From a NY Times article which appeared last week:

Some years ago, Dr. Robert A. Burton was the neurologist on call at a San Francisco hospital when a high-profile colleague from the oncology department asked him to perform a spinal tap on an elderly patient with advanced metastatic cancer. The patient had seemed a little fuzzy-headed that morning, and the oncologist wanted to check for meningitis or another infection that might be treatable with antibiotics.

Dr. Burton hesitated. Spinal taps are painful. The patient’s overall prognosis was beyond dire. Why go after an ancillary infection? But the oncologist, known for his uncompromising and aggressive approach to treatment, insisted.

“For him, there was no such thing as excessive,” Dr. Burton said in a telephone interview. “For him, there was always hope.”

On entering the patient’s room with spinal tap tray portentously agleam, Dr. Burton encountered the patient’s family members. They begged him not to proceed. The frail, bedridden patient begged him not to proceed. Dr. Burton conveyed their pleas to the oncologist, but the oncologist continued to lobby for a spinal tap, and the exhausted family finally gave in.

As Dr. Burton had feared, the procedure proved painful and difficult to administer. It revealed nothing of diagnostic importance. And it left the patient with a grinding spinal-tap headache that lasted for days, until the man fell into a coma and died of his malignancy.

The oncologist’s intentions were good, but he cared so much for the welfare of his patients that it clouded his judgment about what was best for his patients. The goal he wanted to accomplish was driven by his values, as most goals are, but his ability to accomplish that goal was hindered by the same values.

In the past month alone, I have seen good skeptics deny consensus science, cherry-pick, hyper-rationalize, and engage in a number of poor practices in order to justify their decisions or actions. In the past few years, I have noted an embarrassingly large number of occasions in which skeptics have charged forward with ideas in ways I consider to be counterproductive and, in some cases, potentially harmful – giving talks and workshops without an appropriate amount of knowledge on the subject, staging meaningless protests simply because they’ve gained attention, or wasting resources conducting surveys and experiments without clear goals, training, or regard for issues such as the ethical treatment of human subjects. I am sure that these skeptics were motivated by a desire to make a difference – a desire to do something. However, ideology, values, passion, and beliefs got in the way of good reasoning. For example, last year a group of skeptics, angry that an anti-vax rally starring Wakefield was going on in their town, charged forward without consulting an expert and distributed a number of fliers which said, in part:

Vaccines…don’t cause diseases or disorders or distress or dystopia. In fact, receiving vaccines is completely safe.

I don’t think I need to go into the possible ramifications of this mistake.

Skepticism, as a movement, promotes critical thinking, careful consideration of evidence, and attention to details which are easily missed. When skeptics fail to apply those same principles to the work their actions are, at best, wasteful and, at worst, potentially harmful.

I found myself scratching my head last week when D.J. Grothe posted this article to Swift titled Should skepticism be divorced from values?. It was a surprise for two reasons. 1) On most matters of the philosophy of skepticism and even activism, D.J. and I are in near-total agreement, yet I did not agree with this piece at all. 2) It seems to contradict some of D.J.’s statements, particularly those he has made on the stage at various events.

In an effort to better understand, I entered a conversation on Facebook and tried to explain my confusion as well as my opinion. I failed. D.J., no doubt drawing on experiences in conversations with me and others about similar topics, is certain that we agree and that talking it out will eventually lead us both to see that. I am not as confident. Although I do not doubt that D.J. will agree with nearly everything in this post, I think we will remain divided on an important point.

First, let me declare now that I have a tremendous respect for D.J. At every event he seems to find ways to communicate the most important fundamentals of organized skepticism, facts that new participants need to know (and seasoned skeptics need to remember) such as organizational scope, tolerance, and integrity. He does so without apology. He is also one of the best panel moderators and interviewers I have ever seen. He asks tough questions without blinking and, when those questions are not directly answered, he steers the conversation in the direction intended. That said, the post bothered me and not a little bit.

Second, I will not use the term “divorced” because I don’t feel that conveys an appropriate level of distance (so, in that sense, one may split hairs and say that D.J. and I agree). I will use “separate”.

A little bit of background

In the post and afterward, D.J. notes that the post is a reinforcement of his 2010 NECSS talk – a talk I quite like. There are elements of the talk of which I take issue, but overall I feel that it is a good “initiation” talk for new skeptics. I would summarize the talk this way:

“Skepticism” refers to a method for evaluating claims, but it also refers to a movement. The movement is a type of humanism. It is a type of humanism because those who began it did so for humanitarian reasons. To Randi, it’s just the right thing to do. This humanism drives me (D.J.) and most others I know; we debunk and educate because pseudoscience is harmful. We share the value that to know reality is to avoid such harm. In order to do this work, we must also have a strong mind – the kind of mind that allows us to see reality as it is and not how we would like it to be.

