The Grumpy Doc – Page 21 – Grumpy opinions about everything.

It’s Time For National Service

On May 23, 2024

The performance of our active-duty military, national guard, and reserves was commendable during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These young men and women continue providing exemplary service to our country. The public has rallied behind them to support them and to thank them for their efforts. This old Vietnam veteran is thrilled to see the public response to our young service people.

There is one thing that concerns me though. The ranks of our armed forces continue to be drawn from an ever-smaller percentage of our population. I cannot adequately express how proud I am of the young people who have chosen to voluntarily serve our country. Unfortunately, these patriotic young people do not represent our population as a whole and recruiting goals frequently are unmet. One of the few exceptions is the Marine Corps, in which most of you know I proudly served. But it is small and has high Esprit de Corps and appeals to those looking for a challenge.

Personally, I feel it was the greatest privilege of my life to serve as a member of our Armed Services and protect our country and our way of life. I firmly believe those who now serve share this conviction.

However, most of our citizens now are not directly impacted either by personal military service, other types of public service, or by the service of family members. I would like to see the benefits of public service extended to all members of our population, even those for whom military service may not be appropriate.

Perhaps we should consider a program of universal national service. Such a program might begin with a two-year national service obligation that would begin at age 18 but could be delayed for education or other appropriate reasons.

Universal national service could include not only the military, but also such existing programs as the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps/Vista. We might also consider bringing back older programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps to work on infrastructure. There could be options for service in teaching, law enforcement, firefighting, or emergency medical services. This type of public service could not only help fill nation-wide shortages but could also lead to long-term careers in these fields as well. Delay of service obligations could be available for those in training to serve as military officers, or in training to be teachers or in medical fields that require advanced education and who agree to work in underserved areas following completion of their training.

I don’t pretend to know the details of putting such a program in place. I’m sure it would be very complex and expensive to initiate. But I think there would be many benefits ranging from reduced unemployment to job training to education. But most importantly it would enhance a sense of pride in being Americans, give personal satisfaction in improving the lives of our fellow citizens and strength our of our sense of community. All of this while contributing to the common good.

There’s an old saying, “Freedom is not free”. We now have only a small part of our population that pays the price of freedom for the rest of us. We owe them a debt that cannot be repaid. Isn’t time for everyone to help share the burden and enjoy the pride of protecting and maintaining our freedom, keeping our nation strong and providing for those who need our help?

And that is my grumpy opinion.

More Fun With AI

By John Turley

On May 17, 2024

In Commentary

In my previous post Fun With AI, I talked about how much I enjoy DALL-E, the ChatGPT image generator. But that’s only a small part of ChatGPT, although it is the most fun part.

So, what is ChatGPT? I’ll let ChatGPT explain in its own words: “ChatGPT is an advanced artificial intelligence language model developed by OpenAI, based on the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) architecture. It processes and generates text by predicting the likelihood of a word sequence, enabling it to perform a wide range of tasks, from holding conversations to writing articles and answering queries. Its training involved analyzing vast amounts of text data, which helps it understand context and nuances in language.”

I hope that’s clearer to you than it is to me. But what I do know is it’s been very helpful to me. I’m just going to go over a few of the things for which I use ChatGPT.

I first started using ChatGPT as a research assistant. I asked it to find me articles about specific topics and suggest references and lines of inquiry. It’s not a substitute for detailed individual research but it is a head start in the right direction. Although you do have to check some of its research because it occasionally gets it wrong or cites outdated material.

One of the things where I have found ChatGPT to be very good is finding quotations on multiple topics. Sometimes it can be difficult to locate specific applicable quotes. (Does anyone else remember Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations?) Again, you must double check the results. Occasionally it will attribute the quote to someone who was referencing the original author.

I’ve also found ChatGPT to be useful in generating title ideas. I’ll ask it to give me 10 suggested titles on a specific subject. While I’ve not used any of the titles exactly, they have formed the basis for developing my own specific titles.

I also use ChatGPT in my genealogy work. Occasionally when researching old records, I’ll find documents that are written in foreign languages or church records written in Latin. Previously I’d used Google translate but found that to be somewhat onerous. ChatGPT translation is quick and easy. I just cut and paste the text into ChatGPT and ask for a translation. You don’t even need to tell it the original language.

