Imagine someone walking down the street, just an ordinary person
going about his or her business. Suddenly he, I’ll assume he for
convenience, is stopped by a person conducting a survey. A survey about
what? Doesn’t matter – suppose it is the technical and social value of sending
astronauts to Mars.
Our imaginary chap may not even know that a trip to Mars is
technically possible. On the other hand he may avidly study such matters over breakfast every single day and thinks a trip to Mars is the greatest human adventure of his life. Doesn’t matter, what we are interested in here is how many
of our imaginary survey subjects had to formulate an opinion about astronauts
going to Mars.
Suppose we assume that many people never had any significant
thoughts or ideas about the prospect of astronauts going to Mars. Suppose we
also assume that on brief reflection and because it is a survey and because
they don’t want to be lumped with the don’t knows, some of those people will offer
some kind of instant opinion.
In which case it is obvious enough that to a significant
degree the survey created the opinion. In certain cases, possibly a majority of
cases, the opinion wasn’t somehow lurking in the survey subject’s brain waiting
for the right question asked in the right circumstances. It didn’t exist until
the survey created it.
It is much the same with the coronavirus debacle. Before it
hit the headlines, it is likely that very few of us had any idea of how a
pandemic might be tackled. Very few journalists and politicians would have had any
idea either, although we don’t see that now do we?
Yet as soon as the pandemic becomes a dominant feature of
the public arena, pandemic ideas and opinions evolve and they evolve most
rapidly in those people who make a profession of having opinions. In a sense
the pandemic has asked them what they think about pandemics and they absolutely
do not wish to be lumped with the don’t knows.
To a lesser degree the same effect works on experts as the
pandemic creates a powerful desire for expert opinion. Those experts who are cautious
about unreliable data may not satisfy the urgent demand for opinion. As ever,
nobody is really interested in the don’t knows.
3 comments:
Lots of interesting points there. If there is a demand for an opinion, then someone will supply one. In most cases, all that involves is sounding off in a pub or chat-room online. What is worrying is that professors of epidemiology are doing the same. With so many different opinions, the discipline is clearly no more advanced than, say, economics.
And the reckoning after this is over. Clearly, the national leader with the lowest mortality rate wins. There will, conversely, be a limit beyond which Boris cannot keep his job. But, given the generated nature of the advice we are all getting, how is anyone to make a rational decision at the time?
As a scientist in these matters (not), I certainly will never go to a Chinese restaurant again!
There, let's hear it from the epidemiologists on that score...!
Sam - yes the discipline seems to be no more advanced than economics and perhaps never will be when it comes to predicting the future. Boris will have been helped by his illness but he'll have problems if the NHS really isn't up to the job and the deaths climb too high. Maybe he'll just throw our money at it.
Scrobs - I wonder if some of them will close permanently.
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