After the tragic death of baby Thalia Vida Gardner, I was
hit with a number of attacks from anti-vaccine and anti-science activists, who
claimed that her death—ruled by the hospital as shaken baby syndrome—was in
fact a vaccine reaction. All of the comments were dangerous. Some of them were
infuriating. A few were down-right hilarious.
It takes a lot to be able to laugh at anything when you’re in the middle of a discussion about a dead baby. But somehow, a warrior against science by the name of Matthew Amore managed to get me to do it. He posted:
“When people are single minded, there is no point in conversing with them. People are so easy to say that science is right, and trust these people.. And that's fine.. I just would never live like that. I make decisions because I want to, not because I am told to. Science is NEVER wrong.. Remember the planet Pluto?"
In other words, Mr. Amore doesn’t trust science because it’s sometimes wrong. Or: “How do you know that vaccines are safe, if Pluto isn’t a planet anymore?”
It’s not a question that deserves an answer, or at least, that’s what I told myself at first. And then I remembered that there was a time when I had similar thoughts. I was anti-vaccine once upon a time. I was ignorant, but I wasn’t stupid. My reasoning was that cover-ups and bad science had happened before. For centuries, otherwise-intelligent scientists believed that lead pipes were safe. At one point, cigarettes were prescribed as a treatment for asthma. Men of science once believed in humors, and in blood-letting, and in astrology. As Matthew Amore pointed out, scientists classified the dwarf planet Pluto as a planet beginning from 1930 to 2006.
With scientists being wrong about so many things, was it really so far-fetched to believe that today’s scientists could be wrong about vaccines?
Was it really so hard to believe that science, as a construct, might be flawed, and that the answers to health and sustainability might lie not in laboratories and universities, but in crystals and plant oils?
No. It wasn’t. And that’s why so many people, like me, fall for it when people question science. We know it’s been wrong before. We know it can be wrong again.
But here’s what it comes down to, and what turned me from a “fence-sitter” who bought into pseudoscience, to a skeptic and rational thinker. When science has been proven wrong, it has always—every single time, with no exceptions—been proven wrong by more science. Every time there has been a mistake or misunderstanding within the scientific community, it was found out by brilliant researchers working together using the scientific method. It has never once been proven wrong by a spiritual vision, a surprise visit from a deity, or an act of magic.
Am I willing to accept criticisms of currently accepted science? Oh, yes, absolutely. Changes and criticisms are the foundations of science. Scientists love to wonder and love to have questions with no answers. They love to search, and research, and experiment. So, when I see a headline about a groundbreaking new study carried out by leading scientists, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be the first to read it and analyze it. Sometimes it will be a good study and sometimes it will be one of the bay studies that passes peer review. If it’s a good study? Great, let’s look into it some more. If it’s a bad study? Also great. Let’s pick it apart in skeptic forums and find out how to repeat the research.
However, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be interested in reading or analyzing things that are fundamentally not science. “Ohio Grandma Finds the Miracle Cure for Eczema!” with no researchers backing her supposed claims, isn’t science. “Natural News Reveals 30 Ways Vaccines Can Kill You!”, based on anecdotes from Facebook, isn’t science. “How Reflexology Can Cure Your Depression,” without a single citation of peer-reviewed evidence, isn’t science. And, Matthew Amore: when the internet goes wild blaming a baby’s abuse-related death on vaccines, when no medical experts back the diagnosis of vaccine injury made by his alleged abusers, that’s not science, either.
I don’t doubt that the day may come when we find out that some things about conventional medicine are harmful. In fact, we’re already seeing some of it. The overuse of antibiotics (particularly in livestock) in past decades has created an epidemic of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The over-prescription of addictive narcotics has created an entire subculture of addicts, and of physicians who enable it. The medically unnecessary use of cesarean section has caused some women to undergo the complications of surgery when it wasn’t wanted or warranted. These are issues that are real, and they may, one day, look just as primitive to medical experts as blood-letting looks to us now. But at the end of the day, solutions aren’t going to come in the form of quacks selling herbs from their garages. They’re going to come from leading scientists who practice science.
