The science of protecting people’s feelings: why we pretend all opinions are equal


The Washington Post has the article The science of protecting people’s feelings: why we pretend all opinions are equal.

I’ll give you one of the conclusions in the article.  You’ll have to read the article to find out why the author offers this opinion.

Still, I think it’s pretty obvious that human groups (especially in the United States) err much more in the direction of giving everybody a say than in the direction of deferring too much to experts. And that’s quite obviously harmful on any number of issues, especially in science, where what experts know really matters and lives or the world depend on it — like vaccinations or climate change.

I think this explains why so many people (Jacquelyn Wells) think it more important to get a middle of the road consensus than it is to have people fighting for what they believe is essential for success of the society, political system, economic system.  It isn’t necessarily found in the middle of the road where there is probably a lot of road kill (to mix metaphors a little).

Thanks to Sarah Clark for posting this on her Facebook page.

As I said to Sarah and I will remind Marden Seavy, this is why I get so frustrated when people cannot see that I am always right 🙂

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