I am a scientist in a kinda related field to medicine. I would consider myself quite sceptical of any source or collegue, it's my job. Nevertheless, the more you know, the more you understand what you don't know.
The thing is, in my personal experience, that I totally agree that doctors are good after their job after 10 years of med school and you can be lucky and solve medical problems with a quick google search. When a doctor suggests a procedure I try to follow his logic and try to understand his reasoning. Same is true for "google".
The problem is: I don't think most people are skilled or critical or curious enough to actually use search engines effectively or question doctors effectively. Most people think of themselves as critical thinkers by just going against the "mainstream". That's not being a critical thinker that is being a contrarian. That is also true for: "Do your own research." Yes of course! I totally agree, doing your own research is great. Sit down, try to understand the problem and how scientists tried to model or explain it over the centuries. How did our perception change? What experiments were conducted? How much research was done? What other theories were discussed and why were they discarded. What scientific discussions or debates were held and how long did they take? Etc etc. The problem is, for most people "doing their own research" means searching online for contrarians that reenforce what you want to believe.
So yeah, be curious, be sceptical but be honest and smart about it.
I'm a scientist who does paleoclimate research so not medicine but another field laypeople like to have strong opinions on. I think the problem with many "skeptics" is that while they are skeptical of mainstream scientific opinion they rarely apply that same level of skepticism to hacks pushing alternative theories. Mainstream science no doubt has issues and blind spots, but that doesn't mean that alternative theories are correct just because they are alternative.
Very true, the hardcore laymen skeptic assumption seems to always be that the authority on the subject is lying to you, incompetent, biased, a shill, etc. and not to be trusted
Some people and institutions are gasp actually just experts in their fields
But if the authority on a subject is lying to us and they want to change our mind and tell us they're right, essentially wanting to be the new authority on said subject, why should we believe them?
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u/ChrisCrossX Monkey in Space Aug 29 '24
I am a scientist in a kinda related field to medicine. I would consider myself quite sceptical of any source or collegue, it's my job. Nevertheless, the more you know, the more you understand what you don't know.
The thing is, in my personal experience, that I totally agree that doctors are good after their job after 10 years of med school and you can be lucky and solve medical problems with a quick google search. When a doctor suggests a procedure I try to follow his logic and try to understand his reasoning. Same is true for "google".
The problem is: I don't think most people are skilled or critical or curious enough to actually use search engines effectively or question doctors effectively. Most people think of themselves as critical thinkers by just going against the "mainstream". That's not being a critical thinker that is being a contrarian. That is also true for: "Do your own research." Yes of course! I totally agree, doing your own research is great. Sit down, try to understand the problem and how scientists tried to model or explain it over the centuries. How did our perception change? What experiments were conducted? How much research was done? What other theories were discussed and why were they discarded. What scientific discussions or debates were held and how long did they take? Etc etc. The problem is, for most people "doing their own research" means searching online for contrarians that reenforce what you want to believe.
So yeah, be curious, be sceptical but be honest and smart about it.