Just as an aside, the BBC version of the quote: https://youtu.be/OVXt8jBAGkc?t=87

For the last few years I took some time off to recover from a mild heavy metal poisoning, and used the time to learn learn learn. I was pretty lazy in childhood and now had a desire to learn, but also to prove to myself that I can study diligently for an extended period, which I never did (had to do) before.

So I took some 60 courses on edX and Coursera mostly (but also Youtube channels and some Khan academy for refreshing some basics, plus some reading) - at the time everything still was free. Most of the courses were "life-sciency", stuff I never had to deal with since school and never thought I would ever touch. More than one course in each chemistry, org. chem., bio-chem., physiology, anatomy, neuroscience, lots of statistics (again - had forgotten everything, this time I actually cared).

The more I learned the more I can relate to the Sherlock Holmes quote. It's no use. The deeper I went, the more courses I took, the more I forgot. Also, the more I felt that I don't have any practical use for any of it. It made me feel good, but society won't benefit one bit from my learning. Humans specialize, and most people who do good work in their place in society really don't benefit from cramming ever more stuff into their heads. At this point I would not even care if I met somebody who really didn't know about earth and sun, as long as they perform well in their actual job.

Part of it is that the more I learned the more I also learned that I still know nothing at all. I can take all the basic courses about medical topics, it does not help one bit to make any practical decisions- There is a high threshold before the knowledge is practically useful (you can't be 1/3rd of a doctor).

I have switched to mostly learning things related to my actual work now and stopped taking courses outside my field. It just felt increasingly futile. Sure, I now have quite good basics but it was a huge investment, if I hadn't had anything else to do during the time anyway it would have been quite a waste. I would not expect anything similar from larger society, let them specialize.

I now think trust is far more important. It's okay if people don't know much or anything about a lot of subjects - as long as they trust others who do. Things like for-profit health care lead to things like skepticism of the specialists. I too had plenty of doctors who tried to sell me useless stuff (network marketing!) and useless treatments when I tried to find someone for the problem I had. The missing trust is something rarely if ever mentioned in discussions about "anti-vaxxers". Even those who think they are stupid know nothing at all about the immune system and about how immunization actually works (edX has some good and detailed courses, and it's a lot and can be quite boring unless one really is into the subject) - the difference is not that they know anything but that they trust official authority. So the question is not how do you teach immune system fundamentals to skeptics, but how do you create trust that they don't have to? There are enough headlines to show that mistrust of the profit-driven system is not exactly completely stupid. That it shows up as anti-vaccination attitude is, I think actually secondary and incidental and not the actual root problem.

In a highly specialized society we need trust, and we don't need to want to teach everybody lots of everything. Food for thought - ignore the product this is about, it's just an example: https://medium.com/@kevin_ashton/what-coke-contains-221d4499... (see the reader-highlighted text at the end for the summary).