> There is a period of time when someone is already an expert but not yet committed to any particular belief. This is an excellent time to listen to their opinions. Unfortunately, this period is usually quite short for most people.
Is there? Or is this an unfalsifiable classification that people one agrees with can be put in, and people who one doesn't agree with can be pushed out of?
The idea that opinions have no relation to expertise is a general argument against expertise. The magic period during which people have expertise but don't have opinions seems related to that magic period for journalists when they understand all of the facts about a story accurately but have no opinion about what is true and what is not true.
Your "... unfalsifiable classification" question is a fair one, but your final paragraph conflates "opinions" with parent's "commitment" -- a false equivalence that amounts to a strawman argument.
---
My own take is that it's less about a period of time [during which loosely-held opinions ostensibly ossify into the kind of commitment that interferes with honest pursuit of truth] and more about mindset, ego and circumstance. Which latter variables are difficult if not impossible to ascertain or verify. Which is why peer-reviewed science -- in removing as much subjectivity as humanly possible -- is our best and only plausible path to truly objective knowledge. (Which in turn is not the only kind of knowledge worth having or sharing! Far from it! But I digress.)
Hmm, perhaps the main explanatory factor for ossified opinions is not the passage of time, but individual personality / circsumstances. If so, it is fortunate: once you discover an unbiased person, you can put greater weight on their opinion for a bit longer.
Is there? Or is this an unfalsifiable classification that people one agrees with can be put in, and people who one doesn't agree with can be pushed out of?
The idea that opinions have no relation to expertise is a general argument against expertise. The magic period during which people have expertise but don't have opinions seems related to that magic period for journalists when they understand all of the facts about a story accurately but have no opinion about what is true and what is not true.