I don’t think that D.J. would disagree with this summary, but perhaps his emphasis is different from mine. I would expect that. As an instructor and researcher, I have focused on the importance of objectivity and how to achieve it. As an activist, D.J. has focused on the reduction of harm.

However, I believe that D.J.’s Swift post differs significantly from this talk and introduces a serious problem in an attempt to emphasize the humanistic goals of organized skepticism. The problem is in the title and is the theme of the post – a theme I do not believe it shares with the NECSS talk. Regardless of D.J.’s intended message, I feel very strongly that this post sends the wrong message – a message that it’s okay (maybe even important) to allow one’s “moral indignation” to dictate how the work is done. It’s not. In fact, it’s more than just not okay. A core property – THE core property – of good science is objectivity. Values are important. Values motivate us to act and provide us with goals. However, values, practically by definition, erode objectivity almost universally.

In a comment on Facebook, D.J. stated:

I don’t want the position that one must separate ethics from her skepticism to gain ground. It’s both wrong, and also counter my goals.

Ethics are a slightly different issue and very domain-specific. D.J. specifically described a moral imperative (to mitigate the harm that pseudoscience causes), so in my mind “moral values” replaces “ethics” in his sentence and I address it as such.

The problem of values

It is actually unethical, in my opinion, to fail to separate one’s moral values from the work.

Is it ethical for a pharmacist to refuse to sell contraceptives, yet expect to be allowed to continue in that career? Is it ethical for a doctor to tell the parents of a fifteen year old victim of incest about her pregnancy because he believes that she’s lying and the father is the head of the household?

Those are, of course, examples of situations in which the values conflict with the work. However, there are many, many ways in which the same values that motivate people to pursue a career or volunteer work hinder their ability to do that work well. This is more obvious in some careers than others; some that come to mind immediately (other than the most obvious, scientists) are doctors, politicians, judges, journalists, and teachers. For example, would it be it ethical for the teacher who wrote this letter to fail to teach evolution because he feels that it makes kids “think like atheists”, something he feels is harmful to kids? Is it okay for a journalist to slant a story rather than simply report the facts?

One of D.J.’s comments sums up the differences between us, I think. He wrote:

I do not favor letting the suggestion stand that the method of skepticism should be practiced in a value-neutral vacuum.

Insisting that practitioners separate their values from the work is not even close to creating “a vacuum”. The “moral imperative” provides both motivation and a general purpose (e.g., “to reduce or eliminate the harm caused by pseudoscience”). However, that is where the role of values should end. I contend that any practice of skepticism that does not strive to be value-neutral is contradictory, counterproductive, hypocritical, and generally just bad.

Another of his comments reads, in part:

If what you are saying is that the work of skepticism should be practiced in a value-neutral way, and that our priorities as skeptics should not be informed by our ethical commitments (as an example, defrauding someone of their nest egg with fake psychic claims is equivalent to your grandpa thinking he can dowse in your backyard) then I disagree.

Well, this is quite a loaded statement, but I am saying something very much like this. I am certainly not saying that those two examples are equal, but I am saying that priorities should be informed by facts. One of those facts is a goal or set of goals which were derived, in part, from values. Once a general purpose or mission is defined, the question of priorities is epistemological; we need to know which projects best meet our goals. The examples D.J. provided are easy to compare, but what about the more difficult comparisons? Which should be a higher priority, rallying people pass out fliers at a “talk” by the author of an anti-vaccine book or producing materials to be used in classrooms to teach kids how to evaluate claims? In both the easy and the difficult scenarios, the choice should be driven by the organizational goals (facts) and information about how each scenario meets those goals (more facts). Values should be set aside because they impair our ability to perceive, process, and remember facts. 

Recognizing one’s motivations and separating them from the process of reasoning is a fundamental part of both science and skepticism.

If you think about the psychologists who have spoken at TAM and other events, most of the topics covered are d to the myriad of ways that human beings err in receiving, recording, remembering, and processing information about the world. It is precisely because we are so bad at this that we need science. And it is precisely because we are so bad at this that skeptical activism exists.

