And they lack the expertise regardless, and they can't gain the expertise without schooling and professional experience. We are dependant on others, whether we like it or not.
> the emergence of essentially propaganda pieces masquerading as detailed, rigorous analysis
> I'm sure these existed before, but COVID has taken things to another level.
I don't know that it's another level. The long, incredibly detailed dives into one issue or another have been around for decades.
This is essentially what I expected when the pandemic started. We created a monster of misinformation and disinformation, the 'post-truth' society; the consequences are obviously and completely predictable.
Similar as to the other posted said - this type of fiction writing has existed before COVID. It's just that now you're all reading the same statistical fiction.
Essentially - one genre of statistical fiction got popular. Whereas before everyone was reading different genres.
I mean, unless it's your profession, you're not. At best, you're reading an article (with summarized data that you hope was aggregated correctly) in a journal. To the best of my knowledge, the raw datasets that those are based on are rarely shared.
(I really wonder at the effort spent on this...)
One huge problem with COVID has been the emergence of essentially propaganda pieces masquerading as detailed, rigorous analysis. These give people a false sense of confidence- "Hey I've done my research!" when in reality you can google for 20 minutes and come up with impressive looking links for whatever view you are already predisposed to believe.
I'm sure these existed before, but COVID has taken things to another level.