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A friend of mine has long held that a vaccination his son received as an infant triggered his child’s autism. He clings to this belief despite a string of scientific studies that show no link between autism and vaccines. When the original paper on such a link was recently discredited as a fraud, my friend’s reaction was that it will now be more difficult to persuade people of the dangers of vaccination. He is not alone: nearly half of all Americans believe in the vaccine-autism link or are unsure about it.
The paradox goes deeper. My friend insists that he trusts scientists—and again, in this respect, he is like most Americans. In a 2008 survey by the National Science Foundation, more respondents expressed “a great deal” of confidence in science leaders than in leaders of any other institution except the military. On public policy issues, Americans believe that science leaders are more knowledgeable and impartial than leaders in other sectors of society, such as business or government. Why do people say that they trust scientists in general but part company with them on specific issues?
Many individuals blame the poor quality of science education in the U.S. If kids got more science in school, the thinking goes, they would learn to appreciate scientific opinion on vaccines, climate, evolution and other policy issues. But this is a misconception. Those who know more science have only a slightly greater propensity to trust scientists. The science behind many policy issues is highly specialized, and evaluating it requires deep knowledge—deeper than students are going to get in elementary and high school science classes. A more direct approach would be to educate people about why they are prone to accept inaccurate beliefs in the first place.
Humans do seem to prize accuracy above all. We want our beliefs to be accurate—to align with what is really true about the world—and we know that science is a reliable guide to accuracy. But this desire to be accurate conflicts with other motives, some of them unconscious. People hold beliefs to protect important values, for example. Individuals who think of nature as sacred may perceive genetic modification as morally wrong, regardless of its safety or utility. People also hold beliefs that are rooted in their emotions. A flu pandemic that can cause widespread death among the innocent may cause feelings of fear and helplessness. One way to cope with those emotions is to belittle warnings of a pandemic as improbable.
In reconciling our rational and irrational motives for belief, we have become good at kidding ourselves. Because we want to see ourselves as rational beings, we find reasons to maintain that our beliefs are accurate. One or two contrarians are sufficient to convince us that the science is “controversial” or “unsettled.” If people knew that other motives might compromise the accuracy of their beliefs, most would probably try to be on their guard.
Asking science teachers to impart enough content to understand all the issues may be unrealistic, but they might be able to improve people’s appreciation for the accuracy of scientific knowledge. Through the study of the history of science, students might gain an understanding both of their own motivations for belief and of science as a method of knowing. If a student understands how a medieval worldview could have made a geocentric theory of the solar system seem correct, it is a short step to seeing similar influences in oneself.
Science history can also help students understand why scientific knowledge grows ever more accurate. It is easy for a nonscientist to dismiss an unpleasant conclusion as controversial on the grounds that scientists constantly change their minds: “First they say chocolate is bad for us, then it’s good ... they can’t decide anything.” By studying how new observations led to the revision of important theories, however, students see that science is not about immutable laws but provisional explanations that get revised when a better one comes along. They also see that scientists’ readiness to change their beliefs to align with data is a source of great strength, not weakness, and why near consensus on issues such as global warming or vaccine safety is so impressive. Science may not be the only way of organizing and understanding our experience, but for accuracy it fares better than religion, politics and art. That’s the lesson.
This article was originally published with the title Trust Me, I'm a Scientist.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI read the Forum with interest, I partially agree with Mr. Willingham, but I want to add an additional factor into the discussion. Much of the gap in understanding between the scientists and the more average person is often due to the presentation of scientific data. Most scientific data is presented in the language of the author, which often is difficult, if not impossible to understand by the average person.
To illustrate my point I can recall a presentation I experienced as an 10 year old kid. I grew up in Norway and the discussion was whether we should be given a polio vaccination or not. The Norwegians used live vaccine which has a finite probability of giving you polio.
We were presented the choice in the following manner:
If you do not vaccinate you will have a 1 in 1,000 chance of getting polio, there was a polio epidemic at the time.
If you on the other hand got the vaccine, you have 1 chance in 25,000 of getting polio from the vaccine, but a less severe form of polio, because the virus had been weakened
I do not know if those numbers are correct, but it gave a 10 year old an understanding of the chances of
getting polio from natural infections or from the vaccine. My parents chose the vaccine and I may have had a very weak case of the disease without any permanent harm. There was however a 25 to one ratio between being vaccinated or not and that stuck in my mind.
From this one can see that it is a matter of presenting the data that matters. I believe that this same polio-data was presented to the American population where it was not presented properly and Americans use dead vaccine which is not nearly as effective, but you do not get polio from the vaccine.
The presentation of statistical data is difficult but with the proper presentation most people will get it.
Another case in point: Originally MRI was called NMR. NMR stands for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. But with the word Nuclear in it people thought it had something to do with Nuclear bombs and the name had to be changed to Magnetic Resonance Imaging MRI. People have not been educated to understand that everything Nuclear is not a bomb.
Hans J Weedon
Salem MA.
There is no "near consensus on ......... global warming" That statement confirms the reason why so many people do not believe what scientists say. This is a very charged political issue. Constantly saying that there is a consensus does not make it so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo understand why the average citizen chooses not to believe what scientists say, you only have to take the time to listen what some of the members of your own community say when they open their mouths.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTake for example the so-called "Science Channel." I realize that Mr. Mike Rowe probably does not understand 90% of what he narrates on many of the shows where he's been hired to do the job, but he could at least require as part of his contract that the scripts be vetted by real scientists with no connection to the show's production team. Some of his statements on "How the Universe Works" are as absurd as they come!
A more egregious example is Prof. Michio Kaiku, who apparently has become so enamored with his TV persona that he's chosen to spout off some of the more bombastic absolute statements of fact that I have ever heard. For example, I have heard him state on TV that a supernova is the most destructive event in the history of the universe.
I'm sorry, Dr. Kaiku, but statements like that only achieve one thing, and that is to peg my Bull-Excret-o-Meter. There is no such thing as a "history" of the universe which can be used to back up such a statement, and you know it.
More evidence of this pattern of behavior lies squarely in your May edition. The article written by Dr. James Geach entitled "The Lost Galaxies" does exactly what Kaiku and Rowe have done on TV -- make statements of fact based on nothing but conjecture.
"If you add up all the visible matter in galaxies today, you get only about a tenth of the total endowment created by the big bang." Really? And how exactly, Dr. Geach, did you reach that conclusion? Where is the record and evidence that proves such a measurement, let alone the event that is at the core of the THEORY of the Big Bang?
According to its web site, the top show on the Science Channel is "An Idiot Abroad."
On Discovery Channel, it is "Deadliest Catch" and its gaggle of reprobates, or that show about a completely dysfunctional family that makes custom motorcycles.
I don't remember the last time I saw a show about anything related to science on the National Geographic Channel; every time I tune it all I see is either a Sarah Palin version of "Cops", another about dimwits (male and female) in prison, or some show about big fish.
The top show on the History Channel? A show about a dysfunctional family that runs a pawn shop in Vegas.
The most common show on SyFy? A bunch of fools who figured out they can make money with IR cameras, pretending they are chasing "ghosts."
Need I say more?
Scientists are characterized by their objectivity and the willingness to submit their opinions to rigorous testing and criticism which certainly contributes to confidence in their integrity. Scientists organize into disciplines or schools of thought and form working groups which tends to deminish subjective impressions. But they are still subject to collective errors and have a focus that is perhaps a little too narrow. While their attention to detail contributes to the precision of their results one has to ask if some factors are truly relevant to the subject under study? Insignificant details can detract from an overview of our picture of the facts. Fluctuations in the data record may be measurable and interesting but should be assessed as to whether they contribute significantly to long term trends or if it would be better to treat them as part of a noisy signal. This may be more of a problem at a larger scale and there is always the possibility that it will be exploited by the unscrupulous.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI appreciated the column by Dan Willingham titled "Trust Me, I'm a Scientist", but felt he undershot the mark on explaining why science has lost so much credibility. He alludes to inadequacies in science education and the problem of specialization, but aims his primary argument at the human tendency to believe what we want to believe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll true, but the crisis of scientific credibility is, I think, more profound and troubling. When I was a child in the 50's, science had an inviolable aura as the bringer of truth and progress. In the last several decades, science seems to have lost much of its reputation in the broad sphere of public opinion. Science is routinely embroiled in controversy, scandal and outright fraud - and is now often cast in a negative rather than a positive light.
I see a couple of trends that have helped bring on this crisis. One is specialization - as the expanse of scientific knowledge has increased, the areas of expertise for any one scientist have become increasingly narrow. As you note, this makes science much less accessible to the non-expert, but is also undermines the process of peer review and consensus as each subfield of specialization has fewer qualified experts. The allure of fame and fortune, or even the continuation of grant funding, can tempt some, hopefully very few, to take a few shortcuts or fill in some data. In a few cases, such as the study linking autism and childhood vaccination, an individual is able to perpetrate outright fraud.
