1. Mint Achanaiyakul
How important are the opinions of experts in
the search for knowledge?
An expert can be defined as a person who specializes in one or more areas of
knowledge. For example, chemists, biologists and physicists are experts in their
respective fields of natural sciences. Knowledge can be defined as justified true belief
(K = JTB). However, when talking about the natural sciences, it may be argued that
knowledge is not necessarily true but it just has to be justified belief (K = JB) because it
is impossible to know whether something is true and if it is true, it is impossible to know
that it will be true all the time. This essay will focus on the importance of experts in the
search for knowledge about the natural sciences. Experts are necessary in the search
for knowledge if knowledge is defined as justified belief (K = JB). However, they are not
important if knowledge is defined as justified belief (K = JTB) because all people,
including experts are subject to the same limitations of the four ways of knowing and
are unable to know the truth or ultimate reality.
Experts are necessary in the search for knowledge if knowledge is justified
belief. This is because there is a lot of reasoning involved in the natural sciences.
Deductive reasoning is reasoning from general to particular. For example, all metals
expand when heated. If A is a metal, then it will expand when heated. This type of
reasoning is based on assumptions or premises. For example, in the syllogism
mentioned, the premises are that all metals expand when heated and that A is a metal.
If we did not make those assumptions that we would be unable to reach the conclusion
that A will expand when heated. What if the assumptions came from experts and you
choose to rely on experts because you think that experts are not necessary in the
search for knowledge? You would have to verify the assumptions to reach your
conclusion. This is a simple example, but what if you did not believe in experts at all?
If you did not believe that the earth went around the sun, then you would have to verify
this assumption yourself. We would all need to each go out and verify all your
assumptions before reaching a conclusion. It is impossible for you to live long enough
to verify all your assumptions. The best that you can do to make any progress is to
listen to experts and take their word for the theories that they have tested and the
assumptions that they have made. However, you should achieve a balance between
being reasonable and being too skeptical because if you did not question your
assumptions at all then major scientific breakthroughs may not happen. Scientific
revolutions happen when people question the current scientific theories.
Experts are not important in the search for knowledge if knowledge is justified
true belief and because experts are not any better at finding out truth than are normal
people. This is because they are subject to the same limitations of the four ways of
knowing as those who are nonspecialists in the same area of knowledge. All experts
cannot avoid the limitations of perception, reason, emotion and language in their
search for knowledge. Human perception is limited by human sense organs. According
to the theory of scientific realism, we do not see the world exactly the wayit is: the world
exists as an independent reality. For example, the color red is not actually red. It is red
because our eyes interpret it is red. We do not know what red looks like in ultimate
reality. Also, reason is limited because, as research has shown, humans are not very
good at abstract reasoning and it is liable for them to make all kinds of errors.
Furthermore, emotion and language also have many limitations and these may prevent
experts from finding out actual knowledge. We may think that experts may have access
to better equipment and that they have spent more time studying their areas of
knowledge but they still cannot actually know what ultimate reality actually is because
of their imperfect sense organs. Basically, there is no way of finding out the truth

2. Mint Achanaiyakul
(ultimate reality), and experts are not helping us to search for truth. However, the
purpose of natural sciences is not to find truth but to look for models and these models
may not necessarily be true.
Experts are not important in the search for knowledge, because they, like all
human beings, are acting in their own self-interest. According to the self-interest
theory, human beings are always and everywhere selfish. According to the definitional
argument, people can be labeled as “selfish” if they do what they want to do. As much
as we would like to think that experts in the natural sciences want to find out truth but
there have been many cases in history in which experts have been motivated by
ambition and vanity. For example, there have been numerous people who have
claimed to find out new theories or to carry out bizarre experiments just because they
wanted to receive recognition and claim a Nobel Prize. This may have to do with
emotion because it is feelings that interfere with their concern for ethics and
knowledge. Another reason why experts are not important is that there are also many
levels of expertise or knowledge. A person may have a superficial grasp, a good
understanding, or “expert” mastery of a subject. It is impossible to know exactly when a
person goes from being in the “good understanding group” to the “expert group”. There
is no absolute scale on which expertise can be weighed: it is not quantifiable. Then
what are experts? The word “expert” is only a label. The word “expert” may have
different definitions for different people. This is a problem that has to do with language,
one of the ways of knowing. We can conclude that, basically, there are no “experts” in
science.
To conclude, experts are not important in the search for knowledge if we agree
that Plato’s definition of knowledge is right (K=JTB). They are necessary in the search
for knowledge if knowledge is justified belief. However, if knowledge is justified true
belief then they are not crucial. This is because they cannot avoid the limitations of the
ways of knowing and like all human beings, experts act in their own self-interest. There
are also many levels of expertise and the definition of expert may not be the same for
everyone.