The examples we use to demonstrate these flaws are usually a bit removed from daily life. Visual illusions, pareidolia, and probability problems do not always show how subtle the reasoning problems can be. Consider this example from a recent Scientific American blog post Lessons from Sherlock Holmes: Trust in The Facts, Not Your Version of Them (bold mine):

When we look around us, what is it that we see? Do we see things as they are, or do we at once, without thinking, begin to interpret? Take the simple example of a wine glass. All it is is a transparent object that holds a liquid–which we know by experience should be wine. But if we’re in a store and late for a party? It’s a present, an object of value and beauty for someone else to appreciate. At home and thirsty? It becomes, perhaps, a water glass, if nothing else is available. Bored? A toy to turn around and around, seeing what reflections we can see, how we can distort our own face on the curved surfaces. Solving a murder? Potential evidence of some final, telling pre-death interaction–perhaps the victim took a final sip before he met an untimely end.

Soon, instead of saying there is a wine glass on the table, you say the victim’s glass had been empty at the time of the crime. And you proceed from there. Why was the victim drinking? Why was he interrupted? Why had he placed the glass where it was? And if it doesn’t make sense? Impossible. You’ve started with a fact and worked your way forward. It must fit. The only thing is, you’ve forgotten that it was just a glass to begin with. The victim’s? Maybe not. Placed there by him? Who knows. Empty at the time of the crime? Perhaps, but perhaps not. You’ve imbued an object with a personal take so naturally that you don’t realize you’ve done it. And that’s the crucial–and sometimes fatal–error, of both reasoning and world perception. A pipe is never just a pipe.

Hardly ever, in describing an object, do we see it as just a valueless, objective wine glass. And hardly ever do we think to consider the distinction–for of course, it hardly ever matters. But it’s the rare mind that has trained itself to separate the objective fact from the immediate, subconscious and automatic subjective interpretation that follows.

The way our perceptual and cognitive systems operate allows us to function in the world, but higher-order thinking requires recognizing the flaws in this system and correcting for them. This is the “strong mind” that D.J. was talking about in his NECSS talk. Most skeptics are intimately familiar with the confirmation bias, which is the tendency to notice, remember, believe, and assign more weight to information that is consistent with our current beliefs than neutral or conflicting information. This bias is one of many biases and heuristics, but it is arguably the one that does the most damage to our ability to reason well. What many skeptics may forget is how many of our beliefs are ideological – driven by moral values and opinions more than facts. These beliefs are even more difficult to set aside because they embody what we wish to be true more than simply what we think is true. So it is even more important to separate ideology from epistemology and decision-making than other beliefs.

Most readers are familiar with the thought experiments in moral reasoning which provide a framework for the practice of solving moral dilemmas, but they illustrate my point well. A variant of “the trolley problem” is particularly relevant:

A train (trolley) is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you – your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five, but you know for certain that it will work. You do not weigh enough to stop the train, so simply jumping is an act of suicide that will not save the people. Nobody will see you push him, so there are no social or legal consequences to consider. Would you push him?

This is a very tough choice. On the one hand, your ability to act in this situation alone makes you morally obligated to act, at least according to many. Failing to act is an action in and of itself; you’ve allowed five people to die. Pushing the man off the bridge is an act which can only be considered murder. The most morally-correct decision is generally considered the utilitarian decision to throw the fat man over, yet few people make that choice. [NOTE: I am fully aware that some argue about whether utilitarianism is truly rational and I will not discuss those issues here. I will just say that these scenarios severely limit the number of possible strategies and force a choice between them.]

This is, admittedly, grossly oversimplified moral reasoning without an epistemological context, but it is not difficult to add such context.  In fact, this exercise was, ironically, part of a recent study that provides that kind of context in addition to explaining what’s wrong with using the problem as more than an illustration.

Bartels and Pizarro presented students with a series of bridge-style exercises, including a “fat man” version the trolley problem. What they found was that the rate of utilitarian responses were positively correlated with measures of psychopathy (someone high in psychopathy will be low in empathy and relatively anti-social) and machiavellianism (the degree to which an individual is emotionally detached, cynical, and manipulative).

If you don’t understand the study, as the media clearly didn’t (big surprise), you might be tempted to conclude (as the media did) that people who care little about others can make the best decisions about what is best for the majority. This is an ugly finding that many people are likely to reject, simply because they don’t like it. Science doesn’t work that way. Science is about truth, not values, and sometimes the truth is just not pretty. Scientists who fail to separate their values and motivations from their work fail to interpret evidence appropriately (or form good theory). The same is true for skepticism.

