> I only think it's the case in terms of medicine or science, especially disciplines that are so granular that even someone from one subfield can't fully understand a paper in the next.
Paycheck adjacent it is then.
> I don't think politics or war are as specialised. Also, those things are within the realms of daily experience, while most physics is not.
Evidently we all have our areas of ignorance. It’s silly that you say leading armies and countries is a matter of everyday experience, but physics isn’t. Suffice to say modern warfare is a deep field and politics is basically intractable for any formal approach.
And doubtless experts at defense contractors will use similar arguments to yours for why their funding shouldn’t be cut either.
> You know well why a lay person's opinion on politics is more relevant than a lay person's opinion on physics.
I do not know that. I know that the both the layman’s and the physicist’s opinions on politics and physics are equally irrelevant to the people who control spending and policy. I may not be up to date on the latest epicycles added to quantum chromodynamics, but I’ve had enough experience to know that the grants are not allotted on the basis of actual scientific merit.
I do think naked self-interest is leading you into cognitive dissonance. You know full well that science funding is more a political matter than a scientific one. Thus you either contradict yourself or agree that the opinions of the layman ought to be relevant to funding physics experimentation.
Paycheck adjacent it is then.
> I don't think politics or war are as specialised. Also, those things are within the realms of daily experience, while most physics is not.
Evidently we all have our areas of ignorance. It’s silly that you say leading armies and countries is a matter of everyday experience, but physics isn’t. Suffice to say modern warfare is a deep field and politics is basically intractable for any formal approach.
And doubtless experts at defense contractors will use similar arguments to yours for why their funding shouldn’t be cut either.
> You know well why a lay person's opinion on politics is more relevant than a lay person's opinion on physics.
I do not know that. I know that the both the layman’s and the physicist’s opinions on politics and physics are equally irrelevant to the people who control spending and policy. I may not be up to date on the latest epicycles added to quantum chromodynamics, but I’ve had enough experience to know that the grants are not allotted on the basis of actual scientific merit.
I do think naked self-interest is leading you into cognitive dissonance. You know full well that science funding is more a political matter than a scientific one. Thus you either contradict yourself or agree that the opinions of the layman ought to be relevant to funding physics experimentation.