A second related trend is complexity. As we learn more in science, the science has become far more complex. As we confront the nature of complexity itself, the ability of science to provide definitive answers is called into question. If we are unable to predict the outcomes of simple cellular automata (e.g. John Conway's The Game of Life), then what confidence do we really have in the ability of science to analyze and predict outcomes with any precision in complex systems such as the economy, the human brain or the earth's climate.
The trends towards specialization and complexity are inevitable in the progress of science. If scientists want to remain credible, then they will need to find ways to counteract the examples of bad science and to explain the limits and qualifications that apply to their work. As you point out, improved science education, including a new focus on the history of science, would probably help.
There is another trend in science, however, that has resulted in what I would call self-inflicted wounds. -see next comment-
There is another trend in science, however, that has resulted in what I would call self-inflicted wounds. Science has, it seems, been dragged by a few into an increasingly virulent religious debate, as some scientists have vilified religion and a belief in God in the name of science. These claims step well beyond the bounds of "science" (where is the peer review?), but more significantly they antagonize the vast majority of the world that does believe in God, most of whom also believe in science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPaul Proese (in America's Four Gods, 2010) notes that "skepticism about the ultimate compatibility of religion and science comes overwhelmingly from the nonreligious community." He also points out that 95% of American's believe in God. Do the math - the science-religion debate is not good for science.
Martin Rees, renowned British scientist, was recently awarded the Templeton prize by the John Templeton Foundation which is noted for it's work to bridge the gaps between science and religion. Mr. Rees is an atheist, albeit a humble one. He was attacked by atheists as a sell-out for accepting the prize, and the Templeton Foundation was attacked for giving it to him. In an April 6, 2011, interview in The Guardian, he said "if you're teaching Muslim sixth formers in a school and you tell them they cannot have their God and Darwin, there is a risk they will choose God and be lost to science."
Science can improve it's image and credibility and one of it's best hopes is to build bridges with the majority of the religious community that wants to believe in science. The worst thing scientists can do is to remain silent while "science" is hijacked and used as a weapon in the science-religion debate.
For more on this topic, please join the discussion forum on Integrating Science and Spirituality, at www.swedenborgcenterconcord.org.
To accept that religion should stand side-by-side with science means that you must ignore that the primary means by which religious beliefs are perpetuated is by adults who take advantage of the survival mechanism of infant humans who have to take anything an adult says as truth in order to survive. The statistic that 95% of Americans (and then again, which ones? North? Central? South?) believe in "god" is meaningless and only speaks to the success of the means of indoctrinating children, and not to any proof that we should consider that statistic to be of any weight in a scientific discussion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFaith is about blind belief in something you -know- is a lie, just because you -want- to believe. That concept is completely incompatible with science at the most basic level possible. It's really that simple.
Nobody seems willing to acknowledge that what passes for "Science" these days is being nudged in certain directions by funding. Competition for those resources is fierce, so to gather such grants the projects must be tailored to some extent to fit the goals of the grantors. Everyone knows this is true. Lay “readers” seldom, if ever, know the source of such funding, especially when learning of these studies in popular magazines and the popular press in its largest sense. While this potential source of bias is not new, its effect today is more pervasive due to the rapidity in communication, the ease of access to “information” on the internet, etc. Today, “Science” has become a competitor with other sources of knowledge. In some cases, it has become a tool of those who foster belief systems that relegate humankind to little more than beasts with better language skills.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a scientist myself and in disagreement with the author’s statements, I believe that Science is taught in the schools. In fact, it is touted as the be-all end-all to the exclusion of everything else. Scientists are portrayed as unquestionable. Why? Simply because they’re “scientists” and not to be questioned. This author provides such an example by denigrating religion, even though science has offered no concrete proof to counter the notion that an all-powerful presence might have some part to play in our existence, even as to the cause of the big bang. If we can accept the notion that all of the known universe originated from a tiny ultra-dense particle, why is it hard to conceive of a scenario that caused that particle to explode?Has science discovered why other animals are literally “light-years” behind us in their intellectual development? Why is not “survival of the fittest” the result of a brilliant intellectual plan to achieve species advancement without micro-manipulation? Many of us have resisted the brain-washing that passes for public education these days. In the words of President Obama, we “cling” to our religion by faith, rather than clinging only to “Science” as an act of faith.
When scandals such as the late ones related to "global warming" come to light, they tarnish popular belief in what purports to be the only true source of knowledge. They also provide fodder for those of us with the temerity to question the popular bias pervading some areas of scientific thought today.
When Willingham talks about kidding ourselves, he's talking about cognitive biases. In the case of autism, you have at least three biases in play. (1) Pattern seeking behavior: there must be a cause of this effect. (2) Need for closure: I don't like the (correct) answer "we don't know" so I will accept "vaccines did it", even though evidence is weak. (3) Confirmation bias that keeps this idea in play, despite contrary evidence, once accepted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese three biases, alone, account for a lot unfounded beliefs (e.g. religions, global warming denial, etc.).
My own opinion is that we do need better education, but focused on how the basic idea of the scientific method (_testing_ hypotheses) leads to better tests of ideas. I would also submit that should teach ourselves and others to avoid the use of "belief". Scientists don't believe; we find effective, testable _explanations_. And, we don't change beliefs, we adopt more effective explanations when they become available.
One needs only to read the editorial, "Dr. No Money", that preceded this one to understand a big reason that scientists are mistrusted. It is widely believed that funding is more easily available to those whose results can be depended on to reinforce the favored paradigm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI appreciate Dr. Willingham's contributions to the discussion of why "ordinary people" don't always believe scientists. I have two comments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst, his essay contrasts the views of a father of a child with autism (who believes a vaccine "caused" his son's autism) and the scientific consensus, which has failed to establish a link between vaccination and autism.
Technically, the scientific research about the "cause" of something can only describe what happens in the aggregate of many individual cases, not what may or may not happen in an individual case. I'd actually say that the question "Does vaccination cause autism?" is one question (and the answer is "no") and the question "Did vaccination cause my son's autism?" is an entirely different type of question with an entirely different meaning nearly unrelated to the general scientific question.
Essentially, the second question is unanswerable by the terms of scientific inquiry and thus could even be considered not to be a meaningful question.
If a parent thinks that a vaccine "caused" his child's autism, they're not contradicting the scientific findings, since the scientific findings say nothing about the child's individual case.
What they really mean to say that attributing the autism to the vaccine gives meaning and focus to their experience and brings it into congruence with their worldview. Within the context of this interpretation, they're neither right nor wrong about the vaccine causing the condition (since it's not determinable whether they're right or wrong anyway), they're just making a "belief" choice that gives their life meaning.
This leads to my larger point, which is another reason people don't trust scientists.
Scientists attempt to describe their findings without reference to a system of values or a system of making meaning out of the universe. Meanwhile, for the rest of us, no cognitive processes take place at all without being rooted in a system of meaning-making. Scientists, too, being human, inevitably fall short of the ideal of "valueless" analysis.
Frankly, I wish scientists expressed their values more emphatically. I'm always frustrated when a climate scientist describes what's likely to be the end of life as we know it on planet earth in dispassionate tones. Without some kind of passion it just doesn't translate.
Can't scientists at times grab the public by the scruff of the neck and say - "TIME TO PANIC! GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER OR YOU'LL BE SORRY - VERY SORRY."
Ron Lavine
The comments given above are cogent. My own complaint is that arguments are presented ex cathedra without adequate peer review or bibliography. The recent articles in Scientific American on cosmology were plainly identified as controversial theories. On the other hand, the recent article on acidification of the ocean was quoted in a Letters to the Editor in the local newspaper. I responded to that Letter that I had read every one of the references listed in the article's bibliography, and could not find any supporting evidence for the article's doomsday prediction. After posting that letter, I found evidence that if the current acidification rate is maintained without change, we will reach a tipping point well after the date projected by the article. Well after, as in after the Middle East runs out of oil.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Trust Me, I'm a Scientist" ranks with, "I'm from the Government, and I am here to help you" and "The Check's in the mail." Without adequate peer review, a pronouncement is no more than an opinion.
When it comes to what scientists are saying I try my best to stay informed and not succumb to the media propaganda.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn our capitalistic environment here in North America I personally doubt any scientific evidence that might have an impact on the almighty dollar.
What do I mean by that?
Just look at climate change evidence. I’m fairly certain that more than 90% of scientists in the world say climate change is real and is happening right now. So, I’d say that we should trust what the scientists are saying on this topic. However, and this is a big however, if everyone were to agree with those scientists there would be a lot of businesses that would stand to loose a significant amount of profit. Or from an economic perspective, it would likely cause all sorts of problems if we enforced not burning coal starting tomorrow. (I know we could transition to a green energy economy, but the transition would have to be carefully orchestrated. You get my point though.)
A counter example for why I would listen to a scientist would be SETI. If one of the scientists working on SETI reported they’d discovered intelligent life I’d be skeptical for a while, but once other scientists had verified the findings I’d be very excited and tend to believe the reports. Why? There really isn’t a financial impact to any business. If anything, I think businesses would be scrambling to be involved.
I know my SETI example is kind of crazy, but I think it illustrates my point. When business profitability is involved I don’t trust the scientific evidence.