However, when viewed in the context of the literature on moral judgments, the finding is not about the characteristics of reasoners, but the use of these exercises to measure moral reasoning:

Our study illustrates that the widely adopted use of sacrificial dilemmas in the study of moral judgment fails to distinguish between people who are motivated to endorse utilitarian moral choices because of underlying emotional deficits (such as those captured by our measures of psychopathy and Machiavellianism) and those who endorse it out of genuine concern for the welfare of others and a considered belief that utilitarianism is the optimal way of achieving the goals of morality.

Now, I think that there is something missing from this study that would likely wash out the effects, namely that the sample of college students is likely to be filled with people who have not yet spent much time thinking about moral dilemmas. In fact, a 2008 study suggests that most undergraduate students do not even know what a moral dilemma is. There are exceptions, but many students might have genuine concern for the welfare of others, but fail to recognize utilitarianism as an optimal choice at this time in their lives. I suspect that, given a sample with a wider age range, the effects would be reduced or disappear as the proportion of caring utilitarians increases.

Even with such a sample, though, the authors’ conclusions in regard to their purpose stand because, in part, the scenarios do not consider how the individual arrived at the choice. A common problem in studies of cognitive processing is that arriving at the prescriptive answer is no guarantee that one has followed good reason to get there. Consider the atheist who endorses alternative medicine (*cough* Bill Maher). The exercises are easily reduced to a simple math problem. What they have measured is one’s ability to determine the “morally correct” course of action given a specific scenario, not whether they have adopted the moral values that we assume are embodied in that choice.

So what does this have to do with skepticism and values? Let me explain by telling you what I would predict if I could observe participants in real-life situations as described by the “fat man”. I believe that the psychopaths and machiavellians would fail to push the fat man. They may know that this is the best moral choice, but not care. They have no motivation to act. The result is failing to save four people (net).

So, I believe that values are extremely important because they motivate us to take action. However, which action is best? The individual who is unable to separate their values from the choice they have to make, at least according to and this many other studies, usually fails to make the utilitarian choice in any case. If you do not know what the best choice is, how can you take the best action? (This, by the way, is what is meant by “informing values”. I contend that we can only do so by first setting them aside.) I’d predict that those who both value the lives of others and are able to set that value aside and solve the problem objectively are much more likely to take action than either of the two others. In less restricted, real-world scenarios, these are the people who take the actions which are most likely to lead to positive change.

The consequences of value-driven actions

Humanism is an ideology which drives us to promote skepticism. That same ideology drives others to a long list of careers and activities, from social worker to clergy to homeopathic product sales. Secular humanism may reduce that group to atheists and agnostics, but my point here is that humanism is not why we promote skepticism. It’s why we want to help people. We promote scientific skepticism for a number of reasons, some of which are shared, such as the belief that it is the best way to evaluate claims. Some other reasons to choose skeptical activism as a means of helping people are that we find it interesting or have a specific skill set which can be of use. However, these are motivations to do the work and not the work itself.

I realize that I now sound like a broken record, but if we fail to separate these motivations from the work, we fail to be objective. “Righteous indignation” may lead to action, but it does not always lead to positive actions when it clouds our judgment. How do we keep it from clouding our judgment? By separating it from the work. Cool heads prevail; hot heads make mistakes.

Good intentions have motivated people to do all sorts of things. Outcomes from the actions we take with good intentions are just like those we take when our intentions are not so good: they vary from great to devastating. Take, for example, the well-intentioned “Self-Esteem Movement”, an effort to increase academic performance, reduce bullying, and create a long list of other benefits.  With the best of intentions and motivated by values that I believe most of us share, educators, parents, and psychologists plowed forward with programs and policies which are still very alive and well today. These policies have done irreparable harm to our children and society in general because they achieve the opposite of the goals they set out to acheive.

Contrary to popular belief, children do not need high self-esteem in order to succeed.  In fact, efforts to raise self-esteem are extremely counter-productive and harmful because they tend to increase not self-esteem, but narcissism. These efforts are particularly harmful when enacted as part of a bully prevention program. The Freudian idea that bullies are compensating for low self-esteem is not only myth, but the opposite is true. Bullies are narcissistic and entitled. Attempting to raise their self-esteem makes the problem worse, not better. Recent reviews of the literature lead to clear conclusions: narcissists often respond to criticism and rejection with aggression. They do this because they are incapable of understanding the point of view of another and, therefore, helpless to change it. Like a toddler with no negotiation skills, they throw a tantrum.