Can science be wrong? Yes. When it is, it’s proven wrong by logic and reason. If you can give me evidence, using logic and reason, that vaccines are dangerous, we’ll talk. If not, I’ll keep vaccinating my kids.
Even if Pluto isn’t a planet anymore.
It takes a lot to be able to laugh at anything when you’re in the middle of a discussion about a dead baby. But somehow, a warrior against science by the name of Matthew Amore managed to get me to do it. He posted:
“When people are single minded, there is no point in conversing with them. People are so easy to say that science is right, and trust these people.. And that's fine.. I just would never live like that. I make decisions because I want to, not because I am told to. Science is NEVER wrong.. Remember the planet Pluto?"
In other words, Mr. Amore doesn’t trust science because it’s sometimes wrong. Or: “How do you know that vaccines are safe, if Pluto isn’t a planet anymore?”
It’s not a question that deserves an answer, or at least, that’s what I told myself at first. And then I remembered that there was a time when I had similar thoughts. I was anti-vaccine once upon a time. I was ignorant, but I wasn’t stupid. My reasoning was that cover-ups and bad science had happened before. For centuries, otherwise-intelligent scientists believed that lead pipes were safe. At one point, cigarettes were prescribed as a treatment for asthma. Men of science once believed in humors, and in blood-letting, and in astrology. As Matthew Amore pointed out, scientists classified the dwarf planet Pluto as a planet beginning from 1930 to 2006.
With scientists being wrong about so many things, was it really so far-fetched to believe that today’s scientists could be wrong about vaccines?
Was it really so hard to believe that science, as a construct, might be flawed, and that the answers to health and sustainability might lie not in laboratories and universities, but in crystals and plant oils?
No. It wasn’t. And that’s why so many people, like me, fall for it when people question science. We know it’s been wrong before. We know it can be wrong again.
But here’s what it comes down to, and what turned me from a “fence-sitter” who bought into pseudoscience, to a skeptic and rational thinker. When science has been proven wrong, it has always—every single time, with no exceptions—been proven wrong by more science. Every time there has been a mistake or misunderstanding within the scientific community, it was found out by brilliant researchers working together using the scientific method. It has never once been proven wrong by a spiritual vision, a surprise visit from a deity, or an act of magic.
Am I willing to accept criticisms of currently accepted science? Oh, yes, absolutely. Changes and criticisms are the foundations of science. Scientists love to wonder and love to have questions with no answers. They love to search, and research, and experiment. So, when I see a headline about a groundbreaking new study carried out by leading scientists, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be the first to read it and analyze it. Sometimes it will be a good study and sometimes it will be one of the bay studies that passes peer review. If it’s a good study? Great, let’s look into it some more. If it’s a bad study? Also great. Let’s pick it apart in skeptic forums and find out how to repeat the research.
However, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be interested in reading or analyzing things that are fundamentally not science. “Ohio Grandma Finds the Miracle Cure for Eczema!” with no researchers backing her supposed claims, isn’t science. “Natural News Reveals 30 Ways Vaccines Can Kill You!”, based on anecdotes from Facebook, isn’t science. “How Reflexology Can Cure Your Depression,” without a single citation of peer-reviewed evidence, isn’t science. And, Matthew Amore: when the internet goes wild blaming a baby’s abuse-related death on vaccines, when no medical experts back the diagnosis of vaccine injury made by his alleged abusers, that’s not science, either.
I don’t doubt that the day may come when we find out that some things about conventional medicine are harmful. In fact, we’re already seeing some of it. The overuse of antibiotics (particularly in livestock) in past decades has created an epidemic of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The over-prescription of addictive narcotics has created an entire subculture of addicts, and of physicians who enable it. The medically unnecessary use of cesarean section has caused some women to undergo the complications of surgery when it wasn’t wanted or warranted. These are issues that are real, and they may, one day, look just as primitive to medical experts as blood-letting looks to us now. But at the end of the day, solutions aren’t going to come in the form of quacks selling herbs from their garages. They’re going to come from leading scientists who practice science.
Can science be wrong? Yes. When it is, it’s proven wrong by logic and reason. If you can give me evidence, using logic and reason, that vaccines are dangerous, we’ll talk. If not, I’ll keep vaccinating my kids.
Even if Pluto isn’t a planet anymore.
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