DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus “Anti-intellectualism...

This is the single most impactful post I've seen in forever and it is very targeted at the topic of anti-intellectualism and it generated one lonely "Thank you" response...

This guy hit the nail on the head, backset it, puttied it, sanded it, and painted it so you can't even see the nail any more... and that's probably why nobody wants to talk about it... because it defines perfectly what is so wrong with so much of what is going on.

No it's not, but it's one small facet of the much bigger problem of anti-intellectualism.

If you watch and understand the video that OCD posted, it sums up how I feel to a "T"....

Right now we have 2 major problems in this country..

We have a faction on the right who believes whatever Trump tells them and whatever "anti-lib" information is going around on social media without applying the slightest bit of critical thought....

We have a faction on the left who believes that every problem we have started with Trump and seems content to deny the fact that he is a SYMPTOM of the cycle of things that have been going on for decades and they also seem willing to deny that the left had anything to do with this downward spiral...

That is why a general thread on anti-intellectualism is virtually impossible to keep on topic because EVERYTHING migrates back to Donald Trump..... which is exactly what both factions want to happen...

Carry on..

When you spokesperson is the president, don't act like that doesn't mean anything. It's a catalyst.

I never sais it didn't mean anything.. I said it doesn't mean EVERYTHING...

Do you know what a catalyst is?

Hey DC, I'll try to pick up this conversation with you and maybe we'll get 2 or 3 posts in about the topic before Trump gets dragged back into it.

I agree with what the guy is saying in the video and especially agree with what he has to say around the 9:50 mark in regards to tribalism.

Although, I sort of have a problem with the idea of "don't question experts". I feel it's almost as dangerous as "I'm just going to believe what I want to regardless of your expertise". I think some of it goes to the various biases I see in society and what they were mentioning in that part.

Some of the reasons I came up with why we should at least question what the experts say:

Personal bias - Similar to what the video was saying, I think that can and does extend to experts as well. They mention the scientific method, and I feel there are many times that experts will already have the theory they WANT to be true, and just get enough facts and data in line to suggest that they're right. You know, like every time you see a "college study" that shows drinking 5 cans of beer a day is healthy for you. I remember episodes of Mythbusters (who I love) where they would try to disprove myths that would get you around the law, like license plate reflectors or cell-phones being as bad as drunk driving. But then the experiments they would perform would sort of align with what they wanted/needed to be true. The drunk driving portion of an experiment would be just above the legal limit, the cell-phone user would have to preform complicated thinking tasks, and the overall tests were more pass/fail than a measurable quantity of how impaired the driver was. Naturally, the results came back as, "Yeah cell phones are just like driving drunk". I think this happens to at least some degree in all studies as scientists are only human.

Citation bias - And I think this is the far bigger issue today. Those that want something to be true will only cite the experts that align with what they want to be right. The video cites social media as being a big problem, and I agree. But I think the regular media can be just as bad when it comes to this. Find the expert that agrees with your narrative, quote them, and shoot down any argument to the contrary with, "How can you disagree with the experts?!" My biggest personal example of this is Y2K. I was in college studying computer science when this was going on, and even my mom would call me all the time worried about what the media was saying could happen with nuclear reactors failing, banks deleting accounts, car brakes failing because they used some sort of computer chip, etc. They were constantly quoting "experts" that gave them what they wanted to hear about doomsday scenarios. I kept telling her that it was all completely overblown and likely wouldn't be much of a problem. Sure enough, 1/1/00 happened and nothing at all happened. Fortunately, something like that had a "drop-dead" date, where you could finally see that everything was overblown. There are lots of "experts" out there, so it's very easy to find the ones that align with your narrative.

Caution Bias - This is where you are dealing with experts that are in a field where lives can potentially be in danger. They are likely always going to error on the side of caution, because they never want to be the one to say something is okay and then it turns out not to be. I think you see this all the time with geophysical scientists. Every volcano and fault-line is always ready to go. The Yellowstone super-volcano has an eruption cycle of 600,000 to 2 million years, but since it's been 640,000 since the last one, "it's due" for most those experts. Sure, it's probably much more likely that the next eruption won't happen for another million years, but you don't want to be that one scientist that was "wrong" if something does happen.

