3 ms·

> Most people lack the ability to understand inferences drawn from mathematical analysis. It was never about that. The modern anti-vax movement has been traced

by lapcat 1y ago

> Most people lack the ability to understand inferences drawn from mathematical analysis. It was never about that. The modern anti-vax movement has been traced back to Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 Lancet paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_autism_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_autism_fraud But it's not like the anti-vaxxers ever fully understood the original paper, much less the follow-up papers disputing it. And in fairness to the anti-vaxxers, the paper is an example of the failure of scientific peer review. What happened was that ordinary people heard about the paper and became frightened, which is natural, but then when Wakefield's fraud and conflicts of interest were revealed, and the paper was ultimately retracted, the people who bought into the scare never came back and revised their beliefs based on new evidence. What's missing is the capacity for self-correction. Mathematics was never involved. I suspect that people are reluctant to admit that they were duped, so they'd rather continue to believe something that's been proven false. It's emotional, not rational. And it's also social: people tend to surround themselves with others who reinforce their beliefs. This prevents backtracking and self-correction, because you have to convince your entire social group that they were wrong, not just yourself.

rayiner 1y ago
> the people who bought into the scare never came back and revised their beliefs based on new evidence. What's missing is the capacity for self-correction. Mathematics was never involved. I don’t think there’s much daylight between our positions. You’re correct that mathematics was never involved. Any trust most people had in vaccines was always social, not analytical. They never understood Wakefield’s original paper, except insofar as it was reported by trusted organizations as credible. That broke people’s trust in those organizations, who had previously told everyone that vaccines were very safe. When the retractions and follow-ups came, people weren’t able to understand them, because they were never capable of understanding the analysis in the first place! And now, they didn’t trust the bottom-line conclusions being reported by the Lancet and the media. It doesn’t help that there’s a bunch of other confounding factors: rising parental age and possibly assortive mating increasing actual autism rates, changing norms around diagnosing autism, and changing incentives for autism diagnoses. We took our four year old to be evaluated, and the folks at the county told us they didn't really think any diagnosis was justified, but would have given us one if he was going to public school (where it would lead to additional services) instead of private school. They told us that point blank.
- lapcat 1y ago
  > And now, they didn’t trust the bottom-line conclusions being reported by the Lancet and the media. That's the funny thing, though. Logically, distrusting The Lancet means distrusting Wakefield's paper too. It makes no sense to claim that The Lancet is untrustworthy while you still base your beliefs on a paper because it was published in The Lancet. If the journal goes down, the journal articles have to go down with it. The difference is that these people had spent years building a personal identity around vaccine skepticism, as embattled fighters for the safety of children. Retraction of their beliefs would have been very painful, a blow to their self-image. Thus, it was easier to invent conspiracy theories about how their beliefs are still true, and now there's a cover-up.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    Why do you think it would work symmetrically like that? Say you trust your spouse. Then they admit they cheated on you. Years later they say, actually, that earlier statement was a lie. What do you believe now?
    - lapcat 1y ago
      > What do you believe now? Obviously you should be skeptical of anything they said. There was indisputably one big lie, whether then or now. If you really want to know which is the lie, you'd need to get independent confirmation. The explanation of the lie matters. If it's, "I lied about cheating on you, and now I want you back", then lolno. If it was more like, "I was just sick of you, but you wouldn't have left me unless I drove you away", that's more plausible.
      - rayiner 1y ago
        I’m not asking what someone should do, but what your average person would do. They would believe the spouse had cheated, and was lying when the spouse retracted the statement. Even though that requires believing the first statement by the spouse and not the second. To circle back to the point, people aren’t capable of understanding any independent confirmation, nor are the capable of understanding the explanation for the change in position. The operation of science is incomprehensible to most people.
pton_xd 1y ago
> The modern anti-vax movement has been traced back to Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 Lancet paper As far as I can tell, the modern movement is fueled by personal anecdotes of family members / friends having young children present with autism after certain developmental milestones. The family goes, what went wrong? Well, we recently got them a bunch of shots, maybe it was that. Combined with the expanding vaccination schedule those coincidences are increasingly likely to occur. Then yeah that paper comes up when the families do a bit of research which does add more conviction to the belief.
- guelo 1y ago
  Only a tiny percentage of people would have personal anecdotes. The great majority of it especially after covid is driven by social media memes.
  - pton_xd 1y ago
    You'd think so but the rate of autism in the US just keeps going up, it's something like 1 in 31 kids now. Many people will know someone with an anecdote. Social media definitely does its part though, I agree.
    - rayiner 1y ago
      If you’ve got elementary-school aged children you’re almost certainly just one degree of separation away from a parent whose kid has an autism diagnosis or something similar.
- anon84873628 1y ago
  Came to say this. Most people now aren't aware of the paper. It's the 1) anecdotes from parents, 2) memes about how the Amish don't have autism, 3) distrust of institutions and pharma companies. You've got "post hoc ergo propter hoc" plus the naturalistic fallacy. Might as well label the vaccines as a needle full of capitalism juice.
all2 1y ago
> What happened was that ordinary people heard about the paper I've never heard of this paper, but I am aware of the judicial capture that pharma companies manage to get for themselves. A whole extra judicial organization to handle vaxx related damages. That's why I don't trust them. Amongst other things (burgers for vaxxes is an odd choice, speaking charitably).
Spooky23 1y ago
I’d argue it has more to do with the fall of mainline religion and the rise of the zealot. In that vacuum, some people found independent churches and legacies, and others ended up following woo-woo new age bs, which the Internet organized at scale. We know about the Wakefield study because zealots pushed it hard. Fluoridation is another example - my city recently started it and the council was brigaded by lunatics from all over the world losing their minds over it.
- rayiner 1y ago
  It’s also declining child mortality. Child mortality in the U.S. in the 1960s was about three times higher than in the 1990s. The U.S. in the 1960s was comparable to Bangladesh today. Back then, most people knew a kid who died of a disease in childhood. That’s far rarer today. Meanwhile, virtually every parent of young children knows someone whose kid has some sort of autism spectrum diagnosis. Thanks to vaccines being so effective, the apparent risk profile has changed.

