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Comment by xenophanes | Hacker News Reader

He claims to have learned that

> "Experts" can be wrong

While I agree with this, and enjoyed the story, the story does not make this particular point well. In the story, the lecturer is basically perfect.

The expert lecturer remained fully in control of the situation at all times, had the students doing what he wanted, and was never wrong by accident.

In general, imperfect experts can be wrong by accident, can lose control of situations, etc... It's common, but the linked story isn't an example of an expert going wrong.

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Except his point isn't what you say it is. You quote only:

> "Experts" can be wrong

His point in its entirety is:

> “Experts” can be wrong, and say things that sound right – so build a habit of evaluating new information and check it against things you already accept as fact.

Emphasis mine.

Again, while that's a good lesson, the story doesn't teach it. The story only gives an example of evaluating new information when you're told it will contain a lie.

You're nitpicking. Humans (and all animals) operate by constructing mental approximations and generalizations. This does in fact teach students not to trust authority.

I think what would teach not to trust authority is an explanation of why it's bad to trust authority. The story does not contain such an explanation.

Secondarily, I think an example where people trusted authority and got burned would work. The story doesn't contain such an example.

Thirdly, one could have an example where people refused to trust authority and got good results. The story doesn't have that either.

What it does contain is students who did what their teacher wanted and got good results by going along with the authority's lessons.

I agree that the story does not explain WHY it is bad to trust authority. But it tells the story of HOW the author have learn to mistrust authority.

It's one thing to know that you shouldn't trust authority, it's another thing to have practiced it. And this is exactly what the professor teaches: giving the students the tools and practice of constant skepticism toward even qualified authority.

You claim that the story doesn't teach that. Yet that lesson, in those words, is at the end of the article in the list of things that student learned from that professor.

That someone said "I learned X from Y" is not evidence he's correct.

True. But conversely that you don't see how that someone learned X from Y is not evidence that he's wrong.

The experience of seeing how easy it is for an almost correct statement to sound authoritative, or to be arrived at from almost correct reasoning, does cement the lesson of how easy it is for experts to be wrong. The practice of listening to an expert sounding authoritative and listening for the mistake gives practice in that skill. Applying that practice with other experts would give ample verification of the value of listening to "experts" with that care.

I am not at all surprised that this would teach the lesson and it would stick.

The professor wasn't perfect. As has been pointed out above, the last lecture did indeed contain a lie.

"On the days when nobody caught the lie, we all sat in silence, looking at each other as Dr. K, looking quite pleased with himself, said with a sly grin: “Ah ha! Each of you has one falsehood in your lecture notes. Discuss amongst yourselves what it might be, and I will tell you next Monday. That is all.”"

If, as the article said, he repeated this message as usual at the end of the lecture, it was a lie. (Unless, of course, the students all wrote down his oft-repeated message in their lecture notes - which I find unlikely.)

If they did write that down in their lecture notes, that would actually be an instance of the Liar's Paradox.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox

This comment is spot on. To add, this story is from the perspective of the student, so he gives his professor (his self-admitted favorite) a bit of a shine.

Nothing wrong with that at all, but a salient point to remember.

That aside, I wish I had more professors that engaged the students and not just the content of the lectures. Sounds like this professor loved to teach, which, IMO, is more valuable to the students than expert knowledge, at least at the undergraduate level.

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