Too many people have jumped on this bandwagon for the wrong reasons. Sadly, most of those reasons are the same reasons as why Snopes.com doesn't successfully stop chain emails.
The freak out isn't dependent on truth or science. It's depending on panic. There's always a line in these discussions that some vaguely ominous sounding someone "doesn't want you to know" about it. They literally nip our attempts to use reason with that one sentence. We, trying to explain the true facts, become part of the conspiracy.
Then there's the various religious aspects, and the various naturalist aspects, and we're now fighting against enemies who've found a way to pitch their bivouack together.
Finally, it's always an uphill battle against the "then it can't happen to me" front. The condition, being over-diagnosed as it is, terrifies people, because it effects their children. But if they don't make the same "mistake", it can't happen to their kid.
Send out a spam email that the "insert random letters here" doesn't want you to know that the report was faked, that it was on Oprah on an unspecified date, and that this saved some celebrity's child, and you'll probably make better headway. I'm sorry, but humanity is just LIKE this.
There was a crazy bitch who purported to cure kinds of cancers in the 80s with fallacious logic and fake medical supplies. My husband's genuine science company still gets at least one call a month from people wanting to buy her stuff from them. She was struck off, here and in Mexico, but her victims are panicked people desperate for any answer that isn't "I'm sorry".
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branchandroot
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Date: Wednesday, 5 March 2014 05:56 pm (UTC)The freak out isn't dependent on truth or science. It's depending on panic. There's always a line in these discussions that some vaguely ominous sounding someone "doesn't want you to know" about it. They literally nip our attempts to use reason with that one sentence. We, trying to explain the true facts, become part of the conspiracy.
Then there's the various religious aspects, and the various naturalist aspects, and we're now fighting against enemies who've found a way to pitch their bivouack together.
Finally, it's always an uphill battle against the "then it can't happen to me" front. The condition, being over-diagnosed as it is, terrifies people, because it effects their children. But if they don't make the same "mistake", it can't happen to their kid.
Send out a spam email that the "insert random letters here" doesn't want you to know that the report was faked, that it was on Oprah on an unspecified date, and that this saved some celebrity's child, and you'll probably make better headway. I'm sorry, but humanity is just LIKE this.
There was a crazy bitch who purported to cure kinds of cancers in the 80s with fallacious logic and fake medical supplies. My husband's genuine science company still gets at least one call a month from people wanting to buy her stuff from them. She was struck off, here and in Mexico, but her victims are panicked people desperate for any answer that isn't "I'm sorry".
Hope you guys have better luck.