Community Bias - And I feel like this is sort of the dangerous one. This is where the expert leaders of a certain type of field have a bias to one sort of opinion, and it's usually tied to their livelihoods. If anyone potentially rocks the boat to that opinion, they are quickly ostracized by the more senior experts and they are no longer looked at as a valid expert opinion. To them, there's nothing worse than having the entire community of experts proved wrong. For this, I think of the analytical people trying to break their way into the baseball world (Bill James, Paul Depo, etc). They were looked at as lepers by everyone else in baseball until the A's finally took a chance on it, proved everyone wrong, and now everyone in baseball follows that model. I also think of examples such as John Snow ignoring the popular opinion of experts that a Cholera outbreak in London was caused by an airborne virus, visited the city anyway to research it, and mapped out the proof that it was instead caused by something in the drinking water. Or John L. Leal having to secretly chlorinate drinking water because popular expert opinion was that ingesting chlorine would be fatal to humans. Instead it paved the way to what we do today to have clean water. Yes, in each of those cases, you're talking about an expert that came in to revolutionize things, but it was still against the grain of what other experts in that field thought was true, and usually resulted because someone had to take a leap of faith to prove the consensus wrong.

So yeah, I think we SHOULD be listening to what the experts have to say and giving their opinions a little more weight to what standard Joe's think, but I have a problem when people say things like "Don't question the experts" or "we shouldn't be debating this". We absolutely should be questioning the experts and they should be more than willing to show us why we're wrong.

My problem is anyone who puts feelings over facts. Facts are immutable unless scientifically proven wrong. Feeling change like the wind. I expect my gut instincts to be fact based, so I try to educate myself as much as possible. I also question things I don't immediately agree with while blindly accepting things I do agree with which is just wrong. WE SHOULD QUESTION EVERYTHING, then we should educate ourselves about the topic as much as possible, which is where experts come in because they've already studied the topic in depth. Experts on the same subject often disagree but they are a wealth of knowledge for the rest of us either way. And if a decision is to be made in short order about a complicated subject, I'd rather trust a panel of experts to make that decision. Easy as that.

I agree w/much of what you are saying. I tried to bring up research earlier in the thread, but folks didn't want any part of it. It's not about blindly trusting the experts. It's about doing the proper research in order to accumulate as much information as possible. Then, one can sift through all the sorts of information and look for patterns. Throw out the outliers and extremes. Combine that w/real-life experiences and make an informed evaluation. Accepting the word of any one person is foolishness.

The biggest problem is that many folks are too lazy to make informed decisions that are free of bias. They formulate opinions based on bias and then look for articles that promote their opinions. The truth isn't important. Neither is logic or rationality. It's about winning the argument. This thread is clear proof of that.

Btw............just to be clear, I responded to your post because I felt it was the least unbiased of the ones I read. You seemingly are trying to look at things in a more rational manner than others. I say that because I didn't want to give you the impression that I was attacking your opinion. I agree w/much of what you are saying and was simply expounding on it.

Btw--------Not sure if it is because I am getting older or if it is current state of affairs in this country or maybe even the virus.............but, I am losing more and more of my tolerance for the blustery ignorant folks that seem to dominate conversations.

Which 'experts'? The ones that espouse what you want? Or the 'experts' that don't agree with you?

We have too many 'experts' that change their mind's - daily it seems, and too many 'experts' that only speak their party's mind. It's obvious, daily, from both sides.

That's why I said "a panel of experts"... random or tops in the field would probably be best. And one sure sign that somebody is wise is when they realize they aren't always the best person for the decision and that their view might not be the correct view. So opposing views on a panel would be a good thing, as long as the decisions are made by people who have studied the topic in depth and had the debates already.

Don't really disagree with anything your saying there. You say that "Facts are immutable unless scientifically proven wrong." which is correct, but the conclusion drawn based on those facts can be highly subjective and biased. Even more so if other facts have been omitted, either intentionally or unintentionally.

Like the Mythbusters example, showing that driving with a certain blood alcohol content causes impairment is a fact. showing that driving while calculating math equations on the phone causes impairment is a fact. Concluding that talking on the cell-phone while driving is the same is driving drunk, is a heavily biased conclusion. I think questioning those biases is still a valid part of the discussion.

In other words. Continue the stupidity and let’s see what happens.

Is that all you got from that?

I think all 4 of your biases mentioned are legitimate and very real. We treat "experts" in the same way we treat the media any more.

You post an article that somebody doesn't like, they can't refute it but it goes against what they want to believe and you get "Oh that's from Fox" or "Oh that's from CNN" and I don't find them credible (because they don't agree with me) so I'm not even going to consider it. We now treat experts the same way. If an expert offers an opinion we don't like, we don't consider it, we just try to discredit that person as an "expert"... they aren't as expert as MY expert.