I also use ChatGPT as an editing aid. I ask it to review my articles for grammar, readability, and content. ChatGPT has let me know that I frequently use too many adverbs and don’t always get in enough commas. This is a simple process. I take my completed article and paste it in the ChatGPT and ask it to give me an edit.

There are other features that I haven’t used in ChatGPT because I don’t really understand them. One of them is helping with search engine optimization. Apparently, this is a way of ensuring that people searching for topics on the internet can find your website instead of others. While I haven’t taken time to investigate this, I guess I could just ask ChatGPT to explain it to me.

ChatGPT also has a strong program for developing interactive content. This hasn’t been something I’ve been interested in, so I haven’t explored it.

It has the capability to analyze and summarize large amounts of data. I’m hoping to use this at some point to help me with census analysis in my genealogy work. I just haven’t taken the time to develop that ability yet.

I found ChatGPT to be especially useful when I work on this blog. I spend a lot less time on Google. I get more focused searches with ChatGPT, but I do need to be more careful in reviewing the results. The image generation function has expanded my ability to illustrate my blogs. I don’t have to go searching for images in the public domain or worry about licensing fees. I just generate my own images.

There have been a lot of concerns recently about the “dark side” of artificial intelligence. There are plenty of articles in the popular press and I’m not going to dwell on it here. (ChatGPT can generate you a list of as many articles as you would like.)

I just want to express one concern that I have. I worry that it may make me lazy. I may decide not to do my own research, not to read and analyze the available information, and not to spend the time organizing and writing my articles.

I may just tell ChatGPT to generate an article about the use of ChatGPT for writing a blog. Or maybe I already did!?!

Just because I have so much fun with the image generator, I want to share a few of the other images I generated to illustrate this post.

Stand Strong: Protect Yourself From Falls

By John Turley

On May 11, 2024

In Commentary, Medicine

Not too long ago I decided to spend my lunch break from the clinic by taking a walk around downtown. It was a beautiful day. It was warm, the sun was shining, and the sky was bright blue. I just started my walk when I thought I heard tires squealing behind me. I looked over my shoulder and as soon as I did, I felt my foot catch on a piece of broken concrete, and I went down hard. Fortunately, I fell right in front of my office and even more fortunately I work for the ambulance authority. Within minutes I was surrounded by paramedics and a nurse practitioner who made sure I was well taken care of. My CELLULAR watch also helped save the day. I’ll talk more about my experience later in this post but now I’d like to talk about falling in general.

Those of us of a certain age have gotten used to having every visit to any type of medical appointment include the question: “Have you fallen recently?” Even though I know the reason for this, it still annoys me. They always assume older folks are going to fall. (I think I’ve told you before, I preferred to use the term older folks or even old geezers for that matter but, I refused to be labeled as elderly.)

It’s been estimated that over 25% of older adults fall each year but probably less than half of those will report the incident to their health care provider. Once you’ve fallen your risk doubles that you will fall again. As we advance in age, falls become the leading cause of both fatal and non-fatal injuries.

Chronic medical conditions such as diabetes and heart disease can increase our risk of falling by affecting our blood pressure and causing dizziness. Some of the medications we take can have the same side effects. Also, older folks are less likely to eat or drink adequately leaving them more susceptible to dehydration and fainting. If these things are happening to you, it’s important to let your doctor know so together you come up with a plan to protect yourself.

Environmental factors also play a critical role in falls. Common hazards include loose rugs, wet floors, uneven surfaces, curbs, icy sidewalks, and dropped objects. As I found out, what would have been a simple stumble with a quick recovery when I was younger became a hard fall.

So why is that? As we age arthritis can cause stiffness in our joints which slows our reaction time. Loss of muscle mass and with it decreased core strength make it harder for us to maintain and regain our balance. Changing eyesight makes it difficult to tell where objects are in relationship to one another. As we get older, we tend to shuffle or drag our feet when we walk making us more susceptible to the uneven surfaces. I know that’s one of my major problems.

There are many resources people can use to reduce their risk of falling. I’m sure you all know about them: strength exercises, flexibility and balance classes, and regular stretching can be very helpful. There are many websites that tell you how to fall-proof your home and workspace. And of course, everyone should get a regular checkup to make sure that they don’t have undiagnosed health problems.

