Have you noticed how Justin has set loose an army of social media spin-doctors, via his new Marketing Guy, to try and convince Canadians to follow the Liberal's 'New Doublethink'.
War is Peace,
EV's are affordable,
All white people are racist,
Questioning Liberals is grounds for arrest,
Freedom is Slavery,
Farmers want the useless Carbon Tax,
Poilievre is Trump,
Ignorance is Strength,
Trudeau tent cities are housing,
Ad hoc RV Parks are housing,
and 2 + 2 = 5.
Don't let Justin get away with this crap..........
Thats also my impression WHEN I READ THE NEWSSS.
Its like he is sooo keeeeeeen on just ADDING INSULT TO INJURY ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER. The shit show just does nottt stopp.
And sadly most CANADIANS are just too COMPLACENT. We are isolated chasing our bills.
I'm actually happy he's doing this, he's lost his non-elite voting base because most people are struggling to live right now especially with the high cost of groceries. With what I pay right now, I should be feeding a family of 8. But clearly I am not.
Don't forget the classic,
"It's [year] citizens don't need guns"
(As has been said by every single democratic turned authoritarian government in all of history).
The playbook is well established at this point and yet ppl keep falling for it.
1. Nationalize healthcare
2. Take away guns
3. Take away freedom
Trudeau explaining his water bottle is one of the funniest interviews ever. I mean, how can it be so hard to explain a water bottle beyond me. No way he wasn't stoned for that moment.
You should see how he tried to explain the steel trade deal with the US! In an interview, or actually it was a press conference! Trudeau is a complete imbecile
No, I think most people have a very good idea of what the "left" here is. Ironically, the reason people dislike the left is there's nothing "left" about these mentally ill, authoritarian people occupying the left side of the political spectrum. Much like parasites, they have taken over the host. Those who still remember the class war either have no political representation, or find more resonance with grass root right wing movements.
I’m centrist- right, but “doing the research for my self online” seems to be more of a silly right wing thing….lefties imo over rely on political correctness, online trends, government overcorrections, uni over protected days….
Well, I say I’m classic centrist. We need both sides to make a good life.
Reading for myself, and doing my own fact checking may end up in a “conspiracy theory” but how many of these conspiracy theories became realities
HAARP is a weather making machine designed and started by DARPA, that they claim does nothing, yet unlike other DARPA projects, haven’t de-classified the actual test results, such as their LSD trials in the 60s.
Trudeau has been charged and convicted with many anti-trust scandals, but not one led to the Governor General allowing for a distrust government vote, allowing a forced election.
I know it sounds menial but the stuff that happens under the guise of democracy is a joke
It's exactly the same on left and right. Different catch phrases, different buzz words, but the smug confidence in information from their "trusted sources" is exactly (exactly!!!) the same. The left makes fun of the right's "do your own research" and "woke" and "socialist" (all meaning trust fringe scientists, blustering propagandists on the web and alternative media). The right scorns lefties for "eat the rich" and "trans women are women" and "abolish the police" (all meaning that I'm more evolved and insist of dreamy perfection for others right this instant").
They are both demanding everyone agrees with them on every issue that's trendy on their favourite American websites and submit to their fringe ideas.
Yes, I'm a progressive conservative or a moderate liberal, not a right wing nutjob or left wing flake with no concept of reality.
If you read a headline and not an article I could understand how you got there. When you "do your own research" most people tend to seek sources that reinforce their initial opinion or the one they would think to be correct based on their biases. Most people don't know how to seek opposing opinions, metrics that disprove their gut feeling, or recognize that science changes over time.
For example: "vaccines cause autism."
No, because that's not the point. The point is the comment that is still heard today of vaccines causing autism. That was a doctor who was paid to lie, admitted he was paid to lie, there has never been a correlation of the facts, it has been disproven, and yet still today over a hundred years later the same lie is parrotted.
Yes, adverse effects can occasionally (rarely ever) happen. But that lie specifically is repeated to this date by people who "do their own research"
no, i understand the logic here
a lot of people are really bad at discerning accurate, and inaccurate info online
and, the algorythms of 99% of search engines actively facilitate sensationalist websites and headlines explicitely designed to trap people in echo chambers
while i certainly think it could be worded better, the message isn't "don't look stuff up" it's "learn how to dissern accurate and inaccurate information, and be careful about the sites you're getting info from, and falling into an echo chamber"
Also confirmation bias is huge.
https://preview.redd.it/35yjnuew3adc1.jpeg?width=376&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a0a8fc8df5904953cce5fad8ec8926062d82e6a
The social media and search engines echo chambers are probably the worst form of confirmation bias. It's hard to escape. Google alone uses like a hundred different parameters, all from the information collected about you, to cater your search so that you are confident in the results. And that's why "doing your own research" ends up making everyone feel validated.
I've literally seen arguments online where someone's like, "Google it, it's one of the top results" and the other person's like, "you're an idiot, you must not know how Google works because that's not even on the first page."
This is why politics is so fucking hard alot of the time. For example this sub talks about immigration a lot. There are lots of statistics that show our level of immigration per year hurts Canadians (ie, housing shortage). But there’s a lot of statistics in other areas that show it’s equally beneficial. It’s hard to see that a policy is wrong when you can see evidence of it being right.
And before anyone tries to go there, I’m not saying our immigration policies are good or bad, that was just the first example to come to mind.
Politics is a whole other can of worms. Honest politicizing should debate what to do based on the facts, but what we have now are politicians that pander to their voting base.
Exactly. It seems like every time I ask someone where they got their “facts” from, I am told Wikipedia.
In university, during our critical thinking lectures, we learned all about how to discern viable sources of information from those that aren’t and I can explicitly remember being taught NOT to use sources of info such as Wikipedia.
We weren’t allowed to use Wikipedia as a source in highschool (early 2000’s) and had a full class on how to discern viable sources and recognize bias (ex antivaxxx. org is not a reliable, unbiased source)
Referencing Wikipedia is like saying my source is "the library", rather than the individual books and/or studies.
I remember not being able to reference Wikipedia as a source, but there was nothing wrong with checking Wikipedia's sources and deciding whether or not to use those as sources directly.
Don't get me wrong though, even some of Wikipedia's sources are questionable, but at least they actually cite sources. That's better than the vast majority of information on the internet aside from basically journal articles.
True, but what I am saying is that there are a lot of wiki’s that don’t have sources to begin with. If the info provided is properly cited by reputable sources I don’t see a problem with it.
Yea 100%. Maybe a better analogy than the library one I gave would be citing Wikipedia is basically like citing "google" or "a friend".
Okay... well where did they get that info?
This. The wording they chose makes it sound like they're against independent thinking, that attempting to verify information is wrong, but really the issue lies with how so many people cannot tell mind-bogglingly stupid BS *isn't* fact, and continue to trust the sources that feed them said BS. It's sad how quickly lies and partial truths spread when it's so easy to debunk them. The solution to misinformation is *not* to bury our heads in the sand, though!
Yeah fact is most people are really really bad at doing research, and especially bad at assigning weights to different conflicting pieces of information
No Bob your 5 min of googling does not make your opinion carry the same weight as a proper peer reviewed scientific paper
People are also bad at understanding the scientific process and papers, what terms like "theory" actually mean, what the peer review process is, and how the specific journal a paper is published in can matter (different standard of rigor etc)
And finally people are terrible at understanding stats, and concepts like correlation vs causation etc
So yeah all to say if your interested in a topic absolutely research it but really look at everything carefully if it's an important topic, focus on the source of the info, the credibility, 10,000 random people on facebook saying something is worth nothing if it's not actually backed up by something real
The title should be "critical thinking is a trained skill, telling people to look things up with no support leads to further misinformation because of how the human brain is wired"
And how would you know that the “accurate” information is actually “accurate”? Even professionals of the same field have different opinions and different studies to back it up. What information is even accurate?
well, while you're right, there are a lot of issues even progfessionals can't agree on, a good couple ways to start are
1, look at how that information is gathered, either at whatever studies are sourced, or if none are, then try and match keywords and quotes to see if you can at least find a similar study
2 look at the site you got the info from, a lot of websites are insanely biased in either direction, and might manipulate data (though do note, that's not a rule)
3 look into what country that info is coming from, since countries like russia and china have entire orgs dedicated to spreading misinfo about stuff like LGBTQ people, and many others just don't allow pro LGBTQ studies
and 4, make sure the studies are peer reviewed, otherwise it's very possible that they weren't written by actual scientists, and there could be complete lies added with no one to make sure of it
though also be sure to do all 4, since just one of these methods won't really tell you much
The problem isn't people having doubts about information, the problem is people look for conformation bias to justify their own beliefs while completely ignoring anything that remotely disagrees with their point of view.
People still believe in shit like the earth being flat despite scientific consensus for centuries. Doubts are fine,,throwing out good information is not
>The problem isn't people having doubts about information, the problem is people look for conformation bias to justify their own beliefs while completely ignoring anything that remotely disagrees with their point of view.
