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    <h2>About This Site</h2>
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Why trust the experts?<br><br>

For any given position, there are going to be people who claim to be experts on both sides, so how do we determine who the actual
    experts are?<br><br>

The philosopher Alvin Goldman, in the article Which Experts Should You Trust? proffered the following criteria:
Experts often give arguments and evidence for their views, and I can then determine who is the most convincing. The problem is that
    laypeople are often not qualified to determine this. You would essentially have to become an expert yourself.
Indirect indicators - if person P1 makes arguments and person P2 cannot respond to them, but the same is not true in reverse, we may
    conclude that P1 is the expert and P2 is not. But this could be a problem because maybe both sides are just good at arguing/debating
    or one side just may not want to debate for one reason or another. So indirect indicators may be overly simplistic.
Agreement from other experts - this option just presupposes that some people are experts, but how do we identify them? This was the
    original problem in the first place.
Meta-experts - this is an independent assessment of experts’ expertise. Credentials are a standard method, such as degrees from reputable
    universities. A meta-expert can be an institution, it doesn’t have to be a person. This seems like the best criteria, provided the
    institution has a good track record of accomplishments. The consensus of experts in a particular field is even more robust
    than the beliefs of one particular expert.<br><br>

There is a potential problem regarding the idea of meta-experts; the regress problem. This deals with how we should identify who/what
    the meta-experts are.<br><br>

There are supposed to be various institutional features of science that detect & remove bias & deceit. Scientist’s work is subject to peer
    review, which means papers are only published when they’ve been extensively critiqued by others in the field. There are also extremely
    high costs associated with fraud in science, such as fabricating data. Any scientist who is found to have engaged in such misconduct
    risks losing their entire career. The cost of lies here is higher than in other fields. For example, when a politician lies there is
    often very little or no consequence at all. Making up data can also lead to criminal prosecution in some cases, such as in medical
    research. Furthermore, a way to gain credibility and fame in science is to falsify accepted hypotheses, so scientists are constantly
    looking for flaws (such as bias) in research. Thus, once a hypothesis has been accepted by a majority of scientists we can be fairly
    confident that it is genuinely well-supported by evidence and has been generally rid of bias.<br><br>

Track records can also be used to establish expert legitimacy. If two people say different things and on has a good track record of research
    and producing correct predictions, etc. and the other does not, this can be a good indication of the former's legitimacy and the
    questionable legitimacy of the latter.<br><br>

In a world that is increasingly complex and interconnected, informed decision-making is paramount. Expert consensus, derived from the
    collective knowledge and expertise of qualified professionals in various fields, provides a valuable foundation upon which individuals,
    policymakers, and societies can base their choices. The tendency even for laypeople to converge upon the correct position when their consensus
    is taken provides an even stronger argument that the consensus of experts in a particular field is highly reliable. That is the
    goal of this site; to aggregate the opinions of experts within their fields and allow the general public quick and easy access to it
    in various forms (polls, blogs, and debates).<br><br>
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