On May 11, 2:36*am, Martin Brown
wrote:

Not necessarily. I know an amateur cactus grower held in such high
repute that for very rare new discoveries he is given some seed on the
very rational grounds that he is more likely to be able to propagate it
to flowering size more rapidly than the professionals at Kew.

I am not trying to give an absolute rule that says that all amateurs
must be incompetent. Merely that those whose works are published in
peer-reviewed journals, those who hold impressive academic posts...
are, at least in the field of their specialty, a better foundation to
trust in to build your own self-consistent edifice of knowledge...
than self-appointed "experts" who proclaim that there is a BIG
CONSPIRACY to hide the fact that dinosaurs walked the Earth along with
men, that flying saucers are visiting us each day, and so on and so
forth.

Do you truly feel that I am giving unsound advice in so recommending?

I know I have no hesitation in choosing Newton, Einstein, and Darwin
over Gerard Kelleher, Brad Guth, and Ed Conrad.

Of course, having passed first-year calculus and the like makes it
possible for me to see that, no, I have not been brainwashed, but have
in my hands truth I can understand, verify, and work with. If
scientific orthodoxy were nothing more than faith in the most
impressive and conventional authorities, there would be nothing to
choose between the orthodox and the rebels.

It is precisely the ability to confirm science by experiment that
distinguishes truth from dogma, the expert from the charlatan, and
progress from ignorance.

John Savard