Laypeople trump experts

Courtesy of the Daily Grail, here's an example not of a lay person contradicting the expert consensus, but of someone from a different discipline making progress with a problem that the experts were stuck on. It's a mathematical problem, and the "outsider" is a biologist (though his first degree was in computer science):
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018...by-amateur

I have seen the idea brought up numerous times, especially in relation to alt-science views, that individuals are reasonably capable of picking and choosing which authorities can be regarded as plausible. Or, if they have a modicum of knowledge and experience in a field, that they are capable of weighing the evidence themselves. In these cases, the views they come to hold contradict the views held by the vast majority of people with considerable knowledge and experience in the matter.

I tried to think of an example where this particular bit of self-confidence has been demonstrated to be valid, and I failed. Yet I was once told by someone here that "history is not lacking in examples of experts being proven wildly wrong, oftentimes by lay people..." 

So I started this thread to ask for examples of what people mean by this. I'm not looking for examples of competing ideas in immature fields of science (like tectonic plates), but rather examples of mature fields which ended up overturned by people well outside of the field.

Linda

I do it frequently.  Whenever I read anything scientific, I remind myself that in years to come, scientists will believe something totally different and I am usually right.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/...c76e5a4da2
https://psmag.com/education/scientists-are-wrong-a-lot

http://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-wh...2#pid16852

I do it frequently.  Whenever I read anything scientific, I remind myself that in years to come, scientists will believe something totally different and I am usually right.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/...c76e5a4da2
https://psmag.com/education/scientists-are-wrong-a-lot

Well, I was asking for something more specific than that. Not just a guess that scientists will discover that they are wrong about an unspecified 'something' after all, but a relative layperson specifically identifying where they were wrong plus at least initial denial from the scientists in the face of that evidence.   

The scientist in that first link came up with three examples - the aether, which was disproved well over a hundred years ago by scientists, quasi-crystals, which disproved the idea that crystals had to be periodic (also discovered by a scientist and picked up by other scientists who ran with it), and a third example which was a minor misunderstanding only amongst highly specialized scientists.

I did like that first article a lot, because it included a link to "What are some stories of scientists making a major discovery that was not accepted for many years/decades by the scientific community?" which I brought up in another thread (http://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-ne...9#pid16739). There really is very little in the way of modern examples. I think the best modern example is quasi-crystals, because apparently Linus Pauling was so opposed to the idea that the head of Shectman's research group ridiculed Shectman and asked him to leave (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Shecht...sicrystals). Despite that, Shectman's paper was published and other scientists took his observations seriously, but it took the death of Pauling for the ridicule and labelling of the idea as "controversial" to stop. However, this seems to be an isolated example, although I keep searching for more. 

Well, I was asking for something more specific than that. Not just a guess that scientists will discover that they are wrong about an unspecified 'something' after all, but a relative layperson specifically identifying where they were wrong plus at least initial denial from the scientists in the face of that evidence.   

The scientist in that first link came up with three examples - the aether, which was disproved well over a hundred years ago by scientists, quasi-crystals, which disproved the idea that crystals had to be periodic (also discovered by a scientist and picked up by other scientists who ran with it), and a third example which was a minor misunderstanding only amongst highly specialized scientists.

I did like that first article a lot, because it included a link to "What are some stories of scientists making a major discovery that was not accepted for many years/decades by the scientific community?" which I brought up in another thread (http://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-ne...9#pid16739). There really is very little in the way of modern examples. I think the best modern example is quasi-crystals, because apparently Linus Pauling was so opposed to the idea that the head of Shectman's research group ridiculed Shectman and asked him to leave (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Shecht...sicrystals). Despite that, Shectman's paper was published and other scientists took his observations seriously, but it took the death of Pauling for the ridicule and labelling of the idea as "controversial" to stop. However, this seems to be an isolated example, although I keep searching for more. 

Forgive me if I am wrong but I  wondered in what spirit you posted this thread.  It felt a little "Trollish" and I feel my example answers any science worship that may lie behind the thread.  I respect science very much but it cannot be used to prove wrong things that lie outside of science.

Forgive me if I am wrong but I  wondered in what spirit you posted this thread.  It felt a little "Trollish" and I feel my example answers any science worship that may lie behind the thread.  I respect science very much but it cannot be used to prove wrong things that lie outside of science.

The spirit in which I posted was to ask for examples of the oft-made claim I quoted in my OP - “history is not lacking in examples of experts being proven wildly wrong, oftentimes by lay people...” because I was having trouble thinking of any. I hoped for some suggestions, particularly from those I quoted on the first page of this thread, because I am interested in these things.

