“The growing challenge of vaccines coincides with the widespread use of schools”

We are shocked, when we hear or read the words of anti-vaccines, by the absolute absence of doubt. One can imagine a concern, an interrogation, the beginning of a discussion, or an exchange of arguments: no, what emerges is the constant certainty of confronting lying, manipulation and concealment, or the deliberate underestimation of dangerous and varied side effects. It is true that in the face, there is not much doubt either, even if the truth stated with confidence may vary over time. We remember the words of the former government spokesperson that ” Masks are not necessary for everyone We bear in mind the aristocratic arrogance of Olivier Veran when looking at his opponents in the National Assembly.

⚡🇲🇫RÉCAP – “The # masks Not necessary for everyone. I don’t know how to use the mask,” will broadcast Ndiaye, a government spokeswoman interviewed on March 20 on BFMTV. Two weeks later, on April 3, the Academy of Medicine recommends mask wear in general.

– News summaries (Brevesdepresse) April 6, 2020

In the case of a new virus with unknown behavior, from advanced scientific techniques, uncertainty and doubt are consistent with the scientific approach. We run the tests, publish the results, and provide conclusions that we can then agree on. It is certainly difficult to explain the back-and-forth frequencies in the event of an emergency caused by a health crisis, but the limitations of scientific knowledge thus developed must be accepted by a population whose level of education has continued to grow. It is not only a scientific culture that must make it possible to put perspectives into perspective, and to put into perspective the difficult, inescapable choices that have to be made. There is the so-called general culture, and more precisely, historical culture.

School management and the absence of doubts

Here again, we can expect a contribution from the enormity of education. However, the opposite is happening: the increase in competition for vaccines coincides with this mass. In the 1990s, the challenge to the hepatitis B vaccine took on a scope unknown to those who remember an earlier period when vaccines – “elite” (nobody else worked with that term) were welcomed to a large base of the population that did not. Get higher education – as an opportunity, break free from the restrictions imposed by nature. It is surprising to note that the oldest – that is, those who did not benefit from this public access to long studies – are the most preferred vaccines and give credit to the scientists.

We can say that it is precisely the attainment of a higher level of education that allows the questioning of “facts” imposed from “above”. But it is not a critical and always welcome examination of democracy, an informed analysis of the data one witnesses, it is a categorical affirmation of certainty that does not withstand examination—a reluctant belief in the argument—and that calls into question the discourse of scholars themselves. The certainty of being the target of deception and being one of those for whom we “don’t” (but without constructing a discourse other than opposition in principle) seems to be the curious result of upgrading studies. How can we be surprised, under these circumstances, by the deterioration of public debate here noted by Philip Guibert? How not to wonder how difficult it is to create a space for quiet dialogue that, in theory, the wide dissemination of education must allow?

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La grande spécialisation de la formation des « élites » aux dépens de la culture générale et, pour la partie la plus visible d’entre elles (journalistes, hommes politiques…) de la culture scientifique, n’est pas favorable à un débat argumenté et Weighs. We know that under various pretexts, we have removed the general culture of entrance exams into Science Po. The important thing now is to master the connection: but we must force a connection. The “language element” is not an argument, it’s a slogan. Public culture like scientific culture is a matter of transmission that requires understanding before membership.

Scientists disappeared from public debate, and their re-emergence during the health crisis revealed, above all, their unsuitability for the dominant media, the latter of which conflicts with the long time of interpretation, the dissemination of arguments, and even more so with the necessary skepticism and the step of access. on him. It is up to the school to provide all the necessary foundations to understand the issues. The impossibility of rational dialogue—along with, of course, purely political and cyclical reasons—between those who communicate instead of persuasion and those who are frozen in certainty knowing only confrontation, reveals its failure.

Correction of blank copies

The school crisis is certainly not recent, it has been going on for several decades, and successive international assessments have revealed its prevalence. However, the 2021 baccalaureate caricaturedly marked the gap between the results presented and the observations made by all those who, when entering higher education, must assess the knowledge on which they have to build their education. 98% of general baccalaureate receipts are a Soviet degree. As in the USSR, the further away from the model reality is, the more this reality is supposed to be hidden by the numbers. The climax was reached by the philosophy test – which is characteristic of the French system – where some candidates left the room after one hour, the minimum time required, since only the maximum between the exam mark and the continuous assessment mark (which there may be a lot to say in the partly distance learning period) which is enough for them.

Read also: A worthless exam, the baccalaureate 2021? In fact, that was the case for a while…

Professors had to correct blank transcripts or signal to them a perceived lack of interest in the topic and the test and indicate that candidates had other things to do. The profession will not recover. Forming enlightened citizens, fit for debate, really? We moved from masks to disguise. 85% of pupils at the end of third grade fail to answer correctly the question “How much is ¾ of 44?”. We have to ask the question to recent bac graduates, it is not certain that the rate has dropped dramatically in three years of high school. How can we imagine, under these circumstances, a solid understanding of the various statistics we present about the pandemic? Moreover, are all the journalists who talk to us about infection rates all day sure know what they’re talking about? 25, 80, 250, 700 oh there … but 700 what? ” Positive cases per 100,000 residents ‘, that is. But in what time period? At time T? Over a daily period? Weekly?

It would be absurd to imagine the headlong rush that pushes students from elementary school to college, from college to high school and from high school to higher education without regard for the need for a certain number of accomplishments or without consequences for probability. In a republican public debate, the school and the republic are inseparable in our country. The old – unfair – system that deprived a large part of the population of secondary and higher education, however, provided the grounds, paradoxically, for a greater consensus on the importance of scientific knowledge, of which vaccines are a part. Today, it is remarkable to note the inability to at least comprehend the scientific prowess that has been achieved.

Among the elites authorized to be uneducated and all those who were persuaded that they were studying and whose studies in question only discredited knowledge (“It was just that…”), the possibility of the debate is to vanish. We only reap what we sow. How can we be surprised that a nation raised in a school of lies ends up believing only in him?

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