But how can you have such good reasons for selecting or dismissing evidence, if you're not actually an expert in the field?
— baker

Here I'm thinking of 'good' reasons as being those experience has taught us tend toward satisfactory results. Habits of thinking. If a person saying that tobacco is safe is paid by the tobacco industry, I don't need to be an expert in lung physiology to make a 'good' decision to take what he's saying with a pinch of salt. It's a habit of thinking I've developed to assess the possible conflicts of interest in those presenting me with evidence.

Evidence of previous bias (always coming down on one side of an ambiguous dichotomy), ideological commitments (politics, academic allegiances), publication biases (shock value, issue-of-the-day)...all of these can be used heuristically to weight evidence, or reject it entirely, without needing any expertise in the field at all.

The more one assesses evidence, the greater a bank of habits one develops. That's not to say that these habits are all right by any objective measure, only that they've proven themselves useful. The layman might rely on those things listed above, someone more versed in statistical techniques might additionally recognise signs of p-hacking or a suspiciously selected stratification - but still, none of these require expertise in the field being evaluated. — Isaac

I can't quite articulate my concern with this as succintly as I'd like. So, for the time being, I'll limit myself to this:


To use your example with the safety of tobacco: I don't think any smoker actually believes that tobacco is safe. Sure, when pressed, when ambushed, many smokers will say that it's harmless, or that they won't get sick from it, and such. But I think this is just the situational ego-protecting reply they give because they are pressured, and not something they really believe in. Because if you talk to those same people in a calmer hour, or listen to them otherwise, they make it clear that they know tobacco is not good for them, but that they can't quit, that it has too much power over them. And these people can also be very critical of "experts" telling them that tobacco is harmless.

I think that when it comes to many luxury products and services, notably alcohol, drugs, junk food, gambling, prostitution, people do not rely on experts, but already have formed an opinion that those things are bad -- regardless of what some expert might say. It's because those products and services have a grip on them (often, they are addictions) that people tend to have a complex, ambivalent response to them. In these cases, there is no issue of people examining evidence provided by others, such as scientists, no issue of good reasons for selecting or dismissing evidence.


On the other hand, with important things such as medical procedures and medications, it's also not clear what role is played by good reasons for selecting or dismissing evidence. From what I've seen of people, it doesn't seem like they decide in medical matters based on evidence or the opinion of experts, but are, rather, guided by their medical crisis, their need, financial resources, and sometimes, coincidences. For example, I watched an interview with a woman who had cancer and underwent treatment (chemotherapy etc.). Later on, after the treatment, she said that she didn't want to know anything about the treatment while she was receiving it, but that she just went along with what her doctor told her. She said she made a deliberate effort not to research the treatment, her options, and so on; that she focused on getting better and that she had faith that being as ignorant about the treatment as possible would serve her best. I think many people are like that. Moreover, it seems doctors generally prefer that kind of patient: optimistic and obedient.

I think that if one were to start researching the evidence for and against a medical treatment, this would be an endless quest, resulting only in paralysis of analysis, and postponement or denial of treatment altogether, or undertaking it without much faith (which could jeopardize its effectiveness).

However, (esp. retrospectively) justifying ones' medical choices, is quite another matter. Such justification has much to do with giving socially desirable answers, maintaining a good self-image. If "Because I trust science" is currently the socially desirable justification, then this is the justification one gives, regardless whether one has actually acted in line with it or not.

I.e. pretty much what everybody else is saying, including me. So where is this big disagreement now? — Olivier5

The disagreement is in your mind, manufactured by you.

What I've been lamenting in the Covid threads is that fact that I think there used to be a perfectly adequate standard (not perfect, by any means, but enough to filter out the crap). Matters regarding some field of expertise are discussed either by those experts or by reference to them. It's as simple as that. If you've met the threshold of epistemic responsibility to become an expert in some field, have no discoverable conflict of interest, no history of deep bias, then you have the right to be taken seriously and respectfully in any discussion within that field. Likewise laymen discussing that field are extended this right if they (in context) cite, or paraphrase the positions of these people who have met this standard.

I know I might sound like a typical old man, but this is how things used to be done (at least in my circles, which I admit are quite limited). The decay started before Covid but has been exaggerated massively during the crisis to the point we now find ourselves, where one's conclusions are all that matter, not the diligence with which one has arrived at them. Indeed, as here, one's conclusions are being used as a measure of the diligence one is assumed to have used arriving at them. — Isaac

I think this is simply what happens when science is popularized into scientism and people with a plebeian spirit (are allowed to) publicly express themselves.