Vaccinations have a double hidden agenda:
1. Pharmaceutical companies would stand to loose profits
2. It’s important to have a majority of the population be vaccinated in order to control pandemics. So, the health agencies have an agenda to ensure the population is vaccinated. Imagine what would happen if people learned exactly what the risks were to their children. Yikes! By the way, I do believe the risks are acceptably low.
All that being said, I keep asking myself ‘what is truth’? The perspective of the documenter slants every bit of information. With that in mind, the only position I can take is to doubt everything until I can personally gather enough evidence. The challenge there is that it most scientific cases I’ll never be exposed to the raw evidence to draw my own conclusions.
I think Homer Simpson said it best – “It’s in a book. It must be true”.
As Pete Dominick, one my more favorite radio personalities, says, “Think for yourself”.
Hi,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI read the forum and I am really sad cause I didn't know this stuff hapenned in the US. I grew up and still live in Greece and the situation here is dramatic. People are not aware of a single thing having to do with biology or chemistry or generally science. That way some of them do not trust scientists and some others do exactly what people tell them to do. For example I heard a man talking to his neighbour in a village last month. The second had a cold. The man told him: "you will go to the field, pick up some herbs and shrubs and weeds and boil them. Then eat them and you will be fine". People in Greece are uneducated and they believe everything they hear on TV. Science in Greece is not at all promoted and of course I being a geneticist am always taken aback by their so called education. About vaccines now, I doubt there was even a single man doing the vaccine for the flu pandemic (I think it was a pandemic) last year... However I have read about possible links of vaccines with autism in guess what a SCHOOLBOOK. So 17 year olds in the international baccalaureate are learning about links of vaccines with autism. (I learned that too when in the 12th grade).
Oh and additionally no one can say that a vaccination causes ipso facto autism. There might be links with autism but surely not as a direct consequence. Oh God what a world...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAncient religions often dealt with the powers that be but there was also a strong theme concerning truth and justice. We could call those who believed in truth and light Sons of Apollo. But there is also a less reverent approach found in Greek literature which presented a more satirical view and it adherents may be labeled Sons of Hermes. The scientific community and media is not immune from their antics and it is rightly on guard against the trickster.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIncluded among famous hoaxes is the almanac of Jonathan Swift mentioned in Lynda Walsh's Sins Against Science: The Scientific Media Hoaxes of Poe, Twain and Others. Two notable scientific hoaxes are Piltdown Man and the Calaveras Skull.
Other mistakes such as the skull of the brontosaurus are not intentional but due to a mistaken interpretation of the evidence. They are akin to an optical illusion and once made tend to persist. Quantum Mechanics tries to avoid this problem by including all possibilities in the analysis by ends up being a little wierd. Misperceptions are difficult to dismiss and the source of the problem may be hypothesis testing. The expedience of Ockham's Razor also requires that the scientific community culture a certain amount of skepticism.
Professor Willingham’s ponderings on why so many don’t trust science I think misses the point. As an engineer and one who feels that his decisions are rationale and fact based I have on occasion discounted the accepted opinion of “Science”. This is due to that fact that we live in a society just about everybody lies. Our politicians incessantly butcher the truth. The Federal Reserve tells us what it thinks we will respond to in a way that is favorable to the economy. Companies fabricate advertisements to manipulate the consumer to purchase their product. Even our mothers and wives stretch the truth to make us feel better. It is not too far of a stretch to think that Scientists can also for varying motives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost laymen are well aware the role of self interest. Science it seems these days often present their conclusions as an advocate not as an impartial analyst. This is particularly true in politicalized science.
If for example the Scientist gives projections on the radiation levels surrounding Jupiter it perhaps doesn’t deserve skepticism. However when Scientists say with assuredness about things that their future funding depends on their conclusions a little cynicism is probably justified.
The speculative hypothesis of Man-Made Global Warming is responsible for vast sums of money going into environmental science. Many if not the majority in the field jobs depend on their conclusions. Most of the informed skepticism comes from outside the field while those in the field appear more like zealots than scientists.
We live in a culture were lying is epidemic. To think that Science when fame, tenure, and vast fortunes are at play is lily white is too much to accept.
I would suggest however that if Science acted a lot less like they are trying to covert those to their religion and more like dispassionate presenters of the facts they might be believed with greater regularity.
When scientists divest themselves of proprietary, corporate, or partisan funding -- relinquishing and opening licensed ideas that allow them to work on whatever med-, bio-, nano-, nuclear-, weapon-, etc.- -tech they or their institutions cravenly chase for funds -- then the public might gain confidence in them. Doing this will realize science as an open-source, and moral high-ground boon to the public instead of mere 'staff tech' pandering to (and for) industry, and politics. But, it has ever been so these last 5000 years, so we of the non-academe will continue picking and choosing what science to BELIEVE and what spiritualism to TRUST.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst question: How many millions of people have been helped by vaccines? And then, a vague thread of a connection scares people into doubting that result.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Trust Me, I'm a Scientist" made me want to roll up the magazine and whack some of my friends and family over the heads and shoulders. Some of them hear these small threads of pseudo-fact and distrust science that has been proven for years. They believe, concurrently, that science is both a savior and an anti-christ.
What most people should realize is that science isn't necessarily a destination. It's more a long journey where the destination is continually moving and GPS doesn't work.
In a sentence, the scientific method takes us from asking a question to the answer by collecting and analyzing data. Sometimes the conclusion isn't what was expected, and even when it is, most times we are led to more questions.
Accuracy in collecting and analyzing data accomplishes at least two things: it gives us better answers and it allows people to confirm or disprove results by examination or by repetition. The problem is that accuracy is, again, ever changing.
Case in point around 160 years ago, we barely understood the microscopic world. Now we are building microscopic machines. In addition, around 160 years ago, our solar system was known to have 7 planets. Now, hundreds of planets have been found outside our solar system.
Within three human generations we have gone from horse and buggy to interplanetary transportation. My grandfather lived through the entire period.
Here is a revelation: Science doesn't have all the answers and the science world knows and admits to that. But it continually pushes the bounds of knowledge. However, if a side-by-side balance sheet of positive/negative effects on society was performed for science v. politics v. religion which would win? I don't know the answer, but my money would be on science. I do think that politics and religion need to continue to play a role in humanity's advancement.
In 1918 30% of the world population contracted influenza. An estimated 3% to 5% of the world population died. This was only 100 years ago. Vaccines could have greatly reduced this pandemic. Keep using vaccines. The positive data accumulated over decades of use far outweigh the negative 'facts' presented over the last few years.
Thanks to all for responding.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost comments concerned why Americans distrust scientists *in general*. The point of this piece is that they don't--at least, they say the don't in response to surveys. The question posed here is why they don't believe scientists *on select issues.*
One issue raised here that might apply is the question of funding--scientists are untrustworthy specifically on issues where there is money is to be made. I don't know why the issues I mention here--vaccines, climate change, genetically altered food--qualify and others don't.
In any event, the issue of scientists' motivation is a complicated issue because scientists are employed in different contexts in which evaluations and rewards differ. Sure, it's easy to doubt the sincerity of a scientist employed by company X soberly avowing that company X's products are effective and safe. But to argue that it's in a university scientist's best interests to "toe the party line" strikes me as wrong. That's safe, in a sense, but real success comes from challenging prevailing wisdom and showing everyone that it's wrong. And sure, there are background assumptions that scientists share that they never think to question (cf Kuhn) but a contentious issue like climate change is not an example.
More generally, the argument that science is a human enterprise subject human error (confirmation bias, etc.) is surely correct, but I would counter that the scientific process has more checks built into it to mitigate those problems. That's the point of having distinterested parties engage in peer review. That's why most professional journals require that researchers reveal the source of funding for research leading to an article.
Smaller points:
@wcmbeehive--position statements on global warming have been issued by American Association for the Advancement of Science; Geological Society of America; American Meteorological Society; Joint statement by the national science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK, and US. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that there is a strong consensus on the issue.
@Bryce.he.reid: I agree. Science tells us about the natural world, but does not specify particular policy positions, which are by other factors, not the least of which are our values.
There are ways around the divestiture problem. Any company/person/entity that wants to fund research must give that money (no strings attached) to a government research funding clearinghouse (perhaps they may request it go into the field they are interested in). That money should be disbersed based on institution size and field of research. Any findings should be free and open source.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnding proprietary funding, end closed research results, restore peer review.
The present way of proprietary, closed non-peer reviewed licensed results reeks.
Why people choose not to believe what scientists say.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem is with the term "scientist" especially in the news media. It means that almost any impossible statistic can be given or statement made or claim of discovery with no possible way to validate. I'm sorry but unverifiable statements are not science. Why not use the workers name, affiliation and where published. I remember one study reported in the press that concerned deaths from heart disease and their relationship to eggs. After an exhaustive search, I finally found the article in Nature. This doctor at Mass General had drawn his conclusion on a differential of three percentage points based on twelve hundred patients already in the hospital for some other disease. I was skeptical.
