I will acknowledge that everyone has an opinion, and mine is no more valid than anyone else’s. And I will admit that one of my hugest flaws is my inability to let someone say something incorrect or ridiculous. I feel like it’s “my job to educate the uneducated,” as my sister would put it.
At the same time, the number of experts the internet has given us, thanks to sites like WebMD, is incredible. Covid-19 has been a great demonstrator of that.
I work for a School of Public Health. We have been buried in Covid-19 research for the past three months, and the recent saliva test that just came out was developed in our institute. I’m not saying the people I work with know everything, but they absolutely know more than I do, and I can pretty much guarantee that they know more than “my sister’s best friend’s cousin who is a Director of Nursing at a Long Term Care facility in Kansas.” I also know that what THEY know is backed up by other people with their same credentials.
People throw out the term “herd immunity” as if they know what it actually means and how we can achieve it. They think throwing us all into the world (aka a “chicken pox party”) will create herd immunity. Except it won’t – and this isn’t the chicken pox. But when you show someone 15 scholarly articles that prove that, and they come back with one YouTube video from an ER doctor in Bakersfield, California, as a way of refuting, you’ve lost.
They claim masks work – don’t work. Droplets can spread – can’t spread. All of this garnered with op/ed pieces in The Times or their “friends.” While the experts say, “we don’t know, we’re not sure, we think, so far, it appears…” there are a whole bunch of people without credentials telling us “facts.”
People go to school for years – they get advanced degrees – they write papers, books, journals, do research, get peer reviewed, and have 40-50 year careers – and their expertise is put on the same level as someone that read a book on Amazon – through Audible.
Critical thinking skills are necessary for life – but science is not an opinion. It’s a theory…that is backed up by evidence. A study that shows that if you take 5,000 mg of Vitamin C, you will beat Covid-19, is awesome. But where was it conducted? How? How many studies? How many participants in THIS study? There are a lot of variables to creating a scientific hypothesis and theory, and most of the opinions on the internet do not take them into account. I PROMISE you, the memes do not. Someone is in their basement creating memes that will get SHARED – they don’t care what they say or if they’re true – they just want them shared.
And yet, when someone asks “Why is the church not allowed to open, but Walmart is,” and you explain the economic factors involved in single parents on food stamps and how you can Zoom church, but you can’t Zoom breakfast, they bring out their sister’s mother’s cousin who tells you that “this is how you can do church.” Except because we’re not experts, we forget it’s NOT just “six feet apart and wear masks.” There are a whole lot of other variables. Your sister’s mother’s cousin does NOT have more knowledge than scientists and doctors with hundreds of years of research behind them.
Same with law. We’re screaming about our rights over having to wear masks or stay at home orders. When someone with a degree or knowledge or experience or expertise in constitutional law explain that that is not what “freedom of assembly” means, rather than read and learn, they jump to argue. Because you can READ the Constitution does not mean you can understand it.
I posted something recently that someone misunderstood (I take responsibility for perhaps not being completely clear). When she attacked me, I suggested she reread my post. She did NOT reread my post. She had decided that what she interpreted was accurate and correct, and when I suggested she had misread me, rather than GO BACK AND LOOK, she stood on the same soapbox ripping me apart. Having been told that she had misread something, she was not interested in going back to see if that was true. HER interpretation was all that mattered. Even after I explained it to her, it was MY fault for not being clear.
I understand that people want answers, and the experts aren’t giving them to us quick enough – but we’re getting them as quickly as they are – no one is hiding them. But they don’t know what is going on. Unfortunately, people who scored 600 on their reading comprehension SATs suddenly believe they have the ability to comprehend data that others have spent their whole lives learning how to comprehend.
From a professional perspective, how offensive is that?
When my auto mechanic says “your car needs XYZ,” I believe him. If I go for a second opinion, it’s to another MECHANIC – not to my kid’s guitar teacher. When a doctor says I need surgery, I may see another surgeon. I don’t go to the mechanic as he’s fixing my radiator and say, “GI doctor says it’s my appendix – what do you think?” To which they say, “My mother’s cleaning lady says that pains in the stomach are generally the result of too many pushups.” “Great – I’ll stop doing pushups.” And then my appendix ruptures.
Sounds kind of silly, doesn’t it?
I’m not saying we should blindly believe everything that is told to us. The whole point of critical thinking is to help discern valid information and to make our own opinions. But we do that with professional information behind us – not with our sister’s friend who sweeps the floor in the nursing home. But data is dangerous in the hands of people that truly don’t know how to interpret it.
We are not experts. No matter what we think, unless we are actual experts, we are not experts. To claim that because we can read a medical text, we have medical knowledge, is dangerous to the people we interact with, and to ourselves. Yesterday someone with a high school education said to me “You and your experts are wrong. I believe I am 100% correct.” When did we get so arrogant? REALLY?
In 2012, we were hit by Superstorm Sandy. They evacuated my complex. I scoffed, because “it never floods here,” and “we’ve been through this before.” But I left, because I didn’t want to be “that guy” (airlifted off the roof because I was an idiot).
My apartment ended up under 3 feet of water – destroyed. Had I been there, things flying could have killed me. A woman who refused to leave was stuck in her apartment because the door was pressured by the water. They almost didn’t get her out.
Because she knew more than experts.
By all means, read. But read the RIGHT stuff. News media wants ratings – especially now, with 5,000 channels. They will sensationalize anything. Go to the source – use reliable media – NPR, medical or law school libraries – or in this case, the CDC. By all means, don’t be a sheep.
But there’s very little difference between being a sheep and a mule. One follows blindly and one refuses to follow stubbornly – neither have good reason.
At the end of the day, please remember that only experts are experts.
Don’t take my word for it – look it up.
Love,
Lili