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Study Finds Vaccine Science Outreach Only Reinforced Myths (arstechnica.com)
Ars Technica reports on a study suggesting that "Striking at a myth with facts may only shore it up." Applehu Akbar writes:
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied public attitudes toward vaccination in a group whose opinions on the subject were polled before and after being shown three different kinds of explanatory material that used settled scientific facts about vaccines to explain the pro-vaccination side of the debate. Not only was the anti-vax cohort not convinced by any of the three campaigns, but their attitudes hardened when another poll was taken a week later.
What seems to have happened was that the pro-vax campaign was taken by anti-vaxers as just another attempt to lie to them, and as reinforcement for their already made-up minds on the subject. A previous study at Dartmouth College in 2014 used similar methodology and except for the 'hardening' effect elicited similar results. What's really scary about this is that while the Dartmouth subjects were taken from a large general population, the Edinburgh subjects were college students.
"The researchers speculate that the mere repetition of a myth during the process of debunking may be enough to entrench the myth in a believer's mind," writes Ars Technica, with one of the study's authors attributing this to the "illusory truth" effect.
"People tend to mistake repetition for truth."
What seems to have happened was that the pro-vax campaign was taken by anti-vaxers as just another attempt to lie to them, and as reinforcement for their already made-up minds on the subject. A previous study at Dartmouth College in 2014 used similar methodology and except for the 'hardening' effect elicited similar results. What's really scary about this is that while the Dartmouth subjects were taken from a large general population, the Edinburgh subjects were college students.
"The researchers speculate that the mere repetition of a myth during the process of debunking may be enough to entrench the myth in a believer's mind," writes Ars Technica, with one of the study's authors attributing this to the "illusory truth" effect.
"People tend to mistake repetition for truth."
Consider the long and body-strewn history of companies whose products have done enormous damage to large numbers of people.
The cigarette companies were denying that their cute little puff-sticks could cause cancer after a decade in which the causality was as firmly established as 1+1=2. The company that brought out thalidomide was still denying their product maimed unborn babies quite some time after the evidence was rolling in like a tsunami. Monsanto is even now busy suppressing evidence that their roundup product causes cancer.
I could cite a bunch of other instances, but it all comes down to the proven fact that corporations lie about the disasters they cause. They have every reason to: Cleaning up their mess or making amends to the victims will cost them money!
"...once a man gets a reputation as a liar, he might as well be struck dumb, for people do not listen to the wind." -- Robert A. Heinlein Citizen of the Galaxy
while the Dartmouth subjects were taken from a large general population, the Edinburgh subjects were college students.
Half the population of school-leavers now go to university in the UK. That is despite the fact that there are only sufficient "graduate level" jobs for a small fraction of them.
While the smartest graduates will get those jobs, the rest will be left with a crushingly large bill for their 3 more years of "education". You have to question just how clever those remaining graduates actually are.
So it comes as no surprise to learn that in this topic, university students can act just as dim as "ordinary" people - since most of them are exactly that.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
IF a child - who is NOT inoculated spreads a disease throughout his/her peer group, then it's high time to start prosecuting their parents for criminal mischief, at the very least, for allowing their child to be a carrier and disease vector simply because they refused to get that child vaccinated. Prosecution levels should even be allowed to go as high as "involuntary manslaughter", although, to me, it's NOT involuntary, it's premeditated, and should be criminalized to the full extent of those statutes.
Granted, this doesn't solve the problem resulting from that incident, but it WILL send a message to all the other parents that refuse to get their children vaccinated. Basically, if you allow your child to be a disease carrier, then YOU are responsible for all the harm caused to the other children who are harmed, disabled, crippled, or even killed - ALL THROUGH YOUR OWN NEGLIGENCE, or your BELIEF SYSTEM.
It makes no difference whether the issue is religious, personal, or just plain obstinate hard-headedness - YOU are the reason another child (or children) contracted a disease that could have been prevented with current vaccination regimes.
OK, so it's a sad and sometimes horrific (in case of permanent disability or death) situation, and there are many who would say that the parents (and child) have suffered enough - - - BUT the situation is SOLELY the responsibility of the child's parents / guardians to see that they are given the best medical care available - and that INCLUDES THE VACCINATIONS !
