And our knowledge is not unlimited, new theories have to be done in a constant evolving way. The sheer arrogance of medical doctors towards rare diseases and the resulting ignorance to acknowledge their existence with treatment refusal is what leads people out not only to alternative, but specifically questionable medicine as well.
The “don’t do your own research” - crowd believes more into misprints than a self-researched identical copy of the original document. They place incredibly high authority into printed information as if it was done by higher beings immune to mistakes. Including misunderstanding the concept many definitions in social sciences like law are inherently socially constructed and therefore unable to be the end to everything.
Sending everyone off to Google is a terrible discussion culture and should be moderated away. Many of my searches end in a self referential loop.
GONADS125@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Doing your own research being good/bad depends entirely on one’s ability to scrutinize reliable sources. When I “do my own research” it looks like this.
When my brother “does his own research” he presents horrendously false information from terribly bias and debunked sources. He’s the primary family member which influenced my writing that piece on radicalism.
If someone is unable to comprehend/recognize valid from invalid/biased sources/information, “doing their own research” is very dangerous in fueling further extreme/conspiratorial beliefs.
QAnon and covid/anti-masking are great examples in which people “doing their own research” resulted in a lot of unnecessary suffering and stupidity.
People should learn how to effectively scrutinize sources before they attempt to “research” something themselves. “Doing your own research” can be productive or unproductive, and it depends entirely on the individual.
vexikron@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
So as I see it, there are two actual problems that cause the general perception of doing your own research being bad (which is an astonishingly anti intellectual position / cultural meme).
Popular search engines are hot garbage as they are highly incentivized in numerous ways to promote spectacular nonsense of all kinds which at this point are basically just ‘genres of content’.
An astounding number of people seemingly have no ability to do critical thinking, nor do they know what proper research entails. Basically, this is because education in general is on the decline: Public education no longer has (and in many areas never did) the funding or mindset to teach people /how to think/, and with ever more expensive secondary education from ever lower quality colleges, less people understand /how to do proper research/.
GnomeKat@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
My feeling on the issue is that for a lot of people this sort of thinking is just not needed, at least not on the level to do actual academic research. I don’t think its inherent to who they are but just a reflection of the skills they have needed to develop throughout their lives. There is no pressure to develop a rigorous scrutiny of information if there is no consequences to getting the wrong answer. They can survive and thrive well without it. None of their peers are checking them. They might even do better without those skills, more resources to use developing the skills that matter to their lives.
A person who pursues stem as a career has something to lose if they get the wrong answer. Or other areas like journalism ect, I don’t want to imply its only stem people.
just my 2c
vexikron@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
I agree. The vast majority of our society at this point believe in thousands of relatively, objectively factually false things, in all realms of thinking.
There is a lot of psychological and sociological research on why this happens, and basically it boils down to most people have built a significant amount of their own idea of themselves, their personality around things which if shown to be incorrect would cause them massive cognitive dissonance, so they often ignore it or explain it as fine with basically rhetorical bullshit.
The other main element is that many, many curious people who want to learn are either misled by fraudsters and con artists when they are ignorant and do not have the background knowledge to critically asses what they are being told, and the most common and agreed upon thing: Research and Education take time and money that people do not have.
There is a reason why, historically, after calamities lead to social collapse, you often get either an explosion of cults and superstition, or just a general lack of written records, indicating that practically everyone was too busy working or migrating to do anything intellectual.
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 10 months ago
In college I took a journalism 101 course as an elective, and we spent at least a couple classes on checking if sources were valid.
For one of the assignments the teacher gave us a list of websites and we had to determine which were legit, and why we thought so.
This kind of thing could easily be taught more broadly and earlier.
Though I imagine the right wing would be upset because they rely on a lot of falsehoods.
vexikron@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
I cannot find the study at the moment, but a few years ago a media literacy test was done to a statistically useful amount of Americans as a scientific study.
If you count ‘being able to read multiple news articles from multiple different sources, be able to recognize the history and motivations of the outlet and author, be able to notice differences in vocabulary and phrasing and also be able to notice what is left out of some articles, and what is left out of all articles’ as totally literate…
Then only either 8 or 3 percent of the adult American population is totally literate.
