The "Father of Chang'e" was screamed for saying that "the American moon landing is real". China has also begun to spread anti-intellectualism?

Chang'e 5 is back with the "local products" of the moon! People who care about the aerospace industry of the motherland will surely be inspired by this news.

 

However, this article is not about this. Just a few days before the return of Chang'e 5, Ouyang Ziyuan, one of China's "Fathers of Chang'e," was sprayed by some levers.

 

This is how things happened. Isn't it the fact that Chang'e 5 has become hot recently, and the conspiracy theory that "the US moon landing is fake" has been revealed again. For example, why does the national flag shake?...

 

 

 

Ouyang Ziyuan refuted this in an interview program, explaining why the national flag was shaking on the moon, and citing several evidences to prove that the US moon landing was real, and then some Chinese netizens were unhappy. This group of people insisted that the US moon landing was a fake, thinking that Ouyang was speaking for the Americans, and that it was a fan of the Americans who collected money from the Americans.

 

 

Ouyang Ziyuan, Chief Scientist of China Lunar Exploration Project, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academician of International Academy of Astronautics and Technology. He participated in the formulation of the short-term goals and long-term plans for my country's lunar exploration, and designed specific scientific goals for the "Chang'e-1" probe launched in 2008.

 

Therefore, he is called one of the "Fathers of Chang'e" by many people.

 

The remarks made by such a top scientist in China were questioned and criticized by netizens for nothing.

 

 

 

 

A few ordinary people, relying on a few videos and photos of the moon landing seen on the Internet, can judge the authenticity of the American moon landing, and can confidently question an academician of the Academy of Sciences.

 

Brave? ignorance? funny!

 

The 21st century is an era in which anyone can slap experts.

 

Combining the comments of these sprayers, there are nothing more than three meanings: contempt-you don't understand it; buckle-your ass is crooked; abuse-you are stupid.

 

This is almost the usual trick used by the Trolls, Gangjing, and Keyboard Men in the Chinese Internet world. First of all, I feel that I know everything. Those of you who have been studying in certain professional fields for many years are not as good as me. I am the king of understanding.

 

The second thing is that if you say or do this, you are obviously not patriotic. If you are not patriotic, it is wrong. When you come up, you will be labeled with a hat and knock you down from the moral high ground.

 

 

 

Finally, it is unscrupulous abuse, which may be unreasonable, or it may be a frantic revenge after knowing that he is really wrong.

 

In fact, for a long time, I couldn't understand why there was so much hostility in the Chinese Internet world. On closer examination, one has to worry about the fact that "anti-intellectualism", which has a long history in the United States, has also begun to spread in China?

 

1
What is anti-intellectual

 

What is anti-intellectualism? The definition given by Encyclopedia Britannica is: "Anti-intellectualism depicts an attitude that is hostile to, or distrusts intellectuals and the pursuit of knowledge. It can be expressed in many ways, such as attacking science, education, and literature. the value of."

 

Chinese Wikipedia directly believes that anti-intellectualism “is an attitude that exists in culture or thought, rather than a set of ideological theories. Anti-intellectualism can be divided into two categories: one is opposition to intelligence, knowledge or Suspicion is the belief that intelligence or knowledge is harmful to life but not beneficial. The other is suspicion and contempt for intellectuals."

 

 

When it comes to anti-intellectualism, we have to mention the United States. The United States has a long history of anti-intellectualism. What are the specific manifestations? Give a few examples.

 

The long-standing "milk production movement" in Western countries such as the United States and Australia is a typical representative of anti-intellectualism.

 

The milk we drink now, whether it is pasteurized milk or room temperature milk, is milk that has been heated and sterilized. This kind of milk eliminates all kinds of harmful bacteria and viruses to the human body, so it is safer and will not make people sick.

 

However, there are a group of people in the United States who not only believe that raw raw milk is more nutritious, but also that they are healthier and more suitable for humans. After all, if eating raw vegetables is better for us, why not eat raw milk? Why not eat in the “natural world” way and return to a purer and simpler era?

