This week put to rest a significant part of the anti-vaccine movement's claim to scientific legitimacy. A paper purporting to show a link between the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine and autism rates was retracted by The Lancet. The journal, which published the 1998 paper, based the decision on a finding by a British medical panel that one author (Andrew Wakefield) had violated certain human experimentation regulations and had misreported how the data was gathered. As Chris Mooney observes, this follows a string of other reviews of the paper which found its conclusions unwarranted by the data and unsupported by attempts to replicate the study. A 2004 review by the Congressionally-chartered Institute of Medicine found that the paper was "uninformative with respect to causality" and that, in general, "the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between MMR vaccine and autism."
This has been clear for some time (just ask Orac), and the continued efforts to discourage vaccination based on the study can clearly not be ascribed to any scientific basis. Like creationism, global warming denial, stem cell opposition, and anti-GMO sentiments, this is a cultural and political battle being confusingly fought on scientific turf. As such, the debunking of this and any other supposed scientific basis for opposing vaccines does not ultimately dissuade anti-vaccine activists from their work. And public health suffers as a result.
This is similar to the situation in the creationism wars. We spend a lot of time on blogs and in books and in the occasional debate arguing about fossils and genes and homologies, but none of that will ever convince someone wholeheartedly committed to creationism. No one becomes that sort of creationist on the basis of the science. They become a creationist of that sort because of how they see religion, and how they think that relates to science.
This is why I think Orac is right to object to the conclusion to Chris's article on the vaccine result. He notes that the anti-vaxxers have already integrated this paper's retraction into their paranoid worldview, but then he writes:
I believe we need some real attempts at bridge-building between medical institutions—which, let’s admit it, can often seem remote and haughty—and the leaders of the anti-vaccination movement. We need to get people in a room and try to get them to agree about something—anything. We need to encourage moderation, and break down a polarized situation in which the anti-vaccine crowd essentially rejects modern medical research based on the equivalent of conspiracy theory thinking, even as mainstream doctors just shake their heads at these advocates’ scientific cluelessness. Vaccine skepticism is turning into one of the largest and most threatening anti-science movements of modern times. Watching it grow, we should be very, very worried—and should not assume for a moment that the voice of scientific reason, in the form of new studies or the debunking of old, misleading ones, will make it go away.
As Orac observes, "scientists have been trying to reach out and build bridges to leaders of the anti-vaccine movement for years, if not decades. It hasn't worked." He cites several examples where anti-vaxxers were even invited to take part in the design of experiments, only to turn around and attack the studies when they failed to reach the pre-determined conclusion.
But Orac goes wrong when he writes, "Chris is profoundly misguided in his apparent belief that any amount of 'bridge building' will bring anti-vaccine activists around." Just as there are gradations within creationism, anti-vaxx has its gradations. Duane Gish will never change his mind. Changing Glenn Morton's mind took intense effort, and was not resolved by his awareness of evolutionary science, but his discovery of a suitable theology which could accommodate evolution.
But Duane Gish isn't the target of pro-evolution messages, and neither was the young Glenn Morton. The target is that third of the public which simply isn't aware of what evolution is, and of the range of theological responses to evolution. So the goal is to build bridges through the religious institutions they trust, so that they'll even be ready to hear the scientific message, and then to build bridges through science education, so they see that evolution is good and reliable science and isn't threatening in the ways they've been told. Some of the groups one builds bridges to in that process are creationist in some sense. They might be a Methodist church group which believes God created the world, but is open to the idea that science can explain the way God's plan unfolded. That openness is what allows a bridge to be built, and commerce across that bridge ultimately yields dividends to the community of scientists and to the group being reached out to.
I haven't studied the anti-vaxx movement carefully enough to know what the sticking point is for anti-vaxxers, but I can guess. It's not (entirely) a Luddite movement, any more than creationists are Luddites. They want to control technology and science because science and technology are taking on an ever greater role in our society, and people feel like they are losing control of their lives as a result. Creationism grew out of that same tension in the late 19th century, and came back with a vengeance in the 1960s for similar reasons. Anti-vaxx, anti-global warming, and anti-evolution movements today are rooted in the same fears of anonymous scientists in lab coats (and mounted on ivory towers) controlling our bodies, our economies, and other aspects of social policy.
