"What happened is that during my literature review, I disturbingly realized that what I had been told at the hospital, namely that subdural and retinal hemorrhage in infants are almost always caused by violent shaking even in the absence of external evidence of trauma, was an assertion based on very weak scientific foundations. And yet, this “shaking hypothesis” (sometimes referred to as the theory of the “triad”, since encephalopathy is frequently associated with the other two signs, subdural and retinal hemorrhage) has been taught as though it was a proven fact to generations of physicians all over the world. Every year, thousands of children are removed from their parents, and thousands are prosecuted, convicted, and even incarcerated, on the basis of this assertion. Law professor Deborah Tuerkheimer qualifies SBS/AHT as a “medical diagnosis of murder”. The very least we should expect for an assertion this powerful is that it should be based on reliable scientific foundations."
This is why using experts for advice is great but everyone should still be encouraged to do their own research.
> This is why using experts for advice is great but everyone should still be encouraged to do their own research.
Not everyone is equipped to do this kind of literature review (that’s not research), or have access to all these papers. Everyone needs to be critical and skeptical to a reasonable extent, but this kind of “do your own research” attitude is damaging. People just end up trusting dodgy but authoritative-sounding YouTube videos and blog posts because they cannot read scientific articles.
We need so much more than some combination of (1) trusting experts and (2) doing your own research.
The first is practically necessary but unsatisfying given well-known concerns about scientific replication, knowledge dissemination, and industry incentives.
The second isn't practical for most people.
I don't have detailed interventions to suggest right now, but it seems clear that we need better _systems_ that result in less dogmatic behavior among experts and legal systems.
If they are experts. The problem lies in distinguishing those who actually do have expertise in the field in question from those who merely think that they do and can persuade others that they do.
In many medical contexts there is no such thing as an expert because the data simply doesn't exist, they are sometimes simply more capable than the general public.
Actual experts I talked too can tell you easily why the opinion they have are true and the evidence it is based on. They are also very good at vulgarization.
This is why using experts for advice is great but everyone should still be encouraged to do their own research.