One brief thought on this arguing-with-skeptics passage from my column today, because I suspect some readers find the idea that skeptics could be operating in good faith to be hopelessly naive:pic.twitter.com/cpzKiqO0ux
1. Writer, The Nation https://www.thenation.com/authors/jeet-heer/ … 2. email: jeetheer1967 at gmail dot com 3. Twitter essayist 4. Drawn by Joe Ollmann
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One brief thought on this arguing-with-skeptics passage from my column today, because I suspect some readers find the idea that skeptics could be operating in good faith to be hopelessly naive:pic.twitter.com/cpzKiqO0ux
Ross Douthat Retweeted James Surowiecki
Here's a relevant example from this morning: All-purpose skeptic Alex Berenson dismisses the reality of long Covid, and James Surowiecki accuses him of lying about the evidence:https://mobile.twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1417457454393270309 …
Ross Douthat added,
Now Surowiecki is right and Berenson is wrong. But Berenson's dismissive attitude toward complexes of chronic symptoms is a very commonplace medical attitude vis-a-vis other kinds of chronic illnesses, the kind that have crept up on society rather than sweeping in like Covid.
In other words, his crankish contrarianism has brought him to the same position re: long Covid that stolid incuriosity in the medical establishment has long induced re: chronic fatigue, chronic Lyme, and other illnesses.
Which is really interesting in a sociology-of-medicine sense! But to experience medical indifference and incuriosity in establishment contexts gives you a pretty clear sense of how people can lock themselves into mistaken views *sincerely*, not just as grifts.
Notably, a lot of people with chronic conditions end up with the same attitude toward an indifferent medical establishment that the establishment currently takes toward Covid skeptics: They must be liars, corrupt, on the take.
I don't think that's the right attitude. In my own attempt to write about this, in the case of Lyme Disease, I try to assume a basic good faith among the chronic-Lyme skeptics, even though I think the evidence that they're wrong is very clear:https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Places-Memoir-Illness-Discovery/dp/0593237366/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Deep+Places&qid=1626795082&sr=8-1 …
Again, the broad point is right but you're conflating 2 different types of skepticism: the fuddy-duddy skepticism of a medical establishment that doesn't listen to patients & the ginned up skepticism of a professional contrarian. Both are wrong, but from different sources
This is true, so far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far. It’s not like ‘professional contrarian’ is a broad demographic group (even though it may seem so on Twitter). If professional contrarians were the only vaccine skeptical people, there wouldn’t be a vaccine coverage problem.
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