When we confront the skeptics of science, we tend to return fire with a fire-hose of facts and figures.
“We often treat skeptics like a high-school debater would: We rattle off a litany of reasons why they are wrong,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and featured speaker of the 156th Commencement of Bates College on May 29. “We try to pop as many balloons as possible with our pin.”
It’s a bad approach on two accounts, Shah told the graduating seniors. “In the history of recorded thought, not a single mind has ever been changed via that approach.”
And worse, our refutation is often accompanied by condescension. “We treat those with different beliefs not just as incorrect, but as ignorant. Please don’t do that,” he advised.
Instead, try a little humanity. “Be someone who builds trust,” said Shah, a luminary of Maine’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On a sunny and warm morning, Shah’s personal, insightful, and occasionally very funny address was heard by 498 seniors and their loved ones, faculty, and staff under the trees of the Historic Quad and watched around the world via livestream. After two disrupted Commencements — a virtual edition in 2020 and a split, morning-afternoon in-person edition last year — this year’s ceremony felt like a block party.
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