one of my favorite closed loop / back door thought implications that is never discussed is that telling someone they dont have the credentials to fully understand or analyze something cuts both ways. its used to dismiss doubt but it also consequently dismisses certainty.
said more simply, if someone doesnt have the background knowledge or degree or credentials to question something, that also means they dont have the means to accept it - intelligently anyway. “you’re not equipped to analyze this” goes way farther than the way its normally used.
ie if im questioning something about the geological record, and i say, does this really make sense? and someone says, well, youre not a geologist, what do you know- thats actually an admission that you’re asking me to take what you perceive to be true on faith, to just believe it
either, in this example, im someone with the ability to look at this geological information and make a call about it, or im not. but if im not, how can i accept it? the sneak in the back door is that youre asking me to accept something that ur also saying i cannot understand.
so what happens when people say stuff like this, which is omnipresent now, is that theyre admitting the one lurking unspeakable truth that haunts this time: that their view of Science(tm) is a belief system that requires faith, to believe things you cannot and do not understand.
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