The only way to overcome fake news is developing
common sense, which is the least common of the senses. Einstein would say that: “Science is the
refinement of common sense.” I
remembered when as a resident I went to see a patient accompanied by medical students. The patient was a CEO of an
important company and I was called because he was caught urinating outside the
toilet in his room; he was recovering from an open-heart surgery, three days prior. My approach was to rule out delirium, psychosis
or just poor education (a CEO could be poorly educated). Four medical students were with me at Upstate
Medical Center, N.Y., the patient was a white male, very sharp when speaking,
looked straight at the eyes, he simply said that he did not do anything like
urinating outside the toilet. He spoke
to the medical students when asked questions, charming, he was oriented and remembered
everything that happened before surgery and when he woke up in his room. I asked
for permission to introduce a test where the patient shifts movement
with his hands to test his frontal lobe.
He tried to do the test several times without success. What I saw was an intelligent man unable to perform tasks
that belongs to the frontal lobe. I
asked the medical students what the problem was with the patient after leaving
the room and before writing a note on the chart. They told me that he was just tired. I told them that he was most likely delirious
after surgery and that he is on the way of recovering. They were well informed about the frontal
lobe test but they could not apply the knowledge to the CEO’s context. I told them:
“You need to believe what you see and reflect about it; otherwise you
are prone to err.” Developing common
sense is necessary to overcome most of the fake news.
A week ago we had the Mexican Nationals. There was no triathlon competition in order to
participate in the Triathlon Mexican Nationals except for swimming 400 meters
and running one kilometer the same day.
The first sixteen athletes when adding the two times participated in the
Nationals; cero common sense on the part of the FMTRI selecting triathletes to participate in triathlon nationals. We had five kids participating distributed in the 14-15,
16-17 categories. The three kids in the
16-17 category won two medals each, gold in the relay and one gold and two
silvers individually, but sadly they do not have the “marcas mínimas” and
cannot compete internationally outside Mexico.
The FMTRI continues to spread the fake news that “marcas mínimas” are
useful and necessary and that “marcas mínimas” do not go against Human Rights
by negating the right to compete.
Applying a scientific approach, any kind of statistics, tells us that “marcas
mínimas” are not measuring anything in triathlon. Ethically, it is against the “right to
compete,” which it is considered in the Mexican law a Human Right. Talking to them is like talking to my medical
students that do not want to see and reflect on what they do.