There is a serious line of demarcation between religion and scientific medical processes - and if the 'BELIEF' faction is allowed to put the health and lives of the other children at risk, then I BELIEVE they should be removed from the general population - - - as in ISOLATION WARDS / CAMPS.
Sorry if this sounds a bit fascist, or absolute socialistic, but there is just too much at stake to allow this type of behavior to endanger the health and well-being of the majority of the population - - - simply because someone says "My FAITH says I should NOT do this".
Take your FAITH and use it to cure the harm caused to the other children endangered by your actions (or INactions).
GET YOUR VACCINATIONS - REGULARLY and ON TIME - - - to protect the whole world.
cheers . . .
redneck geek
Yes, we got the problem with the dust tackled. And the threat of a Global Cooling has diminished. And yes, climate scientist were right then.
Yes, it's annoying when your kids question you all the time, and I feel for teachers who have to deal with everyone else's kids... but maybe we ought to stop with the Santa and Tooth Fairy and all the other 'cute and harmless' lies we tell kids.
Instead, we ought to be asking them what they think, and why, and then show them where they've made errors... so when they come up against something new, they have a fighting chance of figuring it out without someone holding their hand the whole time.
The best experience I ever had in school was a teacher mocking me for being afraid to be wrong, which is really the fork in the road where you either try to figure something out or just shut down and stick with your initial belief. We need more of that for our kids.
Damore's essay was a fascinating peek into the sociology of lies.
The vast, vast majority of discussion about this(*) fell into two categories:
1) He said *that* shocking thing! (Countered with "He didn't say that")
2) He wrote prejudiced opinions not based in fact (Countered with "He cited references for each position he took")
Note the pattern here: the vast majority of discussion can be described as "make something up, then complain about it".
It's a complete surprise to me how *much* dishonesty arose over this incident. I suppose it's partly due to MSM wanting to drive clicks to their sites: Gizmodo published the essay with the references removed, bolstering item #2, and CNN headlined that Damore argues women aren't suited for tech jobs for "biological" reasons, which ginned up a lot of outrage on item #1.
There were a handful of lessor discussions in the same mould(**).
It's fascinating because this is one example where anyone can drill down to the exact truth in moments - the published news reports are available, the words he used are available for comparison, everything everyone said is now part of the written record.
Despite all this - despite the truth being so easy to determine - the vast majority of discussion of every aspect of this incident has been based on lies and attempts to correct them.
We can find the truth quite easily. How, in the face of Gizmodo and CNN, can the average person do that?
Maybe it's time we stopped worrying about what people think, and examine how they *come* to the beliefs they have.
Having a higher quality stream of truth would be a good first step.
(*) You can verify this for yourself: check the commentary for any of Slashdot's recent articles about Damore's essay (such as this one). The rule holds true for other social media channels.
(**) Including: the citations he used were from institutions with clear bias, the citations he used didn't confirm his point, he claims to be a PhD but isn't (an ad-hominem attack unrelated to his point), he's not allowed to cite scientific studies because he's not himself a scientist (wtf?), he can't sue Google because CA is an "at will" state (difference between "fired for no reason" and "fired for the *wrong* reason).
1st thing people learn in clinical psychology is that you cannot reach the patient if you don't accept their world view. You can only navigate in their world view because any attempts to challenge it will sound very similar to what they have already heard multiple times when they were challenged on their world view. And by reminding them of how they reacted to it last time, the memory is reinforced. Anyone creating a marketing campaign should have known this.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
'd rather air (sic) on the side of caution. When my children are adults they can decide for themselves if they want to take that poison.
Please do so. Hopefully they will die from one of the childhood diseases that vaccines can prevent, and end the spread of your genes.
Now as for the article stating:
What seems to have happened was that the pro-vax campaign was taken by anti-vaxers as just another attempt to lie to them.
Paranoid personality disorder is almost impossible to treat, because (1) paranoid people take anything, even coincidences, as evidence that someone is out to get them in one way or another, and (2) they believe their paranoid delusions are validation of their inner self, and any attempt to point out the contrary is just more proof that their paranoia is justified.
