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When you do a Covid test do you understand why the colour changes? Some people do, but not most. We can use black box systems and we understand how they make fa
by visarga 4y ago
When you do a Covid test do you understand why the colour changes? Some people do, but not most. We can use black box systems and we understand how they make false positives and negatives. In fact most complex systems are impossible to "understand". We still have to act with imperfect understanding.
- mdp2021 4y ago> Some people do, but not most Knowledge (of something) is something one could achieve, not something everyone must achieve. The relevant purpose is that those who should become competent and knowledgeable do so - for judgement and for production of further knowledge.
- Ericson2314 4y agoThat is not a good comparison. People taking the test are not in general scientists. There was never any expectation they would understand how the test works. The proper analogy would be scientists have some big machine which tries different chemical experiments until it has a Covid test that matches the training data. But how would we even trust the training data in that case? Having a good understanding of the basics of genetics and microbiology allows us both to understand how the tests work, and tests in the QAing of the testing procedure. There is no substitute.