Dept. of Face Palm Isn't Enough

[kaffy_r]

So: Just How Do We Fix This?

A depressing little story from Mother Jones about the obstacles medical science faces when attempting to change the minds of anti-vaxxers.

When facts fail, do we look at how we deliver them? Do we look at what makes people reject them? Do we try to see the world from the nay-sayer's point of view in hopes of finding an argument or fact that might change her mind? Do we do all of those things?

Well, that's easy, I suppose. We do all of those things. But, lord, it's depressing to realize yet again that facts won't change peoples' minds.

(And it's depressing to realize that as a human, I could easily fall prey to the same blindness in other areas. Science? Not so much; but other areas? I'd better be willing to acknowledge my own biases.)

Comments

[kaffy_r]

You speak truth here, and that helps delineate the problem in depressing clarity. If we need to really depend on one-to-one and word-of-mouth, in a world as big as it is ... .

And yet we still have to try. Even if it's hard, we still have to try.