How many times has this happened to you?“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
“In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
I used to watch CSI and though that it was a good show and, typically, assumed that the stuff they were doing and stating was correct (science).
Then they did a few episodes that were up my ally ( welding, engineering and samurais swords) and they shanked the poodle so bad that I lost all faith in the show.
I followed up on a few subjects that I didn't know much about and, lo and behold, shankage again !
It does seem that we tend to fall for the "fallacy of authority" or at least, the fallacy of "making your [nonsense] sound like you know what you are talking about".
