ruffrecords said:
I think this is quite common. All people have some form of expertise but are expected to decide on things well outside their competence. It's a fact of life Take AGW for one. There are very few people (if any) in the world able to comprehend the all encompassing physics that defines how the climate varies over long periods of time. It does not stop lots of people claiming we need to stop burning fossil fuels.
That is a good example but you have it reversed. People with expertise outside thermodynamics / climate science feel capable of believing that GHG driven climate change is a conspiracy. Even though a majority of the experts disagree with the conspiracy theory. (both experts in climate science and those with a background sufficient to understand the 'all encompassing physics'). My background and field of work is energy systems and simulation and I had a lot of course work in grad school on thermodynamics, etc... and the evidence that GHGs provide a forcing effect on climate is conclusive, IMO. Additionally I personally see a consensus opinion among experts on this.
Another bias that contributes to this type of thing is called the confirmation bias. Once you have a 'side' then you continue to see / seek out the facts that support your side. This is easy to do in the age of the internet where your browser goes down a rabbit hole of facts supporting, for instance, climate change denial.
But when you actually study / work in a field, you are confronted with a more broad range of opinions / facts and have more trouble descending into a isolated bubble.
Do flat earthers know they're wrong? no. (or maybe some do and are just trolls, I don't know)
Understanding the limits of your own expertise is one of the most difficult intelligence tasks there is.
Daniel Kahneman had a funny illustration of this called the 'Tvorsky' test, referring to a very intelligent colleague of his (Amos Tvorsky). The test was how quickly a person realized Tvorsky was more intelligent than they were. The quicker they realized this, the more intelligent they were.
On the flip side, there is something called an 'appeal to authority' bias used to discredit minority beliefs because a 'expert' disagrees with it. Minority views are extremely important in science and there are many examples in history when a fringe /anti-establishment view turned out to be correct.
Predicting the future of any chaotic system is impossible and no expert can conclusively say what the climate will be like over the next few decades - but IMO arguing that that fact discredits climate science is foolish. A lot of conspiracy beliefs are argued by getting lost in the details and complexities
Finally, I would urge you to check out the
Factfulness by Hans Rosling. It goes over many important issues confronting humanity including some of the most challenging, like population growth. It lays out a fact based world view that is optimistic for the future.
If people are truly interested in understanding the world, we should spend less time arguing for our side, and more time learning the facts - and base our views on those facts.