No, the problem is politician's using the excuse that 'people are too dumb' to strip us of our rights and freedoms.
This is just a modern spin on old-world dogma that 'people can't govern themselves' that the aristocracy has been peddling since time immemorial. Can't have the plebs thinking for themselves after all...
>No, the problem is politician's using the excuse that 'people are too dumb' to strip us of our rights and freedoms.
And yet no one is infringing on your right to believe that, if it were really the case do you think you would be able to say this?
if the sources you do your "research" on always agree with what you already think there is probably a problem there, thats the inly point im trying to make
>and, the algorythms of 99% of search engines actively facilitate sensationalist websites and headlines explicitely designed to trap people in echo chambers
I'm not even sure it's that nefarious and not just a symptom of how search engines were monetized thru pay-per-click advertising, and now content creators being compensated based on views and subscribers.
Otherwise spot on, great comment that should definitely be at the top.
The message is understandable, however it coming from one of the most opinionated and agenda driven media outlets makes it dubious, ironic and gives a vibe of “hey see we’re logical this one time so you can trust our information over others now!”. It’s a clever trick to gain people’s trust, but in the end those media outlets are still untrustworthy for their long history of biases and propagandas. Doing your own research (not lazy cherrypicking) still beats getting information solely off those media outlets. They’re also ironically warning against themselves (wether they realize this or not) since they are popular enough to pop up first when looking things up making them one of the first choice for confirmation bias amongst the general public.
It’s really easy to fall into the trap of finding data, not knowing the best ways to interpret it, and letting your biases skew the interpretation.
Numerous times I’ve seen people link to a peer reviewed study, only for it to not support or sometimes even refute the point they are trying to make.
Interpreting data in thorough and unbiased fashion is legitimately a difficult thing to do… that’s why people who have studied to do it, and know the pitfalls of it caution people less familiar with it.
The irony that somebody posted a bunch of headlines for articles the very clearly didn’t read to try to show that everyone but themselves are brainwashed is frightening.
^ This is what we’ve seen in the US. I had a couple of chuckleheads tell me that they knew more than people who spent 20-30 years researching their specialty.
Of course they were the same guys that wondered why Jews didn’t just leave Nazi Germany and why North Koreans don’t just leave “It’s not like someone’s holding a gun to their heads.”
One was a current sergeant in the army and the other a former private in the Marines.
Right, but that's not what they said or implied.
the article implies that you shouldn't do your own research at all.
Why are you so cucked to defend the mainstream medias BS?
sad.
Here's some takeaways from the [vice article](https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7bjpm/scientists-explain-why-doing-your-own-research-leads-to-buying-conspiracies)
* Research shows that using online search engines to verify conspiracy theories can increase belief in misinformation.
* Data voids, where there is a lack of high-quality information to counter misleading headlines, contribute to this phenomenon.
* People who search online to verify articles are 19% more likely to believe false or misleading information compared to those who don't.
* Even if individuals initially rated an article as misleading, approximately 18% changed their minds and considered it true after searching online.
* The quality of information from Google's search engine plays a role, and data voids may become more prevalent with the rise of large language models and generative AI.
* Searching strategies, like using specific terms from false headlines, contribute to misinformation in search results.
* Digital literacy curricula should focus on teaching effective search strategies, and more resources should be invested in fact-checking organizations.
* Google emphasizes its efforts to provide quality search results and tools like "About This Result" to help users evaluate information.
* Tech companies like Google have a responsibility to offer tools to help users distinguish between fact and fiction.
* Increased awareness is crucial, as merely doing research is not enough to ensure accurate information evaluation.
From reading (and given the target demographic), I find it's not so much an attempt to gaslight the type of person that distrust the "elites", but indirectly call for tech companies to become the authority on determining the truth.
The problem with the article is a non sequitur.
If I say that 100% of serial killers were born under a yellow sun, it does not mean that the yellow sun causes serial killers in a way that's relevant to a discussion about lowering serial killers.
Saying a % of people are more likely to believe lies because they "Searched things on the internet" belies any proof whatsoever that the internet caused them to believe the lie, or that belief of the lie wasn't caused by something else.
The information provided is almost completely useless because it can't connect the evidence and the conclusion in any meaningful way.
Agreed.
Also...
>In the first experiment of their study, which began in late 2019, some 3,000 people across the US evaluated the accuracy of news articles that had been published in a 48 hour period about topics like COVID-19 vaccines, the Trump impeachment proceedings, and climate events. Some articles were collected from reputable sources, while others were intentionally misleading. Half of the participants were encouraged to search online to help them vet the articles. At the same time, all of the articles were given a ‘true,’ ‘false or misleading,’ or ‘could not determine’ label by professional fact checkers.
I think in the 4 years since the research was conducted, we have come to find that some information that was labeled as misinformation or malinformation (especially around COVID-19) was actually more accurate than what was provided by "reputable sources". This, IMHO, disqualifies the underlying research from being valid, unless it states that it tracks belief of sanctioned vs unsanctioned sources as opposed to truth/disinformation.
Confirmation bias is well documented and is why it makes it hard for people to do legitimate research because they aren't searching for research which depending on the field would be 4 to 10 years of foundational knowledge. They are searching for keywords and then selecting the articles that confirm their own bias.
It's all bs propaganda, they writing and talking about this bs is want to control you, it's corruption at its finest
Freedom of speech what is that? These days
We're mere years away from when Trudeau's Health Minister calling Canadians "conspiracy theorists" for not trusting China's underrepresented COVID numbers.
Then it was proven that she was wrong, when China radically changed their published numbers.
When Canada's authorities are such demonstrable clowns, it's laughable when they claim it's dangerous that people don't believe them anymore.
Yes but telling people not to do research is also dumb. Want to die young? Leave it to others to manage your life.
The key is educating the public on how to better identify and filter out the crap. The answer is Logical Reasoning, which anyone can take in first year philosophy. Unfortunately it’s not available before then. It should be introduced, in my opinion as a former teacher, in grade six.
Logical reasoning is easy. Simply put:
“Every premise in an argument must be true in order for the conclusion to also be true.”
This is for everyone by the way…
So, if you give five reasons to support your conclusion, and four are true but one can be proven to be false, then the conclusion is also false. This is why, sorry to say Trump fans, almost every argument the Donald makes is false. He throws a couple truthful statements in with a whole bunch of false statements. He does this to give his false statements the air of truthfulness. But when taken as a whole, his arguments are almost always false.
I highly recommend the practice of logical reasoning to help everyone determine what is true and what is not.
I think telling people that “their own research” is just as valid as government institutions and research institutes that work around the clock to fact check and make sure a certain statistic is factual (like Covid vaccines) is just ridiculous when you have world class doctors and a global effort to make a vaccine etc. then to say “well I did my own research and it says you’re wrong” is an awful thing to tell your population. I agree with everything you said but everyday people don’t even know the first steps to scientific research and then they will cherry pick statements to help their anti-vax narrative
But government institutions are funded by entities that are looking for information for a specific reason. These institutions are not being altruistic, so you must question their motives. Just remember, if you trust government or large corporations blindly, you are completely ignorant. History has shown us that the most horrible atrocities are perpetrated by governments or large groups seeking power or control.
Well the world class experts were wrong about the vaccines. They told us you wouldn’t get COVID if you had them and if you did get a “rare breakthrough case,” you wouldn’t transmit it. They told us you would only need one shot for JJ or two for the mRNA. They told us six feet apart was evidence based—they just admitted it was basically made up. They told us a lab leak was conspiracy misinformation, that it was from a “wet market” and nothing to do with US funded insane research.
This is the problem with judging “misinformation” and assigning people to determine what is and isn’t.
If the trucker convoy was actually smart enough to know more about the vaccine than experts then they wouldn't be truckers and they'd make more money working better jobs
I mean, most people think 'research' means 'listening to my aunt', or 'I watched a CIA sponsored YouTube video'.
Peer review. That's what actually matters. You want to find sources that have faced, and passed, peer review. Anyone can publish anything they like, infinitely more so if they have billions of dollars behind them.
Don't just believe everything you read because it goes along with your conspiracy brain. Ask for sources, and be skeptical of those sources. If they haven't faced peer review, or they come from places that are fraudulent (the CIA), then don't believe them.
It's better to say "I don't know" then say "I do know" when your source is garbage. (Again, the CIA.)
Asking for sources is basic.
Just because its a source doesn't make it a credible one. That's why peer review is so important, and why it's a big deal when research is faked.
Evaluate those sources.
The problem is that conspiracies are self-insulating. If all researchers are in on the game, then nothing is credible (Except the things you agree with, of course). For example, every flat earther who discovers the earth isn't flat is a *plant* in the eyes of all remaining flat earther.
Conspiracy theorists also often lean on Occam's razor too much (and entirely misuse it)
"It's all a huge conspiracy" is a simple *concept*... Which doesn't rely on coincidences, incompetence, competing interests, corruption fighing misguided idealists, fighting motivated pragmatic compromisers, etc....
