3 ms·
> ignoring all of it That's one approach. A different approach would be to encourage people to double check or at least smoke test.
by 082349872349872 3y ago
> ignoring all of it
That's one approach.
A different approach would be to encourage people to double check or at least smoke test.
- verisimi 3y agoI say either personally verify it or do not repeat it as true.
- mike_hearn 3y agoThat would be great but the message from government, media and academia is overwhelmingly that people who double check ("do their own research") are fringe crazies who to be mistrusted and ideally silenced. Before getting to the point where people are actively encouraged to double check, we'd have to get to the point where people aren't actively ostracised for it!
- moomin 3y agoThe problem is that skepticism on its own isn't a route to the truth. An embarrassing number of people "doing their own research" are doing on reddit, not e.g. arxiv.
- 082349872349872 3y agoSorry, I had been assuming that the HN readership would assume that double checking tertiary sources involves consulting (at least) secondary sources, secondary sources primary, etc. Just as well-founded loop variants help avoid nontermination, making strictly closer-to-ground double checks helps avoid echo chambers. (and frankly, "do your own research", to me, is a clear sibboleth translating to "enter our echo chamber")
- usrusr 3y agoTrue. Naive skepticism is what lies on the path to "can't see the earth's curvature from an airplane!"
- mike_hearn 3y agoIf the problem you're trying to solve is Dan Arielys or journalists reporting non-replicable academic papers, restricting your review only to arxiv isn't going to help.
- moomin 3y agoYou're not wrong. Sometimes you're better off on a random sci-blogger's site. But there's always a level where we have to take things on trust. Understanding who is actually trustworthy I'll leave as an unsolved problem.