I also appreciate your explanation of some of the times when 1 expert was right fighting against many experts who were wrong. The 1 was often painted as lunatic right up until they were proven right. I also believe this logic can be used to fuel our own biases.. as long as we can find just ONE expert who says what we want to hear, we can always cling to the notion that this is one of the times that the 1 was right and the many were wrong.. when most of the time it doesn't work out that way.

Facts are data, facts are meaningless unless they are put into proper context. That is what we need the experts to do, to distill the facts down into a meaningful format for us to understand... so it is not unreasonable to assume that different experts are going to disagree on what the facts mean.

I can tell you that Mohamed Salah scored 32 goals in the 2017-18 season in the Premier League.. that's a fact. If you don't follow soccer or the Premier League, that fact means nothing to you as to whether that's really good or average or whether he should be traded.. it's just a number. Now 2 minutes of research will tell you that is the record for goals scored in a season so yea, that's good.

Unfortunately, there isn't a 2 minute search to answer much more complex questions... I don't have enough time nor energy to do the amount of research or educating myself needed to confirm or deny the conclusions of a professional virologist or immunologist.. no matter the amount of research I can do, I'm not going to know 1/1000th of what they know about the subject.. so what then do I do when I have multiple experts who have reached different conclusions about what the data means?

I can tell you want most people do, they read 10 articles that all confirm their previously held opinion and mock any other opinions, and they believe they have done "research"... when all they have done is confirmed their own bias.

The panel of experts idea is a good start but then you get into, how was that panel formed?

I've actually done a fair amount of research on leadership and team building, I've given multiple professional seminars on the subject.. at some low level, I'd probably consider myself an "expert".. and the single biggest problem people have when they build a team/panel to accomplish something is that they recruit and enlist people they are comfortable with, people who are typically going to agree with them, people who aren't going to rock the boat. That is the path most people follow when they build a "panel".. so instead of ending up with diverging opinions and lively debate, you end up with 1 opinion and 5 other people nodding in agreement. So if it is a truly diverse panel with people who hold different opinions different backgrounds, etc.. sign me up, I'll be much more inclined to trust their conclusions.

For example, if you wanted to build a panel of say, 12 people, to reach some kind of consensus on our societal response to COVID, I would include on that panel, and this is just off the top of my head, 3 or 4 virologists/immunologists, a couple economists, a couple mental health professionals, the head of the small business administration, etc.. to build a panel of 12 virologists/immunologists you are going to end up with excl's aforementioned bias that they are always going to air on the side of extreme caution because that's their job.

Maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but I find your characterization of "expert skeptics" to be wrong. For me, credibility is both built up and eroded over time. Fox and CNN have slowly eroded their credibility over MANY examples of being incorrect or extremely misleading.

As far as looking at an article with a skeptical eye... it's very rare to read an article that's completely transparent about how it arrives at its conclusion. At work, when I write up a test report, I show my analysis and conclusion, but also make the hard data available to the readers. They are free to poke holes in my analysis and arguments at their convenience.
Articles seem to be becoming less and less transparent about how they got to their conclusions. Not only is the hard data not available or hard to access, but the analyses used is also glossed over or ommitted. To me, this sends up red flags when reading.

I know exactly what a catalyst is. It's like the gas someone throws on a small blaze that causes it to become a raging inferno. It's what causes a reaction.

It means a LOT! It has caused people to feel their hatred and acting out is somehow now justified. It now makes them feel their racism is more acceptable. There has been a huge surge in the number of hate groups and members since Trump has been elected and it has been his words and actions that have helped spur this on.

You know this so I have no idea why you wish to downplay it.

I don't think we disagree as much as my analogy just didn't work as I had planned. Neither Fox nor CNN should be viewed as experts, they are just a platform to tell us what experts think or have decided.. granted they aren't very good at that either but that's neither her nor there.

But you bring up an interesting point. I agree with you that credibility is established over long periods of time.. so in the event of something like COVID, 99.9% of the USA has no history with virologists or immunologists, therefore I have no idea which ones have credibility... so again, I have to figure out who I trust to tell me which experts I should trust.


I concur.. and this applies more to scientists writing articles for other scientists. Most often we are in the position of journalists using scientific articles/data to distill complex information down for consumption by the general public.. there are any number of ways that can go wrong and often does.

Which I guess makes my point more about.. I trust the scientists more than I trust the journalists.. I just don't have time to research and study and learn enough to decipher the science for myself.