A degree in economics, maths, physics and bionics

Today I learnt why some trees start turning brown during a prolonged heatwave.

It turns out that it isn’t an early autumn at all. Under severe heat and drought stress, some trees effectively start shutting down parts of their leaf system. They reduce water loss, chlorophyll breaks down, leaves brown and some are eventually sacrificed altogether. It’s a survival mechanism.

I didn’t know that.

Now I do.

It took about ten minutes.

And this got me thinking about one of the great joys of being alive: you are allowed not to know things.

You can, as The Undertones once sang, have “a degree in economics, maths, physics and bionics” and there will still be a vast number of things about which you haven’t got the faintest bloody idea.

That’s fine.

There are people with PhDs who couldn’t rewire a plug. Brilliant engineers who couldn’t identify a chiffchaff. Ornithologists who probably wouldn’t know where to start with a carburettor. Doctors who can’t explain why their printer has suddenly decided it no longer recognises A4 paper.

Expertise is incredibly important. Omniscience, however, remains stubbornly unavailable.

The greatest invention in human history

Fortunately, we have something quite remarkable at our disposal.

We can read.

Human beings have spent thousands of years accumulating knowledge and writing it down. Then, just to make things ridiculously easy, we invented the internet and put a substantial chunk of that accumulated knowledge onto a small device we carry around in our pockets.

Used properly, it’s astonishing.

Want to know why leaves turn brown in August?

Look it up.

Want to understand how vaccines work?

Look it up.

Want to understand what cloud seeding actually is?

Look it up.

Want to understand the evidence for climate change?

Look it up.

There is, however, a rather important second part to this process.

Look up who is telling you.

Welcome to the University of Dave on YouTube

This is where things have gone slightly awry.

The internet gave us access to more knowledge than any generation in human history. Unfortunately, it also gave Dave from Dartford a webcam.

Dave has done his research.

His research consists of watching a video made by Steve, who got his information from Darren, who saw a graph on Facebook originally posted by an account called TRUTHSEEKER1776.

Within 48 hours, Dave has overturned 150 years of atmospheric physics.

Scientists are devastated.

This is the problem with the phrase “I’ve done my own research.”

Research doesn’t simply mean finding something on the internet that agrees with what you already suspected.

Proper research involves sources. Evidence. Methodology. Expertise. Peer review. Reproducibility. It also involves the deeply unfashionable possibility that you might discover you were wrong.

Why is being wrong so terrifying?

This is the bit I find fascinating.

Why do we feel the need to have an answer to everything?

There is absolutely no shame in saying:

“I don’t know, mate. Can I read up on that and get back to you?”

In fact, I have far more respect for someone who says that than someone who spends ten minutes frantically blagging their way through something they clearly know bugger all about.

The former demonstrates curiosity and confidence.

The latter generally demonstrates the Dunning-Kruger effect with the volume turned up and it, to be frank, annoys the shit out of me.

Not knowing something isn’t stupidity.

Refusing to accept that you don’t know something is where stupidity starts becoming a lifestyle choice.

Expertise still matters

None of this means qualifications are pointless because we can all use Google.

Quite the opposite.

If I need heart surgery, I want a cardiac surgeon. I don’t want someone who has watched three excellent videos about it and feels ready to have a crack.

Qualifications, training and experience matter enormously because expertise isn’t just a collection of facts. It’s years of learning how those facts fit together, understanding evidence, recognising uncertainty and knowing where the limits of current knowledge are.

A climate scientist understands climate science at a level I never will.

An immunologist understands immunology at a level I never will.

An engineer designing a bridge knows things about structural loading that I am perfectly happy never to discover while driving across it.

Respecting expertise doesn’t mean blindly accepting everything an expert says.

Science itself doesn’t work like that.

Questioning is essential.

But there is a rather substantial difference between questioning science and simply deciding the science must be wrong because someone with dramatic music on YouTube says there are chemicals in the clouds.

Conspiracy theories offer something facts often can’t

The attraction of conspiracy theories is understandable.

Reality is complicated.

Science is full of irritating phrases such as “the evidence currently suggests”, “within a confidence interval” and “further research is required.”

Conspiracy theories are much more accommodating.

They give you certainty.

Someone is doing it.

Someone is hiding it.

Someone knows the truth.

And, most importantly, you are one of the clever people who has worked it out.

That’s an intoxicating feeling.

Suddenly you haven’t merely watched six videos about cloud seeding. You possess knowledge that thousands of meteorologists, physicists and atmospheric scientists have somehow missed, despite irritatingly spending their entire careers studying the subject.

That’s quite an achievement for a Wednesday evening.

False information isn’t harmless

It’s tempting to laugh at all this, and frequently I do. But there is a serious side. False information about vaccinations can affect public health.

False information about climate change can delay action on something supported by an enormous body of scientific evidence.

False information about history can distort politics. False information about engineering, medicine and science can get people killed.

And misinformation has one enormous advantage over genuine knowledge.

It doesn’t have to be true.

A scientist may need years of data before reaching a conclusion. Someone on social media needs 45 seconds, a frightening photograph and the words THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW THIS.

By the time the scientist has finished explaining why it’s bollocks, three million people have shared it.

Choose curiosity

Perhaps intelligence isn’t simply about how much we already know. Maybe a large part of it is what we do when we encounter something we don’t know.

We have an extraordinary choice.

We can make something up.

We can pretend.

We can find someone online who confirms what we’d already decided.

Or we can say:

“I don’t know.”

And then read.

Not just the first thing we find. Read around it. Check the source. Find out who wrote it. Look for evidence. See whether credible experts broadly agree. Look for people challenging it and examine their evidence too.

Then make up our minds. And, crucially, remain prepared to change them.

There is virtually no limit to the amount of knowledge available to someone who can read and remains curious enough to accept that they will never know everything.

Today I learnt why leaves sometimes turn brown during a heatwave. Tomorrow I’ll probably learn something else.

Hopefully.

Because the day I decide I already know everything is probably the day someone should confiscate my internet connection before I start a YouTube channel called ‘Bob’s Facts – What the MSM Don’t Want You to Know’.

Happy reading.