Great article! I especially liked the analogy with the explainability of physics.
One tangential comment here:
It seems clear to me that most of us made a choice to trust things like vaccines, or classical mechanics, or inorganic chemistry models, or the matrix-inverse solution to a linear regression, way before we “understood” them. We trusted them due to arguments from authority.
I think many of us test some of the statements other people make. And over time, we form an opinion on how trustworthy certain people and groups of people are. If you do the math yourself often enough and it always matches what people say, if you read studies yourself sometimes and turn out to more differentiated than their summaries, you can gain some trust in ‘science’ (though maybe less in journalists). If, on the other hand, you are lied to regularly, and you are promised jobs and tax breaks and they don’t materialize, then I don’t find it surprising that some people don’t trust vaccines.
If, on the other hand, you are lied to regularly, and you are promised jobs and tax breaks and they don’t materialize, then I don’t find it surprising that some people don’t trust vaccines.
Kind of unrelated to this article, or rather, one of many tangents that can diverge from the topic, but I actually really like this idea… I don’t think I ever considered this perspective when thinking about “applied epistemology”, that some people’s place in society might make them pre-disposed to low levels of trust, not because of the environment, but rather because of how often “society” itself lies to them (either via things like politicians making promises of jobs or sugar-oil bars making promises of losing weight… and other obvious falsehoods that people end up not being immunized to in their upbringing)
Great article! I especially liked the analogy with the explainability of physics.
One tangential comment here:
I think many of us test some of the statements other people make. And over time, we form an opinion on how trustworthy certain people and groups of people are. If you do the math yourself often enough and it always matches what people say, if you read studies yourself sometimes and turn out to more differentiated than their summaries, you can gain some trust in ‘science’ (though maybe less in journalists). If, on the other hand, you are lied to regularly, and you are promised jobs and tax breaks and they don’t materialize, then I don’t find it surprising that some people don’t trust vaccines.
Kind of unrelated to this article, or rather, one of many tangents that can diverge from the topic, but I actually really like this idea… I don’t think I ever considered this perspective when thinking about “applied epistemology”, that some people’s place in society might make them pre-disposed to low levels of trust, not because of the environment, but rather because of how often “society” itself lies to them (either via things like politicians making promises of jobs or sugar-oil bars making promises of losing weight… and other obvious falsehoods that people end up not being immunized to in their upbringing)
Or their immunization against these falsehoods being exactly what causes the problem.