Ah, the battle cry of the anti-vaxxers, the conspiratorists, and a whole lot of people who cannot seem to understand what ``research'' means. It's a bit like how the true meaning of ``literal'' was bowdlerised and replaced with ``figurative'' in the sense of ``I literally fell off my chair when I heard that news''.
Let's take a step back, shall we?
Colloquially, when we do focused reading on some specific topic, we have a tendency to call it ``research''. That alone isn't a problem; after all, doing focused reading is a great way to find out what the world has to say about the specific topic.
The true problem though, is two-fold.
- Is the material being read valid and true?
- Do I have enough background information to understand and evaluate what I read critically with respect to its validity?
The validity of the material seems to be the easier of the two, but in reality, it is probably the hardest of all. In the academic world, where research is their business, the validity of material is steeped from two traditions, namely that of the scientific method, and peer review. The former outlines a methodology for establishing empirical facts that welcomes anyone with the prerequisites to attempt to reproduce the results, while the latter brings together trained experts to poke at the material critically, hereby strengthening it through improving on the methods/arguments used, or culling material that does not stand up to scrutiny due to weakness in method, argument, or even assumption. Because of this bias of writing for others in the profession, there is a tendency for the material to use technical jargon that simplifies for the expert but can confuse the uninitiated. Part of the PhD/MSc training process is learning how to read these scientific papers, determining what the authors are saying, and more importantly, what the authors aren't saying.
A generally good proxy on the validity of piece of material is its longevity, with the longer the paper exists with associated high citation count, the more likely it is treated as ``axiomatic''. The caveat is that the citation need not be an endorsement---it could be cited as a negative example to be debunked.
Notice how I limited the materials to be researched to that of scientific papers. The chief reason is that such materials have many expert eyes looking at them, and there is an intellectual bar to clear just to have it published as a paper. A blog/Facebook/Twitter/Instagram entry saying some platitude comes nowhere close to requiring any form of systematic inquiry. One hundred thousand social media quotes mean almost nothing compared to one peer reviewed paper.
Going on to the second point on whether I the reader have enough background information to understand and evaluate what I read critically with respect to its validity, it really depends. Remember that the materials that are highly valuable in terms of validity are often written as communiques to other researchers in the field, with each of them having undergone at least an undergraduate education in the field or its allied fields. This means that there are many unspoken assumptions about the background knowledge of the person who is reading the material. It's not meant to be read by ``mere mortals'' who are untrained in the field, and it's definitely not meant to have random sentences quoted out of context to advance some personal agenda. Another subtle point is that the scientific publishing process requires hypotheses to be simplified enough to fit into the page limit, which means that more often than not the conclusions drawn in any single paper are heavily conditioned, with a fuller picture emerging only after doing meta-analysis across multiple papers over time.
My beef then with ``do your own research'' as yelled by the masses is that their approach is wrong-headed. They replace quality [of the materials being researched on] with quantity, with the more hardworking of them believing that they somehow have sufficient background knowledge to make their own judgement about something completely outside of their field of expertise.
Sadly, they are also the same people that like to quote random verses of the Bible out of context just to ``prove'' their [twisted] point.
Even more sadly, they are a very vocal bunch, and as condescending as it sounds, they will drag everyone down to their level, and then apply as many logical fallacies as possible to point out how everyone else isn't ``doing their own research'' while maintaining a smug demeanour. This is twice as true for things that have a time critical component, like the various advisories on behaviours and effectiveness/efficacies of various vaccines and their associated administration protocols. Those with the training with relevant field experience take a more cautious and measured approach towards interpreting each research outcome as they appear, updating their understanding accordingly, while the ``do your own research'' crowd latches quickly on a narrative that they prefer and pontificate upon them without ever entertaining the possibility that it may be wrong and is updated with a later piece of research work that has hypotheses that specifically target either strengthening the previous research's conclusion, or more likely, showing how the conclusion can be wrong for a particular circumstance that is more relevant than not.
But try explaining that to the ``do your own research'' crowd. They are worse than trolls---at least for trolls, we know that they know better and are just behaving that way to egg people's [over-]reaction. They are worse than trolls for the reason that they truly believe in something that is wrong, refuse to admit that they are wrong, and more importantly, still want to coerce everyone to follow their perspective.
That is how humanity goes to hell. One ignorant shouter at a time.
I think I'm gonna lie down. Am feeling feverish from this confusing weather---it was bloody sunny, then had a random convectional rain moment while the sun was still shining through brightly, before going back to being blusteringly hot. Urgh. Till the next update then.
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