Now, I want to tell you about the one thing that I thought was very important for me in my fall. I’ve always been a gadget guy. A few years ago, I decided to get an Apple Watch. I like the idea of being able to get a weather report, check my e-mail, check my texts, check my calendar, and answer the phone all from my wrist. And, because I am a gadget guy, I got the one with cellular capability. I never really expected to make use of it, I just thought it seemed neat.

As competitive as the smart watch market is, I’m sure they all have similar capabilities. I’m not an expert on any of the others, but I do know about the Apple Watch, and I’d like to tell you about it. The watch comes with a fall alert and SOS system. If you fall like I did, you immediately get a notice on your phone that says it looks like you’ve had a hard fall, to which you can either respond “yes send help”, or “no I’m fine”. If you respond yes, it sends your GPS coordinates to 911. If you respond no, it asks if you’re sure, to which you again respond that you are sure and then that’s the end of it. If you do not respond at all or the watch detects you aren’t moving, it waits a few seconds and then sends your GPS coordinates to 911. I know a lot of people are concerned about technology tracking them. Well, I’m glad it does.

And now back to being a gadget guy. This is where the cellular option paid off for me. The SOS fall protection system only works when your phone and watch are in range of one another. You can only make calls from your watch when they were in range as well. Unless, you have a cellular capable watch which works independently.

I know most people think they won’t go anywhere with their watch without their phone. Well, that’s what I thought. But that day, I inadvertently left my phone on my desk. And when I fell, I couldn’t get up. I told my watch not to send my information to 911 because I was right in front of the ambulance authority. I called into the office and very quickly had all the help I could ever want. But if I had not had a cellular capable watch I would either have had to crawl into the office or lay there on the sidewalk until somebody stopped to help me. Which someone did almost immediately. So, there are Good Samaritans in Charleston.

So, my bottom-line recommendation to you is to get a smart watch, whatever type you prefer, and make sure it has cellular capability. Don’t do anything including housework, yard work, or even taking a walk at lunch that may have any risk of a fall without having your smart watch with you. As I found out, the risk of falling is greater than you think. I wish I were getting compensation for pitching this technology.

Who Do I Vote For?

By John Turley

On May 8, 2024

In Commentary

This morning, I was looking over the sample ballot for next Tuesday’s primary election. I miss the days when there were candidates I could get excited about. Candidates for whom I really wanted to vote.

Now I find myself trying to decide who is the LOC, the Least Objectionable Candidate. I worry that if I vote for the LOC and that person is elected, I will come to regret it. I worry even more that if I don’t vote at all, a more objectionable candidate, who may be even worse, will be elected.

How have we come to this state where most of the candidates are people for whom I would not happily vote? I’m afraid I must take part of the blame. I haven’t taken the time or the effort to locate, encourage, and support candidates whose values and ideas I share. I’ve let others, with whom I share few beliefs or values, but who are willing to work much harder, set the agenda and define the candidates. I know I’m going to have to live with the consequences of my inattention in the short term. But I have made the decision that going forward I won’t passively watch the electoral process unfold only to complain about it later.

The Triumph of Ignorance

By John Turley

On April 30, 2024

In Commentary, Medicine

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what is not true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” – Søren Kierkegaard

Saturday morning, I was reading in the newspaper about the resurgence of measles in West Virginia. I find it appalling that this disease should be returning, given that we have safe and effective vaccinations. What is next, polio, smallpox, or even plague? It is only through the unexpected veto by our governor that the ill-advised bill passed by our legislature to make all vaccinations virtually optional did not become law.

Some people may wonder why vaccinations are important. There are two principal reasons to ensure that a large portion of the population is vaccinated against communicable diseases. The first is that it reduces the individual vulnerability to disease. The person who is vaccinated is protected. But there is also a second, sometimes not well-understood, reason. That is herd immunity.

Communicable diseases require a large susceptible population to spread. When a significant portion of the population has been vaccinated the disease does not have the core of potential victims to allow spreading. This means that the vaccinated are protecting the non-vaccinated. However, it does require a large portion of the population to be vaccinated. The idea is that herd immunity will protect those who are unable to be vaccinated either due to age, allergies, or other medical conditions that would prohibit vaccination. Herd immunity is never going to protect a large proportion of the population who just choose not to be vaccinated. For example, about 90 -95% of the population needs to be vaccinated against measles to provide herd immunity.