The solution is surely outreach. But not outreach to the committed opponents. Such outreach rarely serves any benefit, in part because both sides are talking past one another. That's a recipe for a shouting match, but not for dialog. The target for dialog is the middle ground, and that's where the bridges need to be built. The fear driving anti-vaxx and other denialist movements is bigger than those movements, and it can be addressed through an open and thoughtful interaction between scientists and the public. I think the long-term effect of CRUhack will be beneficial in that sense, as it will force scientists to abandon some of their traditional insularity.
(I wrote this on somewhat of the fly, and may return to it and add links inter alia and revise some of this. Suggestions on where those links should be placed, and which passages are ambiguous are, as always, welcome.)
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Apparently you didn't read my post very closely, as that is a massive straw man. To wit:
Really, I didn't recognize my post in that description.
Oops. Hit "post" too soon. What I meant to add is: How is the paragraph from my post above any different from this paragraph from your post?
Substantively, it isn't. I said essentially the same thing, just in a different way.
As for the anti-vaccine movement, one huge difference between it and evolution is that the anti-vaccine movement is a profound danger to public health right now. It's not a far off threat to science literacy that will take years to manifest itself in children who grow up to be adults who don't understand or accept evolution if creationists get their way. It endangers children's lives now, and the consequences of failure are more immediate.
Squalene.
Thimerisol...still in flu shots...if putting a heavy metal in the blood stream didn't cause problems...why did they remove it?? Gulf war syndrome. guillain-barré syndrome...the list goes on and on...Autism.
I recall plasmids from biology. I know the devil is in the details. But can GM genes hitch a ride no wild strains of crops or not? Is it possible for weed killer resistance to jump from modified crops to weeds?
FightingaStrawman: "Thimerisol...still in flu shots...if putting a heavy metal in the blood stream didn't cause problems...why did they remove it??"
To put it bluntly, to appease those who had unjustified worries about it. I suppose getting rid of thimerisol had some benefit, since we got to observe autism go on the increase even after the thimerisol usage declined. Not that this bit of reality deters the mercury militia.
I think you need to reread Glenn Morton's essay. He is very clear that his departure from YEC was the result of his understanding of the geological evidence against a young-Earth, as seen through his professional work. He was also put off by the dogmatic and intolerant reactions he received from other YEC's when he tried to raise questions based on the evidence he had seen.
As he describes in his essay, he left YEC before he had found an acceptable evolutionary theology. Finding such a theology is what stopped him from abandoning Christianity altogether and becoming an atheist. It was not what made it possible for him to abandon YEC.
Orac: I agree that those paragraphs are quite similar. Our difference may be a mere matter of emphasis. To me, the passage I quoted seems to suggest that dialog itself isn't worth attempting with any leader of a group that is ambivalent about vaccines. Like you, I have trouble thinking that Chris actually meant for Andrew Wakefield to be given more changes to interact with medical leaders, given that he's fairly clearly abused all such openings that have been offered before. So outreach to moderate voices, even those who are somewhat nervous about vaccination, is essentially the only non-nutty suggestion for bridgebuilding that's possible. And as I don't think you or Chris are nuts, I'm trying to find a sane position that encompasses the ideas you are both gesturing toward in your disagreement.
This would seem to contradict Mooney's message that it is scientists who are to blame for the lack of public acceptance of evolution in the US. Here you seem to argue that rather than being a scientific issue, it is a theological issue. Presumably you will now be wanting Chris to write a new book, entitled "Untheological America", in which he blames theologians and churches for the the denial evolution by so many Americans.
Matt Penfold: "This would seem to contradict Mooney's message that it is scientists who are to blame for the lack of public acceptance of evolution in the US."
Wow, there's a strawman right there.
One big catch with using Glenn Morton as an example of anything related to Mooney's message is that Morton was on the front lines, so to speak, seeing the data for himself and being forced to make sense of it as a part of his job. Most laypersons are exposed to the data through intermediaries who predigest the data for them, so laypersons are then in the position of figuring out which intermediaries to trust, and they'll often do this through social cues that have little to do with the data itself, e.g. how polished this intermediary is, does he/she appear to share said laypersons' values, etc. That's the situation that Mooney is dealing with.