I'm always reminded of this:




What has changed with the coming of social media (and reality shows) is that now, more people get to express themselves in a relatively durable and wide-reaching medium. This way, the ratio between the publicly available opinions of experts and the publicly available opinions of non-experts is quite different than it used to be, say, up to 30 years ago, and it's a ratio in favor of the non-experts.
Also, we now have a culture where a person is supposed to have an opinion on just about anything and everything, lest they be considered "uninteresting", "uninformed", and thus socially less desirable.

All I ever did was call for more caution. For this, several posters immediately classed me as an anti-vaccer, as irrational, evil, and such. I'm benumbed by such a reply, I certainly didn't expect it at a philosophy forum. — baker

It is the way in the internet works. I keep pointing this out to some but they seem to want to win the argument and mock others rather than do anything constructive.

I’m guilty of it myself in the past too. I’m entirely sure why it is people behave like this tbh.

It is the way in the internet works. — I like sushi

I find it's far more widely spread than just online, and it existed long before the internet. People have been jumping to conclusions for millennia.

There used to be a time when this was considered primitive, but nowadays, it appears to be the norm, something positive, valuable.

The ‘west’ should absolutely keep cutting carbon emissions. My key point is that investing in new technologies gets thing solved more quickly (example creating vaccines that pass safety regulation within a year or two when they usually take around much longer).

The population is expanding still so we will inevitably keep using more fuel as their infrastructures improve and expand. Not doing so will effectively hold these countries down economically and they’ll exploit their natural resources in an inefficient manner. The most likely net effect then is that the amount of fossil fuels being burned isn’t going to decrease that dramatically so I, and others, simply point out that investing in research and developing technologies in this area would be a very good idea.

Whatever we do in more ‘developed’ countries will be replicated by rising nations - in food production, manufacturing and energy consumption. Saying we don’t know when we’ll develop better means of energy production is nothing like saying we don’t know how to. There are investments in these technologies but they should really be much much more. Thankfully private industry does invest in this kind of thing because governments simply don’t have the clout to do so (barring dictatorships).

With food production there is far more scaremongering involved regarding GM foods that have held us back.

Here is someone who quietly and calmly states some scientific facts regarding misconceptions: prof. David Hume - The Genes in our Food.

A lot of what he says are what most would regard as ‘the wrong approach’.

I recall that you accused untold numbers of non-descript people of being criminals and profiteers, among the many many insults you keep dishing out here. — Olivier5

Uh huh. I presume here you're giving a demonstration of the fact that...

everyone of us once in a while argues in bad faith — Olivier5

..or alternatively you could actually quote me rather than more traducing.

You insisted on making it all about you you you. — Olivier5

I know.

like when you pretended to confuse an in vitro finding with an in vivo conclusion. — Olivier5

Didn't you harp forever about pharmaceuticals and politicians being all corrupt?

Didn't you pretend to equate a finding about the presence of certain molecules in the blood stream of 38 individuals with the effective immunity of all of us against COVID?

What are you proposing we do about COVID? — Olivier5

I'm constantly making it about me... What am I like?

Agreed! I find I sometimes have to point this out to people who point to the replication crisis as more evidence that science is bullshit. It's more evidence, not less, that science is, at least, intended to be a self-correcting communal enterprise. That is its great value, not the supposed — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, exactly. Only the problem today is that the means by which that is done is being eradicated. Experts raising

As Professor Stefan Baral put it in the BMJ

Engaging in discussions about the validity of complementary or even contradictory inferences can support an effective response. However, it is not feasible to engage meaningfully within 280 characters or if value judgments are ascribed to only certain positions. Public health means that the consensus view may have blindspots, so we must encourage healthy debate and dialogue. Debate was stifled during covid-19 in the name of fear.

Partly informing his view was an interview he had on the World Service. He mentioned the seasonality of coronavirus (suggesting that while cases would diminish over summer, they would likely surge again in autumn), and according to Baral - "After that, I got a series of warnings from professional contacts and others, asking me if I had aligned with Donald Trump,... Even the BBC producer asked me if I had aligned with Donald Trump, because I guess he had also talked about seasonality." (Coronavirus cases, of course, did dip over summer, exactly as Baral suggested - after all, he's an epidemiologist with 20 year experience of infectious disease) But he said a thing that Trump said so he must be wrong!

