IMO We all "stick with the pack" on some things and go our own way on others so it’s not entire personalities. Because we tend to specialize, a clearly overused strategy is to rely on others for what we disregard.
Discussion
We all default to the consensus on issues we are not informed about, which are most issues because we specialize. If I want to learn how to make the best steel for a given application, I look it up.
The people I'm talking about stick to the consensus even in light of overwhelming evidence against that is presented to them. They just don't allow themselves to see it, or they find some way to misinterpret it or take a perverse perspective, or more often than not resort to ad hominem attacks, in order to maintain their prior belief system.
I believe a signficant fraction of scientsists do this even within their own field of expertise. Out of fear. It takes bravery to present a paper that shows that everyone has been wrong all this time. The reward is great, so you would think that would be enough incentive, but today there is often too much risk that you will lose your funding.
Consider the thousands of medical professionals who spoke out against lockdowns, or masks, or vaccinating into a pandemic when the virus was sure to mutate, or the risk that mRNA needed more testing, or the efficacy of ivermectin, or anything else that differed from the consensus. They were all ostracised, many lost their licenses, many doctors and nurses here in New Zealand still haven't gotten their jobs back and we are desperately short of medical staff. How likely is it that next time someone will bravely speak out what they believe? Practically none. That means that medical science can no longer correct mistakes. Every mistake becomes dogma that can never be overturned. That only leads to bad places.
How many in New Zealand ?
Seems to be a global shortage of medical staff?
Shit working conditions and long working hours and now just germs everywhere?
Are they all becoming software developers?
I can never follow your threads Mike. People reply to you or you reply to others and other comments in the threads never load in for me on Damus..
I'm sorry to hear that. I would recommend morespeech except that I should really be recommending gossip except I should be recommending something that runs on a phone.
lol. something that doesn't require compiling - someday maybe? :)
btw #[2] i use nostr.band when i cant access from clients, if that helps
You are exactly right. And within science this perversion is tragically leading to the practice of "science" itself becoming anti-science. In my experience it's more than a "significant fraction" - it's almost everyone.
I wrote a short essay on science and covid in Oct 2021. Copied here to Nostr now: #[0]
That’s the thing. People who don’t specialize in a thing often think they know more about the thing than those who do specialize in it. It’s funny and sad to witness.