Jason, by my reading of Glenn's essay, his understanding of the geology (self-acquired) and the behavior of prominent YECs to his attempts to replace bad YEC arguments with ones that he found more solid certainly primed the pump. But in his first crisis â when the evidence in one professional context was getting too overwhelming against YEC â he switched jobs. He hoped the problem wouldn't be as bad in his new job, and he could keep being a YEC so long as he could avoid the evidentiary contradictions. From the essay, the sequence of his abandoning YEC and abandoning Christianity isn't clear, but he had Alan Hayward's ideas in his head since well before he started questioning YEC.
It's clear that reconciling his religious views with his scientific views was important. The "major problem": "the data I was seeing at work, was not agreeing with what I had been taught as a Christian. ⦠I was living the life of a double-minded man--believing two things." The book on science and Christianity he read in 1984 finally resonated with him around 1994, and gave him a way to resolve that conflict.
So yes, of course an awareness of scientific knowledge played a role, but his awareness of theological options within (fundamentalist, IIRC) Christianity was also crucial.
To add to J.J.'s accurate assessment, Matt, I'd note that Chris's book does not argue that scientists are solely responsible for the state of poor scientific literacy (acknowledging explicitly that religion plays an important role), and part of his request is for greater engagement between scientists and religious groups.
Furthermore, Americans are certainly woefully ill-informed about religion (often including their own branches of Christianity, let alone non-Christian religions). I'm fully in favor of teaching a comparative religion/world religions class in high schools for precisely this reason, and support the work of the Clergy Letter Project to bring the public into theological discussions about science and religion.
I've gotten the impression that the ant-vax movement was also somewhat an anti government/big pharma movement too. So even if the science is out there, there's the added challenge of convincing people that the science isn't tainted by a gov/business profit conspiracy.
I may be wrong in that, of course. But if not, the larger point that Mooney makes - more effective communication by more effective science communicators - applies.
Josh, I'm sorry to be a pest about this but it looks to me like Morton is very clear about the sequence of events leading to his abandonment of YEC. As a young Christian he was exposed to the YEC viewpoint and, knowing little about geology, simply went along with it. After college he ended up in a profession where he was forced to work closely with geological data, and found many things that conflicted with his YEC beliefs. For some time he tried to reconcile the to, but eventually found that not only could he not reconcile them, but neither could other YEC's he had previously respected. That coupled with the hostility he got from other YEC's for asking questions was what led to his abandonment of YEC. He states this all very clearly.
For example, he writes
And later:
And later still:
Throughout he is keen to emphasize his familiarity with the data, and his disgust with YEC treatments of it, as the sole reasons for his abandonment of YEC. Throughout this entire presentation he says nothing at all about Hayward or about finding an acceptable evolutionary theology. He does not mention Hayward at all until the final paragraph of the essay, where he writes:
That seems pretty explicit that he was through with creationism before he had assimilated Hayward's ideas into his thinking. He read Hayward's book in the mid-80s as a YEC but simply rejected it. Having freed himself from YEC he was then ready to consider its arguments with fresh eyes. Hayward brought him back from the verge of becoming an atheist. He was not the reason Morton was able to abandon YEC.
You also write:
This is not at all what Morton said. In describing his shift in jobs he writes:
He did not switch jobs in the hope of avoiding evidentiary contradictions. From what he writes it sounds like it was exactly the opposite. He switched jobs to get closer and more familiar with the data. He was not running away from the problems he found in his first job. He was hoping to solve them, that is, to reconcile YEC with the data, by becoming even more familiar with the facts.
I have no broader point to make about the value of outreach, but it really looks to me like your characterization of Morton's essay is highly inaccurate. Your statement that
seems flatly contradicted by what Morton wrote. His abandonment of YEC was almost completely about his growing awareness of the relevant science. It was his avoidance of atheism that was made possible by his discovery of a suitable theology.
Ramsey and Rosenau,
Your premise would have some validity were it not for the fact there are other countries as developed as the US which have far greater levels of acceptance of evolution. The message coming from scientists in those countries is the same as that in the US. Indeed, the scientists most prominent in spreading that message are often the same.