 

 

But what these people overlook is that it may be a simpler era, but it is also an era when people often die of foodborne diseases.

 

Raw cow dairy products are more likely to cause foodborne diseases than pasteurized products. This is the conclusion of scientists, but these people just don't want to believe it.

 

"In fact, ignorance has become fashionable, and some Americans now regard rejection of expert advice as a sign of cultural wisdom."

 

The anti-intellectual incidents in the Americans that entered the Chinese people's field of vision during the COVID-19 pandemic were even more shocking and ridiculous. For example, many Americans think that the new coronavirus does not exist, and many people think that wearing masks is harmful to them.

 

 

Including a large number of Americans who believe that the earth is actually flat, "the earth is round" is a lie made up by scientists all over the world...

 

Anti-intellectualism is not far away from us. Mr. Ouyang “perfectly” reflects this anti-intellectual behavior when he was sprayed. Although you are a scientist who has studied the moon for many years, I just don’t believe you, you just don’t. I know.

 

Such things are not rare.

 

For example, in the first half of this year, when Dr. Zhang Wenhong was talking about the children’s breakfast, he said that in order to enhance the children’s resistance, they must eat well in the morning. It is best to eat high-nutrition milk, eggs and sandwiches. It's good not to eat porridge, but some people scolded him, thinking that he "worships foreigners".

 

 

Co-authored Chinese people do not eat milk and egg sandwiches are patriotic. These highly nutritious foods that are vital to the growth and development of children can only be eaten by foreigners.

 

2
The more ignorant people are, the more they realize they know everything

 

How did anti-intellectualism form?

 

Let's first understand the famous "Dark effect".

 

What is the Duck effect? The simple understanding is that the more ignorant people are, the more they will overestimate themselves and do not feel that they are ignorant. The picture below is the Duck effect curve.

 

 

It is easier to understand this Chinese version:

 

 

It can be seen from the figure that the cognitive stages of a person are divided into four levels. I don’t know I don’t know; I know I don’t know; I know I know; I don’t know I know.

 

In the first stage, people's knowledge level, or cognitive level, is inversely proportional to their self-confidence, that is, "the stupid people are, the more they overestimate themselves, and the more they feel they understand everything."

 

Then I was immersed in the state of "I'm invincible in the world" created by myself. I can't extricate myself from it. What shit expert, can I understand?

 

 

However, some really good people tend to have a clearer understanding of their own cognitive level, and they will be more humble. Instead, they will express their opinions more cautiously. Moreover, the more knowledgeable people are, the more they can realize their own shortcomings, and the more they can discover, recognize, and learn from others' strengths.

 

Why does this phenomenon occur?

 

In the book "Death of an Expert", author Tom Nichols gives possible answers. He believes that one reason is that with the convenience of the Internet, people’s access to knowledge has become very convenient, and people can also publish anything freely on the Internet. "This makes the public space flooded with bad information and half a bucket of insights. , Flooding into disaster".

 

 

 

In other words, anyone can publish their opinions online based on their knowledge and cognition. No matter whether your opinions are correct or not, someone will believe it.

 

Obviously, the Internet is a double-edged sword. Mark Twain once said, "It is not ignorance that gets us into trouble, but the seemingly correct false assertions." In such an era of information explosion, it is more difficult than ever to tell right from wrong. They are receiving a large amount of fragmented knowledge every day, so what they lack is not knowledge, but judgment of right from wrong.

 

Therefore, "Death of an Expert" believes that "how unlimited information has made us stupid, the Internet is undoubtedly a huge achievement."

 

Another manifestation of confirmatory bias is that although many stories on the Internet are fake or inaccurate, once in 1 billion stories, Google is right and the experts are wrong. Such stories will It spreads like a virus.

 

For example, in 2015, there was a tragic case in which a British teenager was misdiagnosed by a doctor. The doctor told her, “Don’t Google your symptoms anymore.” She was right, the doctor was wrong, and she, died. . The story of this British girl was a sensation, and a rare mistake may have caused many people to believe that they could treat themselves.

