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

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

a) You can't fix stupid.

b) You have mis-identified the problem. The root of the anti-vaxxer thing is one (1) paper which is known to have been faked. The reason facts don't work is that it's not about facts.
A great many people have never learned to distinguish between the functioning of their emotions and the functioning of their reason. "You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into."

[kaffy_r]

The reason facts don't work is that it's not about facts.

You should read some of the comments I made over at DW concerning this. My interest will always lie in figuring out how to break the mental logjam, or breaking down the mental walls between "I will never believe anything but this" and "Wait ... this is really uncomfortable to think about, but ..."