Editor:
In his letter to the Coast Reporter, “Students, have a radical summer” (July 5), PJ Reece urges teens to challenge the “fear porn” and doomsday news that “gushes from mainstream media.” Find out what’s true and what’s bogus, he opines, “question everything.”
This is code for “do your own research,” a scenario we are much more familiar with in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the backlash fomented by social media scammers and faux-specialists.
I value media reporting of most issues with the help of career scientists who carefully unpack pertinent data. Such reporting is almost always complemented by additional sources on media websites.
Professional scientific information is peer-reviewed and critically scrutinized, no matter the subject. It isn’t perfect or infallible, nor does it claim to be, but I’ll choose it any time over most alternative claims I might otherwise be persuaded to swallow.
By “questioning everything” maybe you do mean learning to authenticate research claims, improve one’s scientific literacy and how to distinguish a unicorn in the clouds from corn stubble in the fields. That is a worthy project.
On a related note, I am leading a research fundamentals course at Antioch University this fall term; perhaps you’d care to register. You might learn a thing or two.
Michael Maser, Ph.D.
Gibsons