I would have asked specifically for examples of science proving wrong things that lie outside of science (whatever that means), if I was interested in that instead.

The spirit in which I posted was to ask for examples of the oft-made claim I quoted in my OP - “history is not lacking in examples of experts being proven wildly wrong, oftentimes by lay people...” because I was having trouble thinking of any.

Is that really an "oft-made claim"? In the first post in this thread you wrote that you'd once been told that by someone here.

By a strange coincidence, earlier today I tried to find out who you were referring to, but the only occurrence of the phrase that Google could find was the one in your post.

The spirit in which I posted was to ask for examples of the oft-made claim I quoted in my OP - “history is not lacking in examples of experts being proven wildly wrong, oftentimes by lay people...” because I was having trouble thinking of any. I hoped for some suggestions, particularly from those I quoted on the first page of this thread, because I am interested in these things.

I would have asked specifically for examples of science proving wrong things that lie outside of science (whatever that means), if I was interested in that instead.

The impression I got was that you believe lay people cannot have intelligent opinions while scientists are virtually infallible.  I know that wasn't in your wording but in a forum like this, that is what seems to come across.  If that was what was going on inside your head, then I think my post answered it very well indeed.  An example of something that lies outside science would be the meaning of life if there is any, and I believe there is. You cannot find a meaning to life by studying particles in a laboratory yet many people seem to believe that science has somehow proved that there is no meaning to life.  I don't need a PHD to see that.

The impression I got was that you believe lay people cannot have intelligent opinions while scientists are virtually infallible.  

Oh. No, I don’t believe that at all.

Is that really an "oft-made claim"? In the first post in this thread you wrote that you'd once been told that by someone here.

By a strange coincidence, earlier today I tried to find out who you were referring to, but the only occurrence of the phrase that Google could find was the one in your post.

Let me be clear, and I believe I've addressed this somewhere on this forum - that statement was made by me in a private conversation with Linda. It was incredibly poorly phrased, and I was not right to have stated it in the manner that I did. It is not an "oft-made claim".

What I was in essence attempting to convey was my belief, which as far as I understand her position Linda appears to disagree with, that any intelligent and informed person can, as Brian did above, analyze a study, evidence, research, etc, and come to a legitimate and defensible, as well as rational, conclusion about that material without being a "professional" in the sense that I feel Linda seems to use the word.

The way I think Linda approaches this seems to be that you aren't qualified to really speak on something unless you're a pro (ironic, given how little deference she gives to actual parapsychological researchers, instead leaning on some vague and nebulous group of "mainstream scientists" who she claims do not buy into the psi research). I do not agree with that for so many reasons that it's hard to type them all out; but for starters, everyone doesn't have time to get an advanced degree in and do a load of independently verifiable research in a topic every time they are interested in such a topic or want to become informed on it. There are plenty of people who are not scientists who, without a doubt, have the intelligence to have become one if they so chose - and who are fully capable of reading a paper or looking at a study and recognizing what a reasonable conclusion is, or potential flaws in methodology, or confounding factors, etc. 

Certainly, to some degree, we have to take expert opinions at face value, because we don't all have the time or means to independently verify every single claim out there. But this in no way means that we have to just defer to the researchers at every turn, bowing to their vast knowledge. Researchers on a specific topic certainly know more information about the topic than a lay person, and are more familiar with the methods being studying it. This does not, however, mean that those people are vastly better equipped to discuss or reason through the implications of their study, or to see its potential flaws (whatever they might be), than some third party who is not an expert in that field. Really, that's what any mainstream scientist who isn't a parapsychologist is doing, assuming they've actually taken the time to read up on and become informed on the psi topic they care to opine on. 

It seems to me that Linda's approach is utterly dismissive of people who seek to evaluate evidence or research if they don't have the requisite degree or stature, whatever that is to her. I think it's arbitrary and also unreasonable. There are loads of people who may not be qualified in Linda's eyes to analyze evidence, who in fact are every bit as good as a professional scientist at thinking critically about the research done. There's a difference between knowing material and studies and being able to actually connect the dots and make reasonable and reasoned inferences from that research. Not every scientist possesses that ability, and there are certainly many lay people who do. 

So, my apologies for the foolish misstatement. I do not claim to have many examples where lay people specifically, by themselves, overturned scientific consensus. But as Brian pointed out here, and in the tectonic plates thread, there definitely is ample historical evidence of the scientific mainstream community making a claim that ended up being entirely wrong. Anyone who does their best to be unbiased, who familiarizes themselves with the research, and who is intelligent can analyze evidence. As Brian said, you don't need a PhD to do that.