If the message is the same in two parts of the world, and those parts of the world differ in acceptance of that message then something other than the message is going to be the explanation. The most obvious candidate is religion. The US is far more religious than Western Europe, and those religious beliefs tend to be more fundamentalist as well. Which is what I said the first place.
Matt Penfold: "Ramsey and Rosenau, ..."
If you had paid attention, you would have noticed that Rosenau were making different points. I had pointed out that Morton's experience was largely irrelevant because he was not in the position of most laypersons. Most laypersons can easily pick and choose their sources for science information and misinformation, and turn away from sources that turn them off. Heck, that's true in Europe as well as the U.S. It's just that Europeans and Americans don't have the same turn-offs.
Matt Penfold: "Which is what I said the first place."
No, what you said in the first place was the strawman about Mooney simply blaming scientists for the lack of public acceptance of evolution in the US.
Jason, I cited Glenn's essay without having reread it in a long time, and wrote some of my comment based on that same distant memory. It looks like my memory was faulty about why he switched jobs.
As far as the chronology: He started having problems with YEC geology in the late '70s, but thought they could be resolved. He continued publishing in CRSQ and other YEC journals. In 1984 he read Hayward's book, but didn't accept its results. By 1986, he found YEC untenable and stopped publishing without apparently adopting any alternative. By 1994, he was through with YEC. He then writes: "And being through with creationism, I very nearly became through with Christianity. I was on the very verge of becoming an atheist. During that time, I re-read a book I had reviewed prior to its publication. It was Alan Hayward's Creation/Evolution." During that time suggests, to my eye, a relatively brief period as he was struggling with his outright rejection of YEC and the theological consequences of that. Throughout that struggle, it was a tension between what he knew to be true scientifically and what he believed he had to believe to be an evangelical Christian. Re-reading Hayward helped give him permission to do what he knew he needed to do. We don't know exactly when he re-read Hayward based on that account. It could have been 1995+, well after he decided to reject YEC utterly, or it could have been in 1994, as he was making that choice. But we do know that he had read Hayward 2 years before withdrawing from the YEC community, ten years before rejecting YEC for good. If he considers those facts significant to tell us, I think they're significant enough to treat as a factor in his changed views.
Only that is not what I said.
Want another go to try and get it right this time ?
Josh Rosenau; Something is broken in your commenting system. If forces me to log out of TypeKey to post a comment.
Matt Penfold: "Only that is not what I said."
Comment #8 is perfectly clear. You write that Mooney's message that it is "scientists who are to blame for the lack of public acceptance of evolution in the US," which is a strawman of Mooney's argument.
Well, quick as a flash, both Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey have released a statement that accuses the Lancet of censorship. This strikes me as being very similar to the Discovery Institute charging censorship because the California Science Center would not show the badly-done ID film Darwin's Dilemma.
Morton wrote:
I don't see how that could be any clearer as to the sequence of events. This is the final paragraph of the essay. Everything that came before this was about how his growing awareness of the geological evidence, coupled with the dogmatic reactions of other YEC's to that evidence, persuaded him to abandon creationism. No mention at all of Hayward or of any other science-accommodating theology.
Given the first sentence of the paragraph it would seem that “During that time” refers to the period after having given up creationism but before embracing a form of Christianity that could accommodate the geological evidence. The whole paragraph is about his avoidance of atheism, not his abandonment of YEC. Morton writes, “Without that [rereading Hayward] I would now be an atheist.” He does not say, “Without that I would now be a conflicted YEC.” Surely if he was on the verge of becoming an atheist before rereading Hayward, we can conclude that Hayward had very little, if anything, to do with Morton's abandonment of YEC.
In your opening post you wrote:
This is not supported at all by what Morton wrote. His whole essay, save for the last paragraph, is about his growing awareness of the evidence. He became so aware that he was on the verge of becoming an atheist until he reread Alan Hayward's book.
Incidentally, I have not read anything by Alan Hayward, but unless this recent book of his represents a major change in his views then it seems that Hayward is manifestly not a theistic evolutionist. He is an old-Earth creationist. So it would seem that Morton abandoned YEC for OEC, and not for a theology that embraced evolution, as you wrote.