<story><title>Why “Trusting the Science” Is Complicated</title><url>https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/why-trusting-the-science-is-complicated/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jennyyang</author><text>Sometimes, the &amp;quot;science&amp;quot; is wrong. Everything from low-fat diets, to high sodium diets, to DDT, to MSG. Many of the things that we have literally been indoctrinated with have been fully wrong.&lt;p&gt;Most recently, when the government, most especially the Surgeon General and even Fauci, told people that masks don&amp;#x27;t work. That infuriated me and they instantly lost credibility with me. And it caused a split in Americans where too many believed that masks didn&amp;#x27;t work, even after they changed their tune. It was absolutely unnecessary to lie and it killed people.&lt;p&gt;So read the science. Listen to the science. But read up further, and make educated decisions. Don&amp;#x27;t just listen to &amp;quot;experts&amp;quot; blindly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MaxBarraclough</author><text>&amp;gt; But read up further, and make educated decisions. Don&amp;#x27;t just listen to &amp;quot;experts&amp;quot; blindly.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see that being very practical. The average person simply isn&amp;#x27;t qualified to read scientific literature and draw their own conclusions. I doubt I&amp;#x27;d be able to make much sense of a research paper on virology or epidemiology, despite that I consider myself scientifically literate in the general sense.&lt;p&gt;The answer is to have credible communicators of science. The best way to do that is with credible institutions. If the assumption is that this is impossible, the game is already lost.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; the Surgeon General and even Fauci, told people that masks don&amp;#x27;t work. That infuriated me and they instantly lost credibility with me. And it caused a split in Americans where too many believed that masks didn&amp;#x27;t work, even after they changed their tune. It was absolutely unnecessary to lie and it killed people.&lt;p&gt;Broadly agree, although I think anti-mask sentiments are due to mindless partisanship rather than listening to Fauci&amp;#x27;s early lie.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why “Trusting the Science” Is Complicated</title><url>https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/why-trusting-the-science-is-complicated/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jennyyang</author><text>Sometimes, the &amp;quot;science&amp;quot; is wrong. Everything from low-fat diets, to high sodium diets, to DDT, to MSG. Many of the things that we have literally been indoctrinated with have been fully wrong.&lt;p&gt;Most recently, when the government, most especially the Surgeon General and even Fauci, told people that masks don&amp;#x27;t work. That infuriated me and they instantly lost credibility with me. And it caused a split in Americans where too many believed that masks didn&amp;#x27;t work, even after they changed their tune. It was absolutely unnecessary to lie and it killed people.&lt;p&gt;So read the science. Listen to the science. But read up further, and make educated decisions. Don&amp;#x27;t just listen to &amp;quot;experts&amp;quot; blindly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>redisman</author><text>Science is always wrong to begin with and it gets close to a correct answer with iteration. It’s actually not at all a solved problem how to communicate “science” to the public. Your comment is a perfect example of one of these annoying fallacies I see around covid messaging. Don’t you think they “changed their tune” because they got better data that showed that masks are helpful? You seem mad that they couldn’t conjure clinical data in early 2020 that showed that masks cut the transmission by X%</text></comment>