Quote:
Originally Posted by hipster duck
I expect - and welcome - about 5% dissent to a popular course of action, no matter how "open and shut" or controversial that course of action might be.
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This applies to scientists too. There are people who are completely shocked that scientists were not all on the same page with the pandemic even though the interpretation of what was going on and the majority opinion on the best course of action has at times shifted dramatically. In most public health areas that quality of evidence guiding decisions is not great (e.g. somebody puts two masks on a mannequin and measures aerosols artificially sprayed through it, Twitter blows up, Fauci starts extolling the virtues of double masks that nobody thought of before yesterday).
People often conflate science with scientists and scientific communities. There can be a lot of policing of ideas and false consensus in scientific communities and the real live humans in them are often motivated by factors other than scientific truth, like money and careerism. And most of the time scientific expertise doesn't really directly translate into knowledge about societal-level outcomes; value judgements have to be mixed in to come up with action.
I worry that the range of tolerable opinions is narrowing and a lot of people are not even happy with that 5%. I also notice that dissenting opinions and ideas are often referred to as "dangerous". As if your crazy uncle has to shut up because he might sway the WHO or Theresa Tam and ruin everything. I think your view of dissent as a natural part of a free and open society that works its way toward reasonable equilibria makes a lot more sense and is likely to work better in the long run. I think superficial policed consensus often gives a false sense of buy-in and optimality, that the things we are doing really are the best and not just something we rapidly randomly settled on because of social pressure.
I try to have a life and let live attitude about this stuff. I don't agree with people who think that vaccines are highly dangerous or will cause autism but I don't cut them off. I've had a few interactions where people have (in person) spoken about their hesitation around getting vaccinated and I just kind of shrugged, talked about what I knew, and urged them to talk to a doctor and press the doctor for details about their particular questions (not just make a pronouncement). I wonder how many people would have considered these crazy anti-vax interactions and cut them off or responded in a generic way without listening.