by lapcat 1y ago

rayiner 1y ago

> the people who bought into the scare never came back and revised their beliefs based on new evidence. What's missing is the capacity for self-correction. Mathematics was never involved. I don’t think there’s much daylight between our positions. You’re correct that mathematics was never involved. Any trust most people had in vaccines was always social, not analytical. They never understood Wakefield’s original paper, except insofar as it was reported by trusted organizations as credible. That broke people’s trust in those organizations, who had previously told everyone that vaccines were very safe. When the retractions and follow-ups came, people weren’t able to understand them, because they were never capable of understanding the analysis in the first place! And now, they didn’t trust the bottom-line conclusions being reported by the Lancet and the media. It doesn’t help that there’s a bunch of other confounding factors: rising parental age and possibly assortive mating increasing actual autism rates, changing norms around diagnosing autism, and changing incentives for autism diagnoses. We took our four year old to be evaluated, and the folks at the county told us they didn't really think any diagnosis was justified, but would have given us one if he was going to public school (where it would lead to additional services) instead of private school. They told us that point blank.

lapcat 1y ago
> And now, they didn’t trust the bottom-line conclusions being reported by the Lancet and the media. That's the funny thing, though. Logically, distrusting The Lancet means distrusting Wakefield's paper too. It makes no sense to claim that The Lancet is untrustworthy while you still base your beliefs on a paper because it was published in The Lancet. If the journal goes down, the journal articles have to go down with it. The difference is that these people had spent years building a personal identity around vaccine skepticism, as embattled fighters for the safety of children. Retraction of their beliefs would have been very painful, a blow to their self-image. Thus, it was easier to invent conspiracy theories about how their beliefs are still true, and now there's a cover-up.
- rayiner 1y ago
  Why do you think it would work symmetrically like that? Say you trust your spouse. Then they admit they cheated on you. Years later they say, actually, that earlier statement was a lie. What do you believe now?
  - lapcat 1y ago
    > What do you believe now? Obviously you should be skeptical of anything they said. There was indisputably one big lie, whether then or now. If you really want to know which is the lie, you'd need to get independent confirmation. The explanation of the lie matters. If it's, "I lied about cheating on you, and now I want you back", then lolno. If it was more like, "I was just sick of you, but you wouldn't have left me unless I drove you away", that's more plausible.
    - rayiner 1y ago
      I’m not asking what someone should do, but what your average person would do. They would believe the spouse had cheated, and was lying when the spouse retracted the statement. Even though that requires believing the first statement by the spouse and not the second. To circle back to the point, people aren’t capable of understanding any independent confirmation, nor are the capable of understanding the explanation for the change in position. The operation of science is incomprehensible to most people.

pton_xd 1y ago

> The modern anti-vax movement has been traced back to Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 Lancet paper As far as I can tell, the modern movement is fueled by personal anecdotes of family members / friends having young children present with autism after certain developmental milestones. The family goes, what went wrong? Well, we recently got them a bunch of shots, maybe it was that. Combined with the expanding vaccination schedule those coincidences are increasingly likely to occur. Then yeah that paper comes up when the families do a bit of research which does add more conviction to the belief.

guelo 1y ago
Only a tiny percentage of people would have personal anecdotes. The great majority of it especially after covid is driven by social media memes.
- pton_xd 1y ago
  You'd think so but the rate of autism in the US just keeps going up, it's something like 1 in 31 kids now. Many people will know someone with an anecdote. Social media definitely does its part though, I agree.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    If you’ve got elementary-school aged children you’re almost certainly just one degree of separation away from a parent whose kid has an autism diagnosis or something similar.
anon84873628 1y ago
Came to say this. Most people now aren't aware of the paper. It's the 1) anecdotes from parents, 2) memes about how the Amish don't have autism, 3) distrust of institutions and pharma companies. You've got "post hoc ergo propter hoc" plus the naturalistic fallacy. Might as well label the vaccines as a needle full of capitalism juice.

all2 1y ago

> What happened was that ordinary people heard about the paper I've never heard of this paper, but I am aware of the judicial capture that pharma companies manage to get for themselves. A whole extra judicial organization to handle vaxx related damages. That's why I don't trust them. Amongst other things (burgers for vaxxes is an odd choice, speaking charitably).

Spooky23 1y ago

I’d argue it has more to do with the fall of mainline religion and the rise of the zealot. In that vacuum, some people found independent churches and legacies, and others ended up following woo-woo new age bs, which the Internet organized at scale. We know about the Wakefield study because zealots pushed it hard. Fluoridation is another example - my city recently started it and the council was brigaded by lunatics from all over the world losing their minds over it.

rayiner 1y ago
It’s also declining child mortality. Child mortality in the U.S. in the 1960s was about three times higher than in the 1990s. The U.S. in the 1960s was comparable to Bangladesh today. Back then, most people knew a kid who died of a disease in childhood. That’s far rarer today. Meanwhile, virtually every parent of young children knows someone whose kid has some sort of autism spectrum diagnosis. Thanks to vaccines being so effective, the apparent risk profile has changed.