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[return to "The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins"]
1. genera+Ca[view] [source] 2021-06-04 00:52:14
>>codech+(OP)
This is why people say "do your own research". Because trusting some other authority will end badly, just like this.
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2. colech+xo[view] [source] 2021-06-04 03:08:05
>>genera+Ca
People say "do your own research" but really more than most people are incapable of finding and evaluating information on their own. "Read a bunch of blogs and facebook posts until something fits your pre-judged intuition" doesn't count as research and that is the extent of the abilities of people.

There is something distinctly missing from education even through undergraduate degrees: gathering, evaluating, and criticizing conflicting high quality research.

I took a philosophy class in the spring and one of the most striking things about it wasn't the material but the other students (most of whom a decade or more my junior) reactions to the material. A few of them were openly upset at the disagreement and inconsistency of philosophical opinion on every topic discussed; I didn't really understand it at first but then... What seems to have happened is basically for their entire education up to their senior years in undergrad, these people had only really ever been taught the Truth as though everything presented to them were solid facts and as a corollary, in general things should just be known and true or not.

There is a really big gap there. Sure, there are plenty of things which are quite certain, but people need to be driven to realize the truth doesn't just pop out one day, it is arrived at through a long process of disagreement and development and there are few ideas out there which weren't in their time quite controversial, and there is plenty still which is being presented as True which really has quite a bit of room for doubt.

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