People have been agonising about the probable negative impact of the world wide web on 'intellectual humility' for some time. A recently published account (https://bigthink.com/sponsored-institute-for-humane-studies/intellectual-humility?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1) puts much of the debate in one place. It is suggested that three 'key' elements destroy 'intellectual humility', namely 1) Having access to the web makes us think that we have 'all' the information on all topics at our fingertips; 2) Our use of social media puts us in a situation where we tend to communicate only with people who think in the same way and 3) Writing down a viewpoint (on a blog or Twitter) apparently makes it much harder for us to change our views, even when presented with contrary evidence. In the case of item '3', perhaps it was easier to change our ideas, in earlier days, if we had just 'kicked it around', verbally (it was just imperfectly remembered conversation). Of course, in those 'ancient' times, people who published scientific papers or newspaper articles were in a similar situation to Twitter users. One of the ideas of my blog is to function as a place where media treatments of scientific issues can be examined and commented on. Could I encourage any of the readers of my posts to use the comments function if they think I am drifting into intellectual arrogance? But, perhaps, if you are a regular reader, it's too late as you are pre-programmed!
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