[WikiEN-l] Opinion of the many?

[Ray Saintonge]

R E Broadley wrote:

> What is it Socrates said? "The opinion of the many is not important. 
> It is the opinion of the experts in their field which is important." - 
> Obviously he originally said this in Greek, but I did get a native 
> Greek speaker to translate the original sentence for me. It flows 
> better in Greek though.
>
> Why am I quoting this? What the professional iridologist an expert in 
> their field? I don't know this either, but if he was, I would suggest 
> his opinion should probably outweigh that of the majority of 
> non-experts in this field. The question remains: was the debate 
> between experts and experts, or experts and non-experts? 

If we accept only the opinion of experts we end up putting ourselves 
into an elitist box, and that strikes me as very un-wiki.  Ultimately, 
the facts should speak for themselves without regard to who is 
expressing them.

Proponents of mainstream "science" ofte go to great effort to discredit 
ideas which appear contrary to their own, and in doing so can manage to 
make themselves look even more foolish than the people whom they are 
confronting..  It is not necessary to pepper an article through with  
"they believe . . " or "the discredited idea that . . .", etc.  The 
first burden of proof in a scientific concept rests with the 
proponents.  If they fail to carry that burden then there is nothing 
there for the opponents to disprove.  For many of these articles a 
simple piece of boilerplate, perhaps as the second paragraph, should be 
enough to satisfy NPOV.  It could read, "The subject of this article is 
considered unproven by the wider scientific community.  Users relying on 
the information in this article do so at their own risk."

Keeping things simple can save a lot of flames.
Ec