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A related bit of depression: https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/133/4/e835/32713/Effective-Messages-in-Vaccine-Promotion-A
tl;dr: you can’t convince anti-vaxxers that their opinions are based on quackery, and trying to do so only deepens their delusion. Also, fuck Andrew Wakefield, he tortured autistic kids and caused irreversible damage to public health for money, I hope he gets set on fire.
Jesus this is really bleak. And I have to imagine it’s a similar case for various other manufactured conspiracies regarding other scientific topics, elections, LGBTQ+ people, etc. I genuinely don’t know how we recover when a third of our population is willfully and militantly misinformed.
From the study:
RESULTS:
None of the interventions increased parental intent to vaccinate a future child. Refuting claims of an MMR/autism link successfully reduced misperceptions that vaccines cause autism but nonetheless decreased intent to vaccinate among parents who had the least favorable vaccine attitudes. In addition, images of sick children increased expressed belief in a vaccine/autism link and a dramatic narrative about an infant in danger increased self-reported belief in serious vaccine side effects.
CONCLUSIONS:
Current public health communications about vaccines may not be effective. For some parents, they may actually increase misperceptions or reduce vaccination intention. Attempts to increase concerns about communicable diseases or correct false claims about vaccines may be especially likely to be counterproductive. More study of pro-vaccine messaging is needed.
The author, Brendan Nyhan, is a political scientist. He’s published many similar papers about misinformation, scandals, fake news, and politics in journalism and social media. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SbAA1v4AAAAJ&hl=en
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
This is such a rare skill it is really commendable when I come across someone like this.
I don’t know how commendable it is.
Sure, we’re not changing anyone’s minds, but perhaps we can shame them hard enough for their moronic views that they think twice before they open their mouth next time.
How much success have you had with that approach?
You can’t in one conversation, but if everyone they knew joined in, it would. Ultimately, it’s about whether or not they’re getting it from all angles. If there’s a group they can fall back on that allows them to hold their current beliefs, they’ll do that, but the smaller that group is, the more likely they are to change their opinion. People don’t often hold opinions that go against the opinions of literally everyone they know.
Sure, it’s unlikely that any of these conversations would actually realize that slim chance of making a difference, since just about everyone has someone that lets them voice even their most heinous opinions unchallenged, but I choose not to be a part of that group for anyone, regardless of how much time and effort it costs me. It’s not something you do for them, it’s something you do for you.
Oh look, it’s a picture of me at every family gathering.
