Truth be told, when supposedly educated people trust crystals more than vaccines, they are no different from uneducated peasants in the third world. They may be experts at reading, writing and believing nonsense; that doesn't make them educated by todays standards and they certainly cannot be called knowledgeable. The question we should be asking is whether or not it is even worth it to try and help them out, or even possible. To what extent can adults be educated?
There are many obvious obstacles truth must overcome in contemporary America:
- Religion and other forms of unfounded beliefs are firmly established in indoctrinated minds. Many people have become immune to truth. By definition, echo chambers prevent misinformation from being corrected - especially when faith or "anecdotal evidence" is trusted above real evidence that is verifiable.
- Lack of education is a hard nut to crack because many unconciously avoid finding, learning and remembering correct information. Sometimes it is not mallicious intent or indoctrination that causes the spread of misinformation, but rather intelectual laziness and lack of skepticism. When people have enough of an open mind, their brain falls out. People sorely need to recognize untrustworthy sources and fake facts, but they cannot do so without putting in some effort.
- Big lies feeds on widespread ignorance and distrust of authority (whatever all the experts agree on). Any attempt at helping people will be portrayed as an oppressive establishment stricking down dissent. For this reason, trying to cure ignorance can sometimes backfire.
- The greatest problem is that lack of education is not the real problem. The average IQ and knowledge is way higher today than most of history. But the way modern media works, people are educated in different directions. Factually accurate education is hard to come by, it is drowned in a sea of dishonest alternatives. The layman learns from his sources, trusting them regardless of their trustworthiness. Most such sources are driven by political, religious or ideological agendas to cherry pick information and perspectives. Even if they don't outright lie they hide the truth when it conflicts with their narrative. They shoot a constant barrage of fallacious arguments at the gullible person with devastating success, no matter the absurdity of their position.
- A person is likely to host a growing colony of misconceptions because there are a quadrillion ways to view the world, most of which are objectively incorrect. Human cognition also suffer from biases and logical fallacies obscuring our ability to decipher the validity of arguments and claims.
Finding the truth is not a piece of cake, quite the contrary. Science only finds the truth by studying all available evidence and exposing any hypothesis to intense scrutiny. Any charletan can claim that science is wrong -- but it takes the cumulative effort of scientists worldwide to find real flaws in their models. And when they do, they rejoyce because it means progress. If a person does not trust established science it means they do not understand how science is established. The most crucial element of rehabilitating a fool is to teach them how evidence works, how logic works, how to be skeptical and detect illogical propaganda.
They need to know WHY science is trustworthy -- only then can one learn to trust it. Trust is a good thing when you deserve it, and science definately deserves trust.
I am curious to hear what you have to add to this conversation. What other aspects are there to the problem? Am I over-exagerating it? What are possible solutions?
