linda might consider "laypeople" if they fall outside her self-defined scope of expertise.  

While of course expert input is critical and necessary, being an expert in one field certainly does not provide you with range to claim expertise or knowledge to pontificate on a topic which you have not seriously considered or done research in, and certainly someone like, say, Tim, may be as or more qualified to speak on NDE research than any neuroscientist who claims such a thing could not possibly be real without conducting their own research or really and honestly considering the NDE research that exists, whether or not it falls short of some general scientific standard. It is exactly for this reason that Linda has received so few responses on her linked thread, I'm sure, because it is obvious on the face of it that it's purely absurd to suggest that to have a legitimately informed opinion on a topic and to provide meaningful input, you must really be an expert. It is essentially a thinly veiled appeal to authority argument, and one that has little merit outside of the obvious importance of expert opinion - because we can't all have advanced degrees and do thousands of hours of research in every field we're interested in researching.

Any intelligent and informed person can read a science paper and determine, with legitimacy, whether they find the reasoning in the discussion and conclusion sections of that paper to be sensical and reasonable based on what the data and results suggest, provided that they are well versed in the topic and informed/smart enough to understand what was going on. There are lots and lots of really smart people who have degrees and careers outside the sciences, and likely could have gotten those degrees had they pursued them. Does it make sense to essentially disregard their opinions (which, do not be fooled, is in essence what Linda seems to think should be the case, based on a large number of her comments on this forum) simply because they did not pursue that career or degree professionally? I would say certainly not. There is obvious necessity in expert input and ideas - so obvious that it seems silly to need to say such a thing. However, it seems equally or nearly as obvious to me that one need not be an expert under my impression of Linda's definition of the term to valuably and genuinely provide insight and reason regarding a scientific topic, again provided that you are informed. As stated earlier, regarding PSI research and experts, Linda is hoist by her own petard in suggesting that the appropriate experts to analyze PSI studies are those with degrees and experience in neuroscience and the like - given that the vast majority of them, for a variety of reasons, have little or no experience in the existing research. There are many people with degrees in math, law, or other scientific fields who are likely substantially more qualified to discuss those topics, given their actual intimate familiarity with the research, than Linda's so-called "experts" who have a background in brain research and processes that distinctly have assumed since their inception the reductiveness and materiality of consciousness. Many, many people on this forum have degrees and advanced degrees in the sciences and related fields, and I think it narrow minded, short sighted, and abhorrently biased toward appeals to authority to suggest that such people aren't qualified to opine with legitimacy on a wide range of the topics we discuss. Of course, I'm not suggesting the scientific world at large come to PQ to be enlightened - only that the opinions formed by those here are not delegitimized by a lack of "expertise" or an advanced degree in a related scientific field, especially as determined by Linda.