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Also, and maybe this is just me, but if I'm listening to someone who is telling me about something I don't know about, but they then move onto a subject that I do know about, and they're plain wrong, I re-evaluate the worth of the new information that they were imparting.
It might just be 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.”
– Michael Crichton (1942-2008)
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exteroceptive
@Dammit
Also, and maybe this is just me, but if I'm listening to someone who is telling me about something I don't know about, but they then move onto a subject that I do know about, and they're plain wrong, I re-evaluate the worth of the new information that they were imparting.
That's not to say that they're wrong on everything, but the argument that his technical stuff has value and we should ignore the rest of his knowledge and beliefs strikes me as incredibly optimistic as to the accuracy of the technical stuff.
Listen to him if you must, but I'd verify absolutely everything elsewhere - and if you have to do that, why not just go elsewhere?