Who here is as in love with Wikipedia as me? It's amazing, that's how I found this site!
>People can be harmed if bad information is used to make policy decisions or for science purposes.
And I agree whole-heartedly. Who the heck would do tha?
> Partially by the way you wrote, and partially because I was wondering if you had any prejudices that were acting up.
I never once asked you if you belong to some specific generalized group, you know.
> You can write about all that stuff, though. Including singing and car repair.
But just because you can sing, does not mean you can write about singing. A practical skill is not the same as the ability to reduce the same skill into words and put it on paper. That was my point. Just because you can sing, does not mean you are an expert on musical theory.
> Not necessarily experts, but they must be pretty sure about what it is they do write, and hold some kind of interest in it.
Why must they? I refer you to the IgNobel prize winning paper, Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments:
http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf
Funny!
> I think the analogy of the airplane is accurate.
No, it is not, for the simple reason that anybody but a highly trained engineer or an amateur with years of self-study and practice does not have the first clue how to even use the tools required to build an airplane. Nor do they have the understanding of materials science, aerodynamics, propulsion, et cetera, et cetera to even begin making something that could roll even a meter down the runway without falling apart.
It doesn't matter how many people you collect and try to squeeze nuggets of wisdom out of - you can't find this knowledge bit by bit. It has to be learned as a whole.