Some journals and press releases also use science to validate their political views. Take "Climate Change" as an example. If you really wanted to convince the general public of the onerousness nature of climate change why attack one political party over another, especially when approximately fifty percent of the population immediately became skeptical of the motive. National Public Radio's Science Friday did fifty-two shows on "Global Warming" and "Climate Change" over a nine year period where the main villain was always George Bush. One illustrious guest expert on climatology was an economics professor from Harvard. I, too, have always claimed to be an environmentalist, but that was because I rode my bicycle to work for twenty-four years and purchased a $45, 000 hybrid that will never pay for itself in the Mid-West. Given the common parameters for expertise, I should have opted for some pronouncement on the climate. The fact that my expertise lies in Physics and Electronics should not have mattered a great deal unless it was the wrong political message. After all what great strides have we made since we have changed political parties on any "hot" issue such as 'Climate Change" and "Stem Cells" except for their disappearance in the nightly news.
Seems the only way to get funding for a project these days is to have a press release eluding to some mystical and enormous breakthrough. Not much ever comes of these pronouncements. My grandmother had a much better track record on health and medicine than have been the pronouncements from the medical research community over the past forty years. We should have funded her.
You haven't looked at the scientific literature, have you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Near consensus" is an understatement when you compare the arguments from the climate scientists (10,000's of published, peer-reviewed scientific articles from people who are recognized as experts in their fields of physics, mathematics, chemistry, etc) vs the arguments from the climate-cynics (rarely from anyone with scientific credentials, and inevitably some combination of misrepresented data, misunderstood theory, misquoted authorities, and misused statistics).
I always thought the idea was not to trust the scientist, but instead trust the science...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIndividual scientists can lie, or simply be wrong. The peer reviewed science, especially over time as the process reproduces results and weeds out errors, seems to me to be the thing one can trust.
It seems to me that where people go wrong is to jump on the bandwagon of an individual scientist (or small group of scientists) rather than waiting for the process to play out with full review and repetition of results over the broader community... science isn't a single experiment/result, it is a process that needs to play out across peer review and independent repetition and analysis of results in order to fully weed out the innaccuracies that many have mentioned in the above comments that plague us as human beings.
If you look back over the majority of people complaining that scientists or their results can't be trusted, most are citing examples of small groups of scientists rather than examples of longer term, more broadly reviewed/repeated results. That is really cherry picking to validate a point one already holds... and it isn't science.
One of the better articles of late! Many reasons probably. Most people believe anecdotal evidence because they can relate to it, most people are ignorant, many "scientists" in the popular press aren't, people still believe in common sense, religion is contrary to science, et alia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) In all of the comments above regarding religion and science it appears obvious in each case who is religious and who is atheist. The fact that this is so obvious makes all the comments on both sides sound biased and loses their worth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2) Nothing in science is really absolute. Everything is subject to being fixed, clarified, or noted as downright wrong. It's a constant evolution of ideas. Science is about "most likely" truths not truths.
3) Just because a politically motivated group takes a particular stance against a specific political group does not make the science behind it bogus. (even if the political arguments made ARE bogus.)
Seperate science from religion and politics. When personal beliefs are obvious in your comments- can you truly be impartial? Most of the comments on this article are justifications FOR this article.
My bias is this: Scientists/doctors/engineers prove themselves to be whores over and over in litigation matters (personal experience). The CDC changes its mind on the conclusions of scientific data for political reasons. Case in point: autism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have basic training as a scientist, with chemicals and with social science. I believe in science, it makes sense to me. But people don't. Common sense tells us things are a changin', we do not need any science to figure it out. The ice caps are melting, duh!
If you do not have any training in science or politics, you won't know when they are lying to you. Maybe it's better to be ignorant. I'm sure they are lying and it really pisses me off that democracy in America means a purposefully ignorant prolitariat. This is implies there is some duty on my part as a citizen to not tell when I figure my government is lying to the people. I disagree. The founding fathers were liars. Everyone after them has been also. Sophistry was a science before there was science.
This system cannot be abolished, it has to be fixed. Humanity and the earth cannot sustain another war. War materials cause genetic damage.
Most arguments for public trust in scientists are based on some version of the objectivity and neutrality of scientific work. The underlying assumption is always that the formal structure of scientific activity guarantees an objective outcome independent of other aspects of society (such as source of funding for the research).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut most people, with good reasons, put trust in scientists based more on their perception of the role of scientists and the public university system as an independent source of information. As this independence becomes more severely challenged, scientists become viewed as no more independent or objective than the rest of corporate America. If BP or other oil companies have a measure of control over university based climate change research, if pharmaceutical companies direct medical research than the university system becomes viewed as just an extension of corporate R&D labs. If the goal of university research is just to spin off the next IPO, then the scientists is just another business man looking to make a buck. Why expect them to retain a special aura of guardians of truth. The long campaigns such as anti-smoking, occupational health,, etc. educated the public that anyone can find some "science" to support their position. If the concern is public trust in the objectivity and independence of scientific work, then the focus must be on restoring a strong sector of independent scientific research. Unfortunately, in current economic situations, the trends are in exactly the opposite direction.
In recent years Science has taken a credibility beating.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy?
Could it be everyone is tired of so called Scientists who are more interested in Funding and sucking up to any Agenda that Provides that funding?
Publications that espouse The politically Correct party line. Propaganda Amerikan is famous for publishing Eco Fantasys as fact.
So called Educational Channels that Pump out Staged reality shows & Merchandising.
The Nobel Prize has become a politically Correct Joke that is anything But Nobel.
Science has become Washington Meets Holly Wood.
Do you Really think any of the Powers that be are going to allow any truth to come out that contradicts what they have done or Exposes any mass scandal they have been party to?
The Illusion of Integrity is more important than Integrity It's self.
@flybd5, I can think of better ways of promoting science than displaying blatant intolerance for other ways of thinking. Even Dawkins now asserts that religious people can be competent scientists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy distrust of science lies in three problems I've noticed with how it's done.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) Scientists have become the flunkies of suits, mostly because of funding, or more broadly stated, because suits control scientists' ability to perform their work. Others on this forum have rendered good comments to the funding problem; to theirs I add the example of how the suits broke Robert Oppenheimer.
2) As a consequence, scientists frequently answer the wrong questions, or fail to address the broader implications of their research. Take the smoking "debate" of the 1980s and 1990s -- it (hopefully) laid to rest one question, but didn't answer some more meaningful ones, such as, "Why avoid one kind of death for another?", or maybe a variant -- "Why live to 100 when you can only work to 70?" Scientists frequently excuse themselves from those questions by labelling them as philosophical or political, which I find a bit too convenient.
3) Speaking of convenience, or its' absence, sometimes those who advocate science-supported positions fail to follow through. Take climate change and Al Gore -- sure, he traded his limo for a Prius, but has he reduced his carbon footprint substantially? I've not found convincing evidence that he or anyone who thinks like him has. Ghandhi and King lived by example. Considering the stakes -- survival of homo sapiens -- one would think Mr. Gore would embrace a life of pre-industrialism, which right now is the only sure way to fight the problem. Apparently the sacrifices needed to ward off climate change will have to be borne by others. We shouldn't fault scientists for the hypocrisy of others, especially politicians. But when science provides those in power with the tools and justification to impose their will, scientists should call hypocrites out, or else they will find themselves regarded as little better than the clergy.
While I agree with the sentiment of your message, and you are indeed correct. These shows still have their place. They place science in the popular arena. Things like creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin, a super nova is indeed rather destructive. Is it the most destructive? Perhaps not, but it's WAY up there...but then there is the other side of the coin....without nova's we wouldn't have the panaramic display of elements and the molecules made of them. There would only be the lighter elements, since the heavier elements are created in the explosive forces of a nova and super nova.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as the 1/10th remark about galaxies and accounting for mass in the universe? Yes there is some reference for that....it's called gravity and basic newtonian and relativistic physics which explain how objects interact in space. The universal dance "implies" there should be more mass to account for the amount of gravity in the system...Sure there are two solutions...either there is more mass we cannot see, or we don't understand gravity/mass interactions as well as we believe...Either way, the 1/10th statement is correct until either solution becomes evident.
I personally have trouble believing scientists when I can replicate some basic scenarios in my back yard that contradict what science says, and when scientists attempt to narrow a "cause" down to a single thing or reason and seem to fail to understand the whole "system" of the interaction. For instance modern chemical agriculture vs organic permaculture. Shoot we never needed so much poison before, why now is it absolutely required? Because we totally messed up the system and knocking it out of balance. That's just one example of science I can contradict in my own backyard.
You say, "As a scientist myself..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease. Really?
Why can't commentors here be concise? Who wants to plow through 2000 words just to discover a point that could be made in 3 sentences?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEver notice the inverse relation between verbosity and validity?
My observation: People don't trust scientists because there are political, religious and business entities which actively undermine science for their own purposes.
Nicely put, George.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a skeptic, guided by science, I have no dispostive, falsifiable basis to believe in any deity. As a human, shaped by evolution, I fervently wish for such assurance (and many, unfettered by scientific discipline choose to believe on faith). Strictly speaking, this makes me an atheist.