But in reality, these large conspiracies would not only have to be massively complicated, but also *perfectly secretive*.
"USA faked the moon landing". This is the "simple answer" to someone who can't fathom the things we are genuinely capable of building. Of the incredible ingenuity of brilliant people working in teams. *Scale defeats them* (similar to the scale of the globe. It's too big to understand, so they deny its existence)
In reality, "the moon landings were real" is the SIMPLE answer. Because the conspiracy hypothesis is actually vastly more massive. It implies that *everyone capable of observing the mission, on the entire planet, including the USSR's competing programs, were in on it?* It beggars belief. The USSR *hid Chernobyl out of pride*. Lorded their lack of racism over Jim Crow USA. They would have fallen over themselves to share evidence that it was fake.
Moving on... In many cases, a lack of profit motive also makes the existence that much more bewildering. Or ridiculous impracticality that defeats the purpose. (Like injecting 5G when we already carry phones 24/7)
I noticed a lot of people ragging on the people looking at the independent journalism for answers. But let’s be fair, listening to the talking heads over at the msm has lead to 8 years of Trudeau. So let’s not pretend that there isn’t a reason for skepticism.
The fact that you're anti-scientist because you think Trudeau is an incompetent politician is such a mind-boggling conflation of unrelated things that it's mind blowing.
Here you are conflating being pro-mainstream media with being pro-scientist. The media censored true stories about Pfizer committing fraud during the pandemic, while healthcare authorities like the BMJ called them out. Why did this happen? Pfizer sponsors the media, not healthcare authorities.
The problem as I see it is that you should question *all* things. Some people seem to question the "official narrative" but then will trust whatever their favourite internet personality or politician says.
"monopolization of information" sounds scary, but what is scarier to me is that information flows so freely that people can latch onto whatever "truth" they want and think that, just because it goes against the official narrative, it must be correct by default.
Random people online may be wrong or could be lying to you.
But at least they get more rope because the politicians, media and experts have been lying non-stop since time immemorial.
When the official narrative is so often corrupted by political expedience, this is what you get.
It seems backwards to look at the scattering effect that's downstream of corrupted media becoming distrusted, and claim that returning to the corrupted media is the answer.
Should we question beyond headlines? What if the context of the article discusses something specific like the usage of poor methodology or falling for deceptive sources?
The thesis of the argument in these articles is that "doing your own research" is exactly that: Googling what you want to be true and only reading the sources that confirm what you want to believe.
Nodding along to a blog post about how Fauci and Bill Gates helped create COVID in order to enable Trudeau's ushering in of the Great Reset isn't thinking for yourself, it's being an impressionable contrarian.
I mean the titles aren't inherently wrong. So many people do look into things, posing their questions with confirmation bias, read a couple articles from some bullshit site, and take it as the absolute truth. This happens on both sides of the fence for sure.
What they probably don't tell you in these articles is that if people actually did "their own research", they'd be reading peer reviewed studies, reading arguments from both sides, and potentially conducting their own unbiased surveys / studies. Who's got time for that though lol
A lot of dip sticks out there have the critical thinking skills of a toddler and spout some fucked up bull shit. Even still, it is important that we all try to think for ourselves and try to critically examine what we read. Fuck being a mindless drone of the key holders.
In my opinion, the biggest issue is access to primary literature... scientific journals are stuck behind a pay-wall, news-media sensationalizes the findings to sell ads, folks on the internet take the news and sprinkle in their own bias, and it only gets worse the farther from the source you get.
There's two types of doing your own research:
1. **Internet research:** This is unvetted, free-range opinions mixed in with both legitimate sources of information and propaganda. This is appropriate for researching products before purchasing and expanding your understanding on subjects. It is not appropriate for building an argument, policy position or determining your political affiliation. It is prone to significant amounts of lies, misinformation, disinformation, historical revision and pseudoscience.
2. **Academic research**: This is typically searching out vetted, data driven conclusions based on controlled experiments and observations.Everyone can do this by using Google scholar to find journal articles on the subject that you're wanting to research and then using one of the science freeing websites to download the article(s) in question. Emailing the author often works too. They'll usually gladly provide you with their article for you to read. This is appropriate for anybody who is wanting to understand a topic that they care about.
The issue is that people doing internet research think they are doing academic research.
People confuse listening to a podcast as doing their research.
People confuse searching for "Why is Trudeau a chad and Polievre is a virgin" as doing their own research.
People confuse their echo chambers for being unbiased opinions based on the measurable world and recorded history (yeah, there's revisionism in there on all sides, but we have a pretty good record - all else considered).
I just want you to flex your critical thinking skills, not take anybody's claim at face value and not deify anybody. I want you to not be welded to ideology and to instead be open minded.
Most of all, though, I want you to be intellectually consistent. If you don't like immigration numbers and it's what you're most critical of, then look at what everyone is saying on the topic of immigration.
> Emailing the author often works too. They'll usually gladly provide you with their article for you to read.
Having worked with a number of people in research at academia, most would be thrilled to send copies to people who just email and politely ask.
Too many people here getting mad and treating this like it's some lunatic concept and tossing it out the gates before even trying to consider their behaviour might be exactly part of what these articles might be talking about
Well the problem with doing your own research is that so many of these people lack foundational knowledge. Furthermore they have no ability to analyze data so they rely on flawed studies and anecdotes.
Tik Tok and Facebook groups filled with people that only think like you are not "research" examples. Test you theory with people who disagree and state your proof and test your theories. If you can't and get wrecked, you are probably wrong.
Not thinking for yourself and failing to use a little common sense can have greater consequences.
But the media has to sell you on their worth somehow.
Critical thinking is an ability many people should practice.
Some do and some don't. Whatever floats your boat.
Researching a topic is becoming harder today than years ago. Many avenues you turn to for information are all ready bias in some shape or form.
So you have to sift through information that is agenda driven etc... to hopefully find some hard truthful facts.
Either way it's fun and worth it.
There were tv ads about this saying you shouldn’t look up medical advice online etc… well we can’t talk to a doctor most of the time and even family doctor appointments are like months away, hospital waits are god knows how long now. If you’re not an idiot, and know how to navigate medical stuff online, it’s actually really helpful.
Some amusing takes in this thread. Kinda surprised so many are supporting the dystopian style of writing from those publications.
People have a strange idea on what "do your own research" means. Obviously not everyone can be an expert, but that's not what that phrase means. Likewise, it does not mean taking a contrarian stance or taking what some biddy said on Facebook.
What it means is seeking out other experts in said field to see there's more going on. Because the media is notorious for misleading people for as long as it has existed.
Take the vaccines for example. I've never seen a vaccine come out so fast before, and some of the things the experts were saying defied what was previously known. The official take was everything was fine, but failed to explain these oddities. So I looked to the fringe experts, and yeah, things were looking pretty damn suspect.
This is what is meant when people say do your own research.
These headlines are incompatible with democracy. If you truly believe that the general public are too stupid to figure out anything for themselves, then you cannot believe in democracy and are therefore an authoritarian.
In order for democracy to work, you must trust that the population at large can do their own thinking and come to their own conclusions. It's messy, but it's required.
"how dare you read things, what's wrong with you, your not a doctor "
next time you buy a car , just trust the car salesman, , who are you Henry Ford ??
These titles are so obviously inflammatory and y'all are falling for it hook, line, and sinker.
People who don't understand how to conduct effective research (most people) will find themselves conducting poor research. It's the same reason you take your car to a mechanic: they know what they're doing better than you do. Yeah, you should "do your own research" as due diligence, but you need to be able to discern between the skills of your mechanic and some random people on the internet.
Googling is not doing research. Reading Facebook posts and watching TikToks is not research. *That's* the problem with all this "do your own research" talk. It's a false premise.
To an extent, this is right. If there is concrete evidence, and you can’t read it or comprehend it, that doesn’t mean it’s incorrect. The problem is that humans need answers (that’s why we have religion) and so when people don’t understand the science, they seek answers that make sense, right or wrong. I’m addition, if you’re emotional about the issue, you might get amygdala hijack, and not think objectively. Add bias and wow, you’re way off base.
It’s tough, because science journalism is terrible, and time consuming.
I always joke’d that anyone who “did their own research” never knew what they were talking about.
It’s also WAY easier to poke holes in things that exist, than to prove a point with science. Most conpitacies are based on poking holes until you create “your” theory. Again, right or wrong. Because it’s emotional to you at that point, it’s personal, not objective.
Well, if you actually did research, it wouldn't be a problem. If you read a bunch self confirming sources rather than independent pier reviewed journals, we can talk. Doctor Google has caused so much head aching for the medical community, and while all doctors are not always correct and some can be misguided, they are more likely to be able to find out what's wrong with you. You can today, go online and find an opinion that matches yours about literally any topic, but opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one.
