"Do your own research"

 I find the meme "do your own research" a stab in the right direction - the direction of a Deweyan utopia. Instead of "don't do your own research", the response should be: there are many methods to researching, and you should know a bit about them before you do this noble thing: researching.

When the anti-vax crowd was "doing their own research", they were not doing it by using some elegant cross-checking, historically founded method. They were googling. A good start! But like stepping inside a library, also a good start, you have to know where you go next.

The right wing influencers were like bad librarians, telling you to search in the section entitled pseudoscience.

Unfortunately, the liberal crowd was too often like: don't research at all. Eat your gruel! Not only a dumb answer, but one that has lead us in the past to disaster after disaster.

There have been times without number over the past 25 years when doing your own research was very important. For instance, when all the Serious people were saying Iraq had WMD and was threatening the U.S. Backed up by many a warhawk outfit, rightwing and centrist, who flooded the zone. And who would dispute the towering expertise of, say, Paul Wolfowitz, whose opinion on the minimal cost, even profit, of invading and occupying Iraq surmounted the mere amateur estimates of those who estimated the war as costing 200 billion dollars. And the latter were wrong too – multiply that by five.

My idea, the one I got hold of in the first grade and have never let go of, is: Go into the library. Then ask to find out where the right section is. Then get some map in your head of the recent history of the research on the issue you are interested in. Don't be afraid of being heterodox. But remember as well that mere contrarianism is more of a tantrum than a method. Do, do your own research, and reflect on how you do it, so you can do it better. Figure out your limits, both of the content and of technique.

And remember: this is what teachers from the 8th grade onward have been trying to get you to do!

This quote from one of Einstein's letters is a good guide: “So many people today—and even professional scientists—seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth."

Go forth and seek the truth. That is the point of doing your own research. Whether it is research on how to fix an electric appliance or research on vaccines and the history of quarantine methods, your education should have given you the skills to go to the library and find guides. This is the point of education in a democratic system: to help you your whole life long.