It doesn't have to make sense, because we're dealing with people showing signs that in any other situation would be seen as a break with reality, but because of "we must give equal weight to all opinions, even the totally batshit crazy ones," you're evil if you try to do so in this case, again reinforcing their delusions.
Can anyone who isn't an anti-vaxxer deny these people are showing signs of mental illness?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
No one makes money on Vaccines. They are subsidized by the government because drug companies can't produce them at a cost high enough to make a profit. Almost every vaccine sold is subsidized by the government. So your argument about profit kinds falls on it's face in such a scenario, after all the drug companies would much prefer to give you a pill to treat the symptoms of the disease than a shot that prevents it.
Why wouldn't you want to get a vaccine for a disease that could kill you? Even if it is rare in your current age group? I've yet to encounter a vaccine for something that doesn't kill people, and even the ones that rarely kill can often do significant damage even if you survive it. And most of the ones that are rare in the US are rare because people are vaccinated.
Trusting a medical opinion because the person giving it is a celebrity is not critical thinking. Trusting someone because they're a celebrity is how you got Trump as president. And people continue to trust celebrities even after they've been caught in lie after lie after lie. Why? Because even if we did invent a vaccine against stupidity, they would be against it because they're stupid.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
You may most certainly launch a satellite. It just requires a lot more knowledge than building a bridge in your yard.
Keep in mind that the Engineers (launching a Satellite is not an experiment, so it is not Science) at NASA are not born there, NASA hires them. That means they have to be qualified, and to be qualified, they'll have to have learned enough to launch a satellite before applying.
There is nothing beyond a lot of learning and work that separates these other people from you. If you don't know how to do it, you just need to spend some more time in a quality library (big University, not public reading library) where they have books that push the boundaries of learning. My Alma Mater's library is open to the public, come on over.
Of course, if you had someone who could explain a little of it to you at a time, you might pick it up faster; but, in theory you could learn it all independently. That's how the original rocket makers did it.
And no, you are not a minority on this site. You are in the majority. Over half of the population comes up with ideas that are below average, and even the average person would know that if NASA held all the secrets of rocket flight, SpaceX wouldn't exist, nor would the first rockets; because, the first rockets were launched by Germany.
The mechanics behind immunization are equally as clear, but continue to think you're being persecuted while you are actually persecuting your children. Have you seen a polio child? Go google it and do an image search. Measles? Go google it and do an image search. Mumps, Rubella, Diptheria, Pertussis, Tetnus, Hepatitus B, HPV, Rotovirus? Go google them. These are diseases that you can easily avoid by vaccination.
If you think vaccination is bunk, keep in mind it was created by the same man that Pastuerized your milk, which used to spoil each day beforehand. He reduced the mortality of Peripural Fever (an infection at childbirth), he was one of the 3 people responsible for discovering microorganisims, proved germ theory to be correct, found the relatinship between molecular chemistry and crystal assemetry, as well as discovering and describing the chemical basis for racemic structures. He disproved the concept of spontaneous generation of life, and our debt to him is huge.
But hey, if you're not going to vaccinate, then don't be a bigot! Stop washing those hands, stop buying milk from the store (and the things made from it), get a doctor that doesn't wash his hands to deliver your child, and avoid most forms of medicine. Be true to your ideas, or we will laugh at you for being "true" to anti-vaccination but then crying foul when your get a doctor who doesn't prescribe to the basics of germ theory.
As someone who grew up in the 1970s, I can assure you the climatology talk which filtered out to the general public back then was about whether or not we'd enter another ice age.
The explanation given in your link (that the mass media was hyping global cooling, but climate scientists were publishing papers about global warming) doesn't really help. It just confirms the belief that the mass media will hype whatever they want rather than report accurately.
There's no such thing as "weak immune system" unless you're talking about people with HIV or other similar disease. Native Americans had perfectly good immune systems but they lacked protective mutations against smallpox. To get these mutations you need many generations of ruthless die-offs, and they still won't get you perfect immunity. Smallpox was finally eradicated only through vaccines.