An Epistemic Question

A friend of mine from the Physics and Astronomy Department let me read his response to list-serve post where someone derided the doomsayers of the Hadron Collider, a 17 mile long particle accelerator on the Swiss/French border, where scientist hope to create small black holes.  As I understand it the doomsayers worry that it might literally end the world.  I post it below as I think it is an interesting discussion of how we decide we know things.

* * * *

An epistemic question:  Why such trust of the scientists?  If they were priests of another, more religious, sort and were engaged in a large, expensive, bureaucratic endeavor, and some ignorant folks claimed that said endeavor would end in bad things and should be stopped and if those in power assured everyone that such a concern was nothing to worry about, would there be any suspicion of motives, talk of power plays, etc?

When is it okay to trust the experts?

a) Only when they have Ph.D.s because the academy instills virtue, so those who have advanced degrees are trustworthy.

b) Only when they have a proven track record of being right.  Scientists have always been right (e.g., Ptolemy before Kepler, Newton before Einstein, Becher before Lavoisier); therefore, we should trust them regarding the physics of small black holes created in energy regimes never before attained in the laboratory.

c)  Only when we can evaluate the evidence that they put forth.  I understand general relativity and particle physics well enough to evaluate this evidence and have found it convincing.

d)  Only when they’re on “my” side, as in, “I trust scientists because they’re against the hordes of ignorant people, including religious zealots, and so am I,” or, “I trust Sarah Palin because she’s against the damn liberal elites, and so am I.”

e)  It is never okay to trust the experts.  I don’t believe anything I haven’t proven to myself.  My world
is thus very small and uninteresting.

f)  Other.  Please specify.

(Check one)