Georgio Parisi is a reasonable sort of chap, you might think. Educated. Intelligent. Which is why they made him President of Italy’s foremost scientific institute, the famous Accademia dei Lincei. Which is why he might be worth at least listening to when he goes on the telly and warns people that unless they had their vaccines, there would be 500 deaths per day. [1] Instead, he received a barrage of of abuse, invective and threats. And of course, 500 people died per day.
As Georgio himself muses-why all this hostility to science? Especially from people who use its benefits, such as evidence based medicine, computers and jet transport. Parisi speculates that the short attention span required for modern things like Tik Tok and face book demand instant reaction rather than careful consideration. We suspect that he is being too kind.
For us the great dividing line is between those of us who think (readers of LSS are a good example here) and those who do not. Those who assess and check their evidence, and those who take a single data point, no context, and screech it for all they’re worth. We’ve seen them do it in climate science, vaccination, economics……….exactly the way that rival football supporters grunt at each other until a fight breaks out. The same mindset that leads to murderous ethnic conflicts across the world. Because they are ignorant of one simple truth: knowledge and belief are two entirely different things. How much longer can we pander to ignorance?
#reason #education #learning #vaccination #science #knowledge
[1]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/25/tiktok-global-crisis-world-trust-scientists-online-attack
Learning, Science and Society 