But in order for them to even give a meaningful probability estimate, they’ll need to spend years actually studying the relevant physics and mathematics. It doesn’t matter how eloquently you explain MW—the Universe doesn’t run on rhetoric.
If you ask people about MW versus CI, from their perspective it’s no different from asking “does the glibbleflop spriel or does it just florl?”
Upvoted. This is why I refuse to hold a position on this (and other similar topics). I also tend to dislike it when people DO choose a side on these sorts of issues, unless they have spent a significant amount of time and effort studying the field. The best guesses that I (and the other non-experts) can come up with rely solely on appeal to authority.
If you do not have enough physics knowledge to have a grad degree in it (I don’t care whether you ACTUALLY have a degree, just the knowledge), then having a strong opinion on MW v. CI is perhaps not the wisest.
Although physics questions require a higher level of knowledge for me to feel I have “right” to form an opinion, there are many other topics, in which this is true as well. (For example, there are political questions that I refuse to take sides on, because the answer is non-obvious to me, I don’t feel like I have near enough knowledge to have the “right” to a strong opinion on them.)
Moreover, the CI doesn’t even include the criterion that distinguishes it from MW, so even for the experts there’s no set of observations that would decide the issue!
Upvoted. This is why I refuse to hold a position on this (and other similar topics). I also tend to dislike it when people DO choose a side on these sorts of issues, unless they have spent a significant amount of time and effort studying the field. The best guesses that I (and the other non-experts) can come up with rely solely on appeal to authority.
If you do not have enough physics knowledge to have a grad degree in it (I don’t care whether you ACTUALLY have a degree, just the knowledge), then having a strong opinion on MW v. CI is perhaps not the wisest.
Although physics questions require a higher level of knowledge for me to feel I have “right” to form an opinion, there are many other topics, in which this is true as well. (For example, there are political questions that I refuse to take sides on, because the answer is non-obvious to me, I don’t feel like I have near enough knowledge to have the “right” to a strong opinion on them.)
Moreover, the CI doesn’t even include the criterion that distinguishes it from MW, so even for the experts there’s no set of observations that would decide the issue!