(There were two threshold levels at the top and i cannot remember if the 8 or the 3 percent applied to the description i just gave.)
Further, something approximately /half/ of all adult Americans perform at what is functionally a 7th or 8th grade level of literacy, or worse.
ComradeKhoumrag@infosec.pub 10 months ago
Left wing mainstream media may be pro science, but they rarely report good scientific articles. They report science headlines because their target demographic trusts scientists. So it can be more influential in setting an agenda
GnomeKat@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
Mainstream media… left wing… all corporate media is neo liberal and firmly on the right.
obinice@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Okay, but how do I recognise valid from invalid, bias from unbiased?
Take that sketchy blog you linked me to, it’s just some thing some guy wrote. Can that be trusted? Must I spend significant free time to do in-depth research on all of his references to ascertain if he’s valid and unbiased? How will I know if the sources are valid and unbiased? Will I have to do in-depth research on all of their references too? When does it end?
At some point you just have to trust someone, you can’t unravel the complete truths of anything to their very core. Most of us don’t even have the free time to unravel things more than a little bit.
I see the point you’re making and don’t entirely disagree, critical thinking is something that’s taught and learned, and it’s what makes the difference here. But this idea that we can ever actually know that what we’re reading is reliable or unbiased? I don’t buy it.
I think it’s impossible to actually know if a source is reliable without directly confirming its assertions with your own eyeballs.
And, I think it’s impossible to actually know if a source is endeavouring to actually be unbiased, or if they have an agenda or plan, without literally reading the minds of those involved to ascertain their motives and potential schemes.
At the end of the day, people who place their bets on one side of the fence or the other when it comes to who to trust aren’t so different. Critical thinking and the ability to ask questions constantly and never take anything you hear as truth just on the face of things is what’s most important, I think. That way, you’re at least a little more prepared to spot lies when they crop up.
I guess that’s my point, haha.
Unfortunately after coming to this realisation I don’t know who to trust any more :-( Obviously I can’t trust the media, they’re owned by the rich ruling class and even when they report truths, they do so via a thick veil of bias that makes it difficult to know if I’m getting all the facts, or if I’m missing out on huge important chunks of information entirely.
Take all the reporting on our recent UK strikes, all the reporting was there, but it was all about how disruptive and terrible the strikes were for everyone else, painting a picture of selfish, greedy workers making things worse for everyone else because they only care about themselves. The whole article would barely if at all mention in any depth why they’re striking, why they felt they had no other choice, how this is a symptom of a larger problem with late stage capitalism, etc.
The media is owned by the rich, obviously they’re going to paint the picture they want. And that news source I’m talking about isn’t even privately owned, it’s our tax funded government news organisation.
The government itself is also owned by the rich, our PM is just a few million short of being a literal billionaire, he’s a business capitalist. They can’t be trusted either. They all have their own agendas and reasons to skew facts and trick people.
Take Brexit as a well known example of both private interests AND the government itself tricking millions of people with lies and deception and exploitation to make an absolutely terrible decision that damaged this country irreparably. Everything people saw on TV, websites, social media, newspapers, radio, leaflets, etc, was chock full of disinformation, emotional trickery, etc.
Even the people saying Brexit was a bad idea had their own agendas and clear bias, and while I side with them, can I truly, honestly say that what they said is unbias and definitely reliable with no hidden ulterior motives? Alas, no.
So where do I get my reliable, unbias information even if I have my critical thinking hat on? I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t believe anything, not fully, unless I see it with my own eyes. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that comes to me through other channels is twisted along the way by bias and agendas.
I’m not happy about it, it makes me very sad :-( But yeah, that’s kinda where I’m at these days.
GONADS125@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I totally get where you’re coming from in regard to the importance of critical thinking and media bias/government influence.
As for my blog, the references section is how how I affirm it’s valid information. I used scholarly sources or reputable publications, like Psychology today, and only linked to media sources when it was pertaining to the current radicalism in our politics over here in the US.