So why do people who otherwise can be vaccinated choose not to be?

There are, of course, those who have true religious objections to vaccination. These people have long standing, deeply held convictions. Their opinions derive from study, prayer and reflection based on the tenants of their faith. They did not have a sudden anti-vaccine epiphany after listening to the poorly informed rantings of a demagogic politician.

There are many who mistrust the medical system. There were some cases in the past where unethical studies were conducted on unsuspecting populations. Given the rigorous oversight of medical research now, this no longer happens. Information about research into vaccinations and their safety and efficacy can be found on websites for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization among others. (Website references are provided at the end of this post.)

There are others who object to vaccination on the basis of personal autonomy. They believe their right to refuse vaccination outweighs any consideration of the health concerns of the frail members of our community. This is certainly not reflective of the spirit of charity towards all that I was raised with.

What concerns me most are those who refuse to believe reputable medical authorities, government agencies, and mainline news services. They prefer to get their information from anonymous websites or from conspiracy theory websites that still give credence to such sources as the now-discredited 1999 study linking the MMR vaccine to autism. They completely ignore the fact that 10 of the 11 reported co-authors disavowed any part in the published conclusions. They also ignore the fact that the principal author was found guilty of fraud for personal gain as he was employed by the manufacturer of rival drugs. They also ignore the fact that he lost his medical license over his falsifications in this study. Yet, he is still cited in anti-vaccine literature as an expert source.

Equally disturbing is the fact that vaccine resistance has become a part of political identification. Certain reactionary political groups have, for some unfathomable reason, decided that refusing vaccination is a badge of their political allegiance. They seem to care more about maintaining their political purity than they care about science, public health, or even the welfare of their family and friends. Politicizing public health is dangerous for all of us. I’m not sure how we overcome this. It is easy to find the truth and verify it through fact-based studies, yet people refuse to do it.

I encourage everyone to work hard to ensure that our political leaders do not remove vaccination mandates for school children. For those of us of my age, we already have immunity through vaccination or prior exposure to the disease. It is our grandchildren and their children and their children’s children who will suffer through the return of these deadly diseases.

SOURCES:
World Health Organization: https://www.who.int/health-topics/vaccines-and-immunization#tab=tab_1

CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/index.html

WV DHHR: https://oeps.wv.gov/immunizations/Pages/default.aspx
Immunise.org: https://www.vaccineinformation.org/

Fun with AI

By John Turley

On April 27, 2024

In Humor

Depending on what you read, Artificial Intelligence will either be the greatest advancement in the history of humanity or it will be the end of civilization as we know it. I’m not sure if it will be either of those, but I do know I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. I’ve been using chatGPT, a popular form of AI for a little over a year. I first used it to help me research blog ideas and, for the first time, I used it to edit my most recent post. The text feature is what we most often think about when considering chatGPT, and I’ll talk about that in a future post, but today I want to tell you about DALL-E, a feature available on the enhanced version.

DALL-E is an AI powered image generator that creates original images based on user input. I have always thought the banner illustration for this blog was boring and wanted to create a new one. I tried using stock images but you always run into copyright and fee problems. When I discovered DALL-E, I realized it was the answer to my problem. I just didn’t know how much fun it would be.

My first attempt was to simply enter the command: “Generate images for the home page of a blog titled The Grumpy Doc”. These were the responses I got.

I thought they looked pretty good, but obviously I don’t have a beard so I tried a few more. I entered for him to have gray hair and glasses and be clean shaven. I got what looked like a gray haired 14 year-old with a lab coat and a stethoscope. When I said make him look older, it gave him a gray beard. When I said make the beard go away, it turned it brown. I went through a variety of commands for images in a realistic style and a cartoon style with many various other instructions. The more detailed the instructions you give it, the better images you will get. One caveat, it will not generate images of actual people or of copyrighted material. I probably generated almost 100 images for this project. Here are few of those images.

DALL-E has some trouble depicting human emotion. It doesn’t seem to distinguish between grumpy, angry and just plain mean.

When I asked DALL-E for a whimsical or sly smile, I got this down right goofy look.

Being a hefty guy myself, I asked for The Grumpy Doc to be a little heavier:

Please, no wisecracks about how that looks just like me or you may be in my next blog.

