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Special Edition — Strong Opinions Loosely Held: Part 1 — Science and Psychology
I come to this piece from a place of concern, not politics. It is spurred by some friends, aware of my weekly newsletter, and from reading social media posts of well-intentioned friends that I found to be a bit upsetting, as I believed their sharing was meant to be of good intention and help to others in their networks, but may have more of an iatrogenic impact.
I have noted herein and numerous other places that the pandemic has spurred what has become a meme of multitudes having become Covid-19 experts, a la the Dunning-Kruger Effect. And less funny, the proliferation of many hysterical, inaccurate feeds and posts that get propagated on various social media platforms.
My only “horse in this race” is public health. As a note of context, I served on a Board of Health for over a decade, on an advisory Council to the Board of Health for another decade, did a Fellowship in Public Health (University of Illinois’ School of Public Health Leadership Institute), I founded and run a nonprofit center focused on global health, education, and humanitarian intervention, and in my undergraduate, graduate, and professional work, I was trained and worked as a scientist and clinician. Thus, this topic is very important to me — I have shown in past articles like How to Protect Yourself from Fad Science…