But even then, I personally use independent media fact checkers on the media institutions I cited. Cross-checking what those articles state is pretty easy, and having multiple unbiased/less biased sources corroborating reporting is a decent indication it is accurate.
But as you said, recognizing the validity of citations is a learned skill. Speaking personally, this was a skill I developed academically. I often encourage people to take a critical thinking course at a local community college and I believe that should be mandatory curriculum in high school/secondary school.
That certainly provided me with a buffer to the misinformation and radicalism that I’ve seen grip and corrupt so many people I know/knew.
jasory@programming.dev 10 months ago
Weird that you would showcase a vacuous article as an example of “research”.
Have a bit too high of an opinion of yourself don’t you?
GONADS125@lemmy.world 10 months ago
You have no clue what my opinion is of myself. You’re just jumping to conclusions. You talk down to me about being stupid, yet your argument against me is juvenile and half of it is just ad hominem (not valid criticism).
I never claimed to be anything either, so what exactly are you accusing me of being fraudulent about?
What’s wrong with the information I have cited within my articles on radicalism and on violence and mental illness? Do you not like the information? Do you have a complaint about a particular source?
As far as your criticism about my UAP write-up, are you referring to the section on the Nimitz Event in which I mentioned some UAP reminded me of the quantum locking and quantum levitation of super-cooled superconducting? The part where I say that is out of my depth?
Yeah, admitting something is beyond my education/comprehension screams fraud, genius…
The vast majority of my UAP write-up is reporting information. I speculate a few times, but I make that clear and do not make wild claims like you’re misframing it to be. I reported information and expert testimony.
Kevin Day is the one who said the radar was confirmed by Fravor’s (as well as others’) visual observations that day. The pilots said that it wasn’t visual instrument malfunctions, because they saw it with their naked eyes.
If you have a problem with their accounts, take it up with them. I truly don’t care what you think of me or your petty criticism and insults.
I’ll readily admit I’m not educated in avionics, which is why I quoted all of those individuals who were in various roles of expertise.
If your critism is that all of my arguments/beliefs are bogus because it’s out of my depth, then surely you concede on the grounds of expert testimony, as in the Nimitz Event?
Or do you think you know more than our greatest pilots and military personnel?
jasory@programming.dev 10 months ago
“I would not consider my article legitimate research”
Then why did you link it as an example? Nobody cares about what style of essay you like to write, this was clearly you trying to flex.
I write actual research papers and I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to cite my own work (which actually does meet standards of research) as an example; you must just be really proud of that BS in psychology.
“Know more than our greatest pilots and military personnel”
Because they built the sensors and study atmospheric physics? You realise pilots, are pilots, not aeronautical or electrical engineers? Why on earth is their opinion magically more credible? Especially when the claim is completely contradictory to very well established physics. I fact I even gave a reason why their information is overwhelmingly likely to be faulty, due to atmospheric heating.
Before anyone tries to engage in explaining complex physical phenomenon, they should try to have some knowledge about it. I would personally recommend reading a textbook on radar engineering and another in atmospheric physics which pretty much explains nearly every single illusion and sensory error possible.
Since you clearly don’t have the intelligence to follow my recommendation, a simpler circumstance is investigating the second Gulf of Tonkin attack, where “the greatest pilots and military personnel” reported seeing attacking boats (including on sonar, a clearly infallible sensor) and bombed and torpedoed empty ocean. We know it was empty now, because the NVA records show that no ships were their.
This isn’t to denigrate the people involved, it’s simply an notable example that sensors can fail, data can be misinterpreted and people can perceive objects that aren’t there especially if they have been told something’s there beforehand.
FYI, fooling sensors into providing false data is a core part of military strategy, it’s the motivation behind ECM, low-altitude interdiction, etc.
If you even remotely understood the topic you would realise that even the definition of UAP means absolutely nothing. If you have 10s of thousands of hours of sensor data over decades of course you’re going to have inputs you can’t map to physical objects, the fact that you can’t conclusively identify the source of the input doesn’t mean that it’s a magical object, or even a real one.
There’s a reason why physicists and the military aren’t dedicating extraordinary amounts of time on these, because we all know it’s nothing.