> Call me a cynic, but the whole "think critically and figure it out for yourself" solution is inefficient at best, harmful at worst. Global warming skepticism is exactly the kind of thing that often occurs when people trust their own judgement more than that of subject matter experts.
I don't think that's true. Lots of global warming sceptics point to some subset of experts who are themselves sceptics. Even subject matter experts have biases. If we ignored those, we'd probably still be unlikely to find many global warming sceptics who had done their own in-depth research. It seems to me that most people in this category (whether it's global warming scepticism, anti-vax, 5G death rays or something else) merely seek to confirm already held beliefs and end up rejecting the opinions of actual experts in favour of misinformation from the kinds of people the blog post is talking about.
Beyond that there are also people with deeper issues than just a disregard for subject matter experts. If you look to extremes (e.g. flat Earth believers), some won't change their mind even when they do the experiments themselves and find proof to the contrary.
> Lots of global warming sceptics point to some subset of experts who are themselves sceptics
Yes, this is exactly why you should:
1. Consult more than one expert, until you've found a clear majority. And then trust in that majority
2. Pick either a couple experts who are the most highly regarded in their field. Or use random sampling to pick a couple experts from among a pool of equally qualified experts
As you yourself pointed out, people who fall for fallacies often form their own judgement first, and then cherry-pick experts to lend more support to their argument. This is precisely the danger in telling lay people to trust in their own judgement.
Cherry-picking of experts is the opposite of expert-guided decision making, because the cherry-picking part is being driven by lay judgement, not expert recommendation. A truly expert-driven approach would rely either on the most highly regarded experts, or random sampling from a pool of equally qualified experts. This leaves minimal room for cherry-picking and confirmation bias.
I don't think that's true. Lots of global warming sceptics point to some subset of experts who are themselves sceptics. Even subject matter experts have biases. If we ignored those, we'd probably still be unlikely to find many global warming sceptics who had done their own in-depth research. It seems to me that most people in this category (whether it's global warming scepticism, anti-vax, 5G death rays or something else) merely seek to confirm already held beliefs and end up rejecting the opinions of actual experts in favour of misinformation from the kinds of people the blog post is talking about.
Beyond that there are also people with deeper issues than just a disregard for subject matter experts. If you look to extremes (e.g. flat Earth believers), some won't change their mind even when they do the experiments themselves and find proof to the contrary.