11–20 of 96 posts
Covid taught me that there is a large percentage of the population that trusts the experts to the point of ignoring all critical thought, which is just as dangerous.
Covid taught me that there is a large percentage of population that won’t trust experts to the point of ignoring critical thought. Also dangerous.
Generally, science is not built on trusting others, it's built on being skeptical.
What people miss is not trust in alleged or real experts, what they lack is intellectual humility and the ability to determine when someone else likely knows more about a topic than you. That doesn't mean that they have to trust that person's opinion about the matter, it just means that they should have a tendency to believe that person's informed opinions more easily than their own uninformed preconceptions.
For example, people shouldn't trust authorities and the experts these rely on. It's perfectly fine if they constantly scrutinize these authorities. However, they should be able to recognize when they clearly know less then these and act accordingly. Whether that means remaining agnostic or acting upon the expert's knowledge (even if it is taken with a pinch of salt) depends on the decision situation, how much need for action there is.
By the same token, you should also not trust text books. You should be aware of your own limitations while trying to check the information in the book. When you know you don't have enough knowledge to check it, you're going to have to trust some of the content. The more you build up knowledge, the more you can check the book, and at some point you will find errors in it.
> To rebuild public trust. Hongoltz-Hetling argues that institutions must respectfully engage with unconventional beliefs and offer inclusive frameworks instead of dismissive critiques. No, we don't need "inclusive frameworks" because some beliefs are idiotic. We need experts who put reason and data before political agendas and they need to be able to say "I don't know" instead of lying.
Covid taught me that there is a large percentage of the population that trusts the experts to the point of ignoring all critical thought, which is just as dangerous.
We've got an inclusive framework right now for alternative theories of medicine in my country, and a guy who believes in miasma theory instead of germ theory is shutting down medical research programs and getting rid of vaccines. I think I've had enough of the inclusive frameworks this article advocates for.
Generally speaking, between your average conspiracy theorist, and the average university scientist, rhetorically speaking, the conspiracy theorist will probably run circles around the scientist.
To a lay persons understanding of argument and rhetoric, unless you have a good bullshit detector(and bullshit detector’s are imperfect, you’ll get it wrong a certain percentage of of the time) the conspiracy theorist is more convincing and usually has “better” arguments.
Does this mean the experts are wrong? Nope. It’s for a variety of reasons, but perhaps the largest is that experts are handcuffed by corruption.
A real doctor knows best, but there are negative outcomes because of the insurance industry. A climate scientist knows best, but corruption and fossil fuel industry prevents implementation of the correct policies. Some financial advisors are scam artists and others are legit, leading people to trust neither.
For experts to gain trust they have to deliver visibly positive outcomes, and they have to greedily take credit for those outcomes. When people experience a good result, they have to make the connection that it was the advice of smart, correct, educated people that got them there.
I feel like this article misses the reason why people distrust institutions. Being "kicked out of the tent" is no doubt part of it, but it's more that the institutions themselves have stopped trying to communicate in good faith.
In the past 50 or so years we've seen almost every institution (in USA at least) get caught in a massive scheme of lying and manipulation. The church was caught harboring pedophiles, the education system told us trades were bad and we needed to spend $100k+ to have a good job, the Healthcare system leveraged our own wellbeing against their profits, the government sided with insurance companies, banks, etc over its own people at every turn then proceeded to lie us into war after war after war, and all the the while the news has been proven to support almost every lie happily if the ad dollars go their way. Not a single institution hasn't failed us.
Asking why people distrust institutions is the wrong question. Any partner that lied to you that much would never be trusted again, distrust is a defense mechanism that comes from years of betrayal. But still there's some implication that we should still trust them, despite the lies, and along with it a sense that distrusting them makes you crazy (paranormal/alien beliefs are a good example). This problem does not originate from the people, it's the result of a world where truth only gets in the way of profits and power and actual people are the lowest priority.
That's a big question, and a narrow article. People tend to distrust experts when they think they are being lied to, or manipulated.