I don't think that Covid is the only cause, it's just one on an increasing number of issues which develop this way, where scientific conclusions are automatically assigned value (and political) positions, which, understandably, put pressure on scientists to speak out only if they're assured beforehand that they're sufficiently 'on message'.

I have a morbid fascination for this sort of development (deterioration?) which is why I'm so engaged in these discussions, I keep thinking there'll be some chink of light (gallows humour, even) in what's otherwise pretty dark. I actually find it truly scary that these kind of schoolyard social dynamics have leached into scientific debate.

I’ll repeat: vaccine mandates have been around for decades — at schools and many workplaces. — Xtrix

You're incorrigible! The UK has never, ever, ever, had universal vaccine mandates, neither have hundreds of other countries in the world. The spectre of mandates now is absolutely not something which requires some kind of psychologising bullshit explanation in terms of politics. Gods! you really can't handle a shred of dissent from your view can you?

It’s not new technology. — Xtrix

So the CDC are lying?

So you mention newness because you want to highlight the risks, despite acknowledging that they’re safe. Do I have that right? — Xtrix

Yes.

I think that if one were to start researching the evidence for and against a medical treatment, this would be an endless quest, resulting only in paralysis of analysis, and postponement or denial of treatment altogether, or undertaking it without much faith (which could jeopardize its effectiveness). — baker

I agree. My comments were more about someone in the fortunate position to be able to take a more distanced view of matters. Someone in the midst of a crucial decision will certainly be guided by more fast-heuristic methods than I've described, and probably not without some good cause.

What has changed with the coming of social media (and reality shows) is that now, more people get to express themselves in a relatively durable and wide-reaching medium. This way, the ratio between the publicly available opinions of experts and the publicly available opinions of non-experts is quite different than it used to be, say, up to 30 years ago, and it's a ratio in favor of the non-experts. — baker

Yes, we're certainly seeing that. One thing that I'm finding interesting in these debates is the extent to which one side believe they align with 'the consensus of experts' when what they actually they align with is the consensus of media reports. I doubt many have even so much as even looked at the front cover of a medical journal.

alternatively you could actually quote me rather than more traducing. — Isaac

I am not reposting your disgusting, creepy paranoid shit about the pharmaceutical industry, thank you very much. And you started this mud sliding against them way before I paid any attention to your sorry behavior.

The disagreement is in your mind, manufactured by you. — baker

I have been the one pointing out at such fake disagreement promoted here by people like you, as in this post you were quoting.

So you're vaccinated against COVID, Baker?

I’m guilty of it myself in the past too. I’m entirely sure why it is people behave like this tbh. — I like sushi

Because these debates have been politicized by the likes of Trump, FAUX News and co. So people now see vaccination or climate change as political issues and they get confused and angry about them. In truth they are just being manipulated by the likes of Trump. They have been lied to for so long.

That sounds very political! :D

A agree though. It is hardly new that people react badly to what they don't understand. GM foods paranoia is something many Green people still cling to.

It's a fact, though. The post truth business.

I wouldn't say it's a fact, but from all surface appearances there does seem to be more division assumed based on conceptions of who someone is, what they think and why they think it in rather simplistic terms (ie. for Brexit=Racist or Against Trump=Marxist).

I don't believe most people in a face-to-face environment would so quickly resort to oversimplifying the position of who they're talking to.

A strange comedic reference to this kind of thing is Bill Burr (or maybe someone else?) where someone complained about him and he called them up to address their issue. They were reasonable and he kind of said it was more about people wanting/needing to be heard by someone.

I think there is something to that as I do sometimes write here because I just want/hope someone will listen ... not because I think I'm write but because it seems human to act like. The stuff I write PURELY to myself is honest whilst anything in the public domain is necessarily buried under some kind of neurosis I believe.

It certainly was Bill Burr joking about how men love the interent because theyt can go back to being immature kids again where you just walk up to people and say 'I don't like your face!' without caring much about anything. To do this to someone in person would result in broken noses for a lot of people :D

you started this mud sliding against them way before I paid any attention to your sorry behavior. — Olivier5

Believe it or not, I do care about the accuracy of what I write, even if I don't care so much about the tone, so I'd appreciate it if you could just cite the 'mud-slinging' so that I can post a correction to it. Or are you unfamiliar with the term 'mudslinging'?

If you accuse someone of mud-slinging, you are accusing them of making insulting, unfair, and damaging remarks about their opponents.

If I've said anything unfair about the pharmaceutical industry, then I'll be happy to correct it, but you do need to actually cite it in order for me to do that.

