• HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    You don’t need biology, chemistry, etc. You just need to listen to the people who do, instead of people who have no qualifications whatsoever.

    Taking High School biology is never going to give you the knowledge necessary to understand a research paper.

    Or you can read history books about the myriad of diseases we literally cured with vaccines.

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The less you know the easier you are to fool. No, HS biology won’t be enough to understand a complex research paper. But it will be enough to know the guy talking about using light or bleach to kill covid is a fucking idiot.

      Come to think of it… Actually I took HS bio classes and never again after but I gained enough understanding from reading trustworthy sources to be able to read quite a few covid paper’s abstracts and understand (they weren’t that difficult honestly) and stay better informed than most folks.

      I think the real key is learning how to learn. How to Pick up things here and there. How to evaluate sources.

      The people who are anti-vax (at least online) are to a person ignorant about so much-- science, virology, immunology, statistics, logic, etc. You can’t even discuss the topic without them until they go to school and learn a boatload of stuff.

      • flerp@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        But then Dunning Kruger comes into it. How many people cling to the “there are only two genders because I learned that in basic biology” without understanding that more advanced biology shows that it is more complicated than that.

        Not saying there shouldn’t be math and science in school, I think there should be for sure, just pointing out the other side of teaching just a basic level of something.

        • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Totally agree.

          A lot of people are unable to update their knowledge. And are unwilling to seek it.

          The people saying “muh two genders hrr” are merely trying to rationalize how they feel. It might just be that they lack empathy.

          Either because they haven’t encountered others different from themselves or they were never taught empathy.

          School should encourage people to be curious, sceptical, and seeking knowledge. I wonder how we turn curious kids into blase idiots in just a few years…