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There's another thread leveraging this article
These four words are helping spread vaccine misinformation - CNN
...but I wanted to look at it from a different angle and with a slightly different tone by examining the practicality of managing public health outcomes based on opinions of non-experts "doing their own research", but with a subject that's not as highly politically charged, and not subject to any sort of mandates or restrictions or even the slightest inkling of government force, or with nearly as much of the vitriol people have for the topic of vaccines.
That topic: "Human Nutrition".
Specifically, the divide between Vegan and Keto advocates.
Mind you, I don't follow either dietary practice, and I'm not advocating for or trash-talking either one of these, that's not the point of the exercise.
I specifically picked this one because both factions have a high percentage of advocates who fancy themselves "well researched" and "well learned" on the topic of health and nutrition. If you know any advocates from either of these camps, you know they pride themselves on reading a lot of content, consuming a lot of documentaries from their favorite providers, and even attending conferences and lectures "Like KetoCon or VegFest" to listen to people with an MD or PhD speak on the topic.
If you know any die-hard vegans, they've well versed in the studies and writings of Dr. Gregor or Dr. Garth Davis or Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn...if you know any die-hard Keto followers, they're all well-versed on the papers by people like Dr. Paul Saladino or Bart Kay PhD.
How do two groups of people, who've all spent huge amounts of time "doing their own research" come up with such wildly different conclusions on the same subject?
There's only a couple possible conclusions
- One side got it really right, and the other got it really wrong
- Both sides got a few things right, and a few things wrong
- Both sides have specifically chosen the research that fits their ideology, and have chosen to focus exclusively on that and ignore all the other research.
How that applies more broadly, and specifically to the topic of sentiments of "parents know what's best for protecting their kids from a disease" or "a person knows what's best for their own health and is well qualified to make those decisions"...is that both of those sentiments fall flat.
There are several non-controversial, non-polarized topics where non-experts have "done their own research on it", and that research may have come a place of complete sincerity and didn't start off biased at all, but have come up with two nearly polar opposite conclusions on the topic.
How much weight should the "findings" of non-experts be given when it comes to something serious? (serious as in, impacts others and not just the person, themselves) IE: if two people have a difference in conclusion between Xbox vs. Playstation, that's largely inconsequential. However, if two people have a difference of opinion on the best way to address the apartment building that's about collapse...that's a different story, and it may be worth considering giving more merit to the "non-expert" opinion that happens to line up with the conclusion that the overwhelming majority of engineers seem to agree with.
These four words are helping spread vaccine misinformation - CNN
...but I wanted to look at it from a different angle and with a slightly different tone by examining the practicality of managing public health outcomes based on opinions of non-experts "doing their own research", but with a subject that's not as highly politically charged, and not subject to any sort of mandates or restrictions or even the slightest inkling of government force, or with nearly as much of the vitriol people have for the topic of vaccines.
That topic: "Human Nutrition".
Specifically, the divide between Vegan and Keto advocates.
Mind you, I don't follow either dietary practice, and I'm not advocating for or trash-talking either one of these, that's not the point of the exercise.
I specifically picked this one because both factions have a high percentage of advocates who fancy themselves "well researched" and "well learned" on the topic of health and nutrition. If you know any advocates from either of these camps, you know they pride themselves on reading a lot of content, consuming a lot of documentaries from their favorite providers, and even attending conferences and lectures "Like KetoCon or VegFest" to listen to people with an MD or PhD speak on the topic.
If you know any die-hard vegans, they've well versed in the studies and writings of Dr. Gregor or Dr. Garth Davis or Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn...if you know any die-hard Keto followers, they're all well-versed on the papers by people like Dr. Paul Saladino or Bart Kay PhD.
How do two groups of people, who've all spent huge amounts of time "doing their own research" come up with such wildly different conclusions on the same subject?
There's only a couple possible conclusions
- One side got it really right, and the other got it really wrong
- Both sides got a few things right, and a few things wrong
- Both sides have specifically chosen the research that fits their ideology, and have chosen to focus exclusively on that and ignore all the other research.
How that applies more broadly, and specifically to the topic of sentiments of "parents know what's best for protecting their kids from a disease" or "a person knows what's best for their own health and is well qualified to make those decisions"...is that both of those sentiments fall flat.
There are several non-controversial, non-polarized topics where non-experts have "done their own research on it", and that research may have come a place of complete sincerity and didn't start off biased at all, but have come up with two nearly polar opposite conclusions on the topic.
How much weight should the "findings" of non-experts be given when it comes to something serious? (serious as in, impacts others and not just the person, themselves) IE: if two people have a difference in conclusion between Xbox vs. Playstation, that's largely inconsequential. However, if two people have a difference of opinion on the best way to address the apartment building that's about collapse...that's a different story, and it may be worth considering giving more merit to the "non-expert" opinion that happens to line up with the conclusion that the overwhelming majority of engineers seem to agree with.
