Yes, I felt that I was missing a point, thank you for pointing to the thing you found interesting in it.
it’s easier to put yourself into the other person’s ontology and get the message across in terms that they would understand, rather than trying to explain all of science.
Is a thing that makes sense. But I think the quote doesn’t point at it very well. First a big chunk of it is asserting that belief in witchcraft theory of disease is similar to belief in germ theory of disease. (I don’t know how well average person understands what are viruses)
Second where it talks about convincing by making concepts similar it’s weird. For example
… people give untreated well water to their babies. The children regularly get diarrhea, and many of them die (...) if they boil the water, it will kill these bacteria. A month later she’s back, and they’re still giving the babies the dirty water. After all, if a stranger came into your community and told you that your children got influenza because of witchcraft, would you respond by going out and slaughtering a sheep?
Influenza is much smaller risk than cholera (quick search says CFR for untreated cholera 25-50%, for flu 0.1%) and boiling water is much less costly than slaughtering sheep (it’s likely to result in prison time where I live). (EDIT to add: I didn’t check those numbers so don’t trust them too much, they’re just first numbers I could find and they roughly match my expectations)
Again thanks for explaining. (at least for me) your comment made the point much better than the quote in the post.
Yes, I felt that I was missing a point, thank you for pointing to the thing you found interesting in it.
Is a thing that makes sense. But I think the quote doesn’t point at it very well. First a big chunk of it is asserting that belief in witchcraft theory of disease is similar to belief in germ theory of disease. (I don’t know how well average person understands what are viruses)
Second where it talks about convincing by making concepts similar it’s weird. For example
Influenza is much smaller risk than cholera (quick search says CFR for untreated cholera 25-50%, for flu 0.1%) and boiling water is much less costly than slaughtering sheep (it’s likely to result in prison time where I live). (EDIT to add: I didn’t check those numbers so don’t trust them too much, they’re just first numbers I could find and they roughly match my expectations)
Again thanks for explaining. (at least for me) your comment made the point much better than the quote in the post.