3 ms·

No layperson is qualified to understand any advanced technical field these days. Semiconductor fabrication is utterly out of reach for the typical voter, but th

No layperson is qualified to understand any advanced technical field these days. Semiconductor fabrication is utterly out of reach for the typical voter, but they still have to form an opinion on the CHIPS act. Most of us aren’t lawyers, but still sometimes need to hire them. This is the dilemma inherent in not having a /u/PhdInEverything. But the answer isn’t “go away and let the grownups decide”, the answer is to try to learn what constitutes an expert, try to understand what degree of consensus does or does not exist amongst those experts, try to ferret out some obvious biases (e.g. red team / blue team idiocy) and be as informed as possible. The standard model of particle physics, or Wiles FLT proof, or 1000 other things are every bit as technical as anything in virology, but you’ll notice the mathematicians all agree: the layperson doesn’t have to look very hard to know what the takeaway is there. It’s medicine’s (including virology’s) job to get its shit together on the public’s behalf, not the other way around. This kind of condescension infuriates me, I’m working hard to be as polite as possible here.

mikeyouse 4y ago
You can be as infuriated as you'd like, but I consider HN to be one of the more responsible and educated forums for casual discussion and the level of straight up conspiracy-driven misinformation on everything related to Covid is astonishing. From origins to vaccines to treatments (remember all of the threads extolling HCQ and IVM?), it's as sophisticated as you'd expect from people "doing their own research" in fields they don't understand and apparently aren't equipped to develop an understanding of. There's no political or financial implications to whether Wiles' proof of FLT is correct or not, and the proof can be checked with certainty by experts in the field -- so of course they can come to a consensus about something extraordinarily technical. Unfortunately with Covid, every question has turned into a political shibboleth so there will forever be FUD promoted by people who should know better. How is the average reader supposed to weigh the probabilities of some esoteric question like what the potential presence or absence of IIS restriction sites means when it's being promoted by people with advanced degrees as evidence of an artificial origin, even though it's nonsense? So I retreat to my earlier advice for those trying to form an opinion here -- look into the history of claims from the various scientists, and see whether evidence is guiding their claims or if their claims are guiding their evidence.
- benreesman 4y ago
  Neither the GP nor myself said that SARS-COV-2 escaped from the Wuhan lab, let alone that it was the result of GoF research. I called it a theory, as in, neither conclusively proven nor conclusively disproven. It’s a theory about which there has been significant controversy. I didn’t even say there was significant evidence for it. Acknowledging the existence of a controversy is not the same thing as promoting a conspiracy theory, and as you yourself point out, basically everyone, from word-renowned virologists down to the man in the street, has skin in the game on this one. The world’s medical community had a COVID response that was a fucking disaster: inconsistent and constantly changing guidance, conflicts of interest, geopolitical 4th dimensional warfare, rushed and sloppy-looking vaccine approvals. It’s no wonder the public believes a bunch of crazy shit: the experts dropped the ball. Trying to blame that on the ignorance and gullibility of the layperson and flip the script like that set back the public’s willingness to take vaccines and listen to the authorities by 50-100 years. Don’t try to blame that on us plebs.
  - johndfsgdgdfg 4y ago
    Thank you for saying this. We know xenophobic racist right wingers are saying that COVID came from China. But WHO-China investigation definitely proved that COVID came outside of China. Even western virologists have been supporting Chinese scientists. [1] [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
    - RugnirViking 4y ago
      you have posted this sarcastic and unproductive comment four times in different comment chains....
unethical_ban 4y ago
It sounds like you and the other person agree (edit: regarding the need to trust experts). You've just chosen to trust different sources of information than the other person. I agree with the other person though, there is a correlation between people I've heard say "do your own research" and people with less reasonable beliefs. (Hi, mom).
- benreesman 4y ago
  I’m aware that “do your own research” is a common phrase among people who want to believe that “9/11 was an inside job” or whatever (also Hi Mom). I meant it in the more nuanced sense of trying to actually do research. A layperson who wants to be informed has to start somewhere, and when the stakes are as high as with global public health, I think it behooves the person in the street to try to at least read the abstracts of some papers, try to identify experts on both sides of a controversy, and be aware that credentials are no guarantee of reasonability. Shockley played a big role in the transistor, IIRC got the Nobel, and later spent years advocating for racist eugenicist horseshit: credentials are a good guideline, but they can’t be blindly trusted. I really wish the medical community just agreed about all this stuff: then my job would be easy, do what they say. Unfortunately you seem to get one group of MD/PhD people saying those other MD/PhD people are cranks, we’re the “real” scientific consensus. This does not make it easy for the well-intentioned layperson.