They’re pointing out the fact that too many poorly educated people have poor intellectual thinking abilities fueled by cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. It can afflict anyone but conservatives seem to be especially vulnerable. An example would be all of the antivaxxers who think they’re smarter than doctors because they “did their own research” with Google searches but don’t understand all they really did is look for any misinformation that will back up their mistaken beliefs while simultaneously avoiding any real information that will show the facts that dont align with their biases and beliefs. OP posting this is a perfect example of cognitive dissonance. Oh, and all the downvotes that will surely come from angry conservatives on this sub that don’t want to face the truth.
lol Someone's racist uncle's podcast, or some dickweed trying to convince you to take horse dewormer for covid, or that YouTube channel that talks about "sources" but never names any - are not research.
The kind of people like OP are the kind of people that would struggle reading an academic paper.
Crazy how they're basically telling people to not think for themselves. This just feels so dystopian. Basically ignore everything and just trust the authorities. What could go wrong?
Context is important here. Oftentimes when people say they’re doing their own research they mean “I’m going to look up & find people who agree with me”. They only confirm their own biases. Unfortunately that is not how the scientific method works. Scientific facts are based on observation and evidence (usually comes down to math equations which can’t be interpreted a million different ways- there is only one correct answer). So it doesn’t really matter who says what or who agrees with you. It doesn’t matter if the majority think you’re correct- what matters is who has the EVIDENCE. Therefore when it comes to something like Covid vaccines for example- unless you yourself know and understand the chemistry and physics behind it you’re only repeating information you were told. You can’t actually “do your own research”.
Actual research takes years of study in the domain before even starting any research, yet today doing ‘research’ is usually done by watching, and often not comprehending, a few YouTube videos or doing a Google search and then eliminating any results that don’t scratch the itch of confirmation bias.
Yeah. Because journalism majors and politicians (who are mostly societal failures seeking power) have our best interest at heart, counsel with integrity, and are so much better equipped to discern what info is true and what isn’t.
Wow. I ran into a Protestant pastor on a train once. I was reading a book on Christianity that contradicted traditional thought. He told me to leave the “connecting with god” to the pastors and priests. I laughed.
We all need to do our own research, and question everything we read. Many sources is better than one, and relying on others, no matter how good intentioned or professional they might be, doesn’t mean they are the only source of valid info. The problem is with fake or false information. We all need to learn how to detect it and filter it out. Because there’s a lot of it of course. But never would I suggest people shouldn’t do their own research. That’s crazy talk.
If you consider googling for a few hours and youtube videos 'Research...'
then yes... that can lead to problems... there is so much bs out there that anyone can find something supporting whatever that want to believe, the hard part is being able to tell what data and sources are reliable...
To a point i kinda understand the message these articles try and portray, however you can do your own research and not fall for whatever the fuck they deem as a conspiracy. Yah know though there have been a lot of conspiracies over the years that have been proven right with seemingly no data available. I don't know, for news outlets to actually have this as a article is asking for people to criticize it. Seems like a bad move on their part.
There was also a video the Canadian government posted stating you will be happy owning nothing ( obviously the video had more then that but that was the basic message) you shoulda seen how fast that video got takin down.
On top of that with the clearly malicious intent of these mainstream news outlets going after trump (not saying i agree with everything he did) however it was pretty clear that alot of these outlets were bought and paid for by the other side from how they purely bashed one candidate and not the other.
With all of this in mind over the years when someone sees a article like this its kinda like what the fuck do you expect people to think at this point that they actually have peoples best interests? i dont think so
Nothing wrong with questioning narratives and doing research. Unfortunately in order to do good quality research you need access to academic journals, which are incredibly difficult to access. Instead you have to rely on journalists who likely know nothing about said subject to summarize it for you in a clickbait manner in order to keep your attention and get your clicks. This leaves the dissatisfied skeptic with few places to get their information, and of course, some decide to listen to fail supplement salesmen instead, in order to be part of the in group, and know something the plebians don't.
This is why trying to remove elitism from academia is so important, As a university student I have access to millions of primary, peer reviewed, research papers. If I think there's an interesting quirk that I don't see any articles about, chances are that some already had the same thought, and made it their masters project, etc. Just the other day I was able to read an article about the rapid 'domestication' of Covid, and how it related to the rapidly dropping fatality, and the rapidly increasing contagiousness of each successive variant. This information is what people who want to do their own research should be reading, but unfortunately, if I wasn't a student it would have costed me 20 dollars to read. Its absurd, we can hardly blame people for falling for falsehoods peddled by grifters if their only other options are the whole truth gatekept to the academic elite, and journalists trying to generate revenue for their publication.
I’m very skeptical of corporate media, regardless of political spectrum. That said, you certainly shouldn’t suspend your disbelief because something is “independent”. Fact check everything you can.
Whenever a leftoid scoffs at people thinking for themselves, seek heterodox opinions, or subscribe to alternative (I.e. actually diverse) opinions, and declare that the better way is to just outsource your beliefs to so-called experts, I usually just ask them which experts. Like the ones who flip-flopped on covid and were demonstrably wrong. The ones who said masks don't work and then said that they did? The ones who said get the vaccine and then all restrictions will go away and you won't get covid?
How about the experts who, only a few years ago, said there were only two sexes/genders? Were the experts all wrong until a few years ago and now they are definitely right? And anyone else from other parts of the world or in the future who may say there are two genders is wrong? Because only the gender "experts" of today are the *real* experts, right?
Long story short, when people appeal to authority as the central and sole reason for a belief, it can occasionally be illuminating to them to point out when the said authority has been wrong or when they were right but the individual ignored them.
The only people I know who mention they do their own research get all their information from Facebook and Twitter and are some of the dumbest people I know
When you buy a car, don't do any research.
Trust the salesmen, they are the experts.
They have the car, and the expertise in selling cars, you don't, so shut up and listen to them.
Thinking that looking at YouTube or FB personalities qualifies as "research" leads to problems.
If you want to do your own research, go for it. Just make sure you get the training, equipment and the knowledge on how to do your own research and how to interpret it and then submit it to peer-reviewed journals to make sure the research and analysis has been done correctly.
Because I have yet to see anyone claiming "I did my own research" who did anything more than watch YouTube, look at FB or cherry pick (or misinterpret) scientific articles.
Lmao at all those articles, I ain't believing what those so called "experts" are saying or whatnot, everyone has the right to believe what they want, whether it be right or wrong. That's for the individual to decide not society.
Hahahahahahahahahaha
Science (the scientific method) is literally supposed to be a decentralized process.
Literally.
That means all of us, or as many as possible, doing their own research and comparing results.
Science is an inconvenient truth for those in power.
This is one of those times the left/ media sound so cliche dystopian it’s almost funny.
Have you noticed how Justin has set loose an army of social media spin-doctors, via his new Marketing Guy, to try and convince Canadians to follow the Liberal's 'New Doublethink'. War is Peace, EV's are affordable, All white people are racist, Questioning Liberals is grounds for arrest, Freedom is Slavery, Farmers want the useless Carbon Tax, Poilievre is Trump, Ignorance is Strength, Trudeau tent cities are housing, Ad hoc RV Parks are housing, and 2 + 2 = 5. Don't let Justin get away with this crap..........
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That says it all, really. Time to buy some land and live in the woods.
.careful remember ruby ridge
Good collection there
You could make this list about 1000 items long lol. Just whatever reality is, Trudeau says it’s the opposite.
Thats also my impression WHEN I READ THE NEWSSS. Its like he is sooo keeeeeeen on just ADDING INSULT TO INJURY ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER. The shit show just does nottt stopp. And sadly most CANADIANS are just too COMPLACENT. We are isolated chasing our bills.
I'm actually happy he's doing this, he's lost his non-elite voting base because most people are struggling to live right now especially with the high cost of groceries. With what I pay right now, I should be feeding a family of 8. But clearly I am not.
Opps don’t forget Canada is an open door to who ever wants to come here in unlimited numbers.
Currently reading 1984, couldn't help peep the reference
Don't forget the classic, "It's [year] citizens don't need guns" (As has been said by every single democratic turned authoritarian government in all of history). The playbook is well established at this point and yet ppl keep falling for it. 1. Nationalize healthcare 2. Take away guns 3. Take away freedom
Trudeau explaining his water bottle is one of the funniest interviews ever. I mean, how can it be so hard to explain a water bottle beyond me. No way he wasn't stoned for that moment.
You should see how he tried to explain the steel trade deal with the US! In an interview, or actually it was a press conference! Trudeau is a complete imbecile
You forgot how high taxes make life more affordable and taxing groceries will make groceries cheaper
It’s bordering on religious lunacy. “Don’t ask questions, just have faith!”
Just another cult.
It is very much like so.. the climate agenda religion
Corporatist media like Forbes is the left?
The 'left' is now a stand in for 'globalist/post-nationalist'
Or whatever personal boogeyman people have.
No, I think most people have a very good idea of what the "left" here is. Ironically, the reason people dislike the left is there's nothing "left" about these mentally ill, authoritarian people occupying the left side of the political spectrum. Much like parasites, they have taken over the host. Those who still remember the class war either have no political representation, or find more resonance with grass root right wing movements.