If you don't want to see the inaccuracy corrected, then it's rather hard to believe your concern to be genuine.

If I've said anything unfair about the pharmaceutical industry, then I'll be happy to correct it, but you do need to actually cite it in order for me to do that. — Isaac

Tell you what. If I've said anything unfair about you, then I'll be happy to correct it, but you do need to actually cite it in order for me to do that.

I wouldn't say it's a fact, but from all surface appearances there does seem to be more division assumed based on conceptions of who someone is, what they think and why they think it in rather simplistic terms (ie. for Brexit=Racist or Against Trump=Marxist). — I like sushi

My point is that some of this disagreement is artificial, manufactured.

Someone said jokingly upthread that "it would be a nightmare if we all always agreed on everything" (I paraphrase). Hahaha good joke.

I am not particularly afraid of that ever happening... but I can't get out my mind the idea that if we could have summoned some broad political and societal agreement around climate change two decades ago, in line with the scientific consensus, we could have averted or mitigated the worst of it.

We blew that chance because of artificial doubt and manufactured disagreement.

Tell you what. If I've said anything unfair about you, then I'll be happy to correct it, but you do need to actually cite it in order for me to do that. — Olivier5

I don't think it's appropriate to fill a public discussion with minutiae of the individuals involved, I can PM you if you're serious (though that seems unlikely). If I've said anything untrue about the pharmaceutical industry, however, that relates directly to the discussion and is relevant to anyone reading along, so if you'd care (third request now) to just cite where I've misspoken, I'll sort it out straight away.

The way I see it, the two are linked. If you are well in your rights to share widely your general distrust of pharmaceuticals and politicians, then you must agree to being distrusted yourself by those who have a higher trust than you in pharmaceuticals and politicians. Trust is relative, and it works both ways.

I for one am worried of blanket accusations levelled at vast numbers of folks, and that gives me (and others) reason to mistrust you and your approach to this question as overly emotional and hate-filled.

Were you under the impression that you can mistrust others, but others cannot mistrust you?

The matter of whether I trust the pharmaceutical companies or whether you trust me is irrelevant. I don't give a shit if you trust me or not, I'm not talking about trust, I'm talking about public accusations. That's not trust it's defamation. If I've publicly said something about the pharmaceutical industry which defames them, I'd like to know what it is so that I can correct it. You know, my...

disgusting, creepy paranoid shit about the pharmaceutical industry — Olivier5

There's this crisis where millions are dying and one crucial part of the solution is a vaccine. But the only people who can make vaccines are these awful, criminal profiteers (I'm exaggerating only a bit). What do we do? If we say we can't trust the awful, criminal profiteers and tell them where they can stick their vaccine, a lot of people will die whilst we all become immune naturally. — Isaac

Of course we can't trust the pharmaceuticals - they're organisations with criminal convictions for lying. Of course we can't trust the FDA - they have a well known revolving door with the companies they're supposed to check, their former head is now at Pfizer, for God's sake. Of course we can't trust our governments - that politicians lie is such a truism it's a standing joke. And of course we can't trust our academic institutions - most are funded if not directly employed by industry and the replication rate in the medical sciences is less than half. — Isaac

It’s an unbearably sinister view, that there’s this cabal of evil millionaire pharmaceutical companies scheming to get rich by pulling the wool over the citizen’s eyes.
— Wayfarer

It's not a 'view', it's in black and white in the articles of association for the company. They are incorporated to make money for their shareholders. It's not some tinfoilhat-wearing conspiracy theory that pharmaceutical companies try, above all else, to make as large a profit as they can. — Isaac

So which bit of any of that is actually false? I'm not, I presume, required to only write thing you agree with? We're talking about actual defamation, something has to be untrue. Simply pointing out true but negative aspects is not defamation, nor is it disgusting creepy or paranoid.

So what, in the quotes above, is false?

It's creepy and paranoid alright.

It's creepy and paranoid alright. — Olivier5

Why?

You could have asked that question to @Wayfarer who called it "unbearably sinister". That's better phrased than "creepy and paranoid" but the meaning ain't that different...

I didn't ask for the meaning nor for who else I could ask. I'm asking why you think my view 'paranoid'.

Because of its essentialist and absolutist angles. In reality, nobody is perfect. We are all sinners. That company X or Y has done something in the past or even many bad things isn't reason enough to not use their products when they are safe and effective. You know one computer or cellphone maker that hasn't been sued? One car maker that never did anything shoddy? Should we express blanket mistrust for all car and cellphone makers and stop using cars and cellphones?