Authority

AKMA says we can't get away from authority: when his dentist tells him to floss she has authority. But there are many kinds of authority. There is authority over (power) and the authority of specialized knowledge (professional authority) and the authority of experience. My daugher's pediatrician tells me it is better to take ADD medication 7 days a week but our experience is that my daughter doesn't have any problem with going off it for a couple of days and doing so allows her to catch up on her eating (the medication takes away her appetite and she was losing too much weight). I am very thankful for a pediatrician who will accept that the authority of experience trumps professional authority (because professional authority talks about what happens on average and doesn't necessarily fit any one individual) and who doesn't have oldfashioned power ideas about how people should do what their doctors say.