I am disturbed by a particular strain of what I call "militant atheism" though. I see many people hewing to atheism as an act of faith! Huh? Moreover, they bludgeon religious believers for THEIR beliefs based on faith. The only rational, science based atheist position is the one I paraphrased above - no dispositive, falsifiable evidence of a deity exists, so no basis for belief exists. "God" is "not proven to exist," not (and never will be) "proven to not exist." That null hypothesis is a toughie...
I see no contradiction here. Scientists are mostly trustworthy, it is businessmen promoting their products who people (rightly) distrust. There have been so many examples of businesses covering up or distorting scientific evidence that their products are causing harm that a person would have be extremely naive not to be have serious doubts about any claim of product safety. The problem for science comes in when the scientists themselves become businessmen or allow themselves to become like politicians and be controlled by the $$$ that big businesses hand out to get what they want.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps your arrogance overshadows your message. Certainly you've heard of empirical evidence. I.e.; my child is fine when they receive a vaccine. After the vaccination they are never fine again. It’s not hard to understand.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoctors act as public health officials in this area, and as such have a different goal than parents. Parents are concerned with protecting their children. Doctors are concerned with protecting the greatest number of children. These are very different things.
Also, perhaps if “science” weren’t so easy to buy, the public at large could learn to trust it. How many “scientists” testified that smoking is not addictive, and earlier that does not harm your health? Take food dyes and high fructose corn syrup for instance. Ask a scientist on either side of these arguments and you get two completely different answers. I could go on all day with examples such as these, but I’m confident you all know what I mean.Then take the instances that time has proven false. Remember Y2K, bird flu or even swine flu? Big televised dramatics, small actual outcomes.
Again, it’s not hard at all to understand. Given just these examples, blindly believing anyone that says you should because they are a scientist would be foolish.
Nicely stated, SteveinOG. I agree with both points.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLooks like someone has forgotten that television is about entertainment. And that you can split hairs over it only detracts from your argument. What's next? You going to rag on The Magic School Bus?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Humans do seem to prize accuracy above all."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have never seen the slightest evidence of this. Humans who prize accuracy seem to be in a minority; the majority (at least in the US) hew to beliefs that are without evidentiary support, or worse are overtly contradicted by evidence, and they also contend that such belief makes them better and moral.
I totally agree with you, when most people read or speak about a subject, they don't differentiate between a "Theory" or a "Hypothesis" and what is "Actual Fact."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisModern day science is dominated by individual scientists and groups of scientists who are funded by business or special interests. They get their grants from business, from corporations. If they don't get it from business they get it from the government. When they get it from the government they have to satisfy criteria laid down by government committees and these committees are loaded with establishment scientists. These are the the keepers of truth. The establishment firewall against heresy and those who would challenge accepted consensus on how the world 'is'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCorporations also have committees looking at how their money goes to their sponsored and supported scientists. They review projects. They monitor progress. They comment on direction. They make suggestions about research results and how are interpreted.
The world of "Science" is a complex one. It is not occupied by sweet moral scientists who pay for their research out of daddy's wealthy earnings.
It is no wonder therefore that we are in a period of some of the worst science being carried out in living memory - in parallel of course with some of the greatest. It's not long ago that we had DDT, Thalidomide, breast implants. Then it was cold fusion, the appalling studies of the use of cell phones in cars. Nowadays we have laboratories all over the world competing to make discoveries first. Competing to get grants. Competing to win investment form the corporations. The result as any reader of newspapers and watchers of TV knows ... a never ending series of announcements of new discoveries that last about 4 months before someone else tells us that no, the previous announcement was wrong, the facts are different.
The food sector is the biggest culprit. Who believes anything that they hear on the news these days about caffeine being good or bad for the heart. Real butter or margarine. Aspirin for heart attacks or not. The list goes on and on and on and on.... and on.
When we combine that with a media who's coverage of Science is shocking in it's incompetence and lack of quality. All we we read about in the media is 'new discoveries', 'new research claims', 'shocking new research' etc etc etc. No context, no overview.
It is hardly surprising that the wider public often confused and bewildered.
People say that (especially in the US) Science needs to be taught better. I agree. But I also believe that the Scientific Process needs to be taught better and how the Scientific Process develops over time. Even in good schools this is often not taught either.
Among scientists, yes, there is in fact a near consensus on global warming. That's what it was talking about. It's unsure in your comment whether you were aware of this and yet erroneously believe that a significant portion of scientists don't believe in the reality of global warming, or if you misinterpreted what the article was saying and thought it meant amongst the people there isn't a consensus. Which would be true...lots of morons like yourself out there. But either way, you are wrong. Which happens quite often to deniers, so this should be par for the course for you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suggest that one way to gain more trust is to recognize that it is not only scientists who experience a credibility gap, it is almost everybody at one time or another. But I think there is a solution. Following up on Mr. Willingham's suggestion to focus on pre-college education, I would ask educators to spend focused time playing with models of all types, showing not only that they all have elements in common, but they are the basis for all understanding. Once that is recognized, they can show how religion, science and for the visually inclined, even fashion, depend on how they construct their models all of which are designed to provide a degree of understanding... and then accept that the type of understanding you crave may be different that the type of understanding that someone else needs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThough rudimentary, I have tried to develop such a 12-step program at http://www.angertozen.com/index-the-path-to-understanding. I would be interested to hear if others think there is any value to the study of models such as this, perhaps as a precursor to science, math, economics, and even religion.
It's not about vaccines,or at least shouldn't be but about Thimerosal added as a preservative which is 49.6% mercury by weight. The body can tolerate small amounts of mercury; however, some people are more susceptible. You could have ten thousand children be fine & one messed up. This would seem like a good statistics if everyone had an equal chance of being messed up. However, one way to look at it is in a plane crash. In a single plane crash, you have a 99.999% chance of dying. Among all flights it is more like .001% When it is your child, the statics don't matter. Especially when avoiding Thimerosal/vaccines puts you at 99.999% of avoiding autism due to Thimerosal/vaccines. You simply can't place blame on vaccines if you don't get vaccines & your child still ends up Autistic. Another problem with vaccines is you can not directly sue the pharmaceutical company. Of course, no one mentions that little detail. A special vaccine court was set up which basically shields pharmaceutical companies making vaccines from extreme law suits. On the one side, if the court was not set up a vaccine class action lawsuit could easily be in the high billions. No one would produce vaccines. On the other hand, with that type of protection from lawsuits their is no real disincentive to not cut corners or not make mistakes to maximize profits. For a corporation, it is simply a numbers game. If cutting corners is going to save or make $10 million & the worst case, if caught, is it might cost $500,000. Then there you have it. One can request vaccination without the preservative Thimerosal. However, the vaccine may not be available to you & your area due to time & the inevitable contamination getting it two you. To vaccine or not to vaccine is a decision that can not & should not be made lightly. Safe is often wrongly & inappropriately used in place of statistical data. Typically to gain trust & sell a product; however, nothing is really "safe." There are potentially life time consequences either way. The real problem is our government & corporations have proven time and time again, that trust is not one of their shining attributes. I understand both sides. But consider this: If there really was a sold link to autism and vaccines & Thimerosal would the people really be told about it right away? Corporations could lose billions because a few kids become autistic. Sounds cruel, but corporations are a legal entity. Not a human person although they have human like rights. So, morals don't apply. Only the edge of the law and the cost to break it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is another reason many people distrust scientists, they read here,, on Scientific American, that if one doesn't agree with you on 'climate change', you must be a 'moron'. True science welcomes dissent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, by the way, on the other hand, some 31,000, including over 9,000 Phd's have signed this http://www.petitionproject.org/ petition, stating disbelief in anthropogenic climate change. Are they deniers, or are you?
Yes there is - among scientists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou calling it a political issue shows which camp you belong to.
It is valid to argue what/how much can or should be done about it but denying the facts is deeply unscientific.
Do you blame people for not trusting science? How many times has there been a survey with the headline of something like, "scientists now say eggs are good for you." Just 20 years ago eggs were the worst thing you could eat because of the cholesterol. These surveys are usually not science but they are presented in the media as such. Additionally, do not forget that there was a time when all the leading minds in the world thought the sun revolved around the earth when in fact the exact opposite was true. A healthy scepticism of science is good as it forces additional testing of scientific theories and ultimately produces more valid results. That being said I would tend to agree thet the pendulum has swung too far and people are almost choosing willful ignorance in the face of glaring evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs that the Oregon petition you are referring to? It's been debunked and debunked and debunked...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Willingham wrote a great piece and it's no surprise that many of these comments just so beautifully demonstrate his points.
Re: scientists always changing their minds, well that just demonstrates a misconception about science and how it works. Epidemiology studies often present conflicting results and when the popular media writes about one study that seems to go against other findings, people mistakenly think scientists are always "changing their minds" and thus one can't trust anything they say. But when studies have been replicated again and again and again, the medical and scientific community will then form a consensus. The fact that many in the general public seem to go against scientific consensus is a real problem and is either based on one's political or religious beliefs or a lack of understanding of how science actually works, which I think is what Willingham has said.
Feynman said it best: "Science is a way of trying not to fool ourselves." And I hate to be rude here, but it's obvious that many people who don't trust science as a process are, well, fools.