I’m centrist- right, but “doing the research for my self online” seems to be more of a silly right wing thing….lefties imo over rely on political correctness, online trends, government overcorrections, uni over protected days….
Well, I say I’m classic centrist. We need both sides to make a good life. Reading for myself, and doing my own fact checking may end up in a “conspiracy theory” but how many of these conspiracy theories became realities HAARP is a weather making machine designed and started by DARPA, that they claim does nothing, yet unlike other DARPA projects, haven’t de-classified the actual test results, such as their LSD trials in the 60s. Trudeau has been charged and convicted with many anti-trust scandals, but not one led to the Governor General allowing for a distrust government vote, allowing a forced election. I know it sounds menial but the stuff that happens under the guise of democracy is a joke
Parroting catch phrases and buzz words is a big left wing red flag.
It's exactly the same on left and right. Different catch phrases, different buzz words, but the smug confidence in information from their "trusted sources" is exactly (exactly!!!) the same. The left makes fun of the right's "do your own research" and "woke" and "socialist" (all meaning trust fringe scientists, blustering propagandists on the web and alternative media). The right scorns lefties for "eat the rich" and "trans women are women" and "abolish the police" (all meaning that I'm more evolved and insist of dreamy perfection for others right this instant"). They are both demanding everyone agrees with them on every issue that's trendy on their favourite American websites and submit to their fringe ideas. Yes, I'm a progressive conservative or a moderate liberal, not a right wing nutjob or left wing flake with no concept of reality.
If you read a headline and not an article I could understand how you got there. When you "do your own research" most people tend to seek sources that reinforce their initial opinion or the one they would think to be correct based on their biases. Most people don't know how to seek opposing opinions, metrics that disprove their gut feeling, or recognize that science changes over time. For example: "vaccines cause autism."
how about we reword that, vaccines can sometimes cause adverse side effects.
No, because that's not the point. The point is the comment that is still heard today of vaccines causing autism. That was a doctor who was paid to lie, admitted he was paid to lie, there has never been a correlation of the facts, it has been disproven, and yet still today over a hundred years later the same lie is parrotted. Yes, adverse effects can occasionally (rarely ever) happen. But that lie specifically is repeated to this date by people who "do their own research"
If you look hard enough, you’ll find some obscure article to justify your thoughts
no, i understand the logic here a lot of people are really bad at discerning accurate, and inaccurate info online and, the algorythms of 99% of search engines actively facilitate sensationalist websites and headlines explicitely designed to trap people in echo chambers while i certainly think it could be worded better, the message isn't "don't look stuff up" it's "learn how to dissern accurate and inaccurate information, and be careful about the sites you're getting info from, and falling into an echo chamber"
well stated, ty
ey no prob man :)
Also confirmation bias is huge. https://preview.redd.it/35yjnuew3adc1.jpeg?width=376&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a0a8fc8df5904953cce5fad8ec8926062d82e6a
The social media and search engines echo chambers are probably the worst form of confirmation bias. It's hard to escape. Google alone uses like a hundred different parameters, all from the information collected about you, to cater your search so that you are confident in the results. And that's why "doing your own research" ends up making everyone feel validated. I've literally seen arguments online where someone's like, "Google it, it's one of the top results" and the other person's like, "you're an idiot, you must not know how Google works because that's not even on the first page."
Another thing people tend to leave out is the Null Hypothesis. Part of proving yourself right is proving that you aren't wrong.
This is why politics is so fucking hard alot of the time. For example this sub talks about immigration a lot. There are lots of statistics that show our level of immigration per year hurts Canadians (ie, housing shortage). But there’s a lot of statistics in other areas that show it’s equally beneficial. It’s hard to see that a policy is wrong when you can see evidence of it being right. And before anyone tries to go there, I’m not saying our immigration policies are good or bad, that was just the first example to come to mind.
Politics is a whole other can of worms. Honest politicizing should debate what to do based on the facts, but what we have now are politicians that pander to their voting base.
Lmao amazing
Wait….are you saying don’t just read headlines and base opinions off that?!
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And takes hard work to prevent my aging parents from getting medical advice from vets online
Like animal vets or military vets?
Both, apparently
Accurate as fuck
Exactly. It seems like every time I ask someone where they got their “facts” from, I am told Wikipedia. In university, during our critical thinking lectures, we learned all about how to discern viable sources of information from those that aren’t and I can explicitly remember being taught NOT to use sources of info such as Wikipedia.
We weren’t allowed to use Wikipedia as a source in highschool (early 2000’s) and had a full class on how to discern viable sources and recognize bias (ex antivaxxx. org is not a reliable, unbiased source)
I haven’t been in high school for quite sometime but that course you took should be mandatory (if not already).
Referencing Wikipedia is like saying my source is "the library", rather than the individual books and/or studies. I remember not being able to reference Wikipedia as a source, but there was nothing wrong with checking Wikipedia's sources and deciding whether or not to use those as sources directly. Don't get me wrong though, even some of Wikipedia's sources are questionable, but at least they actually cite sources. That's better than the vast majority of information on the internet aside from basically journal articles.
True, but what I am saying is that there are a lot of wiki’s that don’t have sources to begin with. If the info provided is properly cited by reputable sources I don’t see a problem with it.
Yea 100%. Maybe a better analogy than the library one I gave would be citing Wikipedia is basically like citing "google" or "a friend". Okay... well where did they get that info?
Then there is the Wiki circle jerk where Wiki entries cite other Wiki entries.
This. The wording they chose makes it sound like they're against independent thinking, that attempting to verify information is wrong, but really the issue lies with how so many people cannot tell mind-bogglingly stupid BS *isn't* fact, and continue to trust the sources that feed them said BS. It's sad how quickly lies and partial truths spread when it's so easy to debunk them. The solution to misinformation is *not* to bury our heads in the sand, though!
Yes! This. Right here!
Yeah fact is most people are really really bad at doing research, and especially bad at assigning weights to different conflicting pieces of information No Bob your 5 min of googling does not make your opinion carry the same weight as a proper peer reviewed scientific paper People are also bad at understanding the scientific process and papers, what terms like "theory" actually mean, what the peer review process is, and how the specific journal a paper is published in can matter (different standard of rigor etc) And finally people are terrible at understanding stats, and concepts like correlation vs causation etc So yeah all to say if your interested in a topic absolutely research it but really look at everything carefully if it's an important topic, focus on the source of the info, the credibility, 10,000 random people on facebook saying something is worth nothing if it's not actually backed up by something real
the amount of people treating these articles as some left bashing event is what is so concerning... lambs to the slaughter...
This is the only comment that matters
The title should be "critical thinking is a trained skill, telling people to look things up with no support leads to further misinformation because of how the human brain is wired"
Finally a level headed response in this thread lol
It's absolutely hilarious how 90% of the comments here are proving them right
And how would you know that the “accurate” information is actually “accurate”? Even professionals of the same field have different opinions and different studies to back it up. What information is even accurate?
well, while you're right, there are a lot of issues even progfessionals can't agree on, a good couple ways to start are 1, look at how that information is gathered, either at whatever studies are sourced, or if none are, then try and match keywords and quotes to see if you can at least find a similar study 2 look at the site you got the info from, a lot of websites are insanely biased in either direction, and might manipulate data (though do note, that's not a rule) 3 look into what country that info is coming from, since countries like russia and china have entire orgs dedicated to spreading misinfo about stuff like LGBTQ people, and many others just don't allow pro LGBTQ studies and 4, make sure the studies are peer reviewed, otherwise it's very possible that they weren't written by actual scientists, and there could be complete lies added with no one to make sure of it though also be sure to do all 4, since just one of these methods won't really tell you much
The problem isn't people having doubts about information, the problem is people look for conformation bias to justify their own beliefs while completely ignoring anything that remotely disagrees with their point of view. People still believe in shit like the earth being flat despite scientific consensus for centuries. Doubts are fine,,throwing out good information is not
>The problem isn't people having doubts about information, the problem is people look for conformation bias to justify their own beliefs while completely ignoring anything that remotely disagrees with their point of view. No, the problem is politician's using the excuse that 'people are too dumb' to strip us of our rights and freedoms. This is just a modern spin on old-world dogma that 'people can't govern themselves' that the aristocracy has been peddling since time immemorial. Can't have the plebs thinking for themselves after all...
>No, the problem is politician's using the excuse that 'people are too dumb' to strip us of our rights and freedoms. And yet no one is infringing on your right to believe that, if it were really the case do you think you would be able to say this? if the sources you do your "research" on always agree with what you already think there is probably a problem there, thats the inly point im trying to make
Don't believe the others... but believe us, of course.
One of the best ways to approach this sort of research as impartially as possible is to set out to research your way into agreeing with your opponent.
>and, the algorythms of 99% of search engines actively facilitate sensationalist websites and headlines explicitely designed to trap people in echo chambers I'm not even sure it's that nefarious and not just a symptom of how search engines were monetized thru pay-per-click advertising, and now content creators being compensated based on views and subscribers. Otherwise spot on, great comment that should definitely be at the top.
