To be fair to Joe he wasn't giving medical advice, but licensed doctors on his show were.
If you cherry-pick your experts enough, you’ll be able to find one that agrees with you, no matter how absurd your position.
I’ll also note that much of the time the licensed doctors he invites on aren’t actually in relevant specialties at all. And in many cases they are grifters in some way or another.
Don't like to defend Joe Rogan, but he literally had the guy that laughed him off at CNN (Sanjay Gupta).
While he is often pushy with dumb ideas he will often have guests that contradict him. I stopped listening to him regularly because hearing his opinion along so many guests gets kind of old, and he isn't the smartest guy in the world so it gets boring even faster. But I wouldn't characterize him as closeminded.
I reserve the same right to call out Joe Rogan when he's wrong. He is not special.
The WHO screwed up for systemic reasons that commentators, at the time and without the benefit of hindsight, were able to call out. Specifically, they repeatedly claimed there was "no evidence" for cloth masks and "no evidence" for aerosol transmission. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and the organisation meant to coordinate a global medical response should know that. Many respiratory viruses spread by aerosol transmission, and it would have been responsible to say "we do not have enough evidence to say how COVID spreads yet." Additionally, there was evidence for the efficacy of cloth masks, but the papers were studying whether cloth masks were adequate replacements for surgical masks and N95 respirators in hospital settings, and they (rightly) concluded that cloth masks weren't as effective as actual PPE, from which the WHO (wrongly) concluded that cloth masks weren't effective at all.
I am unaware of any situation outside of pure mathematics where logic is the sole arbiter. I am curious to hear about such situations, though.
Edit to add: not sure if I am alone in this, but I also disagree with the author's characterization that the purpose of thinking about fallacies is to understand how people come to wrong conclusions. I think it has much more to do with the structure of an argument. It's not "you have come to this wrong conclusion by treating this fallacy as a good argument". It's more like "you believe this for whatever personal reasons you might have. You are trying to convince me to believe it as well, but you are failing to do so because your argument is not valid". I.e. it is more about the rhetoric than it is about coming to wrong beliefs in the first place.
Rogan has millions of listeners who take advice from him and shape their worldviews around his. For many people he is more authoritative on health than public health officials like Fauci, even while not having a fraction of the experience or expertise.
>How come people don't push more on the 'experts' like Wolensky or Fauci
There's been no shortage of criticism of Fauci and others, to include character attacks, conspiracy theories and death threats.
That's not really the point but, for some, yes, he does have more influence. That "some" apparently includes you.
>You don't think he gets negative press or death threats?
Again, not the point. You asked why Fauci and others weren't challenged. My response was that, not only is he challenged, but he's also been the target of personal attacks, conspiracy theories, and death threats.
>Rogan has a diverse assortment on his show, and admits he is not an expert
Yet, he continuously pushes a counter-mainstream narrative that you seem to be repeating here.
>However, when bodies of so-called authority or expert credentials make policy you and your family will have to live by
To each his/her own, but I think those credentials are meaningful. We've had expert public health guidance for decades brought to us by the "so-called experts" and it's generally served us well, as evidenced by the fact that you've probably never had polio, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, etc. And, you're also not likely to die from a case of diarrhea.
>You are free to go after Rogan.
Yes. I know. But, I wasn't going after him, as much as pointing out the reality that people (seemingly yourself included) respect his opinions over those of public health officials.
I believe he has had on: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Dr. Michael Osterholm and and Dr. Peter Hotez. That doesn't look to be cherry-picking experts to push an absurd position.
So? Some experts are more experts than others?
This time I'm sure the consensus/"the science" has got it right though.
Because there are examples of the medical community getting it wrong (btw they did not get it wrong when it came to opiates - everyone knew opiates were addictive) doesn't mean they are always wrong.
Also there is no way for you to figure out who the quacks are (of course they exist, there are MDs suggesting insane things all the time) and who the correct but contrarians are.
So, by default you assume if the opinion is not mainstream it must have validity.
Now, I'm not saying the opposite is true. I'm saying it is just as bad (or maybe even worse statistically) to form an opinion because it isn't mainstream as it is to form an opinion just because it IS mainstream.
You're not a critical thinker because you dismiss the mainstream because it is mainstream. Just the opposite.
This recent trend of treating science as an unquestionable reminds me much more of religion than of science. At this point in the covid game where quite a bit of the accepted science has changed, it seems that only people's egos are keeping them from seeing this.
What is happening especially now is precisely that, this whole 'misinformation' drive is to encourage the dismissal of critical opinion (on more and more topics it seems). This is a bad road to go down.
And you make a good example of the overall point: there should not be this 'mainstream' vs 'not-mainstream' and we just pick a side. We should all be mature enough not to fall for that silly manipulation and instead try to fully inform ourselves from a range of sources and challenge ourselves.
