Rumors, Lies, Speculation, and Conspiracy Theories

Several years ago, when my husband was still coaching high school basketball, we had a visit from the father of one of the players on his boys’ team. The father was upset with my husband because our team had lost a game they probably should have won.

Anyone who has ever coached at any level will nod their heads in agreement and understanding that most parents and fans typically blame the coach for losses. It’s been my experience that with the exception of parents of professional athletes who truly do have extraordinary talent, most parents have a tendency to over-estimate their child’s athletic ability.

That evening in our living room, I only half listened to the father as he berated my husband for the team’s inconsistent performance. As the daughter and niece of basketball coaches and the wife of the current coach, I had heard most of the father’s complaints many times. There was nothing new is diatribe.

Then he said something that caught my attention.

“On most nights, this team could beat the Los Angeles Lakers, so how can you let them lose to the team that beat us last week?” he demanded.

Let me provide some context here. At the time of this conversation, the Los Angeles Lakers were the defending NBA Champions. Their roster included Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Michael Cooper, and Byron Scott. At that time, my husband was coaching at one of the smallest high schools in Oklahoma. None of his players was taller than 6’2’’. They were gritty, hard-working kids, but not one of them could have gone one-on-one with the equipment manager of the Los Angeles Lakers and scored. Even my sister, who was also the daughter and niece of basketball coaches but knew very little about the game and cared even less about it, could have watched both the Lakers and my husband’s team play and understood they weren’t remotely comparable.

I caught my husband’s eye, then had to look away for fear of breaking into uncontrollable laughter at the absurdity of the comment.

’ve been thinking about that father’s comment lately as I read and watch comments from people who are not medical or public health professionals chastise my friends and colleagues who are. Don’t misunderstand me. I appreciate curiosity and would never discourage any person from asking questions of medical professionals about their health. I believe we should all gather as much credible information as possible before making decisions. But that means we need to have the ability to evaluate evidence. And, I’m just not seeing that happening.

It’s true that I would rather be around individuals with whom I can engage in intellectual discussions. I admit that I tend to put a lot of value on academic degrees; however, I also appreciate “lived experience” when it is accompanied by curiosity. I also understand that not every “lived experience” is the same. The experiences of individuals who are wealthy and feel a sense of entitlement are vastly different from those who live on the edge of poverty and desperation. I am really trying to listen and hear both sides, so that I can be a vehicle of understanding to assist in finding shared solutions.

But, more often than I like to admit, I find myself frustrated with willful ignorance. It doesn’t matter how many times I read Brene Brown’s books or listen to her podcast, my “go to” emotion when I’m frustrated is to shame those who seem unwilling to learn or even “unlearn” falsehoods.

I hear people tout common sense over formal education, but my experience of late has proven there is no “sense” or “logic” or “reason” in many of the arguments I’m hearing. My best friend reminds me often that “you can’t have a rational discussion with someone who is irrational.”

In his book, The Death of Expertise, author and scholar Tom Nichols said, “Americans have reached a point where ignorance, especially of anything related to public policy, is an actual virtue. To reject the advice of experts is to assert autonomy, a way for Americans to insulate their increasingly fragile egos from ever being told they’re wrong about anything.” I agree with Nichols in that everyone may be entitled to their own “opinions,” but that doesn’t mean that every person is an expert or even knowledgeable on issues, and it certainly doesn’t mean that every opinion is true.

In a discussion with my husband the other day, I wondered, “Is this a failure of our education and religious systems?” As a Christian and someone who has many family members who are educators, it pains me to ask that question. But honestly, it feels like I have spent most of my life “unlearning” much of what I was taught in my youth – including the lessons of my elementary history books that taught me that many “masters were good to their slaves.” I’ve spent too much time away from church because when I was a child, the church taught me to judge people who were different than me. Even as a child that felt wrong, but I didn’t have the words or experience to stand up to the church leaders who were preaching this. When I became an adult, I wanted to be as far away from the hypocrisy and bigotry as possible.

On the other hand, my lived experiences have allowed me to spend my career learning from experts in epidemiology about evaluation and how to critically evaluate studies that don’t meet rigorous scientific standards. That experience has given me the capacity to distinguish facts from the never-ending smorgasbord of rumors, lies, speculation, and conspiracy theories. But that alone doesn’t make me an expert in epidemiology or infectious disease. It just means that I know who the experts are and how to find credible information.

The father who thought his high school son and teammates could challenge and even beat the Los Angeles Lakers all those years ago can possibly be forgiven for his inability to evaluate athletic talent. That wasn’t a life or death condition (although I’ve witnessed too many parents who think it is). But I struggle with finding compassion and empathy for people who perpetuate rumors, lies, speculation, and conspiracy theories on social media about situations with real life and death consequences because THEY ARE DANGEROUS.

It seems I’m in good company. During her speech at the 2020 virtual Democratic National Convention, former First Lady Michelle Obama amended the famous catch phrase she first uttered at the 2016 convention, “When they go low, we go high.” At this year’s convention, she said, “Let’s be clear, going high does not mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty. Going high means taking the harder path. It means scraping and clawing our way to that mountain top. Going high means standing fierce against hatred while remembering that we are one nation under God, and if we want to survive, we’ve got to find a way to live together and work together across our differences.”

The message is obvious. Keep going. Keep working to slow the spread of rumors, lies, speculation, and conspiracy theories. Find a way. Our lives and those of future generations depend on it.