Huh? What?s with the whacky leaps statements? I say that reading books by educated persons in these fields has led me to conclude that Horne?s understanding of said fields is near abominable, and you start making noise about the education system? If one wishes to practice a science one needs more than a textbook: lectures for elucidation, lab experience etc?but a large portion of such couresss involves outside reading (mainly of academic papers).
I never said I had expertise. Just that I know more than average Joe about these matters and Horne knows less.
I say that reading books by educated persons in these fields has led me to conclude that Horne?s understanding of said fields is near abominable There is a nuance in this statement which I did not find in your first post. It seems we are getting somewhere!
I never said I had expertise.True, you didn't say that, but you clearly implied it simply by making the determination.
Just that I know more than average Joe about these matters and Horne knows less. And there you go again...the nuance is gone as quickly as it came.
Apologises for the erroneous assessment if it is so. The context of your reply (my criticism of Horne and my use of sources) prompted my interpretation of it as a defence.
My question was a straight forward one. It did not defend Horne nor did it attack you, so I don't understand how you could interpret to be anything more than just a question
No, when I gave you the justification for my assessment you asserted that only accept the opinions of others.
Did you perhaps obtain your "superior" knowledge in any other way than by reading some textbooks? If not, when you read a textbook witten by somebody you consider to be an expert, and you accept what he has written, aren't you accepting the opinion of another?
The essence of it is this: you didn?t ask why I made the claim I did, you asked what expertise I had as though you wouldn?t accept anything less than expert status for a claim; which perceived to be said in defence of someone (Horne) who is illiterate on even basic forensic pathology.
Why you made the claim was pretty obvious from what you wrote in your post. What interested me was what level of expertise you had to make such an assessment. What I basically was doing was trying to find out if the opinion you expressed was an informed one or not. If you had added "IMO" to your post, I probably wouldn't have asked my question to begin with. But you didn't....
The assessment referenced is that I ?merely accept the opinions of others? as if research into a field cannot yield anything useful to the non-expert and as if formulating one?s own ideas is innately superior to agreeing with others.
I never said that research could not yield results for a non-expert. Every expert in any field at some point in time started by doing basic research, but it takes far more than basic research to become an expert (hence my comment about the educational system).
There is a massive difference between an assessment by a qualified expert and the opinion of a person who has read a few textbooks, don't you agree?
