Philip Buckler - Mask Facts - Mask Science

Plug: https://www.freepeopleofthesouthwest.com/ Plug: General Dentist, The UnMack Doctor Couch Scientists/Couch Karens · Not a new phenomenon. This tendency is part of human nature, and has not changed for thousands of years. o “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.” (Proverbs 18:2) o Similar and related terms: Armchair General; Know-It-All o A single person can be an example of how to avoid this in one area of their life, and fall into this trap in another area. o Simultaneously, being an amateur does not mean you’re wrong, and being an expert does not mean you’re right · Characteristics of couch scientist reasoning o Non-sequiturs (an especially common non-sequitur over the last two years: “this works, therefore it should be mandatory”) o Tends to rely on authority rather than original sources and primary evidence. o Will often disparage an unappealing explanation on the basis that the explanation itself needs to be explained before it can be accepted o I believe it is more common among people with authoritarian tendencies – who want to make everyone behave a certain way or to force everyone to delegate the ultimate authority for rules of behavior to a third party of equally fallible politicians, bureaucrats, or "experts" o Confirmation Bias, motivated reasoning, and cognitive dissonance. § Cognitive dissonance – arises from simultaneously holding two contradictory beliefs. § Confirmation bias – the propensity for people to look for what confirms their beliefs and ignore what contradicts their beliefs. § Motivated Reasoning – selective skepticism, not applying the same standard of proof to things we already agree with. In the case of mask science, this tends to manifest as objections to studies showing that masks don’t work which, if applied consistently, would result in discarding even more studies cited as evidence that masks work. o Decision-making: Head vs. Gut has a huge effect on risk assessment intuitions § The Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic – “The Anchoring Rule”: when you’re not sure of the answer, your gut intuition starts from the nearest associated number and your head adjusts upwards from there § The Representativeness Heuristic – “The Rule of Typical Things” § The Availability Heuristic – the easier it is to recall an example of something, the more common our intuition tells us that thing must be. The presence of fear when a memory is formed makes those things easier to recall. · Characteristics of couch scientists in debate