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A comment on The Husband-and-Wife Team Behind the Leading Vaccine to Solve Covid-19. Parent comment

Re:The Husband-and-Wife Team Behind the Leading Vaccine to S... by mssundaram on Wednesday November 11, 2020 @04:37PM (#25063325)
Celebrities in general. It's the fact that you get famous for a focused discipline or achievement but then people look to your opinion on any and everything else, or even if you are still consulted on only your area of focus you can become lazy and indulge in your status and power, whereby your opinion should no longer be relevant, but you are still popular and listened to.
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Re:The Husband-and-Wife Team Behind the Leading Vaccine to S... by MyHypatia on Wednesday November 11, 2020 @05:52PM (#25063968)
I agree that listening to famous people on any topic that is not their area of expertise is a bad thing. That's caused by hero worship and lazy journalism, not highlighting the names of scientist who make breakthroughs.

I do think it's important for us as a society to recognize and highlight the names of people who make important contributions to science because it sets a good example for the kinds of contributions that others (i.e. kids) can aspire to make in the future.

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Re:The Husband-and-Wife Team Behind the Leading Vaccine to S... by hungryforcodes on Thursday November 12, 2020 @01:10AM (#25066981)
But that’s the problem of the people listening. They are the ones looking for some advice and an opinion. And why not respond (as the celebrity) — any of us probably have appreciated being asked our opinion on things.

Also celebrities can do good things. Bill Gates is a celebrity (in a way), and has helped us a lot with vaccines and pandemics, and that’s definitely not his historical area of expertise.

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