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Ancient Wisdom in Pandemic Times: Socrates' Triple Filter Test.

Maria Kalientzidou
Published in: Experimental and clinical transplantation : official journal of the Middle East Society for Organ Transplantation (2023)
The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the biggest problems in the 21st century with unique characteristics, including its alarming rate of spread and the widespread accumulation of information. In the era of advanced information and communication tools, public understanding comes mainly from social media, which shapes and constructs public opinion and reality. Consequently, this can result in many conflicts on the prevention and treatment of the disease. Paradoxically, although vaccination against COVID-19 has proven its efficacy and safety, it remains a profound issue of debate. Nowadays, we navigated the social media sources to find the answers, as Socrates did navigating in the ancient "agora" to find answers, by conducting the Socratic dialectic method and filtering "information" by the triple filter test. Its aim was to imagine an agitated anti-vaccinist coming to Socrates and saying: "Socrates, I want to tell you some information about vaccination." Socrates: Calm down before listening to what you have to say are you sure that everything you are going to tell me is true? Anti-vaccinist: Well, this personal perception comes mainly from social media. Socrates: So, you cannot know if your information is true or not. Is what you are going to tell me good or not? Anti-vaccinist: You know that I am opposed to vaccination. Socrates: And finally, do you think that this is useful? Anti-vaccinist: Well, I am not quite sure. As Socrates would say, if everything you want to tell us you are not sure is true is not good, as you ignore all the "good" proven data, and is not helpful but rather harmful, this could lead the public opinion to confusion and danger. During this pandemic, where various media construct the reality, "ancient wisdom" may promote a mediating or even a filtering effect between information and untrue, harmful, and useless formations of personal perceptions.
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