Most laypersons adopt similar views of criminals and others with anti-social behaviors. It feels better to think of people who do bad things as “broken”. Not only does it allow us to think that people can never be inherently bad, but it gives us a sense of control. If we can just “fix” them, they’ll be good, or if we can stop the cycle of abuse…  right?

The use of pop-pedagogy is another example of good intentions and values getting in the way of reason. If you doubt that pseudoscience in education is a serious problem, attend a back-to-school night or just visit some education websites and count the number of references to “Learning Styles”, “Multiple Intelligences”, “Emotional Intelligence”, or “Bloom’s Taxonomy”. Then visit the education department of any university and discover why. Instead of teaching from the academic literature, they are teaching from textbooks with content drawn from popular press. Teachers adopt these ideas because they seem right and they address good values – the idea that every child is equally intelligent, just in different areas, the idea that all children are capable of learning everything that every other child can learn; they just learn “differently”. Experiences easily reinforce the ideas through the confirmation bias. (Caveat: “Bloom’s Taxonomy” is supported, but it is descriptive. The suggestion that drawing from all levels of taxonomy in teaching or assessment is unsupported.)

When we allow our good intentions to pave the road, it doesn’t lead to truth. Yes, we should be motivated by our values. We should consider our values when setting general goals. However, in order to reach the goals we claim to care about, in order to achieve the things we claim to value, we must separate those values from the work. We must not allow those values to enter into our decision-making processes.

In an effort to get to the bottom line in under 4,500 words, I’ll end with another quote from D.J. Grothe and a new, more direct reply:

I argue that the work of skepticism should not be divorced from our ethical imperative or “righteous indignation” to mitigate the harm that undue credulity causes. I don’t think you’re saying this.

Well, yes, actually (if you replace “divorced” with “separated”) I think I am.

In the weeks since I stopped posting regularly and while I was reconstructing last year’s posts, a lot of interesting things have happened.

• Two of my posts will be included in the 2009 Young Australian Skeptics Blog Anthology. This will be available in both eBook and printed form, similar to Open Laboratory. The list is impressive and I am looking forward to what will clearly be a great sample of skepticism and critical thinking.
• I am now on the official Guest list for Dragon*Con 2010! As such, I will participate in at least as many panels and/or talks as last year, maybe more. I hope I am able to participate in both Skeptrack and the Science Track as both offer great opportunities for fun and outreach in addition to the opportunity to work with some amazing people.
• The biggest news is that The Lancet finally fully retracted the article that Andrew Wakefield used to start a panic over the safety of vaccines in 1998. It took several years and many examples of clear ethics violations, but the anti-vaccination movement is in a tailspin over it and the catalyst, a ruling made by the General Medical Council after a fitness to practise hearing that Wakefield acted “irresponsibly and unethically”. In the wake of this:
  • Wakefield was forced to resign from his position at Thoughtful House, a group he co-founded in 2005. Another founder, Arthur Krigsman, was not far behind.
  • A paper scheduled for publication in the journal Neurotoxicology with Wakefield as its author has been withdrawn after the editor took a closer look.
  • Of course, none of this stopped Jenny McCarthy and her sidekick from proposing a ridiculous explanation which would allow them to maintain their delusional stance on the relationship between vaccines and autism.
• Meryl Dorey announced that she will probably step down as head of the Australian Vaccination Network, a particularly vile anti-vax propaganda mill that she founded. The group is likely to close its doors as well, citing a lack of funding. I have had confrontations with her online myself and find this less than surprising. It does not help that the AVN is currently under investigation for their particularly disgusting practices.
• Rachael Dunlop beat out CAM artist Joe Mercola for a Shorty Award in Health after a campaign launched by woo peddler Mike Adams hit the skids when he was disqualified for cheating (well, somebody cheated on his behalf at least).
• Podblack Cat Kylie Sturgess is now a columnist for the Skeptical Inquirer website and created a new podcast, Token Skeptic.
• Heidi Anderson has created “a place to discuss, promote, encourage, and celebrate women in science, skepticism, and critical thinking.” She Thought will launch on Pi Day and I hope to contribute on a regular basis. I wonder how Heidi will feel about that…?

Coming soon: the CTEG website is about to experience a major overhaul and I will soon announce a new organization to be feared by all who choose to peddle woo.

