Did you know x?
Who told you?
My professor!
I'm going to ask some questions. They'll be simple, because I am.
Do you know what a professor is?
Oh, that's my university teacher. You don't know the word?
Of course. But a professor both is and is not a teacher.
Let me put it another way. What's does 'profess' mean?
I ask this, because it's used as a pejorative in other circles, and you clearly didn't use it that way. You used it with, well with some reverence I suppose.
To profess is a description of an action. A person who 'professes' something. To profess is a reference to both the communication of and an indication not of knowledge but of claimed knowledge.
So I'll ask something else to clarify. How do you know that x is true?
Because your professor told you?
You assumed correctness, truth, and fact. You assumed they weren't mislead and weren't misleading.
Did you know there's nothing holding professors accountable for what they say?
Sure, creationism has a history of being fought, but that's real science being brought to bear. The so-called 'softer' courses are built upon, ultimately, nothing more than opinion and interpretation.
But this is relaying statistics, actual science!
Is it? Does your professor have any experience with statistics or science? Do you?
I'll guess no, and that's fine. Really it is.
Just as neither of you have any experience with philosophy, to better-understand what 'profess' means, which is perfectly usual, we can't be expected to have expertise with everything.. that's just crazy.
But there are some things which we do need at least some measure of knowledge. Not expertise, but more than a general understanding and certainly more than hand-waiving assumptions and relaying of opinion.
Some things, but which things?
We certainly cannot have this expected of us for everything one either professes or merely relays. But for the biggest things, the most important to us, we must expect of ourselves some measure of honesty. I don't want to talk about the dragon in my friend's garage unless I saw it myself. Not because it's ridiculous to talk about dragons, nothing is, but because it's embarrassing to talk about something and either be called out on it or proved outright wrong.
.. and that's what leads us here, now.
You asked a question. You made a claim. A claim backed by someone I don't know and whose claim, relayed through you, I cannot examine. You might trust them, but I'll state quite plainly that I do not.
I am not saying they misunderstood or relayed poorly. I am not saying you misunderstood or are relaying poorly. I'm not even saying I misunderstood. I am saying that the more important you claim this to be is the more you ought to have looked into it, to avoid the embarrassment from me being here with a raised eyebrow and a cocked head.
You haven't looked into it, and you should be ashamed.
Because you will now be embarrassed when I say that I already have. And you are mistaken. Moreover, your professor isn't just mistaken, they lied to you.
Now to prove my point. Don't believe me? Go find out for sure. Don't prove it to me, prove it to yourself.
Last updated 2023-03-18 at 22:25:53