Slashdot Mirror
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."
OK, Zero__Kelvin, I surrender. I am not going to argue the validity of my comparisons any longer.
YOU, on the other hand, need to learn to focus on the reality of DELIBERATELY un-vaccinated children lowering the herd immunity and causing pain, suffering, and sometimes even death to those that did not have the opportunity to get their vaccinations - whether through recent immigration, economic issues, or simple ignorance.
I hope you never have to live through the grief I am still living with because of a simple MEASLES vaccination (MMR) that was late - and my daughter is deaf - FOR LIFE - because she caught the disease from a 'religious objector' (through no fault of his).
I will live with this issue for the rest of my life - because I was not timely in getting Deborah's MMR booster on time.
Get off your BS nit-picking and actually try to do something that HELPS the world - not just a piss-ant word-war on who is the most explicitly accurate in their analogies!
I've tried - really hard, considering, to be decent about this debate, but you are basically just a royal asshole.
I may get banned - but YOU will have to learn to live with your conscious - - - and just MIGHT eventually learn to be civil and courteous when posting.
redneck geek
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.