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Doctors told people smoking is healthy in the past. Harvard apologized for pushing sugar as healthy 60 years ago. Flat Earth was the accepted truth at some time

by _up 5y ago

Doctors told people smoking is healthy in the past. Harvard apologized for pushing sugar as healthy 60 years ago. Flat Earth was the accepted truth at some time, and Round Earthers considered nut jobs. Not being able to questioning anything "science has settled", would basically kill advancement.

bsimpson 5y ago
This tweet spoke to me: > all this “believe experts” dogma is legit indistinguishable from the rhetoric of evangelical christians. ffs please just go to church and leave science to the skeptical assholes. - https://twitter.com/micsolana/status/1381237434512502784?s=20 https://twitter.com/micsolana/status/1381237434512502784?s=2...
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  This implies the experts are giving their opinions in the same style as church leaders, which is blatantly false, and probably a little dangerous to equate. "Believe the people who will explain themselves to a degree you'll understand, and who change their opinion when new information is presented." is a more complete way of expressing that thought. There are other ways of expressing that thought, I wouldn't be surprised if `pg has an essay on this. Skeptics are right to be skeptical, but what "skeptic" usually means in modern culture is, "intransigent". The line between healthy skepticism and dogmatic rejection of basic reasoning has blurred substantially.
  - bsimpson 5y ago
    Well said
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      Thanks, I'm thinking particularly about the hay anti-vaxxers are making about J&J right now, for some reason the whole situation bothers me.
  - rorykoehler 5y ago
    You still shouldn’t trust anyone expert or not. If they write a paper read it and incorporate its findings into your understanding of the world but don’t take what they say as gospel. This is what most people get wrong about experts.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      But didn't the expert write the paper? how do I trust what's in that paper anyway? Shouldn't I replicate the results myself first before I make any changes to my beliefs? But then again, how do I trust my own results, someone could have tainted them, or the experiment itself could include bias or just be poorly constructed to eliminate confounding variables, which would of course result in an outcome that isn't useful! A better option would be to eschew certainty. Stop trying to "know" things, and get comfortable making decisions based on an incomplete understanding of information. It's really this obsession with certainty that keeps getting people into trouble.
      - rorykoehler 5y ago
        My own world view is based on uncertainty and knowing that there is a vast, almost infinite, quantity of unknown stuff out there. I think the two concepts are not equivalent.
    - Paradigma11 5y ago
      And yet, there are people with limited resources, time or intellectual abilities for which this is not feasable.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      I think you're correct to say that you shouldn't take what experts say as gospel. But every individual's time and resources are limited; if I had to verify the result of everything I read from first principles, I would be doing literally nothing else with my life (no time to eat or sleep, either). People need to do their best to judge how trustworthy a source is, and make their own decisions, but remain open to conflicting information if their trustworthy sources are later found to be wrong. And people also need to accept that any decision they make based on that information isn't 100% certain.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  It seems to me that "believe experts" is somewhat analogous to Catholicism, and the contrary to Protestantism. And I think that Christians over the centuries have had very good critiques of both amid the wars and persecutions. The experts are not necessarily reliable, may be corrupt, need to have checks and balances. But the average person is not as smart, not as educated, and can be led astray. It's a never ending conflict because there is no simple answer as to which is best.
Wohlf 5y ago
Nutritional science is particularly bad. Trans fats were considered the healthy alternative to saturated fats, salt has been made a boogeyman on shaky gorunds, eggs have flipped between being considered healthy and unhealthy a few times, and the food pyramid/low fat movement pushed carb heavy diets that contributed to the obesity epidemic.

by _up 5y ago

bsimpson 5y ago

This tweet spoke to me: > all this “believe experts” dogma is legit indistinguishable from the rhetoric of evangelical christians. ffs please just go to church and leave science to the skeptical assholes. - https://twitter.com/micsolana/status/1381237434512502784?s=20 https://twitter.com/micsolana/status/1381237434512502784?s=2...

TameAntelope 5y ago
This implies the experts are giving their opinions in the same style as church leaders, which is blatantly false, and probably a little dangerous to equate. "Believe the people who will explain themselves to a degree you'll understand, and who change their opinion when new information is presented." is a more complete way of expressing that thought. There are other ways of expressing that thought, I wouldn't be surprised if `pg has an essay on this. Skeptics are right to be skeptical, but what "skeptic" usually means in modern culture is, "intransigent". The line between healthy skepticism and dogmatic rejection of basic reasoning has blurred substantially.
- bsimpson 5y ago
  Well said
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    Thanks, I'm thinking particularly about the hay anti-vaxxers are making about J&J right now, for some reason the whole situation bothers me.
- rorykoehler 5y ago
  You still shouldn’t trust anyone expert or not. If they write a paper read it and incorporate its findings into your understanding of the world but don’t take what they say as gospel. This is what most people get wrong about experts.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    But didn't the expert write the paper? how do I trust what's in that paper anyway? Shouldn't I replicate the results myself first before I make any changes to my beliefs? But then again, how do I trust my own results, someone could have tainted them, or the experiment itself could include bias or just be poorly constructed to eliminate confounding variables, which would of course result in an outcome that isn't useful! A better option would be to eschew certainty. Stop trying to "know" things, and get comfortable making decisions based on an incomplete understanding of information. It's really this obsession with certainty that keeps getting people into trouble.
    - rorykoehler 5y ago
      My own world view is based on uncertainty and knowing that there is a vast, almost infinite, quantity of unknown stuff out there. I think the two concepts are not equivalent.
  - Paradigma11 5y ago
    And yet, there are people with limited resources, time or intellectual abilities for which this is not feasable.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    I think you're correct to say that you shouldn't take what experts say as gospel. But every individual's time and resources are limited; if I had to verify the result of everything I read from first principles, I would be doing literally nothing else with my life (no time to eat or sleep, either). People need to do their best to judge how trustworthy a source is, and make their own decisions, but remain open to conflicting information if their trustworthy sources are later found to be wrong. And people also need to accept that any decision they make based on that information isn't 100% certain.
perl4ever 5y ago
It seems to me that "believe experts" is somewhat analogous to Catholicism, and the contrary to Protestantism. And I think that Christians over the centuries have had very good critiques of both amid the wars and persecutions. The experts are not necessarily reliable, may be corrupt, need to have checks and balances. But the average person is not as smart, not as educated, and can be led astray. It's a never ending conflict because there is no simple answer as to which is best.

Wohlf 5y ago

Nutritional science is particularly bad. Trans fats were considered the healthy alternative to saturated fats, salt has been made a boogeyman on shaky gorunds, eggs have flipped between being considered healthy and unhealthy a few times, and the food pyramid/low fat movement pushed carb heavy diets that contributed to the obesity epidemic.