The "listen to experts/science" crowd needs to see the problem: well-credentialed experts IN YOUR FIELD have confident, contradictory assertions all over the place. So it turns into "which experts" which turns into "ones I like"—not really a manageable process for ordinary folks.
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We turn to health authorities to try to manage this—the obvious and my preferred solution—but let's just say that it's pretty clear that this hasn't been, to put it politely, a smooth and consistent process. I say this because I want it to be better, but reality is reality.
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Anyway, all the intra-expert (yes, intra-expert: the credentialed experts do NOT have a consensus on many key questions) and intra-elite debate (fine, put me in it if you want) but doesn't solve our problem. Doesn't even address it.
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(Folks, feel free NOT to send me your opinions on Nate Silver, or any single pundit right after I kinda said excessive focus on a single person isn't addressing the problem. Intra-elite debates or jostling are... they are what they are. Uninteresting. Nobody has crystal balls).
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Let me add this here. I have seen the full range of opinion on FDAs steps from credentialed experts. No surprise! It's a very tough moment to navigate and NOBODY has "the" absolute right answer because we aren't solving a quadratic equation here.https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1382345267148685313 …
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Conclusion for now, from my first newsletter titled "Against Nostalgia." We are in a transition: a mismatch between our reality and our cultural and institutional capacity to manage it. Nostalgia for the past (common yearning) isn't going to solve this. https://www.theinsight.org/p/against-nostalgia …pic.twitter.com/jbRLSVgPph
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Gatekeepers—even weakened—and public health authorities have a huge role to play but the question is way beyond "message". It's about developing capacity for this new public sphere. Constantly saying "listen to experts" (which ones?) doesn't address this.https://twitter.com/matthewherper/status/1382369855861616642 …
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Serious? Without claiming this person is right, or that I agree, how about a public health professor at Johns Hopkins University with an MD and an MPH and who teaches public health policy? Examples are numerous and "expert" opinion is all over the place. https://twitter.com/GarrSigmund/status/1382378733248581634 …pic.twitter.com/7zKd8j30a2
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First, I'm "ranting" about my actual area of expertise for once!
By your logic, you should only listen to me on this. Two, what I think about the surgeon general is irrelevant. Three, what did you think about the previous surgeon general and his opinions?https://twitter.com/grtamericanovel/status/1382370181838671874 …This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread -
Congratulations, you have just become a Twitter pundit and proven my point: if we are supposed to pick and choose which surgeon general to trust, "stop ranting and listen to the surgeon general" does not solve the problem I'm trying to explain. https://twitter.com/grtamericanovel/status/1382383598221856771 …
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*takes a risk to write outside her core field for a year because it's a global crisis* *tries for once to actually comment on her core field, where she has book, articles, all the classic credentials*

pic.twitter.com/dvR91NrAN3
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To conclude the day, ACIP meeting was interesting and it included assertions from experts ranging from one calling the pause "devastating" to others saying restarting now would be "unacceptable". These are necessarily "no single right answer" questions.https://twitter.com/pickettjessica/status/1382445712122724359 …
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So, simultaneously, we have: a new public sphere which our institutions weren't designed for; fairly robust intra-expert disagreement on the right answer to many key questions (unsurprising given the moment); and lots of decisions under uncertainty. *That's* the challenge.
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End of conversation
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