Browsing through the opinion section of the BMJ, as I am apt to do, I found this letter from David Oliver. Essentially, the letter is telling people to stay in their lanes and leave the experting to the experts. We are suffering from Dunning-Kruger effect, you see, and we are eroding the trust people have in experts.
Perhaps he would do better to target the real DKs like Piers Morgan and Jeremy Vine. They are the ones who are so ignorant, they don't know how ignorant they are, and dangerous because they have a platform.
I've ran into this many times. How dare the assistant question the master. At the same time, if the master can't defend what they do or believe to non-experts, then that suggests the beliefs/practices are built on a house of cards. I am a teacher. If a student asks me why I am using a specific assessment or practice, I can explain to them the rational.
Good docs/scientists do likewise. Dr. Bridle comes to mind.
When the supposed "experts" have no sources to back their opinions and actions, they are really skating on thin ice. This seems to be commonplace in Canada right now (Tam and our "health" minister who is an economist).
My GP was pretty good over the years, up until this shit-show in explaining why. Sometimes he could not. When he could not, he conceded.
The experts said cloth masks worked, the vaccines would block infection, they were perfectly safe, the scary parts stayed in the arm, and the virus must be from nature, and anyone stating otherwise is. Russian agent/White supremacist (even if they’re nonwhite). They never admitted error. And we’re supposed to keep listening to them.
Fellow Canadians, I just sent this letter to my local newspaper. I suggest you do something similar. Take any of the ideas or wording here that you find useful:
July 15, 2022
Dear editor,
I hope that you will see fit to publish this letter in the Lethbridge Herald:
On July 14 Health Canada announced its approval of the Moderna Spikevax for children from the ages of 6 months to 5 years old. That evening, on the CBC’s “The World at Six”, in a segment starting at minute 8, a pediatrician, Dr. Daniel Flanders, says with regard to convincing vaccine hesitant parents, “When you weigh the risks and benefits of this vaccine it’s really not debatable.” Not debatable? Really?
In response to the Health Canada decision the Canadian Covid Care Alliance put up a couple of videos and a pdf on its website that walk you through the evidence. They conclude that kids do not need the shots, that they don’t work, and that they have NOT been proven safe. Perhaps they are wrong.
But why does the CBC never put anyone on who actually helps us all grapple with the evidence? All you ever hear is something like “After a thorough and independent scientific review of the evidence, the department has determined that the vaccine is safe and effective at preventing COVID-19 …” Okay, but then why not explain why the Canadian Covid Care Alliance is wrong?
Government funding for the CBC is well over a billion a year. Is that why they never present arguments that go against government policy? Preston Manning has called for a commission that is independent of government funding to assess the way that the government has managed the Covid crisis. You can find his proposal at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. You may not agree with anything else that Manning stands for, but I say let’s support him on this. What say you?
"Data is our field and David could learn a lot from the people with more expertise in it than him."
I reached a similar conclusion early on related to understanding what treatments were working, how covid was acting... how the SYSTEM of global covid response was working.
It was and is a complex system with imperfect and incomplete data without a known solution. People that solve highly complex system problems with incomplete and inaccurate data all the time identified key facts and outcomes very quickly.
How? Because we must constantly assess all information from all sources and the importance of it versus assumptions and strategies. Local, foreign, official, anecdotal, expert, engineer.
You just never know who will provide THE key data to unravel the mystery. Maybe it's the team of experts. Or maybe it's the nurse or technician in the corner hesitantly asking, "but what about this?"
Ignore data because of your judgment of the source's stature at your peril.
Perhaps he would do better to target the real DKs like Piers Morgan and Jeremy Vine. They are the ones who are so ignorant, they don't know how ignorant they are, and dangerous because they have a platform.
I've ran into this many times. How dare the assistant question the master. At the same time, if the master can't defend what they do or believe to non-experts, then that suggests the beliefs/practices are built on a house of cards. I am a teacher. If a student asks me why I am using a specific assessment or practice, I can explain to them the rational.
Good docs/scientists do likewise. Dr. Bridle comes to mind.
When the supposed "experts" have no sources to back their opinions and actions, they are really skating on thin ice. This seems to be commonplace in Canada right now (Tam and our "health" minister who is an economist).
My GP was pretty good over the years, up until this shit-show in explaining why. Sometimes he could not. When he could not, he conceded.
David Oliver, anti-expert.
The experts said cloth masks worked, the vaccines would block infection, they were perfectly safe, the scary parts stayed in the arm, and the virus must be from nature, and anyone stating otherwise is. Russian agent/White supremacist (even if they’re nonwhite). They never admitted error. And we’re supposed to keep listening to them.
Fellow Canadians, I just sent this letter to my local newspaper. I suggest you do something similar. Take any of the ideas or wording here that you find useful:
July 15, 2022
Dear editor,
I hope that you will see fit to publish this letter in the Lethbridge Herald:
On July 14 Health Canada announced its approval of the Moderna Spikevax for children from the ages of 6 months to 5 years old. That evening, on the CBC’s “The World at Six”, in a segment starting at minute 8, a pediatrician, Dr. Daniel Flanders, says with regard to convincing vaccine hesitant parents, “When you weigh the risks and benefits of this vaccine it’s really not debatable.” Not debatable? Really?
In response to the Health Canada decision the Canadian Covid Care Alliance put up a couple of videos and a pdf on its website that walk you through the evidence. They conclude that kids do not need the shots, that they don’t work, and that they have NOT been proven safe. Perhaps they are wrong.
But why does the CBC never put anyone on who actually helps us all grapple with the evidence? All you ever hear is something like “After a thorough and independent scientific review of the evidence, the department has determined that the vaccine is safe and effective at preventing COVID-19 …” Okay, but then why not explain why the Canadian Covid Care Alliance is wrong?
Government funding for the CBC is well over a billion a year. Is that why they never present arguments that go against government policy? Preston Manning has called for a commission that is independent of government funding to assess the way that the government has managed the Covid crisis. You can find his proposal at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. You may not agree with anything else that Manning stands for, but I say let’s support him on this. What say you?
Sincerely,
Andrew Blair
These days, all I read about “experts” is that they are always “baffled”. So that leaves ordinary people to make sense of these “baffling events”.
"Data is our field and David could learn a lot from the people with more expertise in it than him."
I reached a similar conclusion early on related to understanding what treatments were working, how covid was acting... how the SYSTEM of global covid response was working.
It was and is a complex system with imperfect and incomplete data without a known solution. People that solve highly complex system problems with incomplete and inaccurate data all the time identified key facts and outcomes very quickly.
How? Because we must constantly assess all information from all sources and the importance of it versus assumptions and strategies. Local, foreign, official, anecdotal, expert, engineer.
You just never know who will provide THE key data to unravel the mystery. Maybe it's the team of experts. Or maybe it's the nurse or technician in the corner hesitantly asking, "but what about this?"
Ignore data because of your judgment of the source's stature at your peril.
Brevity is the soul of wit. - Shakespeare