Sometimes the images just don’t make sense. In the image below you will see a stethoscope tube that doesn’t connect to any thing, book titles in no known language and a dial with unrecognizable symbols. Look at some of the above images and you will find many of the same types of mistakes. It is almost like a built-in game.

When asking for text or a title you have to check closely. Sometimes it is fine; other times there are subtle mistakes. One of the pictures above has one of those. See if you can find it. Other times you get something like this:

The one human emotion that DALL-E seems to be fine with is confusion or indecision.

Now what’s that all about?

Navigating the Ballot Box

By John Turley

On April 24, 2024

In Commentary

A Guide to Becoming a Better Voter

As a citizen, one of your most powerful tools for shaping the future is your vote. Yet, in an era of information overload and political polarization, the act of voting has become more complex than ever before. How can we ensure our voices are heard and that we make informed choices? Here are some strategies to help us become more engaged in the democratic process so that we will be better voters.

Engage in Civil Discourse

Respectful dialogue and healthy debate are essential components of a functioning democracy. Engage in discussions with friends, family, and colleagues with diverse perspectives, but remember to keep conversations civil and constructive.
But how do we go about engaging a friend whom we believe may hold opinions different from ours. Telling someone they are wrong is a sure way to reinforce their opinions.
It is better to ask them in a non-accusatory way to explain why they hold those beliefs. You might consider such questions as these. Tell me what it is you like best about your candidate or issue. How did you come to develop that opinion? What sources of information do you normally rely on? How did you choose those sources?
This approach can help people understand the fallacies of their own positions when they discover they can’t adequately explain them to someone else. (Assuming, of course, that it’s not your positions that are based on fallacies, in which case you may need to do the explaining.)
Practice active listening and empathy. Seek to understand differing viewpoints rather than dismissing them outright. This is hard to do, and I struggle with it often. (After all, how could The Grumpy Doc be wrong?)
Be open to changing your mind based on new information or perspectives. We all know how difficult this can be. We need to remember that growth and learning are integral to the democratic process.

Educate Yourself

Before heading to the polls, take the time to research candidates and issues on the ballot. Seek out information from multiple sources, including reputable news outlets, candidate websites, and nonpartisan voter guides. Avoid anonymous websites and flyers attributed to vague groups.
Look beyond soundbites and slogans. Dive deep into candidates’ platforms, voting records, and policy proposals to understand their positions on key issues. Look at what they did and said before they decided to run for office. This may give you better insight into their core beliefs. It is important to understand the person behind the campaign image.
Don’t overlook local elections. While national politics often dominate the headlines, local officials have a more direct impact on your daily life by their handling of issues like education, public safety, and infrastructure. Fact-Check!
In today’s digital age, misinformation and fake news abound. Fake news itself has become a campaign issue. Arm yourself against misinformation by fact-checking claims and statements made by candidates and in their political ads.
Consult fact-checking websites like FactCheck.org, PolitiFact.com, and Snopes.com to verify the accuracy of information before making decisions.
Be wary of partisan sources and social media echo chambers that may perpetuate false narratives. Cross-reference information from multiple reliable sources to ensure its credibility. Don’t assume that because it’s online it must be true. (See my earlier post on critical thinking.)

Get Involved

Beyond casting your vote, consider participating in political activities or community groups. Volunteer for a political campaign, attend town hall meetings, or join grassroots organizations working on issues you care about.
Advocate for policies and candidates that align with your values. Write letters to elected officials, sign petitions, and participate in peaceful demonstrations to make your voice heard.
Encourage voter participation among friends, family, and neighbors. Help register voters, provide transportation to the polls, and share reliable voting information to ensure everyone can access the ballot box.

Hold Elected Officials Accountable

Remember that voting is just one part of your civic duty. Stay informed about the actions and decisions of elected officials after they are in office.
Hold elected officials accountable for their promises and commitments. Contact them regularly to express your opinions on legislative matters and advocate for policies that reflect the will of the people.
Stay engaged between elections by attending town hall meetings, participating in local government committees, and staying informed about upcoming legislation that may impact your community.

If we embrace these principles and actively participate in the democratic process, we will become better voters and contribute to a more informed, inclusive, and responsive society. Our voices matter, and our votes have the power to shape the future of our nation and our communities.

