Sure, but a fundamental understanding of the basics, across all disciplines (science , history, literature, and math) helps one spot bullshit from a mile away. Science especially helps apply math and critical thinking.

I would argue the latter is a good way to learn the former

This is something i noticed early on with the generational divide and misinformation on the internet. Older generations never had the internet in school, and this were never taught how to identify a truthful source. Those of us that grew up with the internet were drilled into our heads, "not everything on the internet is true." From both our teachers and the generation who believes everything on the internet.

It was a big sticking point with my in-laws during covid. Theyd send me a link, and 5 minutes later id respond with, "that person never went to any college has no credentials to be commenting on the scientific and biological effects of vaccines. Here's a published dr saying youre wrong." Only to be met with, "you're an idiot. Go get autism if you want."

To your point, I've met quite a few STEM educated people who fall for this type of misinformation due to lack of historical and political literacy.

Quite a few are also quite disrespectful to the humanities so they tend to be empathetically underdeveloped since they feel their whole life is about producing results and making progress at any cost necessary.

Appeal to emotions, rather than logic, and if you pull the right lever, that person will get a bias confirmation, feel smarter for knowing something everyone else doesn't and in some cases, feel less insecure for not knowing enough.

I've met people that have a degree or that are even teaching and have the worst baseless believes. It's only a matter of getting to your levers.

Media literacy and how to validate sources. Unfortunately, the second part was primarily taught in college when I was still in school.

Critical thinking is very difficult to teach. Its so much easier for people to just accept whatever confirms their current preconceived notion. It also requires that the person is both open to learning new things and that they are open to the idea that they may be wrong, misinformed, or not know everything.

So many people are simply over confident about their own knowledge.

It doesn't help that there is way too much shitty, agenda-funded science today. And science we aren't supposed to question. And science driven entirely by profit. Like, isn't questioning science part of science? Of course the response is completely unreasonable too. All of my family are research scientists, and if a discovery doesn't meet capitalistic goals, is it even a discovery at this point?

I've worked with doctors who believe this shit. When this all kicked off, they immediately discarded their education to embrace the Fox dogma.

Area of study is definitely not the issue.

The key is, that for a lot of people reasoning and thinking is a hard work, because never learned it. I remember an interview with a MAGA voter about climate change and his response: "It's a big lie, human beings can't be the cause, because they are not capable of changing God's creation".

I think it's more about keeping yourself curious and reading stuff form reliable sources than actually getting a degree, which makes little sense. (I'm a physicist, and I'm totally ignorant about physiology, for instance, so I have to trust "people who know", and these aren't usually found on crappy YT or TikTok videos).

It's not talking about a doctorate, it's talking about actually taking education (of all levels) seriously because education is the primary means by which a populace becomes in innoculated against mis/disinformation.

I have to agree about the too good in their effectiveness. To get to a point where people are just like, “Nah, it ain’t a big deal” is built atop the millions of dead.

The problem is not and has not been science. The problem is messaging.

Yes, but the actual factor driving this is the meteoric rise of the top 1% richest, it is wealth inequality that creates a coherence to misinformation by establishing systematic incentives. There have always been nebulous, destructive, cancer like forces of misinformation, it is as human as human can be but we aren't really fighting to transcend the pitfalls our own nature, we are fighting to get on the same page about the rich fucking us all over by artificially supercharging these tendencies within us for their own gain.

It is irrational to just see this as an abstract conversation about the human brain's susceptibility to misinformation as it ignores the costly material operation being undertaken to manipulate us with said misinformation.

Kelly johnson designed the SR71 Blackbird because he was given the alien tech from rosswell new mexico to reverse engineer! No other way could the government trust 1 man with a blank check book and complete authority and have the plane designed and flying in such a short amount of time!

-my favorite conspiracy theory

My homeschooling, flat earth believing, anti vax mother never taught me science. She said I would never be a scientist so that was enough reason for her.

Once I was doubting the need for higher levels of mathematics. Now as an engineer I realize the utility of this knowledge.

What made my change my mind? Well it's definitely not my intelligence nor my age, it's the practical application of that theory which got me here. Reading in between the lines can only happen if you like what you're doing.

Not only there, it's a world wide phenomenon. I keep hearing this kind of shit from people here in Germany and my family in Brazil.