tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6287373418636302890.post6805945573286982132..comments2009-03-12T14:17:21.582-07:00Comments on The Science Police: Dispatch from The Times (UK): Paper linking autism and MMR vaccine verrrrry naughtyThe Science Policehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01565182138762026435noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6287373418636302890.post-61598574996253366832009-03-12T14:17:00.000-07:002009-03-12T14:17:00.000-07:00Neuroskeptic: Unfortunately, the mass public reall...Neuroskeptic: Unfortunately, the mass public really isn't very good at dealing with shades of grey. That takes background knowledge, a fair bit of thought, and the leisure and energy to break out of the "Will it kill me?" survival-focused mindset that we all slip into when confronted with flash-card bits of information, like an orange stripe glimpsed through the trees.<BR/><BR/>Which is a nuisance, and makes the job of science communicators an extremely cautious one.<BR/><BR/>TSP: "Extraordinary claims..." is a fairly common phrase, I didn't make it up :)Jonathan Hepburnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04333749909468762319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6287373418636302890.post-88907307781618150952009-03-12T04:54:00.000-07:002009-03-12T04:54:00.000-07:00TSP: That's right - although I'm not a big fan of ...TSP: That's right - although I'm not a big fan of the terminology of framing myself. But that's the idea. Almost everyone saw the issue as being "Does MMR cause autism?". To which the answer is "Almost certainly not", but you can never rule out some small risk.<BR/><BR/>What they should have asked is "Do the risks of MMR outweigh the benefits?", to which the answer is much more clear.<BR/><BR/>In a similar vein, people should not ask "Can antidepressants cause suicide?" but "Do antidepressants cause more suicides than they prevent?" - and so on.<BR/><BR/>In general, people tend to focus on the vaccines, or the drugs, and want to know whether they are "goodies" or "baddies", rather than focusing on the health outcomes and the best way to achieve them.<BR/><BR/>See also thalidomide, which despite being dangerous in pregnancy is very useful for a range of conditions. so long as you're not pregnant, it's a fine drug. Yet many people are surprised and even unsettled by that statement. They see thalidomide as a "bad drug" - when in fact like everything else, it's bad if you misuse it and useful if you use it right.Neuroskeptichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06647064768789308157noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6287373418636302890.post-45898153012772544482009-03-10T21:50:00.000-07:002009-03-10T21:50:00.000-07:00Greetings DubitoThe Science Police are in full agr...Greetings Dubito<BR/><BR/>The Science Police are in full agreement that -- along with instilling a sense of wonder in the natural world -- strengthening fishy smell detection would be a worthwhile emphasis of any basic elementary school education. And a CORNERSTONE of training in journalism. We are happy if our humble thoughts have reached someone who has been / will be involved in communication with the larger non-professional science world (which we can only dimly sense from afar). <BR/><BR/>"Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof." -- Dubito, is this idea based in a quote from somewhere? Or is it just the case that great minds thing alike? (c.f., "sensational claims need to be supported..." above)<BR/><BR/>Walking the beat,<BR/>The Science PoliceThe Science Policehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01565182138762026435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6287373418636302890.post-69062568279640187182009-03-10T00:35:00.000-07:002009-03-10T00:35:00.000-07:00Additional comment:I'd be intrigued to know what y...Additional comment:<BR/><BR/>I'd be intrigued to know what you think of my cobbled-together baloney detection kit:<BR/><BR/>http://sumdubito.blogspot.com/2008/05/science-101-how-we-know-that-what-we.htmlJonathan Hepburnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04333749909468762319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6287373418636302890.post-62354917148686796692009-03-10T00:20:00.000-07:002009-03-10T00:20:00.000-07:00Who had the up of f*ckery? I thought this was goin...Who had the up of f*ckery? I thought this was going to be a difficult question to answer, but no, not really.<BR/><BR/>It is my contention, and I have written about this randomly but at length, that the key problem is a background low level of good science and critical thinking education. I don't mean that everyone needs to be able to come out of school knowing how to analyse a full research paper, what the constituents of a vaccine are and why the LHC will never form a black hole.<BR/><BR/>I mean that people need to come out of school knowing what science is, how it is generally carried out, what "theory" means, what "balance of probability" means and how to look at a claim, raise an eyebrow and say "Interesting, but it smells fishy. Let me investigate..."<BR/><BR/>This may result in less chance of a dodgy paper being approved, researched, written and published by the scientific community or, failing that, less chance of a cautious or uncritical dissemination in the mass media or, failing that, less chance of a scare arising among the public. <BR/><BR/>Optimistic? Almost certainly. However, although there are numerous gatekeepers between a researcher and the public, the public are way too gullible, inbred psychological factors notwithstanding.<BR/><BR/>I come from the perspective of an Honours science education, followed by years working with the public, followed by being a researcher and bullshit filter on behalf of the public, followed by studies in journalism in the hopes of being a science journalist, so this may give me a different view of things compared to those who work within science and see the professional/public meeting-point from the other side.<BR/><BR/>It almost certainly leaves me unqualified to comment on Should Wakefield have been published at all? <BR/><BR/>However, from being a public educator I can tell you that a simple Baloney Detector Kit would have made most of my clients considerably better off, even before they came to me.Jonathan Hepburnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04333749909468762319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6287373418636302890.post-46295286323827619622009-03-09T21:48:00.000-07:002009-03-09T21:48:00.000-07:00Neuroskeptic, this is an intriguing hypothesis you...Neuroskeptic, this is an intriguing hypothesis you raise, and The Science Police are inclined to agree: perhaps this was all done to a trick of framing.<BR/><BR/>Rather than approaching the 1998 result by trying to estimate the number of people who would be harmed as a result of falsely calling into question the safety of the MMR vaccine -- the frame became, "how much damage will be caused if we falsely put our trust in this vaccine?"<BR/><BR/>For more on framing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(economics).<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your comment, Neuroskeptic. This was an angle we hadn't thought of before.The Science Policehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01565182138762026435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6287373418636302890.post-53767459279614529882009-03-09T01:48:00.000-07:002009-03-09T01:48:00.000-07:00Who f**ked up? That's a really interesting questio...Who f**ked up? That's a really interesting question.<BR/><BR/>Wakefield clearly behaved disgracefully, but medial science - and society in general - should be able to deal with individual researchers who act that way. We didn't. <BR/><BR/>I think the fundamental lesson of the British MMR fiasco (and every other vaccine scare) is that the doctrine "Better safe than sorry" is no longer applicable. We have a tendency to be very sensitive to possible vaccine harms, and there's a great temptation to give any report of vaccine harms the benefit of the doubt. Better safe than sorry, right?<BR/><BR/>I think this was the attitude of the BMJ editors and I know it was the attitude of many in the media. Private Eye magazine, for example, kept saying "We're not saying MMR causes autism but we think people need to know it's an open question".<BR/><BR/>this sounded reasonable at the time but we know now that it had dire consequences for public health amongst other things. I think the lesson is that society as a whole f**ked up by obsessing about the "dangers of modern medicine", and forgetting about the dangers of infectious diseases and the dangers of the media.Neuroskeptichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06647064768789308157noreply@blogger.com