Rev. Michael Heath, of Fayetteville, is a licensed mental health counselor and a United Church of Christ minister. (He used to be A SBC pastor and is from Syracuse, NY)
This month marks three years since Covid-19 exploded in America and began devastating the world. Sadly, over this period trust in our public health officials and government agencies, like the Centers for Disease Control, has plunged.
Recently, CNN’s political analyst, Michael Smerconish asked public health expert Leana Wen about the growing mistrust of science and public health policies. Her remarks deserve our attention.
She noted that, although she supports the CDC’s Covid recommendations, she felt the agency mistakenly failed to educate the public about the tentative nature of its recommendations. She explained that the public needed to be better prepared with more realistic expectations concerning how science proceeds when encountering a new virus.
Agencies should have spent more time educating the public about the evolving nature of the scientific method, she said. She felt that news releases did not sufficiently explain why recommendations made on one day could change on the next if new data was received.
The fundamentally anxious nature of human psychology is also an important factor. When overwhelmed with an ambiguous threat, some folks are unable to tolerate uncertainty and become mistrustful of authorities by whom they feel let down or betrayed.
This dilemma is rooted in the basic structure of the human brain. Neurologically, a perceived threat shuts off access to the human/reasonable part of our brain (the cortex) and leaves us with only the primitive fight (anger) or flight (shutdown) reactions of the limbic system.
Left uncalmed, the brain reacts with anger, which often expresses itself as blame. Thus, traumatized folks are vulnerable to believing unsubstantiated conspiracy theories because they clarify the uncertainty/chaos and assign responsibility for crisis.
For many, outlandish but certain conspiracy theories were more appealing than the tentative and uncertain scientific findings.
***************
The rest of the Story from the Syracuse, Post Standard
This month marks three years since Covid-19 exploded in America and began devastating the world. Sadly, over this period trust in our public health officials and government agencies, like the Centers for Disease Control, has plunged.
Recently, CNN’s political analyst, Michael Smerconish asked public health expert Leana Wen about the growing mistrust of science and public health policies. Her remarks deserve our attention.
She noted that, although she supports the CDC’s Covid recommendations, she felt the agency mistakenly failed to educate the public about the tentative nature of its recommendations. She explained that the public needed to be better prepared with more realistic expectations concerning how science proceeds when encountering a new virus.
Agencies should have spent more time educating the public about the evolving nature of the scientific method, she said. She felt that news releases did not sufficiently explain why recommendations made on one day could change on the next if new data was received.
The fundamentally anxious nature of human psychology is also an important factor. When overwhelmed with an ambiguous threat, some folks are unable to tolerate uncertainty and become mistrustful of authorities by whom they feel let down or betrayed.
This dilemma is rooted in the basic structure of the human brain. Neurologically, a perceived threat shuts off access to the human/reasonable part of our brain (the cortex) and leaves us with only the primitive fight (anger) or flight (shutdown) reactions of the limbic system.
Left uncalmed, the brain reacts with anger, which often expresses itself as blame. Thus, traumatized folks are vulnerable to believing unsubstantiated conspiracy theories because they clarify the uncertainty/chaos and assign responsibility for crisis.
For many, outlandish but certain conspiracy theories were more appealing than the tentative and uncertain scientific findings.
***************
The rest of the Story from the Syracuse, Post Standard