Suse1,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"many people who don't trust science as a process are, well, fools."
So what do you call biologists who trust their rules and assumptions without testing them? I know, the process to which you refer requires scientists to test their assumptions - but biologists do not. Does that mean they do not qualify as scientists?
Those rules and assumptions are based on Darwin's explanation of the evolutionary mechanism. Darwin got his theories at least half right, maybe three quarters right, but when he came to the driver of the process, he decided that external conditions had no direct effect and he plumped for internal qualities of individuals that favoured them in struggle against others within the species. Ask the question "what favoured those qualities?" and you would think the obvious answer is the external conditions, but Darwin had committed himself to a theory that they some qualities are innately superior, regardless of the conditions. Species adapt to specific conditions not because of the effect of those conditions, but because they are favoured in those conditions. Go read ch. 3 of Origin and see if you can follow the "logic".
Darwin decided on Natural Selection because that is what people in the society he grew up in believe. Read it in Spencer, read it in Malthus and read it in Darwin - and read it in the writngs of his cousin Galton, who founded eugenics.
Darwin understood that, for Natural Selection to be true, any variation that gave a slight advantage had to immediately produce incremental change. The more variations, the more change - it is all there in Origin. All of Darwin's assumptions are the OPPOSITE of what geneticists have found. Variations happen all the time and accumulate as diversity. More variations are a sign of a lack of evolutionary change. The sign of evolution is not emergence of variations, but the elimination of variations. A recent study found 510 deletions from the genome that might account for the special qualities of humans.
What caused those deletions? The obvious candidate is survival pressure from changes in external conditions, the very factor that Darwin rejected to arrive at Natural Selection.
Most biologists now accept that external conditions have major effect, but they cling to assumptions that are based on the opposite of what they now believe. Read more on:
http://ideasintuitionandthinking.com/blog
Take the time to follow the arguments and ask yourself how much you can trust science that does do the basics, test its assumptions.
Oops, did that last post without editing it, so it had a few typos, and my last point was "Take the time to follow the arguments and ask yourself how much you can trust science that does NOT do the basics, test its assumptions."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDavid Bainbridge
www.ideasintuitionandthinking.com
Unfortunately you are completely right. But we as sceptics have an honourable tradition and we have to accept that publications like SciAm will always side with the 'Establishment' and any Consensus that forms.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately also, Consensus is the enemy of Science. It discourages new thinking and healthy scepticism among the scientific community where scientists also rely on reputation to advance their careers and win research grants.
Hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou miss the point entirely. First, regarding Darwin, he did not know of Mendel's work when he submitted his book. (I once read the Mendel's manuscript was sitting on his desk unread.) If he had known the principles of genetics, imagine how much better his understanding would have been. And that's the beauty of Darwin, despite his lack of some fundamental evidence, his theory of evolution by natural selection was pretty spot-on.
It's funny, you are actually arguing my point without even realizing it. The scientific process has corrected any misconceptions in Darwin's model. As we gather more evidence about the natural world, we refine our theories and that is EXACTLY WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. So, yes, you should trust the scientific process (even if you have an agenda and a book that you are promoting). It's a logical fallacy to dismiss science because some ideas in the fields have been wrong or need to be further defined. That, you see, is the beauty of the scientific process--it's self-correcting! One may not like the actual scientists but should trust the process. All these complaints about consensus being stifling miss the mark. Science should be conservative when it comes to redefining its major theories. Theories are built upon mountains of evidence and if one or two or even three studies present conflicting data, scientists should not just throw up their hands and say, "Oh, darn, we're wrong again!" The studies need to be replicated again and again and when they are and the evidence holds true, we redefine the theories. The scientific process is not perfect by any means but it's the best thing we've got.
Suse1,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou say I "miss the point entirely". I did not miss your point. Your point is a theoretical possibility achieved all too rarely in reality. You paint a picture of a scientific paradise, in which as more knowledge is gained, "science" self corrects its assumptions.
I apologise for pricking your paradisical balloon. All knowledge, known and unkown, existed before "science" discovered it. What we call "science" is actually a product of what human brains currently know and are able to comprehend.
You totally miss my point. The biological sciences have attached themselves to rules and assumptions that are based on Natural Selection, that was in turn based on Darwin's beliefs that external conditions had no direct effect, that evolution is driven by internal qualities of individuals that favour them in competitive struggle. Darwin's beliefs were in turn based on cultural attitudes of the society in which he was raised. That was the same society in which Malthus, Spencer and Galton were raised, and those attitudes show up in their writings, as it does in Natural Selection. In the C21st it shows up in biological studies published in science journals.
Your paradisical vision does apply to a large extent to the physical sciences, where phenomena can be observed and tested. Yet the physical sciences are strewn with situations in which understanding of phenomena was not constrained by lack of data, but by a failure in the interpretation of data that was known. And even clear cut physical phenomena are subject to external conditions. Water freezes at zero centigrade, but even that varies, dependent on temperature, pressure and mineral content of the water.
I understand why Darwin clung to these beliefs. Why do C21st "scientists" cling to assumptions that are based on those beliefs, even though their own science proves that those beliefs, and hence Natural Selection, are wrong?
Your vision of science being self correcting is an arrogant fantasy that ignores reality, just like Creationists who ignore facts, confident that their beliefs are correct.
In the meantime, biologists continue to cling to assumptions that they seem blissfully unaware are disproved by their own data. They are also blissfully unaware that their "science" places them in a Catch-22. If biologists attempt to test the validity of Natural Selection, their "science" requires them to use assumptions that are based on Natural Selection. As Godel found, it is not possible to test the system within the system.
David Bainbridge
www.ideasintuitionandthinking.com
I think there are several other things this article did not mention that contributes to why people may not trust science/scientists. #1 is religion. Many people's religious institutions encourage them to distrust or flat out deny science when it conflicts with their religion. #2 is the media. First we have channels that claim to be scientific like Discovery, National Geographic, History Channel which are not scientific in the least. Many of the programs on these channels no longer even relate to science... how is some dysfunctional family's shop science? The program Dirty Jobs might be interesting but it's not science. And don't even get me started on shows like the "Ghost Hunters" or "A Haunting." We also have the news media grabbing onto any scientific headline and reporting it as the find of the century while completely missing the real point of the study and on top of that no matter how sound the science is behind the finding the news media insists on turning it into a controversy because that's what sells. #3 is that science education rarely teaches students how to distinguish between pseudoscience and real science. #4 is that scientific findings are rarely accessible to the average person. The average person typically does not have the special vocab that is necessary to read and understand a scientific study...we need good scientific speech to laymans terms translators (more Carl Sagans and Neil DeGrasse Tysons). Science needs to be made available to the public in a digestible non-sensational way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeveral good points Alistarz . . .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's face it Religion values 'faith' as one of the greatest human traits. So from the start it values the willingness to forego evidence and rational thinking.
The Media is the biggest disappointment in this, because we expect more from them. Instead we get superficial chasing of headlines. Even, dare I say, Scientific American concentrates FAR too much on discoveries and not enough on educating the reader about 'The Scientific method'. When was the last article in SciAm that really expounded the meaning and greatness of The Scientific method ?
We need more Context. We need more Perspective. We need more temperate responses to wild new claims.
Well, it's because the rationalists have taken over science. Because they dismiss their intuitive side, it's obvious they're half-wits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I apologise for pricking your paradisical balloon. All knowledge, known and unkown, existed before "science" discovered it. What we call "science" is actually a product of what human brains currently know and are able to comprehend."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't give yourself so much credit, hoamingin--you've pricked nothing. Knowledge existed before science discovered it? That doesn't make much sense. Reality existed before science and by studying the natural world, humans have acquired knowledge and using that knowledge humans have then created models to explain the natural world. That's science. Sometimes the models change as more evidence is attained. That's science. You're on the fringe with your views and you say I'm arrogant while you dismiss the foundation of Biology? All these scientists are wrong and you with your intuition is right? Interesting.
You seem to lack a sound understanding of natural selection, specifically genetic variation as the raw material and the environment as the force that "selects" traits. But you stick with your intuition, that's fine. And Darwin did not know about genes as the basis of heredity, okay? You'll probably respond that I missed your point and blather on about whatever it is you've been blathering on about and well, that's fine, too. But maybe it will be another chance to promote your website.
Suse1,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI apologise for my imprecise expression. What I meant, of course, was that facts - or as you describe them, reality - existed before "science" discovered them. Thank you for confirming that science is not reality.
Science is the human brain's latest interpretations of that part of reality that is known - the data. As you say, an interpretation can change when additional information makes it clear that the interpretation no longer fits the data. But first, someone has to look at the data and question the interpretation.
By definition, that person's views will be on the fringe. Science advances when someone asks the question that puts them on the fringe and others actually engage their brains, look at the facts and agree on the more accurate interpretation.
Sitting on the fringe with an interpretation supported by the data is better than clinging to interpretations that are disproved by the data (if you actually look at the data and question the interpretation, as scientists are supposed to do).