Remember, democracy is not a spectator sport. It requires the active engagement and participation of informed citizens like you. The right to vote has been hard fought over many generations and it is coming under attack by groups intent on suppressing differing opinions. So, let’s roll up our sleeves, do our homework, and make a difference at the ballot box. Our democracy and our future depend on it.

What Is It About Ramps?

By John Turley

On April 15, 2024

In Appalachia, Commentary, Food and Drink, Reminiscence

It is time for my annual reposting of the blog about ramps, a widely unappreciated source of air pollution in West Virginia.

For those of you who haven’t been blessed to live in Appalachia, ramps are a type of wild leek in the onion family. They have a very pungent flavor that is like a highly garlicky, sulfureous onion. They have a short season in the spring and are highly prized by those who enjoy them.

If you think politics can be contentious, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen the disagreements about ramps. You either hate ramps or you love ramps. There is no middle ground and almost no one is neutral on the subject.

Those unfamiliar with ramps might think, “If you don’t like them, just don’t eat them.” Well, it’s just not that simple. If you think garlic or onions can give you bad breath, just standby.

Ramps may give you the harshest breath that you’ve ever experienced. But that’s not the worst part. The odor of ramps will radiate from your body for several days. Despite much folklore about the best ways to rid your body of the odor, the only thing that works is the passage of time.

I can remember many years ago when I was in school, kids who would eat too many ramps sometimes would be sent home because the odor was just too much to bear in a closed classroom. There were times when I thought eating ramps might be worth it if I got a day off school. Ultimately, I decided maybe school wasn’t so bad.

The spring of my senior year in high school a buddy and I decided to go to Richwood for the annual ramp festival. Richwood sits in a river valley and as we started down the hill, we could see a haze hanging over the town. As we got closer to the festival site I was almost driven back. I grew up in a town with several chemical plants so I thought I was used to bad odors in the air, but was I ever wrong. The only thing that kept us going was free beer. We had both just turned 18 and could legally drink.

Even the federal government has declared ramps to be a public nuisance. The editor of the Richwood weekly newspaper once mixed ramp juice with the ink for a special edition. The smell was so bad the post office refused to deliver the paper and destroyed all the copies in its possession.

People who love ramps talk about the many ways to cook them. In the spring in West Virginia restaurants seem to continuously look for new ways to present ramps during the few weeks that they are available. They have ramp burgers, ramp pimento cheese, ramp jelly and ramp omelets. There has even been the misguided ramp infused wine. It seems to me that most recipes involve ways to disguise the flavor of ramps.

It’s not just when they’re cooked that they put off this objectionable odor. Even raw they can be hard to deal with. I was out in the country with my brother and his wife when she decided to pick some ramps (leaves only, the bulb is left to grow next year’s crop). Let me say I was glad we drove out separately. He said it was at least three days before the smell of ramps was cleared from the car. He joked that while ramps may not be grounds for divorce, they certainly could be grounds for temporary separation.

If you love ramps, I hope you enjoy them. Just make sure everyone else has enough warning to avoid you during ramp season. And that is The Grumpy Doc’s opinion about ramps. Be sure and leave a comment with yours.

What We Need Is Old Fashioned Horse Sense

By John Turley

On March 5, 2024

In Commentary, Humor

This was shared by my friend Leigh. The problem of critical thinking summed up in one picture.

Critical Thinking

By John Turley

On February 14, 2024

In Commentary

Tomorrow, February 15, 2024 is the first West Virginia Critical Thinking Awareness Day. In recognition of this event, I am republishing this post from January of last year. This day was declared by the West Virginia Legislature. I will allow you you apply your own critical thinking to the irony of that statement. This was due largely to the efforts of the West Virginia Skeptics Society. I need to find out more about them.

Recently I have been reading about the significant increase in childhood diseases that previously had been well controlled with vaccines. There are a number of factors at play here. One is the pandemic which has reduced doctor’s visits and with it some routine vaccinations. But the most significant factor is the resistance among the vaccine deniers not just the COVID vaccine, but vaccines in general.

This is especially troubling to me. These are people, many of whom are well educated, who have chosen not to vaccinate their children or themselves. The majority of these decisions are based on misinformation which has resulted in faulty decision making. I’ve addressed this in a previous post entitled Fake News. However, I would like to address some additional issues related to what is commonly called “critical thinking”. The ability to apply critical thinking would most likely have resulted in a far smaller vaccine denial movement and fewer deaths and disabilities.

