Most of us don’t do what Dumas did. We instinctively dismiss the opinions of amateurs like Pasteur. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They haven’t attended the relevant meetings. They don’t have the necessary background. They’re out of their element. Yet it’s precisely for these reasons that outsider opinions hold value. First-principles thinking, as Dumas’s answer implies, often has an inverse relationship to expertise. Unlike the insiders, whose identity or salary can depend on the existing state of affairs, outsiders have no stake in the status quo. Conventional wisdom is easier
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