 

However, some people use computers to misdiagnose their heart disease as indigestion and die. Such stories will never make headlines.

 

The reality is that you keep browsing the Internet until you come to the conclusion you want. This is the erudition of the Internet age. This also makes many people think that if you do a speculative search in the Internet world, it becomes a "research"-everyone is an expert and scholar!

 

 

 

"If people believe that if they spend a morning searching, they can master the knowledge that others have learned in 10 years. Such people can't get the hang of it."-"Death of an Expert"

 

The author admits that experts can also make mistakes, and their predictions are often inaccurate, but this does not mean that "professionalism is useless" or that experts get out. The reason is that professionals usually have relatively strict verification standards for relevant knowledge, and even if they make mistakes, they have a relatively strong self-correction mechanism, which makes expert judgments and statements correct much higher than non-experts.

 

The above is one of the reasons why anti-intellectualism prevails. In the information age under the mud and sand, the huge amount of information that is difficult to discern makes many people mistakenly believe that they have become experts.

 

 

 

This reminds me of the bureau seat that year, Zhang Zhaozhong, as a rear admiral, tutor of doctoral students in military strategy at the National Defense University. But every day netizens deliberately stabbed and sprayed. What "smog and haze anti-laser", "kelp wrapped around a submarine", etc., have become jokes after being taken out of context.

 

There is another reason, that is, people are eager for conspiracy theories. This involves the most primitive human nature.

 

The reason why conspiracy theories have an important connection with anti-intellectualism is that conspiracy theories have a deep appeal to such a group of people: their IQs are difficult to understand this complex world, but they are impatient to listen to some plain explanations.

 

 

 

 

Such people tend to have strong narcissism and self-esteem. Why is the content of conspiracy theories so popular with them? Because conspiracy theories can give them a sense of superiority that only they know about huge conspiracies, it makes their simple minds not so simple.

 

It is not difficult to understand why Ouyang Ziyuan was chased by some people-you are not right! You don't know as much as I do! This is a conspiracy! You see how awesome I am!

 

Zhang Wenhong actually advocated drinking milk and eating eggs? There must be some forces behind him to support him! Obviously drinking porridge is also very nutritious, do you think I understand?

 

Trump is also a fan of conspiracy theories, and his use of conspiracy theories can be described as culmination. This practice also allows him to establish a representative image of one person against the establishment elite.

 

For example, in the 2016 election, he was one of several "birthplace questioners" who asked Obama to prove his US citizenship. He stands with anti-vaccine fighters because most people in the United States don't believe in vaccines.

 

 

He doubted this and that on Twitter all day long. He even made "fake news" a popular vocabulary online. He confronted Dr. Fauci, an epidemic prevention expert, and aggravated the Americans’ disbelief in the existence of the new crown virus, causing the Americans to scold Dr. Fauci, and even threatening the safety of his family.

 

And under the lie of "downplay and deny the new crown epidemic", there are some sub-items-questioning hospitals, questioning scientists, denying vaccines, and the uselessness of masks...

But looking at the pandemic that is out of control in the United States, we can see the terrible aspects of anti-intellectualism. It can manipulate public opinion, or it can lead a country astray.

 

3
Reflection

 

Although the United States is the originator of anti-intellectualism, it is undeniable that domestic anti-intellectualism is also on the rise in recent years. The typical manifestation is that online mockery and even abuse of "brickers" abound. It even preached that reading is useless.

 

However, is this kind of mentality of negating experts really good?

 

Without the struggle of experts such as Ouyang Ziyuan, can Chang'e-5 come back? Without the guidance of experts such as Zhang Wenhong, can China's anti-epidemic work be successful?

 

Or to give a simple example, to build a bridge, without the architect's design, the construction workers alone will obviously not be completed.

 

 

To put it plainly, anti-intellectualism is the process of “bad money drives out good money” and “misinformation repels knowledge”.

 

If you are a person who is out of low-level tastes and meet such a person, don't reply, you will lose if you reply.