> A recent example is Dr Jordan Peterson talking about climate change. He lacks even a basic understanding but was sitting there talking about it with the confidence of a climate expert and as he is a Doctor people take him seriously about everything and it’s just god damn awful.
Ironically, I see this on HN, too. Not always, but frequently enough.
What I'm talking about is comment sections (often about economics, climate change, etc.) with commenters who post with iron-clad confidence, only to be contradicted by other commenters who take the opposite position with the same confidence.
I read these dueling comments and think, "Everyone seems so sure of themselves. But I have no clue as to who is correct here."
I find this jarring because: a) somebody has to be wrong in these wars of dueling facts and b) I'm surprised because I feel that HN is enriched with reasonably bright people who I'd expect would be more circumspect with their comments.
I'm not surprised about the abject confusion that the general public has when discussing similar topics, especially since I am often confused reading HN comments. I know that's arrogant of me, but there's truth in there, too.
tldr: If I can't get a handle on dueling "facts" when reading HN, how the hell can I expect Joe Rogan or his listeners to do the same?
> I'm surprised because I feel that HN is enriched with reasonably bright people
The biggest misconception is that an expert in some field(especially STEM) has “common sense” in other areas. My former classmate is doing a PhD in automation, but claimed vaccines are harmful and he’d rather get sick “naturally”. The same goes for politics, economics, and other fields. It’s like people can’t imagine they might be completely ignorant in the areas outside their field of work.
Citing sources would be a nice plus, but I think it still suffers from the issue that primary research always has caveats and limitations. And you need a certain amount of domain knowledge to know how strong the conclusions are.
I've come to believe that "critical thinking" is often a matter of knowing which expert to trust. And sometimes, knowing who to trust is difficult.
I wouldn't say so. Original sources can be in disagreement with each other, and can be wrong. Without much effort, you can generally find some scholarly article to use as ammunition for whatever argument you want to make, and then find another one to make the opposite case. And of course, increasingly, such articles don't hold up to much scrutiny anyway.
Ironically, I see this on HN, too. Not always, but frequently enough.
What I'm talking about is comment sections (often about economics, climate change, etc.) with commenters who post with iron-clad confidence, only to be contradicted by other commenters who take the opposite position with the same confidence.
I read these dueling comments and think, "Everyone seems so sure of themselves. But I have no clue as to who is correct here."
I find this jarring because: a) somebody has to be wrong in these wars of dueling facts and b) I'm surprised because I feel that HN is enriched with reasonably bright people who I'd expect would be more circumspect with their comments.
I'm not surprised about the abject confusion that the general public has when discussing similar topics, especially since I am often confused reading HN comments. I know that's arrogant of me, but there's truth in there, too.
tldr: If I can't get a handle on dueling "facts" when reading HN, how the hell can I expect Joe Rogan or his listeners to do the same?