alt Hacker NewsUnquestioned authority can be an issue.
But it can be just as much of an issue to disregard any "authority" on the part of actual professionals. Your doctor isn't a genius, they aren't god, and they don't know as much about your body as you do. But .... they do know HUGELY more about medicine, disease, interventions, symptoms and so forth than you do (and almost certainly more than you will ever know).
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Right. I think there are two cases here:
Legitimate idiots who somehow acquire professional titles/positions. Things like "Florida surgeon removes wrong organ."
Then you can have honest mistakes by otherwise good practitioners.
What I want from my doctors and dentists is a sort of consultative collaboration, but the systems (in the US) are optimizing for transactions.
What is authority when it is not unquestioned?
>and almost certainly more than you will ever know
That's something you should question. While Doctors know more than you about medicine in general, one usually does not have to do a lot of research to know more about their specific ailment than the family doctor does.
It's like during the covid era where CDC and WHO recommended against wearing masks. Anyone dared questioning it was branded anti-sciene.