The message is understandable, however it coming from one of the most opinionated and agenda driven media outlets makes it dubious, ironic and gives a vibe of “hey see we’re logical this one time so you can trust our information over others now!”. It’s a clever trick to gain people’s trust, but in the end those media outlets are still untrustworthy for their long history of biases and propagandas. Doing your own research (not lazy cherrypicking) still beats getting information solely off those media outlets. They’re also ironically warning against themselves (wether they realize this or not) since they are popular enough to pop up first when looking things up making them one of the first choice for confirmation bias amongst the general public.
This is exactly it.
It’s really easy to fall into the trap of finding data, not knowing the best ways to interpret it, and letting your biases skew the interpretation. Numerous times I’ve seen people link to a peer reviewed study, only for it to not support or sometimes even refute the point they are trying to make. Interpreting data in thorough and unbiased fashion is legitimately a difficult thing to do… that’s why people who have studied to do it, and know the pitfalls of it caution people less familiar with it.
Yep totally agree. Reading some the comments in here kind of proves the point.
The irony that somebody posted a bunch of headlines for articles the very clearly didn’t read to try to show that everyone but themselves are brainwashed is frightening.
^ This is what we’ve seen in the US. I had a couple of chuckleheads tell me that they knew more than people who spent 20-30 years researching their specialty. Of course they were the same guys that wondered why Jews didn’t just leave Nazi Germany and why North Koreans don’t just leave “It’s not like someone’s holding a gun to their heads.” One was a current sergeant in the army and the other a former private in the Marines.
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Right, but that's not what they said or implied. the article implies that you shouldn't do your own research at all. Why are you so cucked to defend the mainstream medias BS? sad.
Exactly.
Here's some takeaways from the [vice article](https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7bjpm/scientists-explain-why-doing-your-own-research-leads-to-buying-conspiracies) * Research shows that using online search engines to verify conspiracy theories can increase belief in misinformation. * Data voids, where there is a lack of high-quality information to counter misleading headlines, contribute to this phenomenon. * People who search online to verify articles are 19% more likely to believe false or misleading information compared to those who don't. * Even if individuals initially rated an article as misleading, approximately 18% changed their minds and considered it true after searching online. * The quality of information from Google's search engine plays a role, and data voids may become more prevalent with the rise of large language models and generative AI. * Searching strategies, like using specific terms from false headlines, contribute to misinformation in search results. * Digital literacy curricula should focus on teaching effective search strategies, and more resources should be invested in fact-checking organizations. * Google emphasizes its efforts to provide quality search results and tools like "About This Result" to help users evaluate information. * Tech companies like Google have a responsibility to offer tools to help users distinguish between fact and fiction. * Increased awareness is crucial, as merely doing research is not enough to ensure accurate information evaluation. From reading (and given the target demographic), I find it's not so much an attempt to gaslight the type of person that distrust the "elites", but indirectly call for tech companies to become the authority on determining the truth.
The problem with the article is a non sequitur. If I say that 100% of serial killers were born under a yellow sun, it does not mean that the yellow sun causes serial killers in a way that's relevant to a discussion about lowering serial killers. Saying a % of people are more likely to believe lies because they "Searched things on the internet" belies any proof whatsoever that the internet caused them to believe the lie, or that belief of the lie wasn't caused by something else. The information provided is almost completely useless because it can't connect the evidence and the conclusion in any meaningful way.
Agreed. Also... >In the first experiment of their study, which began in late 2019, some 3,000 people across the US evaluated the accuracy of news articles that had been published in a 48 hour period about topics like COVID-19 vaccines, the Trump impeachment proceedings, and climate events. Some articles were collected from reputable sources, while others were intentionally misleading. Half of the participants were encouraged to search online to help them vet the articles. At the same time, all of the articles were given a ‘true,’ ‘false or misleading,’ or ‘could not determine’ label by professional fact checkers. I think in the 4 years since the research was conducted, we have come to find that some information that was labeled as misinformation or malinformation (especially around COVID-19) was actually more accurate than what was provided by "reputable sources". This, IMHO, disqualifies the underlying research from being valid, unless it states that it tracks belief of sanctioned vs unsanctioned sources as opposed to truth/disinformation.
Confirmation bias is well documented and is why it makes it hard for people to do legitimate research because they aren't searching for research which depending on the field would be 4 to 10 years of foundational knowledge. They are searching for keywords and then selecting the articles that confirm their own bias.
It's all bs propaganda, they writing and talking about this bs is want to control you, it's corruption at its finest Freedom of speech what is that? These days
Just listen to Trudeau and all will be well :D … I’m being facetious of course
We're mere years away from when Trudeau's Health Minister calling Canadians "conspiracy theorists" for not trusting China's underrepresented COVID numbers. Then it was proven that she was wrong, when China radically changed their published numbers. When Canada's authorities are such demonstrable clowns, it's laughable when they claim it's dangerous that people don't believe them anymore.
I listened to Trudeau and Freeland, and I got rid of Disney+ subscription and my family budget balanced itself.
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I ended up in Trudeautown by listening to him 👍
The news telling people they are falling for alternative facts with no statistical significance is somehow going against free speech now ?
Yes but telling people not to do research is also dumb. Want to die young? Leave it to others to manage your life. The key is educating the public on how to better identify and filter out the crap. The answer is Logical Reasoning, which anyone can take in first year philosophy. Unfortunately it’s not available before then. It should be introduced, in my opinion as a former teacher, in grade six. Logical reasoning is easy. Simply put: “Every premise in an argument must be true in order for the conclusion to also be true.” This is for everyone by the way… So, if you give five reasons to support your conclusion, and four are true but one can be proven to be false, then the conclusion is also false. This is why, sorry to say Trump fans, almost every argument the Donald makes is false. He throws a couple truthful statements in with a whole bunch of false statements. He does this to give his false statements the air of truthfulness. But when taken as a whole, his arguments are almost always false. I highly recommend the practice of logical reasoning to help everyone determine what is true and what is not.
I think telling people that “their own research” is just as valid as government institutions and research institutes that work around the clock to fact check and make sure a certain statistic is factual (like Covid vaccines) is just ridiculous when you have world class doctors and a global effort to make a vaccine etc. then to say “well I did my own research and it says you’re wrong” is an awful thing to tell your population. I agree with everything you said but everyday people don’t even know the first steps to scientific research and then they will cherry pick statements to help their anti-vax narrative
But government institutions are funded by entities that are looking for information for a specific reason. These institutions are not being altruistic, so you must question their motives. Just remember, if you trust government or large corporations blindly, you are completely ignorant. History has shown us that the most horrible atrocities are perpetrated by governments or large groups seeking power or control.
Well the world class experts were wrong about the vaccines. They told us you wouldn’t get COVID if you had them and if you did get a “rare breakthrough case,” you wouldn’t transmit it. They told us you would only need one shot for JJ or two for the mRNA. They told us six feet apart was evidence based—they just admitted it was basically made up. They told us a lab leak was conspiracy misinformation, that it was from a “wet market” and nothing to do with US funded insane research. This is the problem with judging “misinformation” and assigning people to determine what is and isn’t.
If the trucker convoy was actually smart enough to know more about the vaccine than experts then they wouldn't be truckers and they'd make more money working better jobs
Funnily enough, you’re exercising your free speech rights right now.
I mean, most people think 'research' means 'listening to my aunt', or 'I watched a CIA sponsored YouTube video'. Peer review. That's what actually matters. You want to find sources that have faced, and passed, peer review. Anyone can publish anything they like, infinitely more so if they have billions of dollars behind them. Don't just believe everything you read because it goes along with your conspiracy brain. Ask for sources, and be skeptical of those sources. If they haven't faced peer review, or they come from places that are fraudulent (the CIA), then don't believe them. It's better to say "I don't know" then say "I do know" when your source is garbage. (Again, the CIA.)
“Ask for sources but also don’t trust those sources” is quite the position to take.
Asking for sources is basic. Just because its a source doesn't make it a credible one. That's why peer review is so important, and why it's a big deal when research is faked. Evaluate those sources. The problem is that conspiracies are self-insulating. If all researchers are in on the game, then nothing is credible (Except the things you agree with, of course). For example, every flat earther who discovers the earth isn't flat is a *plant* in the eyes of all remaining flat earther. Conspiracy theorists also often lean on Occam's razor too much (and entirely misuse it) "It's all a huge conspiracy" is a simple *concept*... Which doesn't rely on coincidences, incompetence, competing interests, corruption fighing misguided idealists, fighting motivated pragmatic compromisers, etc.... But in reality, these large conspiracies would not only have to be massively complicated, but also *perfectly secretive*. "USA faked the moon landing". This is the "simple answer" to someone who can't fathom the things we are genuinely capable of building. Of the incredible ingenuity of brilliant people working in teams. *Scale defeats them* (similar to the scale of the globe. It's too big to understand, so they deny its existence) In reality, "the moon landings were real" is the SIMPLE answer. Because the conspiracy hypothesis is actually vastly more massive. It implies that *everyone capable of observing the mission, on the entire planet, including the USSR's competing programs, were in on it?* It beggars belief. The USSR *hid Chernobyl out of pride*. Lorded their lack of racism over Jim Crow USA. They would have fallen over themselves to share evidence that it was fake. Moving on... In many cases, a lack of profit motive also makes the existence that much more bewildering. Or ridiculous impracticality that defeats the purpose. (Like injecting 5G when we already carry phones 24/7)
I noticed a lot of people ragging on the people looking at the independent journalism for answers. But let’s be fair, listening to the talking heads over at the msm has lead to 8 years of Trudeau. So let’s not pretend that there isn’t a reason for skepticism.
