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Re:Collection: More Doctors Smoke Camels by renewiltord on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @04:08PM (#42638457)
One who believes in that line trusts neither, one imagines. The thing that people often misunderstand about not trusting something is that it is different from believing it is guaranteed to be wrong. Not trusting something means that it doesn't provide evidence. i.e. if you don't trust some source X, and X provides some evidence X_A about some event A then not trusting them means that P(A|X_A) ~= P(A) your prior probability.

People often interpret the "I don't trust X" statement to be "belief in the opposite", i.e. P(¬A|X_A) = 1. This is obviously stupid since someone you distrust could happily manufacture evidence for ¬A and then you'd conclude P(¬¬A|X_¬A) = 1 so they could make you believe anything, which is obviously not something you want someone you distrust to do to you.

Re:Collection: More Doctors Smoke Camels by skygazer on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @04:23PM (#42638597)
I'm not sure that's correct in practice. The people that harbor vocal distrust in agencies, professions, etc. really do seem more apt to directly believe whatever is in opposition to the "distrusted" message. While your proposal remains a logical alternative to them, adoption seems markedly low.
Re:Collection: More Doctors Smoke Camels by fullshark on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @04:26PM (#42638623)
Nah, they "believe" in that line when the science says anything that contradicts their priors. When the science says anything that confirms them they ingest and cite it gladly.