Posted June 3, 2009

The Skeptics Society publishes a weekly newsletter (online and via email) which I at least skim as soon as it hits my mailbox. An email subscription is a must-have for any skeptic living in southern California (or anywhere else for that matter) because it contains announcements & reminders of events, book releases, & upcoming lectures, a link to the latest Skepticality podcast, at least one featured article, and more.
This week’s eSkeptic features a piece by Harriet Hall, a.k.a. “SkepDoc”, on what she calls the manufactroversy (manufactured controversy) over vaccines and autism. It is a thorough, but concise history of the fraud committed by the despicable Andrew Wakefield, the consequences of that fraud, and the persistence of a battle that never should have begun. This is one of those articles which every anti-vaxxer should read, but will not. A number of things are made so incredibly clear that I cannot imagine anyone denying them, but they will nonetheless:

1. Vaccines do not cause autism.
2. Thimerosal does not cause autism.
3. Wakefield has committed numerous acts of the worst kind of fraud.
4. The anti-vaccination movement has resulted in the return of preventable illnesses that can maim and kill.

If we do not fix this problem, more children will die. The children at risk are NOT just the unvaccinated children. For any vaccine, as with any medication, 100% effectiveness is not a reasonable expectation. Some vaccinated children will get the disease and there will always be children who cannot be vaccinated due to immune system deficiencies. These children are only protected when herd immunity thresholds are reached. Herd immunity is required for vaccines to work. For the average vaccine, the proportion of the population required for herd immunity is over 80%. For pertussis, a.k.a. whooping cough, the threshold is over 90%. A particularly heart wrenching story about the preventable death of a 4-week-old girl has become the center of the debate in Australia, where vaccination rates in her area are so low that she acquired whooping cough and died before she was old enough to be vaccinated. Yet anti-vaxxers will tell you that childhood diseases are not harmful, that nobody dies from them, and that they are actually helpful. I have even heard some say that these diseases exist to boost the immune system!
At the center of the debate in the U.S. is, of course, former Playboy playmate Jenny McCarthy. Hall makes note that McCarthy’s story is inconsistent with the facts and that the focus of her movement keeps changing.

Jenny and her cohorts claim they are not anti-vaccine, but they are certainly a good facsimile thereof. The goalposts keep moving. First it was the MMR vaccine, then it was thimerosal, then it was mercury from all sources, then it was other vaccine ingredients, then it was too many vaccines, then it was giving vaccines too early. They will not be satisfied until science can offer a 100% safe and a 100% effective vaccine proven to have no side effects of any kind even in a rare susceptible individual. That’s not going to happen in this universe.

Jenny claims that her status as a mother trumps science. She claims that her ignorant ideas are valid, but that scientists will not listen to them. Here’s what Hall has to say about that:

Scientists had been urged to “listen to the parents.” They did listen to the parents and then conducted research to test the parents’ hypotheses. There were various kinds of studies in different countries by different research groups. The results were consistent:
* 10 studies showed MMR doesn’t cause autism
* 6 studies showed thimerosal doesn’t cause autism
* 3 studies showed thimerosal doesn’t cause subtle neurological problems
Now it’s the parents who won’t listen to the scientists.

In addition, Hall discusses the dangers of quack treatments (peddled by those who created the anti-vax movement) like chelation therapy. This is the real motivation behind this movement — give parents a quack theory about the cause of their problems, then offer them the solution. Insurance companies will not pay for this solution, so it must work (they won’t pay for it because they are evil corporations who want you to remain sick and not because the treatment does not work or carries risks). This does not make sense at all to anyone considering it rationally, but a scared, desperate parent who only wants a healthy child? It’s exactly what they want to hear.
Finally, Newsweek published a brilliant article about Jenny McCarthy’s new sugarmommy, Oprah Winfrey. It is a long article, but well worth every minute spent reading it. It’s well-written and describes some pretty silly stuff which Oprah, the most powerful woman in the country, is selling.

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Posted on February 23, 2009

David Gorski chronicles the past two years of scaremongering and irrationality incited by the famous-but-ignorant. From Andrew Wakefield to Jenny McCarthy to Oprah, Gorski discusses the baseless accusations that led parents away from important vaccinations (such as the MMR) out of fear of autism. He discusses the attempts by Steve Novella and himself, among others, to restore reason as vaccinations rates in the U.K. plummet and measles and mumps cases climb, taking lives along the way.

He notes that preventable diseases such as Hib are popping back up in the U.S., killing children and that the number of measles cases per year has DOUBLED.

This is SERIOUS stuff.

Brian Deer’s success at revealing how deep the well goes (uncovering Wakefield’s fraud), and a recent court ruling simply add to the evidence that has been mounting since the scare began. That evidence leads to one conclusion: VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM.