mikeyouse 4y ago

You can be as infuriated as you'd like, but I consider HN to be one of the more responsible and educated forums for casual discussion and the level of straight up conspiracy-driven misinformation on everything related to Covid is astonishing. From origins to vaccines to treatments (remember all of the threads extolling HCQ and IVM?), it's as sophisticated as you'd expect from people "doing their own research" in fields they don't understand and apparently aren't equipped to develop an understanding of. There's no political or financial implications to whether Wiles' proof of FLT is correct or not, and the proof can be checked with certainty by experts in the field -- so of course they can come to a consensus about something extraordinarily technical. Unfortunately with Covid, every question has turned into a political shibboleth so there will forever be FUD promoted by people who should know better. How is the average reader supposed to weigh the probabilities of some esoteric question like what the potential presence or absence of IIS restriction sites means when it's being promoted by people with advanced degrees as evidence of an artificial origin, even though it's nonsense? So I retreat to my earlier advice for those trying to form an opinion here -- look into the history of claims from the various scientists, and see whether evidence is guiding their claims or if their claims are guiding their evidence.

benreesman 4y ago
Neither the GP nor myself said that SARS-COV-2 escaped from the Wuhan lab, let alone that it was the result of GoF research. I called it a theory, as in, neither conclusively proven nor conclusively disproven. It’s a theory about which there has been significant controversy. I didn’t even say there was significant evidence for it. Acknowledging the existence of a controversy is not the same thing as promoting a conspiracy theory, and as you yourself point out, basically everyone, from word-renowned virologists down to the man in the street, has skin in the game on this one. The world’s medical community had a COVID response that was a fucking disaster: inconsistent and constantly changing guidance, conflicts of interest, geopolitical 4th dimensional warfare, rushed and sloppy-looking vaccine approvals. It’s no wonder the public believes a bunch of crazy shit: the experts dropped the ball. Trying to blame that on the ignorance and gullibility of the layperson and flip the script like that set back the public’s willingness to take vaccines and listen to the authorities by 50-100 years. Don’t try to blame that on us plebs.
- johndfsgdgdfg 4y ago
  Thank you for saying this. We know xenophobic racist right wingers are saying that COVID came from China. But WHO-China investigation definitely proved that COVID came outside of China. Even western virologists have been supporting Chinese scientists. [1] [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
  - RugnirViking 4y ago
    you have posted this sarcastic and unproductive comment four times in different comment chains....

unethical_ban 4y ago

It sounds like you and the other person agree (edit: regarding the need to trust experts). You've just chosen to trust different sources of information than the other person. I agree with the other person though, there is a correlation between people I've heard say "do your own research" and people with less reasonable beliefs. (Hi, mom).

benreesman 4y ago
I’m aware that “do your own research” is a common phrase among people who want to believe that “9/11 was an inside job” or whatever (also Hi Mom). I meant it in the more nuanced sense of trying to actually do research. A layperson who wants to be informed has to start somewhere, and when the stakes are as high as with global public health, I think it behooves the person in the street to try to at least read the abstracts of some papers, try to identify experts on both sides of a controversy, and be aware that credentials are no guarantee of reasonability. Shockley played a big role in the transistor, IIRC got the Nobel, and later spent years advocating for racist eugenicist horseshit: credentials are a good guideline, but they can’t be blindly trusted. I really wish the medical community just agreed about all this stuff: then my job would be easy, do what they say. Unfortunately you seem to get one group of MD/PhD people saying those other MD/PhD people are cranks, we’re the “real” scientific consensus. This does not make it easy for the well-intentioned layperson.