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Early 2020 the Dutch Maurice de Hond, who studies social geography, noticed a pattern in outbreaks. His conclusion at the time also was transmission via aerosol

Early 2020 the Dutch Maurice de Hond, who studies social geography, noticed a pattern in outbreaks. His conclusion at the time also was transmission via aerosols. But because he had no related degree in virology most people ignored him. Now two years later everybody agrees with him. It's sad that people are too proud to cooperate with other people working in other domains (and sometimes even in the same domain).

thephyber 5y ago
I have worked in cybersecurity both as a product developer and a bounty hunter / pen tester. One of my sisters is a housewife and former kindergarten teacher. She believes the 2020 US presidential election was “stolen”, partly by being hacked by China (the Mr. Pillow Guy CEO hypothesis). She knows nothing about the details of the domain, but she has a strong conviction opinion on the topic. I spent a lot of time investigating what evidence was publicly available and was thoroughly unconvinced. Is it “sad” that I am “too proud” to adopt her logic/thinking/chain of facts? Or is it simply that the domain experts are overwhelmed with noise (bad ideas from non-domain-experts)? The default mentality of scientists should be skepticism of conclusions and creativity/curiosity for hypotheses. That’s a difficult mindset for one individual. There is a reason why red teams and blue teams are specialized.
- blenderdt 5y ago
  The differece is that de Hond had convincing proof. I agree you cannot go down the rabbit hole by checking what everyone is saying. But there are experts in other domains who can present proof in their domain. And then it's silly not to listen.
- rvanlaar 5y ago
  The case with Mauride de Hond is different. His expertise is statistics. He is well known in the Netherlands for gathering election polling data. He really looked at a few superspread events and drilled down in how it could've spread.
- sampo 5y ago
  > Or is it simply that the domain experts are overwhelmed with noise We have learned that while medical doctors are domain experts in treating diseases, they are not domain experts in how infectious diseases spread around. Some doctors follow the front lines of science, whereas other doctors refuse to update their knowledge, and stick to what their old textbooks say. And we have learned that when it comes to airborne diseases, even epidemiologists are not domain experts. Epidemiologist are more trained in statistics and abstract mathematical models. With statistics, they know how to observe epidemics. With mathematical models, that can make bad predictions on how the epidemic progresses, but these predictions turned out to be wrong more often than not. Now nobody makes these predictions anymore, they have lost credibility. But they are not trained in physics to actually understand the physical mechanisms of how the virus can spread from one person to others. And that public health is also a matter of economics and engineering, and again medical doctors are not good domain experts here. Medical doctors can advice you not to drink dirty water, but population scale water hygiene is a matter of civil engineering. If we want air hygiene, we have to turn to engineers.
  - spookthesunset 5y ago
    > Epidemiologist are more trained in statistics and abstract mathematical models. And they are pretty bad at that too… their models have been horrifically bad. Most of them seemed designed to show the absolute worst case (see all the hockey stick charts these people published)…

thephyber 5y ago

I have worked in cybersecurity both as a product developer and a bounty hunter / pen tester. One of my sisters is a housewife and former kindergarten teacher. She believes the 2020 US presidential election was “stolen”, partly by being hacked by China (the Mr. Pillow Guy CEO hypothesis). She knows nothing about the details of the domain, but she has a strong conviction opinion on the topic. I spent a lot of time investigating what evidence was publicly available and was thoroughly unconvinced. Is it “sad” that I am “too proud” to adopt her logic/thinking/chain of facts? Or is it simply that the domain experts are overwhelmed with noise (bad ideas from non-domain-experts)? The default mentality of scientists should be skepticism of conclusions and creativity/curiosity for hypotheses. That’s a difficult mindset for one individual. There is a reason why red teams and blue teams are specialized.

blenderdt 5y ago
The differece is that de Hond had convincing proof. I agree you cannot go down the rabbit hole by checking what everyone is saying. But there are experts in other domains who can present proof in their domain. And then it's silly not to listen.
rvanlaar 5y ago
The case with Mauride de Hond is different. His expertise is statistics. He is well known in the Netherlands for gathering election polling data. He really looked at a few superspread events and drilled down in how it could've spread.
sampo 5y ago
> Or is it simply that the domain experts are overwhelmed with noise We have learned that while medical doctors are domain experts in treating diseases, they are not domain experts in how infectious diseases spread around. Some doctors follow the front lines of science, whereas other doctors refuse to update their knowledge, and stick to what their old textbooks say. And we have learned that when it comes to airborne diseases, even epidemiologists are not domain experts. Epidemiologist are more trained in statistics and abstract mathematical models. With statistics, they know how to observe epidemics. With mathematical models, that can make bad predictions on how the epidemic progresses, but these predictions turned out to be wrong more often than not. Now nobody makes these predictions anymore, they have lost credibility. But they are not trained in physics to actually understand the physical mechanisms of how the virus can spread from one person to others. And that public health is also a matter of economics and engineering, and again medical doctors are not good domain experts here. Medical doctors can advice you not to drink dirty water, but population scale water hygiene is a matter of civil engineering. If we want air hygiene, we have to turn to engineers.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  > Epidemiologist are more trained in statistics and abstract mathematical models. And they are pretty bad at that too… their models have been horrifically bad. Most of them seemed designed to show the absolute worst case (see all the hockey stick charts these people published)…