‘“I hope the lesson people take from this is not, Experts were wrong,” Tufekci says. “If you followed the right people, they were overwhelmingly right. We just didn’t put them in the right place so we could hear them.”’ https://t.co/01nK2BFLpw

— David Wallace-Wells (@dwallacewells) April 29, 2020

As much as I like Zeynep Tufekci, this is clearly wrong and I disagree with her strongly. There were all sorts of actual experts 2-3 months ago dispensing all manner of incorrect information about Covid-19, the possible path of the pandemic, and responses. For instance, most of WHO, many epidemiologists in the US who were saying what was happening in Wuhan was nothing to worry about, and we should be far more concerned with the seasonal flu.

These were all experts proffering this nonsense.

Her point that “if you follow the right people” is completely useless when you have competing experts, some of whom are correct and some of whom are peddlers of utter flapdoodle. How is the average or even the above average person, ever supposed to operate in that environment? It’s just not possible. I can do it to some extent but I’ve devoted most of my life to being good at such things. There should be no expectation that a normal person be able to do this.

I understand where she’s coming from, but she’s one of the more highly-educated and intelligent people alive. She knows where to turn and who is likely to be correct. That is a skill that she’s severely underestimating because she is good at it (we all do this with things we are good at).