Skeptics, in some circles, have a reputation for being cold and devoid of emotion, with a bleak view of the world as seen only though the sterile lens of science.
Well, bullshit, obviously. You can’t generalize a group like that, and even if you could, it doesn’t take a whole lot of reading in skeptical blogs and literature to see plenty of humor, passion, and wonder going hand-in-hand with inquiry.
But the stereotype is what people like the anti-vaccination proponents would like you to think. Their message goes further when “the opposition” — also known as medical science — is painted as heartless, solely profit-driven, and without a thought for, who else, the children. (This argument of course falls flat when you consider how many children, or entire communities of children, are harmed when parents decide not to vaccinate.)
In an earlier post, I wrote about how even as I was being targeted by a bottom-feeding snake-oil salesman, I could understand what had driven him to that point. As unpopular as it may be for a skeptic, I’ve tried to do the same thing when it comes to antivaxxers. By this don’t misunderstand that I’m talking about supporting their position. Rather, I think it’s worth it to disprove the stereotype and look at the debate from an emotional standpoint.
Reading through the stories of parents whose children became ill or died from either a proven or imagined reaction to a vaccine, I find it hard to be entirely unsympathetic. When this happens to a child, be it an actual side effect or a sad coincidence, I can only imagine how devastating it must be. I understand that the parents must desperately want someone or something to blame.
Combine this impotent anger and grief with the ease of finding antivax networks all over the Internet, though, and some parents get steered off course. They must have understood once that vaccinations benefit both their own child and the entire community, or they wouldn’t have done it in the first place. But when something happens to their child, suddenly all their knowledge about how many lives are saved through vaccination vanishes. Instead, they are provided with validation that they can blame something: the vaccine. This emotional validation is supported by bad, cherry-picked science, and sometimes by the unfortunate cachet of people like antivaxxer Jenny McCarthy. To me this is no different from the chronically ill person who gratefully grasps at the snake oil, because it’s being sold by someone with whom they share a terrible experience and who finally has an answer and a scapegoat for them. It’s not an excuse for poor critical thinking, but it is a reason.
Then there’s the sad case of Natalie Morton, who died on September 28 shortly after being vaccinated against HPV with the drug Cervarix. Antivax networks picked up this story and ran with it, naturally. But then it turned out that she was seriously ill with a tumor at the time she was vaccinated. And here is where my compassion for the antivaxxers vanished. Any critically thinking (or even just “thinking”) person would recognize that Natalie’s death, while tragic, doesn’t make a case for ceasing all vaccinations, due to her condition.
Instead they went all conspiracy theory.
I can’t hold any respect for people who consciously deny or distort reality in order to validate their delusions, and I certainly can’t continue to be sympathetic. I truly understand the way pain can short-circuit logical thinking, but there is no excuse for twisting facts or outright lying in order to further your cause. Your personal pain is no excuse to endanger others’ lives. The ideal of skepticism is that when faced with evidence that disproves our beliefs, we take that evidence into account and may change our beliefs accordingly. What’s happening here is the exact opposite of that.
I plan to continue this theme on a more personal level on Friday, but if I wind up chickening out, don’t judge me too harshly.