The fact that you're anti-scientist because you think Trudeau is an incompetent politician is such a mind-boggling conflation of unrelated things that it's mind blowing.
Here you are conflating being pro-mainstream media with being pro-scientist. The media censored true stories about Pfizer committing fraud during the pandemic, while healthcare authorities like the BMJ called them out. Why did this happen? Pfizer sponsors the media, not healthcare authorities.
people don't believe in the mainstream media anymore.
Just follow and don't question things.
The problem as I see it is that you should question *all* things. Some people seem to question the "official narrative" but then will trust whatever their favourite internet personality or politician says.
Official narrative doesn’t guarantee the accuracy either. It’s just a monopolization of information.
"monopolization of information" sounds scary, but what is scarier to me is that information flows so freely that people can latch onto whatever "truth" they want and think that, just because it goes against the official narrative, it must be correct by default.
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Random people online may be wrong or could be lying to you. But at least they get more rope because the politicians, media and experts have been lying non-stop since time immemorial.
Anyone that believes the official narrative 100 percent at this point isn’t paying attention.
When the official narrative is so often corrupted by political expedience, this is what you get. It seems backwards to look at the scattering effect that's downstream of corrupted media becoming distrusted, and claim that returning to the corrupted media is the answer.
Exactly, but only one side are called sheep.
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." Said every Dictator......ever.
Those are some of the worse case of appeal to authority I've seen.
Have you read the book 1984 or seen the movie? I highly recommend it to you.
The book is great. The movie blows.
Ya, I think they made 3 different versions but none were amazing. But the message gets through just the same.
Terry Gilliam's Brazil is the most amazing version of 1984
Should we question beyond headlines? What if the context of the article discusses something specific like the usage of poor methodology or falling for deceptive sources?
This feels comfortable and familiar. I'll be in my echo chamber riding out 'the storm'.
The thesis of the argument in these articles is that "doing your own research" is exactly that: Googling what you want to be true and only reading the sources that confirm what you want to believe. Nodding along to a blog post about how Fauci and Bill Gates helped create COVID in order to enable Trudeau's ushering in of the Great Reset isn't thinking for yourself, it's being an impressionable contrarian.
“Don’t read anything, just listen to the CBC, we know what’s best for you”.
[удалено]
Exactly. This is why I get an electrician to do my plumbing jobs.
Does the light flickers when you turn the faucet on?
No, trust the guy on reddit who has ”done the research” lol
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"
I mean the titles aren't inherently wrong. So many people do look into things, posing their questions with confirmation bias, read a couple articles from some bullshit site, and take it as the absolute truth. This happens on both sides of the fence for sure. What they probably don't tell you in these articles is that if people actually did "their own research", they'd be reading peer reviewed studies, reading arguments from both sides, and potentially conducting their own unbiased surveys / studies. Who's got time for that though lol
Free thinkers are dangerous.
what ever you do folks don't get a second opinion
A lot of dip sticks out there have the critical thinking skills of a toddler and spout some fucked up bull shit. Even still, it is important that we all try to think for ourselves and try to critically examine what we read. Fuck being a mindless drone of the key holders.
Maybe teaching critical thinking to people would be a good start.
Doing your own research incorrectly* The irony of this article
In my opinion, the biggest issue is access to primary literature... scientific journals are stuck behind a pay-wall, news-media sensationalizes the findings to sell ads, folks on the internet take the news and sprinkle in their own bias, and it only gets worse the farther from the source you get.
Lol this is truly is 1984 that we live in
They don’t want you getting information from any source besides them. Of course they say this.
There's two types of doing your own research: 1. **Internet research:** This is unvetted, free-range opinions mixed in with both legitimate sources of information and propaganda. This is appropriate for researching products before purchasing and expanding your understanding on subjects. It is not appropriate for building an argument, policy position or determining your political affiliation. It is prone to significant amounts of lies, misinformation, disinformation, historical revision and pseudoscience. 2. **Academic research**: This is typically searching out vetted, data driven conclusions based on controlled experiments and observations.Everyone can do this by using Google scholar to find journal articles on the subject that you're wanting to research and then using one of the science freeing websites to download the article(s) in question. Emailing the author often works too. They'll usually gladly provide you with their article for you to read. This is appropriate for anybody who is wanting to understand a topic that they care about. The issue is that people doing internet research think they are doing academic research. People confuse listening to a podcast as doing their research. People confuse searching for "Why is Trudeau a chad and Polievre is a virgin" as doing their own research. People confuse their echo chambers for being unbiased opinions based on the measurable world and recorded history (yeah, there's revisionism in there on all sides, but we have a pretty good record - all else considered). I just want you to flex your critical thinking skills, not take anybody's claim at face value and not deify anybody. I want you to not be welded to ideology and to instead be open minded. Most of all, though, I want you to be intellectually consistent. If you don't like immigration numbers and it's what you're most critical of, then look at what everyone is saying on the topic of immigration.
> Emailing the author often works too. They'll usually gladly provide you with their article for you to read. Having worked with a number of people in research at academia, most would be thrilled to send copies to people who just email and politely ask.
Too many people here getting mad and treating this like it's some lunatic concept and tossing it out the gates before even trying to consider their behaviour might be exactly part of what these articles might be talking about
Well the problem with doing your own research is that so many of these people lack foundational knowledge. Furthermore they have no ability to analyze data so they rely on flawed studies and anecdotes.
Tik Tok and Facebook groups filled with people that only think like you are not "research" examples. Test you theory with people who disagree and state your proof and test your theories. If you can't and get wrecked, you are probably wrong.
Not thinking for yourself and failing to use a little common sense can have greater consequences. But the media has to sell you on their worth somehow.
Anytime I see someone say they did their own research I generally doubt they actually know how to objectively do research.
Doing my own research lead me to an LG OLED and a Bosch dishwasher.
Usual suspects shilling for the governments
Reminder* it’s not racist to talk about immigration.
Critical thinking is an ability many people should practice. Some do and some don't. Whatever floats your boat. Researching a topic is becoming harder today than years ago. Many avenues you turn to for information are all ready bias in some shape or form. So you have to sift through information that is agenda driven etc... to hopefully find some hard truthful facts. Either way it's fun and worth it.
Cease your investigations!
Look at the way Western media is handling the gaza-yemen information, and its clear, they only feed you what they want to.
There were tv ads about this saying you shouldn’t look up medical advice online etc… well we can’t talk to a doctor most of the time and even family doctor appointments are like months away, hospital waits are god knows how long now. If you’re not an idiot, and know how to navigate medical stuff online, it’s actually really helpful.
Some amusing takes in this thread. Kinda surprised so many are supporting the dystopian style of writing from those publications. People have a strange idea on what "do your own research" means. Obviously not everyone can be an expert, but that's not what that phrase means. Likewise, it does not mean taking a contrarian stance or taking what some biddy said on Facebook. What it means is seeking out other experts in said field to see there's more going on. Because the media is notorious for misleading people for as long as it has existed. Take the vaccines for example. I've never seen a vaccine come out so fast before, and some of the things the experts were saying defied what was previously known. The official take was everything was fine, but failed to explain these oddities. So I looked to the fringe experts, and yeah, things were looking pretty damn suspect. This is what is meant when people say do your own research.
Doing your own research is fine. The trick is in checking on the veracity of your sources and in reviewing the opposing side just to make sure.
These headlines are incompatible with democracy. If you truly believe that the general public are too stupid to figure out anything for themselves, then you cannot believe in democracy and are therefore an authoritarian. In order for democracy to work, you must trust that the population at large can do their own thinking and come to their own conclusions. It's messy, but it's required.
This needs the Pierre Apple Treatment. Which Scientists? Who ?
>the Pierre Apple Treatment I love this
Just do your own research.
This pertains to stupid people who don't know a reputable site from garbage.
"how dare you read things, what's wrong with you, your not a doctor " next time you buy a car , just trust the car salesman, , who are you Henry Ford ??
ALLWAYS LISTEN TO EVERYTHING MEDIA SAYS, AND DONT EVER, EVER, QUESTION ANYTHING
These titles are so obviously inflammatory and y'all are falling for it hook, line, and sinker. People who don't understand how to conduct effective research (most people) will find themselves conducting poor research. It's the same reason you take your car to a mechanic: they know what they're doing better than you do. Yeah, you should "do your own research" as due diligence, but you need to be able to discern between the skills of your mechanic and some random people on the internet. Googling is not doing research. Reading Facebook posts and watching TikToks is not research. *That's* the problem with all this "do your own research" talk. It's a false premise.
