[WikiEN-l] Opinion of the many?

Mon Nov 29 19:50:49 UTC 2004

What is it Socrates said? "The opinion of the many is not important. It 
is the opinion of the experts in their field which is important." - 
Obviously he originally said this in Greek, but I did get a native Greek 
speaker to translate the original sentence for me. It flows better in 
Greek though.

Why am I quoting this? What the professional iridologist an expert in 
their field? I don't know this either, but if he was, I would suggest 
his opinion should probably outweigh that of the majority of non-experts 
in this field. The question remains: was the debate between experts and 
experts, or experts and non-experts?

Rebroad

Fred Bauder wrote:

>As we become one of the central institutions of global culture, people
>justifiably feel that their "take" on things ought to be included. Iridology
>is Irismeister's thing. Despite our banning of Iridology for sustained POV
>editing and edit warring over the matter we continue to have an article on
>Iridology which begins as follows:
>
>"'''Iridology''' is a form of [[alternative medicine]] in which patterns,
>colors and other characteristics of stromal fibers of the [[Iris
>(anatomy)|iris]] are examined for information about a patient's health.
>Practitioners match their observations to ''iris charts'' which divide the
>iris into many zones believed to correspond to specific parts of the [[human
>body]]. Little scientific evidence exists confirming any such link between
>the aspect of the iris and a patient's state of health."
>
>What it doesn't say, as Irismeister would have it, is that iridology is the
>best thing since sliced bread. He did not achieve his goal of dominating the
>article with his viewpoint which, while represented, takes its place
>alongside extensive criticisms. Now, as a professional iridologist, he has
>filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.
>
>Fred 
>  
>