Dear Editor:
RE: Truth still exists, Feb. 18.
You asked how people with no background, training or education in virology, epidemiology and public health became self-appointed experts? Simple. They read a few tweets and Facebook posts and then forgot Alexander Pope’s 1709 advice.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.”
And you asked, “How did people previously assumed to be somewhat intelligent get so sucked in by obvious misinformation and conspiracy theories?”
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time” (Abraham Lincoln).
So with the massive amount of tweeting and Facebook posting and reading being done, “even some people fooled some of the time” results in successful transmission of falsehoods and fake news to a substantial part of the population.
The idea that “people previously assumed to be somewhat intelligent” are always smart enough to avoid being misled or fooled is exposed in the classic book Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay and published in 1852.
It totals 724 pages of how people have been fooled, misled and exploited over the centuries.
Allan Johnson,
Georgetown