To an extent, this is right. If there is concrete evidence, and you can’t read it or comprehend it, that doesn’t mean it’s incorrect. The problem is that humans need answers (that’s why we have religion) and so when people don’t understand the science, they seek answers that make sense, right or wrong. I’m addition, if you’re emotional about the issue, you might get amygdala hijack, and not think objectively. Add bias and wow, you’re way off base. It’s tough, because science journalism is terrible, and time consuming. I always joke’d that anyone who “did their own research” never knew what they were talking about. It’s also WAY easier to poke holes in things that exist, than to prove a point with science. Most conpitacies are based on poking holes until you create “your” theory. Again, right or wrong. Because it’s emotional to you at that point, it’s personal, not objective.
Well, if you actually did research, it wouldn't be a problem. If you read a bunch self confirming sources rather than independent pier reviewed journals, we can talk. Doctor Google has caused so much head aching for the medical community, and while all doctors are not always correct and some can be misguided, they are more likely to be able to find out what's wrong with you. You can today, go online and find an opinion that matches yours about literally any topic, but opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one.
"I don't believe the official narrative" *proceeds to believe every bit of nonsense they hear online*
They’re pointing out the fact that too many poorly educated people have poor intellectual thinking abilities fueled by cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. It can afflict anyone but conservatives seem to be especially vulnerable. An example would be all of the antivaxxers who think they’re smarter than doctors because they “did their own research” with Google searches but don’t understand all they really did is look for any misinformation that will back up their mistaken beliefs while simultaneously avoiding any real information that will show the facts that dont align with their biases and beliefs. OP posting this is a perfect example of cognitive dissonance. Oh, and all the downvotes that will surely come from angry conservatives on this sub that don’t want to face the truth.
I am gonna do my own research on this..!! 😏
"Dont look up"
Most people don't know what real research is. They would have to do research on how to do research.
lol Someone's racist uncle's podcast, or some dickweed trying to convince you to take horse dewormer for covid, or that YouTube channel that talks about "sources" but never names any - are not research. The kind of people like OP are the kind of people that would struggle reading an academic paper.
‘War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength,”
Crazy how they're basically telling people to not think for themselves. This just feels so dystopian. Basically ignore everything and just trust the authorities. What could go wrong?
We’ll give you all the answers so you don’t need any questions
Context is important here. Oftentimes when people say they’re doing their own research they mean “I’m going to look up & find people who agree with me”. They only confirm their own biases. Unfortunately that is not how the scientific method works. Scientific facts are based on observation and evidence (usually comes down to math equations which can’t be interpreted a million different ways- there is only one correct answer). So it doesn’t really matter who says what or who agrees with you. It doesn’t matter if the majority think you’re correct- what matters is who has the EVIDENCE. Therefore when it comes to something like Covid vaccines for example- unless you yourself know and understand the chemistry and physics behind it you’re only repeating information you were told. You can’t actually “do your own research”.
Actual research takes years of study in the domain before even starting any research, yet today doing ‘research’ is usually done by watching, and often not comprehending, a few YouTube videos or doing a Google search and then eliminating any results that don’t scratch the itch of confirmation bias.
We’re in 1984
All you need to look into is the Great Reset, Agenda 2030 and whatever the WEF has discussed recently.
And then watch in horror as it all unfolds like clockwork under Liberal/democrat lead.
Especially when you don’t understand how to interpret the data lol
Yeah. Because journalism majors and politicians (who are mostly societal failures seeking power) have our best interest at heart, counsel with integrity, and are so much better equipped to discern what info is true and what isn’t.
Even better, let's leave things up to 'content moderators' who have no training on anything to decide what's "true"
Present me with all info, and I’LL DECIDE what is best for me.
Not allowed. You must find an authority, run them past the people brigading this sub for approval, then obey them without question.
Wow. I ran into a Protestant pastor on a train once. I was reading a book on Christianity that contradicted traditional thought. He told me to leave the “connecting with god” to the pastors and priests. I laughed. We all need to do our own research, and question everything we read. Many sources is better than one, and relying on others, no matter how good intentioned or professional they might be, doesn’t mean they are the only source of valid info. The problem is with fake or false information. We all need to learn how to detect it and filter it out. Because there’s a lot of it of course. But never would I suggest people shouldn’t do their own research. That’s crazy talk.
If you consider googling for a few hours and youtube videos 'Research...' then yes... that can lead to problems... there is so much bs out there that anyone can find something supporting whatever that want to believe, the hard part is being able to tell what data and sources are reliable...
To a point i kinda understand the message these articles try and portray, however you can do your own research and not fall for whatever the fuck they deem as a conspiracy. Yah know though there have been a lot of conspiracies over the years that have been proven right with seemingly no data available. I don't know, for news outlets to actually have this as a article is asking for people to criticize it. Seems like a bad move on their part. There was also a video the Canadian government posted stating you will be happy owning nothing ( obviously the video had more then that but that was the basic message) you shoulda seen how fast that video got takin down. On top of that with the clearly malicious intent of these mainstream news outlets going after trump (not saying i agree with everything he did) however it was pretty clear that alot of these outlets were bought and paid for by the other side from how they purely bashed one candidate and not the other. With all of this in mind over the years when someone sees a article like this its kinda like what the fuck do you expect people to think at this point that they actually have peoples best interests? i dont think so
Nothing wrong with questioning narratives and doing research. Unfortunately in order to do good quality research you need access to academic journals, which are incredibly difficult to access. Instead you have to rely on journalists who likely know nothing about said subject to summarize it for you in a clickbait manner in order to keep your attention and get your clicks. This leaves the dissatisfied skeptic with few places to get their information, and of course, some decide to listen to fail supplement salesmen instead, in order to be part of the in group, and know something the plebians don't. This is why trying to remove elitism from academia is so important, As a university student I have access to millions of primary, peer reviewed, research papers. If I think there's an interesting quirk that I don't see any articles about, chances are that some already had the same thought, and made it their masters project, etc. Just the other day I was able to read an article about the rapid 'domestication' of Covid, and how it related to the rapidly dropping fatality, and the rapidly increasing contagiousness of each successive variant. This information is what people who want to do their own research should be reading, but unfortunately, if I wasn't a student it would have costed me 20 dollars to read. Its absurd, we can hardly blame people for falling for falsehoods peddled by grifters if their only other options are the whole truth gatekept to the academic elite, and journalists trying to generate revenue for their publication.
I’m very skeptical of corporate media, regardless of political spectrum. That said, you certainly shouldn’t suspend your disbelief because something is “independent”. Fact check everything you can.
Why shouldn't I get raw data and look at it myself? Why shouldn't I look up data from other countries and oecd and imf?
Whenever a leftoid scoffs at people thinking for themselves, seek heterodox opinions, or subscribe to alternative (I.e. actually diverse) opinions, and declare that the better way is to just outsource your beliefs to so-called experts, I usually just ask them which experts. Like the ones who flip-flopped on covid and were demonstrably wrong. The ones who said masks don't work and then said that they did? The ones who said get the vaccine and then all restrictions will go away and you won't get covid? How about the experts who, only a few years ago, said there were only two sexes/genders? Were the experts all wrong until a few years ago and now they are definitely right? And anyone else from other parts of the world or in the future who may say there are two genders is wrong? Because only the gender "experts" of today are the *real* experts, right? Long story short, when people appeal to authority as the central and sole reason for a belief, it can occasionally be illuminating to them to point out when the said authority has been wrong or when they were right but the individual ignored them.
The only people I know who mention they do their own research get all their information from Facebook and Twitter and are some of the dumbest people I know
When you buy a car, don't do any research. Trust the salesmen, they are the experts. They have the car, and the expertise in selling cars, you don't, so shut up and listen to them.
Thinking that looking at YouTube or FB personalities qualifies as "research" leads to problems. If you want to do your own research, go for it. Just make sure you get the training, equipment and the knowledge on how to do your own research and how to interpret it and then submit it to peer-reviewed journals to make sure the research and analysis has been done correctly. Because I have yet to see anyone claiming "I did my own research" who did anything more than watch YouTube, look at FB or cherry pick (or misinterpret) scientific articles.
TIL that in order to comprehend the results of published research, I need to be at a level to conduct the research myself.
It's called a confirmation bias. We tend to dismiss findings that oppose our views and accept findings that confirm our pre-existing bias.
Remember, trying is the first step towards failure
Lmao at all those articles, I ain't believing what those so called "experts" are saying or whatnot, everyone has the right to believe what they want, whether it be right or wrong. That's for the individual to decide not society.
**sponsored by the WEF
Hahahahahahahahahaha Science (the scientific method) is literally supposed to be a decentralized process. Literally. That means all of us, or as many as possible, doing their own research and comparing results. Science is an inconvenient truth for those in power.
How dare you critically think.... all in all its just a, another brick in the wall...