I highly recommend this post. It’s long, but worth it. Bookmark it, and the next time someone says to you, “Oh, I don’t think children need to be vaccinated. Let them get the disease while they’re young. It’ll make them stronger later,” open up this post and give them the facts.

Thanks to the Bad Astronomer (Phil Plait) for drawing attention to this comprehensive piece.

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Posted February 12, 2009

A special court ruled today and the LA Times summarized it the best:

The judges in the cases said the evidence was overwhelmingly contrary to the parent’s claims — and backed years of science that found no risk.

The ruling was made in a case of a group of parents who claim that their children developed autism as a result of vaccination (specifically the MMR).

Comments on pleas to vaccinate children like one made by CNN’s Campbell Brown demonstrate that many still do not “get it”, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

I am still bewildered, however, that there has been no discussion of the accusations of fraud made against Andrew Wakefield, whose 1998 study started a decade-long tirade against vaccines.

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It is news in the UK.

It showed up 2 days ago on some high-traffic blogs: Pharyngula, Neurologica, Bad Science, several scienceblogs such as Aetiology, to name a few.

But as of this writing, searches of CNN.com, MSNBC.com, FoxNews.com, and LATimes.com turn up ZERO articles (many links to other sites on LATimes.com) covering the discovery that the findings of the already ethically questionable study by Wakefield (the one that scared parents out of vaccinating their children for a decade and counting) were fabricated.

A blog entry by Dr. John Crippen illustrates the consequences and, frankly, breaks my heart.

I have recently seen a case of measles. The last time I saw a case of measles was over twenty years ago when I was doing hospital paediatrics. The child I saw recently was ill. He did not need admission and, thank God, has fully recovered. The next child might not be so lucky. I am on the front line of medicine. I am not a research scientist. I do not have the scientific expertise of some of the Holford Watch team. But I see the children and, more frustratingly, I see the parents who are reluctant to allow their children to have the MMR. Are these parents mad? Well, frankly, a few of them are. They are “allergic to diary and wheat”, they dose themselves up on St John’s Wart, they have intestinal thrush, a kitchen full of Gingko Biloba and a shelf-full of avidly read books by the likes of Gillian McKeith and Patrick Holford. There are beyond rational discussion and there is little point in trying. I feel so sorry for their children.

In the UK, measles is once again an epidemic. This man (Wakefield) started the scare that led to the severe reduction in MMR vaccinations which, in turn, led to the return of measles.

In the U.S., children who do not receive the MMR vaccine are not permitted to attend school or daycare. However, chickenpox and some other vaccines are merely recommended. We are certainly not immune from the scaremongering and preventable diseases like chickenpox and Hib can and do kill children. A small portion of children who are vaccinated may contract the disease if exposed, but their chances of exposure drop to nearly zero when all of the children with which they interact have been vaccinated. If only half of us do our part, we are all at risk.

Although I am not optimistic that reporting the fraud will stamp out the “antivax” movement, we have to try.

Spread the word.

1 Comment

Alex on February 12th, 2009 at 11:41

I read about this in a Times of London article that was linked on HuffPost.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683671.ece

I was telling Astrid when Keith Olbermann had him in his Worst Persons segment as that day’s World’s Worst that this guy is basically finished and most likely won’t be doing science anymore. It’s pretty sad and lame.

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Bad Astronomer blogged today about a not-so-shocking discovery reported by the UK’s Sunday Times: Wakefield may have faked the data to create the appearance of a link between MMR vaccines and autism.

The Wakefield study basically started the explosion of fear and ignorance that led to, among other things, the show I discussed earlier today. Although the findings of his 1998 study were extremely weak, Wakefield drew a conclusion that 10 of the 13 authors later retracted: autism may be linked to “environmental factors” that he eventually identified as the MMR vaccine.

After the retraction, mountains of published research to the contrary, and even a replication of the original study, the “controversy” persists.

I have written about Wakefield in the text I require students to read for my experimental psychology course. It’s in the section addressing research ethics.

I believe it is one of the best and most important examples of the far-reaching consequences of academic dishonesty.

Now I have even more reason to keep it there.

Although I am surprised that it took so long to discover, I am not at all surprised that he “cheated”. I tell students that fabrication, manipulation, biased selection, or any other falsification or misrepresentation of findings add up to a fraudulent claim of knowledge — the worst crime a scientist can commit. The deaths of innocent children that have resulted from this case are evidence of that.

I agree with Phil that this discovery will not deter the “antivaxxers” from their firm beliefs. The Big Foot believers have managed to hold on as have all of the other cryers. Parents are particularly tenacious in their beliefs about these types of dangers and this will continue despite the discovery of the maliciousness of its birth.