You say that I lack a sound understanding of natural selection, yet in the same sentence you say that the environment is the force that "selects" traits. Darwin did not use the word "environment" in Origin. He used the word "conditions" and specifically excluded them from natural selection, arguing that they had no direct effect.
It seems to me that you make the mistake that I have found to be common among biologists, the loose use of terms without proper study of what those terms mean. Most biologists I have communicated with on this issue believe, as you seem to, that external conditions drive species change and they call that natural selection, when it is the reverse of natural selection.
If you reverse the beliefs that led to natural selection - internal qualities that favour individuals in struggle that results in the extermination (Darwin's word) of unimproved individuals - you have to reverse the assumptions that biology has constructed from them.
I agree with you that external conditions are the only factor capable of creating pressure on a species to produce change. I assume that you put " " around the word "selects" because you understand that there is no mechanism by which conditions can "select" traits. They can only eliminate individuals unable to survive in the prevailing conditions. That is a negative process that I call Natural Deselection.
And yes, I will mention my blog for anyone interested in the evidence.
David Bainbridge
http://ideasintuitionandthinking.com
You illustrate the theme of the article quite well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientific prof is thought experiment.Genuine scientist also did not clam that his discovery is ultimate truth.He open minded and ready to take bake his so called truth. All scientific finding ultimately thought experiment so common man must not blindly believe to any discovery is final
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an artist whose father was a scientist, I have to disagree in part with Mr Willingham. Art and science are both methods for discovering truths about existence (or its lack). This is interesting because it implies that there is no such thing as bad art or bad science, which there isn't. Bad art is not art and bad science is not science. Bad as a descriptive for either term is oxymoronic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an artist whose father was a scientist, I have to disagree with Mr. Willingham. Art and science are both methods for discovering truths about existence (or its lack), and as such, both are exact and unassailable. Confusion can come in when terms such as "bad art" and "bad science" get used. There are no such things, just as there are no such things as "bad truths". If the search itself goes awry, the result can be neither art nor science, just an attempt at either. I agree, by the way, with his inclusion of politics and religion, which seem to be nothing more than methods for acquiring private gain through manipulation, sometimes of both art and science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisB. Bever
I am very glad this topic was covered in Scientific American; however, Mr. Willingham's given reasons for the public distrust of science are overly simplistic, as several others have commented. We might find quite a bit of distrust among the comments above, not directed at science or it's method but at scientists, i.e. people who work in a scientific field. You see, there is quite a difference between the two, and we cannot say that the man who distrusts a scientist also distrusts science, per se.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs several wrote in previous comments, the funding connected with scientific research and applications is entirely left out of the article as if it were a non-issue. The public, however, Mr. Scientist, is not fooled; science is big business. Science discovers and develops data by which medical, sociological, environmental, political, religious - virtually every aspect of the human world - is affected. Minds and cultures and economies move with scientific breakthroughs. People make a living, sometimes even a killing, on new scientific advances. And as humble as a scientist might be, as dedicated and deliberate as he might be, there may very well be others who are far more motivated by profit. Or perhaps some are terribly concerned about what they perceive to be the public good, and it might be very tempting to shape the presentation (or scandalously even the data) to manipulate the non-experts to "make" the desired personal decision about what to DO with the available scientific data. Trusting science doesn't mean one has blind faith in the bearer of good or bad news. While trusting science one might still keep a wary eye on that scientist and his financial backer, lest their murky motives and self-serving schemes work some trickery.
(Rest of comment directly follows)
Let me be more specific, Dr. Bob Sears provided confused patents a detailed account of each immunization, including differences between brands, assuaging the stress of a controversial (at the time) medical decision. He gently assured them they could trust doctors and the scientists. Imagine my surprise to see that he still promoted Tylenol for infants despite clear evidence that infants who take Tylenol have incredibly higher incidents of asthma. On two other occasions recently, I was offered medical statements which were stripped down to the point of being technically false. Even I, (a simple philosophy student with very limited medical knowledge) could plainly see the errancy of the doctor's intentional statements. We do not have a lack of education in the sciences, we have web-md, The Elegant Universe on TV and museums. We have just enough scientific knowledge to think, "that sound like bulls---". We don't have an epidemic distrust of science, but of the clarity and veracity of the packaged science we are sold.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBoth the article itself and another article, Masters of Disguise, are prime examples of why scientists are so distrusted. Scientists USED TO have MUCH more education than most other people. But now there are plenty of people with graduate degrees in other fields and they are just as smart and well-educated. They realize that science is riddled with politics, both academic politics and science politics (completely ignoring governmental politics). Decades ago virtually no scientists talked about life outside Earth. Now it is accepted as a fact. What INFORMATION has changed?--NOTHING. There isn't ONE SHRED of significantly different evidence. (In modern times it was generally assumed that extra-solar planets existed.) Plate tectonics was considered ridiculous by the entire scientific community. Once academic and scientific political views changed suddenly it was open to investigation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother example is the ridiculous conclusions scientists routinely advocate as fact. Supposedly evolution occurs by natural selection after random mutation. Why would RANDOM MUTATION cause caterpillars to develop BOTH the SAME chemical AND sonic signals of the QUEEN of a completely different species? Why would random mutation cause a white butterfly to develop colors like an unrelated species--not in its native environment but only in its new environment? Why would random mutation cause one species to develop color patterns exactly matching a completely different species? And if those pattern changes do occur by random chance, why don't we see millions of OTHER random patterns that DON'T match any known species? After all, even if those random mutations don't get passed on, at least a few of those individuals should occasionally be seen.
A point I didn't make clearly is that the article failed to mention that the public is aware that which scientists get published and which conclusions are blessed or condemned are to a certain extent determined by academic or scientific politics. His failure to examine or admit that is one reason for a certain amount of public distrust of scientists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a 66 year old engineer and life long science supporter, but I have recently lost virtually all respect for the scientific community. The likelihood of man-made effects on the earth's climate in no way justifies the rampant group think, distortion and political correctest of virtually all discussion of the subject. I have news for all you supposed scientists, not every place that is too dry will get drier, not every place that is too wet will get wetter, higher levels of carbon dioxide and higher temperatures will not reduce plant growth, global warming is not a significant factor in all environmental problems and global warming is not a threat to life on earth. In short I am sick and tired of group-think propaganda being touted as science. Any honest look at the climate change debate will find a total lack of cost benefit analysis and a total acceptance of unjustified linkages in the “scientific” community – what garbage. How anyone with a ounce of integrity can go along with the current willfully distorted and sloppy group think that is accepted as scientific analysis, is beyond me – I though only politicians were that dishonest. Why don't you change this magazine's name to Scientific Propaganda.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is more to it than a lack of appreciation of the rigours of the sicentific method by non-scientifically people. A healthy scepticism has developped over time amongst well informed citizens who have learned that science has often been co-opted by certain vested interests. For exmaple, half a Century ago doctors were still touting the "health benefits" of smoking. Around the same time DDT was still "safe" and a birth control pill was being develloped that did not pose any health risks , or so we were told. As we know those "facts" of all been disproven by real science. More recently as the effects of global warming have thrust that issue into the public realm, some elements of the scientific community have been trying to cast doubts upon the results of decades of research -litterally millions of person-hours of work - in the field of climate change. One can easily speculate on who may be behind that effort ! The public has been mislead in the past , and will continue to be as long as science can be corrupted, albeit temporarily.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProbably because scientists are always jumping on the latest bandwagon with "opinions" like, second hand smoke is bad but without having any proof but their own political correctness as a basis, or and this is the latest, well maybe salt isn't bad for you after all. I don't want an interim opinion concerning the law of gravity give me the finished product.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProbably because scientists are always jumping on the latest bandwagon with "opinions" like, second hand smoke is bad but without having any proof but their own political correctness as a basis, or and this is the latest, well maybe salt isn't bad for you after all. I don't want an interim opinion concerning the law of gravity give me the finished product.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom our own unscientific beliefs, we would like to share the following:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this• Man is not the rational animal but the rationalizing animal: first and foremost our drives are emotional, at most with a veneer of rationality to come up with reasons for what we did in hindsight. Why else would it be so difficult to do the right things, like quitting smoking, losing weight and exercising enough to build a healthy body?
• On top of that, people are naturally averse to uncertainty. It seems only natural that people continue certain ways that are not optimal just because they are more afraid of the unknown.
• In contrast, a lot of scientific knowledge is prone to large margins of error and evolving continuously as result of scientific debate performed in public with pro’s and con’s expressed with fervor and passion. To the untrained eye, this does not appear as providing the level of certainty people feel comfortable with. This might explain why people are more likely to follow the emotionally tuned certainties provided by religious leaders, especially the charismatic ones among them.
• Besides, science has progressed to the point where many scientific theories have evolved to a level that is far beyond what people experience in day to day life. Consequentially, a lot of scientific knowledge is not actionable for them. Just think of the Mickey Mouse language workers need to use to communicate with their bosses? Everything in normal life has to be reduced to the simplest possible ideas for people to be able to handle information.
• And what to think about the evident influence sponsors have on the direction and sometimes even the outcomes of research? Just look at what has been going on in the tobacco and food industry in the last 50 years or so.
