4 ms·

> If I want truth, I read or watch primary source material. Everything else is commentary. For the record, that is completely impractical for reasons so obviou

by ardy42 6y ago

> If I want truth, I read or watch primary source material. Everything else is commentary. For the record, that is completely impractical for reasons so obvious that it's surprising people suggest it with the frequency they do. Take science reporting, for instance. You think science reporting makes too many mistakes, so you're going to just go to the source and read the raw papers instead (a suggestion I've seen dozens of times). Well, there are so many of those that even scientists don't read everything related to their specialty, and at best only read everything related to their sub-sub-sub specialty. How the hell are you, as a layman, supposed to wade through that stuff to stay informed about science? You can't, since there aren't enough hours in the day. It's a recipe for ignorance.

TheAceOfHearts 6y ago
Reading inaccurate information and taking it all seriously still leaves the reader ignorant, it just gives a false illusion of being well-informed. I try to take everything I read with a giant grain of salt while remaining humble and recognizing my own ignorance. If a topic really catches my interest I'll try digging into it by going through primary sources, but otherwise I try to not hold very strong opinions about things I haven't researched extensively. Even after I've done a bit more research on a subject I try to remain humble since there's often many concepts with which I'm unfamiliar. With social media you can now follow many real experts on a wide variety of subjects and they'll happily help explain new and interesting developments in their field. Although even in that situation it's still important to exercise caution, since the illusion of expertise is often abused as a means of advancing some political or financial agenda. Another possibility is that the person explaining the topic might not actually be that well informed or they might've even misunderstood certain parts. I'd recommend reading Epistemic Learned Helplessness [0]. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learned-helplessness/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learn...
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Reading inaccurate information and taking it all seriously still leaves the reader ignorant, it just gives a false illusion of being well-informed. > I try to take everything I read with a giant grain of salt while remaining humble and recognizing my own ignorance. If a topic really catches my interest I'll try digging into it by going through primary sources, but otherwise I try to not hold very strong opinions about things I haven't researched extensively. Even after I've done a bit more research on a subject I try to remain humble since there's often many concepts with which I'm unfamiliar. I think that's a reasonable attitude, though it has the tradeoff of being maybe too indecisive. > With social media you can now follow many real experts on a wide variety of subjects and they'll happily help explain new and interesting developments in their field. Although even in that situation it's still important to exercise caution, since the illusion of expertise is often abused as a means of advancing some political or financial agenda. Another possibility is that the person explaining the topic might not actually be that well informed or they might've even misunderstood certain parts. There still aren't enough hours in the day for someone to do even that with any breadth. It's also worth noting that activity is basically journalism with an audience of one. My general thrust though is to argue against the individualist rejection of institutions, which seems to be really common and I think is pretty misguided. While those institutions always have flaws, there's also good reasons for their existence and use, which are often weirdly forgotten. The reaction to those flaws are often individualist ideas that have even deeper flaws, and often don't actually correct the flaws they're responding to. To make an analogy: it's like a novice programmer reacting to seeing a few dozen Windows bugs and declaring they can't trust Microsoft anymore and they're going to write their own OS instead. That's a huge project, way bigger than one person, and a novice programmer is unlikely to actually do a better job than Microsoft (dispute its flaws and mistakes).
loveistheanswer 6y ago
Is it impractical to read the cited sources in order to validate the science writers interpretations? It's not uncommon for scientists of comparable prestige to arrive at two very different conclusions while looking at the same data set.

by ardy42 6y ago

TheAceOfHearts 6y ago

Reading inaccurate information and taking it all seriously still leaves the reader ignorant, it just gives a false illusion of being well-informed. I try to take everything I read with a giant grain of salt while remaining humble and recognizing my own ignorance. If a topic really catches my interest I'll try digging into it by going through primary sources, but otherwise I try to not hold very strong opinions about things I haven't researched extensively. Even after I've done a bit more research on a subject I try to remain humble since there's often many concepts with which I'm unfamiliar. With social media you can now follow many real experts on a wide variety of subjects and they'll happily help explain new and interesting developments in their field. Although even in that situation it's still important to exercise caution, since the illusion of expertise is often abused as a means of advancing some political or financial agenda. Another possibility is that the person explaining the topic might not actually be that well informed or they might've even misunderstood certain parts. I'd recommend reading Epistemic Learned Helplessness [0]. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learned-helplessness/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learn...

ardy42 6y ago
> Reading inaccurate information and taking it all seriously still leaves the reader ignorant, it just gives a false illusion of being well-informed. > I try to take everything I read with a giant grain of salt while remaining humble and recognizing my own ignorance. If a topic really catches my interest I'll try digging into it by going through primary sources, but otherwise I try to not hold very strong opinions about things I haven't researched extensively. Even after I've done a bit more research on a subject I try to remain humble since there's often many concepts with which I'm unfamiliar. I think that's a reasonable attitude, though it has the tradeoff of being maybe too indecisive. > With social media you can now follow many real experts on a wide variety of subjects and they'll happily help explain new and interesting developments in their field. Although even in that situation it's still important to exercise caution, since the illusion of expertise is often abused as a means of advancing some political or financial agenda. Another possibility is that the person explaining the topic might not actually be that well informed or they might've even misunderstood certain parts. There still aren't enough hours in the day for someone to do even that with any breadth. It's also worth noting that activity is basically journalism with an audience of one. My general thrust though is to argue against the individualist rejection of institutions, which seems to be really common and I think is pretty misguided. While those institutions always have flaws, there's also good reasons for their existence and use, which are often weirdly forgotten. The reaction to those flaws are often individualist ideas that have even deeper flaws, and often don't actually correct the flaws they're responding to. To make an analogy: it's like a novice programmer reacting to seeing a few dozen Windows bugs and declaring they can't trust Microsoft anymore and they're going to write their own OS instead. That's a huge project, way bigger than one person, and a novice programmer is unlikely to actually do a better job than Microsoft (dispute its flaws and mistakes).

loveistheanswer 6y ago

Is it impractical to read the cited sources in order to validate the science writers interpretations? It's not uncommon for scientists of comparable prestige to arrive at two very different conclusions while looking at the same data set.