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Due to problems moving the database which managed this blog from February of 2009 through January of 2010, I have reconstructed it and redirected the original URLs to the new pages. However, the archives are not organized in the new database.

You can find those posts here.

February

• Clever Dave
• Naughty Elmo
• Evil Toys Update
• Scaremongering, MMR Vaccines, and the Price of Freedom
• Got Water?
• This Just In
• Wakefield’s Fraud Ignored by U.S. Media
• A New Court Ruling, but Still No Wakefield
• Double-Standards & Justification in Political Decision-Making
• Skeptic’s Circle #105
• NCCAM = National Scam
• Correcting Misunderstandings of Evolution
• A Brief History of the Vaccine – Autism Panic
• Skeptic’s Circle #106

March

• A Note About Politics, Religion, & the Skeptical Blogosphere
• Something Stupid I Heard Today
• Something Stupid I Heard Today – 3/6/9
• Who Are the Politicians Here?
• Who Are the Politicians Here?
• Something Smart I Heard Today (Read, Actually)
• Elitist Bastards Sail With a New Swabbie
• Calling All Critical Thinkers
• Is Science Winning the Knowledge War?
• Everything We Know Is Science Knowledge
• Ben Goldacre Tells it Like it Is
• Mary Appears in Texas or Something Stupid I Read Today
• Death and Religious Coping: Not What You Might Think
• Mensa Shmensa
• How Can We Promote Skepticism?
• Keep Tabs on the Consequences of Jenny McCarthy’s Ignorance
• What I Find Offensive…

April

• Stoopyd email
• Misconceptions and Misteachings in Quantitative Research Methods
• Yummy Jesus
• B.S. in the Classroom: Effective Teaching or Superstition?
• The New York Times: A Prime Example of Poor Reporting
• Jim Carrey is a Moron
• B.S. for Christians, and I’m not talking about religion!

May

• B.S. for Scientists and Medical Practitioners
• Something Great I Encountered Today
• Skeptic’s Circle #110: the Calvinball Edition
• Breast Cancer Screening B.S.
• Oprah is a Moron
• An Open Letter to Oprah: Shout it From the Rooftops
• Religious Freedom or Child Abuse?
• Something Stupid I Heard Today: May 17, 2009
• Attention and Perception: Fun Camera Trick
• Tell Jenny What to Do!
• The 111st Skeptic’s Circle: While Supplies Last!
• B.S. for Type A Personalities: Visual Illusion B.S.
• Even More BS for AntiVaxxers: Homeopathic Alternatives
• Marmite Messiah and a Collection of Pareidolia
• Carnival of the Elitist Bastards Stops at ICBS

June

• Research Fraud and the Spread of Dangerous Woo
• Skeptic’s Circle #112
• Alternative “Medicine” is Mainstream?
• Superstition Kills
• More BS for Cancer Patients
• Headlines That Harm: Part 1
• Headlines That Harm: Part 2
• Propaganda That KILLS
• Carnival of the Elitist Bastards XIV is Underway
• Michael Jackson, Not Jesus?

July

• Something Stupid I Heard Today…
• Warning Signs: Bad Research Ahead
• Thumbs Up For The Amazing Meeting 7 and A Few Bits of Wisdom
• My Perfect Conference and What It Is NOT
• Open Mouth, Attempt to Remove Foot
• The Virgin Mary Appears (again) in a Tree in Ireland
• Science Doesn’t Know Everything…
• Chris Mooney is Not My Friend Anymore
• ERV is My Friend
• If this does not convince you that supersition kills…
• Beware the Spinal Trap by Simon Singh

August

• Due to Hit: Gambler’s Fallacy
• Something Stupid I Heard Today: Nat Geo Edition

September

• It’s the Process, Stupid!
• A First-Timer’s View of Dragon*Con: Part I
• A First-Timer’s View of Dragon*Con: Part II
• A First Timer’s View of Dragon*Con: Part III
• Are You a Synesthete?

October

• And the Team Player of the Year Award goes to…
• Parenting Bunk and Overgeneralization
• Darwin’s Bulldogs and the Rest of Dragon*Con

November

• Bill Maher is clearly skinning the cat in a unique fashion and telling some whopping lies
• Jesus Promotes the Grunge Look

December

• More Naughty Toys
• Holy Cow! Moozes Knew Jesus?

January

• Teaching Meets Skepticism at Dragon*Con
• Deepak Chopra Thinks You Are Stupid
• More Holy Fruit

February