Just to start, I’m going to repeat the definition of critical thinking I used in that post. “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.”

That post was principally geared to critical thinking in adults. I wanted to discuss how to gather information, evaluate it and make a rational decision. I’ve come to realize, that by the time we are adults our method of thinking is very close to being set in stone. If we are to make a significant impact on the way our population evaluates data and makes decisions, it must start with the children.

I believe that the two pillars of early education should be reading and critical thinking. Admittedly, I am not an educator, but I believe if you can read you can teach yourself anything. But you also need the ability to decide what you should believe. The framework for being able to make these decisions is critical thinking.

In some ways critical thinking has been taught in the past, often as the Socratic method. Elements of it have been in specific courses such as philosophy, logic, and scientific investigation. These courses are usually designed for older, advanced students who most likely have already developed these skills or have a natural inclination to pursue such inquiry and evaluation.

For most students, if they haven’t learned how to gather information, evaluate competing ideas and draw coherent, fact based conclusions by the time they are in high school, it may be difficult for them to do so. Critical thinking must be a substantial part of education from the beginning. It cannot be a separate course. It must be integrated into the way every subject is taught. Students shouldn’t just be given rote information to be memorized. They should be taught how to think and evaluate and then they should be provided with all the information necessary to make their own informed decisions.

What does this mean? It means that all sides of a topic should be covered. There should be no forbidden subjects. There cannot be an effective analysis of competing information if only one side is presented. This needs to begin in the very first years of education. After all, as Americans we want education not indoctrination.

The ability to develop critical thinking and to make informed decisions requires the exposure to all varying ideas without any value judgment being attached by the teacher. The idea of an academic “safe space” where students are insulated from hurt feelings presupposes that they are unable to evaluate competing ideas and must be protected. This is the very essence of indoctrination and should be an anathema to education.

Children need to learn that the world is not a safe place. If they are not exposed to the competing ideas, how can they be expected to evaluate and recognize the harmful ones.? If they are only exposed to one side, they will come to believe that side is the only true side regardless of its value.

I will use myself as an example. There were no efforts to teach critical thinking when I was a student. We were taught that everything presented in class was the right thing, and we were not to question it. Well, this might be true in math and most science classes, it is not true anywhere else. It was not until well into my adult years that I recognized many of the things I had been taught were the result of societal prejudices and in some cases even ignorance. As a result, like many people, I tended to defend my long-held opinions even after I recognized their weakness.

I was very slow to adopt new ideas. Many of the opinions I now hold are far different from those with which I grew up. Critical thinking was not easy for me; challenging your core values never is. We don’t want our children and grandchildren to have to suffer through the same weakness of thought that we did.

How could evaluating competing information that is part of critical thinking have helped prevent the wide scale vaccine denial that we are currently experiencing? Many rumors are being spread about COVID and about the COVID vaccine, just as they have been about other vaccines in the past. There were many rumors that the disease did not exist and that the deaths were faked. These rumors are still on the Internet. They never had any verifiable source and anyone taking the effort to view the data would know that there was a significant death toll early in the pandemic.

The effectiveness of COVID vaccination can easily be checked on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website www.COVID.cdc.gov. A study in November 2022 shows unvaccinated Americans had a 16 times (not percent) higher rate of hospitalization compared to the fully vaccinated and a study from January 2022 shows the unvaccinated had a 12.7 times higher COVID related death rate.

There were many reports about side effects of the vaccine. Checking available medical sources, it was easy to discover that while there are some side effects, there are many misstatements or exaggerations about the COVID vaccines. The side effects are similar in frequency to other vaccines and medications in general. Vaccine side effects tend to diminish as the vaccine is improved in subsequent versions. A detailed review of COVID vaccine side effects can be found on www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines21.

Social media were quick to jump on every alternative to vaccination. It took very little research to realize that none of these alternatives (think Clorox) had documented medical justification and had never been effectively studied. The supposed studies that were cited were either significantly flawed or could never be duplicated or even be found. Because they had no experiencing in critical thinking, many people accepted the unsupported statements that most satisfied their desires, either politically, socially or medically and adopted them as truth. Unfortunately, this failure in critical thinking resulted in hundreds of unnecessary deaths and severe illnesses.

I have not updated this post because I am currently working on a series of articles that further develop this idea.