• There are also a lot of cultural forces in effect. The typical movie portrays the scientist as the autistic nerd who is needed to solve the technical issues but who stands aside as the real hero –typically a lone shooter like Clint Eastwood- goes against all common sense and conventions and odds to resolve the issue with force and as result is shouldered in praise. It is not Hollywood that defines our culture but is certainly a reflection of the archetypes in our culture.
To summarize:
People are emotional rather than rational; they abhor uncertainty, contradiction and complexity; they adore the traditional hero.
Science is full of uncertainty and conflicting views, is complex and far removed from day to day practice, biased by big money and apparently performed by socially disconnected nerds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisreal science and the real god are perfectly compatable, or one or even both are wrong!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy so many people choose not to believe what scientists say?
are you kidding?
because lots of so called science isn't science.
scientists [and what they do] are not some sort of special type of people to be revered.
everyone should be encouraged to think for themselves.
science is what science is, and not a bit more.
science is run by fallable humans.
far too much is expected of science.
science is actually quite limited.
in reaction to #74:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are quite right. Religion is propagated through castes of priests holding the right beliefs. Science is propagated by doubt; the is no place for a cast of scientists to be believed or revered just for being scientists. We should not fall into that trap. Indeed, everyone should be encouraged to think for themselves.
However, ignoring or denying scientific results from others is different than doubting and forming your own opinion. It could be downright stupid. I mean, we teach our children that stoves are hot and wall sockets are dangerous. Should they find out for themselves?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisshould they find out for themselves?
YES!
and they will
and they do
it probably happened too early for most to remember exactly when they learned that stoves were too hot to put their hand on for too long of a time.
AND you can actually touch a stove for a fraction of a second and be ok.
there is very little in the world of knowledge that should not be questioned. I err on the side of EVERTHING should and can be questioned, but we are discouraged, which makes most tow the line. [not a good thing]
think for ourselves!
being wrong or right is not the issue.
eventually it should be, but we are a long way from that with lots of our ideas.
only a few 'seconds' ago only an idiot thought we could fly.
one of the biggest obstacles to real learning is when we want something to be true.
later.
Two thoughts:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this- A reason that some people distrust scientists may be that we accept the scientific method and want to practice it ourselves, but cannot for findings announced by scientists because we can't see or interpret the data. Paradoxically, scientists are asking rational people to take their results on faith.
- The author says that science is more accurate than religion, politics, and art. What is artistic, religious, or political 'accuracy'? Surely the definition of the term is different in each realm. Political accuracy might refer to how well a politician's actions correspond to a political reality; artistic accuracy might mean how well a work of art's emotional evocation maps to an emotional response for a given viewer to a particular real situation. Religious accuracy might mean how well a religious teacher passes on a teaching of her religion. Scientific accuracy is different from all of these, which deal with different kinds of facts and theories.
I believe that generally speaking people tend to trust scientists on most matters, but honestly speaking no one is perfect; even a scientist so you cannot expect everything they say to be 100% correct. I personally trust scientists with most things; but something very serious like a vaccination, being linked to getting autism I would not put my faith in that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes I agree with the fact that if a scientist states something that someone already believes in then they will listen to that scientist. Usually people aren't very open minded, and don't want to change their perspectives on different topics due to hard headedness. And the belief that they are correct. For example, politics, government,and daily life topics.
If a person disagrees, or opposes someones else's view then they should make a comment about it and have a discussion with that person and see why their opinons differ. Unless this person disagrees with a scientist about something very drastic like getting a life or death surgery or something along those lines; then I don't believe that it puts anyone in danger.
I've read the comments printed on this site, and realize that I'm more of a believer in science than I thought. I tend to agree with the party who says funding makes a difference. I read with great reservation the remarks of scientists who work for corporations or certain branches of government, such as the USDA. I wanted to admit that I have reservations about genetically altered foods. It's not that I think they'll hurt me. Rather, I wonder if they will hurt the planet. The scientists involved in creating genetically modified crops all work either for agribusiness (chemical companies) or agri-promotion (the USDA). These scientists are not paid to concern themselves with long-term effects, and I am left to my own devices, or to non-profit environmental organizations, to figure out the conundrum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour comment only shows your lack of knowledge on this topic and your intent to misdirect. You say that climate change is a charged political issue. You imply that there is not consensus and say that somehow that makes scientists suspicious. The only place there is not consensus on global warming is in the public, industry, and politics. There is nearly unanimous consensus in the scientific community. Why should dissent on climate shange science from non-scientists reflect badly on the scientific community?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only significant dissent on the issue of climate change comes from those whose source of profit contributes to the problem and who would suffer financially if measures were taken to combat climate change.
I agree with you that these so-called educational cable channels have become a wasteland but I do not think it is appropriate to identify the jokers that populate this wasteland with real scientists. They are entertainers and nothing more. I do not accept these people into my "community", most of them are an embarrasment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"A friend of mine has long held a vaccination his son received triggered his child’s autism. ...a string of scientific studies... show no link between autism and vaccines."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis quote marks the writer as ignorant of the truth or willing accomplice to the FRAUDULENT consensus that vaccines don't cause autism. This person doesn't have any facts to support the outlandish claims in this article.
Bailey Banks & Hannah Poling both have autistic spectrum PDD. Their seperate cases were presented in USA's National Vaccine Injury Program's Vaccine Court. The latest research was presented by expert child neurologists convincing judges by a preponderance of SCIENTIFIC & MEDICAL evidence that MMR caused autism spectrum.
Mary Holland & colleagues reviewed NVIP records showing 83 children whose brains were proved damaged by vaccines developed autism.
Also in Willingham's article - "When the original paper on such a link was recently discredited as a fraud..."
Another BLATANTLY inaccurate statement. The General Medical Council never questioned the science behind the paper Dr Andrew Wakefield & 12 other highly qualified medical professionals created in 1998. The GMC questioned the ethics & clinical opinions of 2 of the 12, Dr Wakefield and Dr/Professor Walker-Smith. Smith has been completely exonerated in his appeal & his license restored. High Court Justice Mitting severely criticized GMC methods & conclusions.
Dr Wakefield could not afford the appeal's costs.
Additionally the 1998 paper states they DID NOT PROVE AN ASSOCIATION between MMR, enterocolitis & autism. But the authors did call for large independent studies to support or refute their findings.
The only charges of scientific fraud for Dr Wakefield's paper come from Brian Deer, a reporter with no medical or scientific training. Deer published his lies in The Sunday Times, owned by James Murdoch who also happened to be a paid director of GSK, Britain's MMR maker.
Prior to 2004 Deer worked for The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, a watchdog group keeping doctors in line if they dared question the practice of medicine & preservation of health through prescription drugs.
The writer of this article displays an attitude that cannot be changed by truth. It is motivated by supporting greedy applications of science, not safety, supported by true scientific method.
In 2011 there were over 500,000 adverse events associated w/ vaccinations in the USA.
Vaccines are important, but some kids can't be vaccinated. Proper screening could eliminate most injuries.
"A friend of mine has long held a vaccination his son received triggered his child’s autism. ...a string of scientific studies... show no link between autism and vaccines."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis quote marks the writer as ignorant of the truth or willing accomplice to the FRAUDULENT consensus that vaccines don't cause autism. This person doesn't have any facts to support the outlandish claims in this article.
Bailey Banks & Hannah Poling both have autistic spectrum PDD. Their seperate cases were presented in USA's National Vaccine Injury Program's Vaccine Court. The latest research was presented by expert child neurologists convincing judges by a preponderance of SCIENTIFIC & MEDICAL evidence that MMR caused autism spectrum.
Mary Holland & colleagues reviewed NVIP records showing 83 children whose brains were proved damaged by vaccines developed autism.
Also in Willingham's article - "When the original paper on such a link was recently discredited as a fraud..."
Another BLATANTLY inaccurate statement. The General Medical Council never questioned the science behind the paper Dr Andrew Wakefield & 12 other highly qualified medical professionals created in 1998. The GMC questioned the ethics & clinical opinions of 2 of the 12, Dr Wakefield and Dr/Professor Walker-Smith. Smith has been completely exonerated in his appeal & his license restored. High Court Justice Mitting severely criticized GMC methods & conclusions.
Dr Wakefield could not afford the appeal's costs.
Additionally the 1998 paper states they DID NOT PROVE AN ASSOCIATION between MMR, enterocolitis & autism. But the authors did call for large independent studies to support or refute their findings.
The only charges of scientific fraud for Dr Wakefield's paper come from Brian Deer, a reporter with no medical or scientific training. Deer published his lies in The Sunday Times, owned by James Murdoch who also happened to be a paid director of GSK, Britain's MMR maker.
Prior to 2004 Deer worked for The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, a watchdog group keeping doctors in line if they dared question the practice of medicine & preservation of health through prescription drugs.
The writer of this article displays an attitude that cannot be changed by truth. It is motivated by supporting greedy applications of science, not safety, supported by true scientific method.
In 2011 there were over 500,000 adverse events associated w/ vaccinations in the USA.
Vaccines are important, but some kids can't be vaccinated. Proper screening could eliminate most injuries.