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Authority, Responsibility
Anyone may offer you advice or present themselves as an authority on a subject. But are they? Are they truly knowledgeable on the topic?
Information is provided by people and people are fallible. They can make mistakes. Many people have a genuine interest in helping others and wish to share what they know to minimize discomfort or confusion of others. However, well meaning people may unintentionally provide advice or information which turns out to not be true. People may lie or mislead to make money, to get a promotion, to keep their jobs, to feed their family. People may be affiliated with or work for organizations which may have an agenda and wish to persuade the public of the rightness of a particular position. Therefore, their employees may feel pressure to help further the organizations agenda and persuade you to the rightness of their message.
As a consumer of information, you must evaluate whether or not the author should be believed. If you are not an expert on the topic yourself, this is not always easy. However, there are methods you may use to make an educated guess.
First, you must identify who is the author. Does the source state who provided the information? Some Web pages do not. Occasionally, it is very difficult to discover who authored the information and the reader must do some investigation to find out. If the source or document itself does not say, readers may use a publisher's Web site, book reviews, Network Solutions, or other sources to learn who owns or created content.
Sometimes the author is an organization or agency. In this case, some person or group of people had to do the writing but probably did so on behalf of the organization, which assumes responsibility for what was written.
Universities and some agencies offer diplomas or certification as to the knowledge of a person. If you graduate from Indiana State University with a degree in Biology, potential employers and others can make assumptions that you have a sufficient level of knowledge of basic biology and have been trained on certain biology subject competencies. The Red Cross certifies people on their ability to perform CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). Professional architects in the United States must acquire licensure, which requires a professional degree in architecture, a period of practical training or internship, and a passing score on all parts of the Architect Registration Examination. Many architects voluntarily seek certification by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB).
Some people may have expertise without credentials. For example, Jay Leno, the comedian and ex-talk show host, has an intense interest in classic automobiles.
"Another aspect of this national support is the presence of a large corps of knowledgeable and active amateur archaeologists. Amateurs are an important part of the archaeological world in Denmark and contribute substantially to the study of the past. They are organized, involved, and busy. The amateurs, who number in thousands, publish a popular magazine and regularly assist professional archaeologists in a variety of ways." --What Danish Archaeology Means to Me. T. Douglas Price, Weinstein Professor of European Archaeology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Even if your source is produced by one person, that person may be affiliated with an institution, organization, or group which provides useful insight to their perspective.
If you learned that the author of a book about national security was a member of the National Rifle Association, would that enable you to make predictions concerning their probable opinions? What if the author was a member of Amnesty International?
What if a respected medical physician-author wrote a book about epilepsy and worked for a pharmaceutical company? The information presented may be balanced and unbiased but you may wish to know that her employer sold drugs to treat epilepsy and that competing companies offered alternative pharmaceuticals or treatments.
Favor sources that are credible.