I think the reality is that because there are holes in the response to covid, people dismiss the whole.
Also, there's no real way for us to know what would have happened if we did nothing. Maybe another 1-2m dead - or maybe we'd be just where we are today.
> I think the reality is that because there are holes in the response to covid, people dismiss the whole
I think a more salient point is perhaps that because so much effort was put into covering the 'holes' (not to mention the coining and dissemination of the label 'misinformation') rather than be honest about them, distrust was created. It is sensible to question when any groups make concerted efforts to dismiss and censor alternative views, regardless of the merits. Evidence and transparency on the side of the reason/truth should not need such measures.
The authorities and press infantalised the population on the assumption people are too stupid to process information and make their own informed choices. This is bad precedent.
Point is we also have a long history of genuine quacks and loonies, and they outnumber the genuine Cassandras to such an extent as to invalidate your heuristic. Statistically, if someone disagrees with the mainstream scientific consensus, they aren't a brave voice fighting the tide of darkness - just wrong.
Why would you mention only one list and not the other?
Why would you want to enlist as a soldier in one side of a cause where neither side is reliable, neither side has your best interests in mind?
You're playing yourself for a fool.
People gotta stop with this whole "you're either with the science or against it" rubbish. Be adults, inform yourself and make decisions. Don't just let media, politicians or fringe dwellers define your 'label' for you.
Complex issues need complex thought, but it's easy to just fall for paternalism and externalise your responsibility.
You're playing yourself the fool by thinking this is just a game of being on the winning team.
In this topic, it's clearly relevant that this is far from universally the case. The establishment is often correct as well. That's why you don't want to cherry pick all your experts from one side. Especially if you yourself lack the ability to tell which experts are more expert, which is definitely true in Rogan's case.
As in my other responses, I agree and my view is not to just dismiss a view just because of which 'side' it is on.
We must keep reprosecuting the evidence, data and opinions over time to try to maintain objectivity while avoiding being swayed by manipulation, fraud and/or populist consensus.
Yes, there is inertia in the scientific community, and sometimes the dissenting voices have a hard time being heard. That much is true.
But that is true because most of the time, the dissenting voices are wrong, if not outright lunatics.
The 'misinformation' label has made it really easy to just ignore a range of views through not wanting to be in 'that group.'
> But that is true because most of the time, the dissenting voices are wrong, if not outright lunatics
That's an incredibly broad generalisation, you're going to have to back that up with evidence. Does that also include those over-enthusiastically pushing the 'right' science that is in fact later proved wrong? Or are they not lunatics, just 'the science changed' on them?
Neither would some that disagreed were quasks so all who disagree with the mainstream are quacks, which is how they are treated.
I don’t really like this need for people to hear only what they want to hear and get angry when people say something they don’t like. Rogan lets people on and lets them talk. Sometimes it’s interesting , sometimes it’s not, sometimes it’s right, sometimes very wrong. I much prefer Rogan over all the people on big news that constantly spin things one way or the other to get more viewers. The mainstream news has lost the ability to give straight news.
If people want to get protected from wrong information a good start would be advertising. Maybe the woke people at Spotify should start there.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5DuxGhOJSa7X0AKvJGwwta?si=P...
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5VSukFrMYGae1ILd0e4HuR?si=B...
You’re just as likely to see current or former GOP talking heads like Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, or Pat Buchanan as some DNC talking head. In fact, scrolling down their page just now, McConnell is the only actual politician I saw interviewed, though they did have a Biden speech clip.
Keep in mind that inviting Political opponents into your show can advance your political message if you lampoon them — but PBS News Hour has about the same ratio of push to pull interviewing politicians, never ever interrupts, and doesn’t ask cheap shot gotcha questions.
They are more likely to choose topics from a loosely mainstream democrat perspective — you’d be more likely to see a story about the ACLU releasing a statement about immigration than a law enforcement agency doing the same, but that sheriff or whatever is going to get equal respect and air time in that segment… and it’s not that extreme of a shift compared to mainstream outlets.
So I firmly believe that they fit the criteria for your specific question. Truthfully I think most people just don’t want that.
But that isn't the answer to the question asked in the parent comment. The parent was wondering which media would choose guests that have a differing view from theirs. The mainstream media happened to align with the people representing the general opinion of the medical and epidemiological community, and were rarely inviting Robert Malone, Peter McCullough, or Jay Bhattacharia, who had different views.
Whether they ultimately turn out to be right or wrong about any particular topic, the problem occurs much earlier: they choose their position before conclusive evidence is available, often, as in this case, based mostly on politics, then skew their coverage to fit.
I'd prefer to hear the arguments and evidence from an impartial source, not a political position.
There's enough people with MDs that are willing to do more or less anything for money that checking for a license isn't really much in the way of diligence.