Why do people get vaccines? Don't they research the ingredients?

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鬼殺し wrote:

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erdelyii wrote:

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鬼殺し wrote:

At my best, I manage to ask the right question. I am usually content to encourage others to do so.

Questions. That's where Science has a major blind spot -

Not specifically to you Charan but feel free to chip in:

How do scientists know which questions to ask?

I think this is sort of an unfair approach. A philosophical, airy-fairy 'What doth be love? Child, woundeth me not,' Shakespearean hand-wave in the face of a harder, more grounded reality: scientists ask any damn question that either hasn't been answered or hasn't been sufficiently answered. Not sure what the hard sciences call this, but in the humble humanities, it's a gap in knowledge. Preferably in a field with real world application but not always. Those are the questions that get grants and PhD scholarship approvals.

But maybe we can be a little less brutal about it, and say 'whatever takes their fancy'. And it's not as though there isn't some overlap with other fields. For example, a famous philosopher once asked with the title of their memorable paper, 'What is it like to be a bat?'. I suspect more than a few scientists have asked this very same question.

Which is strangely gladdening to me, that we ask the same questions but approach the answer-seeking in such diverse ways.

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Long before it was mainstream to criticize science, Sheila Jasanoff, a Harvard professor, was arguing that science — and scientific facts — are socially constructed, shaped more by power, politics, and culture (the "prevailing paradigm") than by societal need or the pursuit of truth. "Scientific knowledge, in particular, is not a transcendent mirror of reality," she writes in her book States of Knowledge. "It both embeds and is embedded in social practices, identities, norms, conventions, discourses, instruments and institutions — in short, in all the building blocks of what we term the social." In a conversation since, she cautioned, "There is something terribly the matter with projecting an idealistic view of science."

Whether or not you believe in the social constructivist argument, the underlying assumption it makes is one that people too often fail to appreciate about science: it is carried out by people, and people are flawed; therefore, science will, inevitably, be flawed. Or, as Jasanoff puts it, "Science is a human system."

A failure to appreciate how science works, its faults and limitations, breeds mistrust. At a meeting at the National Academy of Sciences this month, health law professor and author Tim Caulfield pointed out that one of the things readers often use against his pro-science arguments is that "science is wrong" anyway, so why bother. In other words, people hear about research misconduct or fraud, see the contradictory studies out there, and conclude that they can't trust science.

Instead, if people saw science as a human construction — the result of a tedious, incremental process that can be imperfect in its pursuit of truth — both science and the public understanding of science would be better off. We could learn to trust science for what it is and avoid misunderstandings around what it is not.

While it may seem that critics like Jasanoff scoff at science, that's not the case. She, for one, has actually made criticizing science her life's work — a testament to her reverence for science and her desire to improve its methods.

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鬼殺し wrote:

How can we pull this back on-topic? Alright, so the question is, 'do vaccines work?' Start from that, not from anything more skeptical or predisposed like 'why don't vaccines work?' or 'why do people say vaccines don't work?'

I always believed there was some hefty scientific and engineering work going on off-screen in that movie. Sure, the guys get kicked off campus for using ESP tests to pick up dates and torture fellow students, but they also *build a fucking containment unit for paranormal energy* that somehow works and is simple enough for a layman to operate (a miracle in and of itself). Their business goes from reactive to preventative -- they reacted to the spike in paranormal activity, but once that became routine, their containing said activity becomes prevention....

[subsequent post] Actually the more I think about it, that movie is probably more about flying in the face of the scientific method and more going with your gut. After all, they are kicked out of the campus and the Dean says explicitly, 'you are a poor scientist, Dr. Venkman' after deriding his methods as sloppy and bogus.

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鬼殺し wrote:

But if we're talking 'work' as in 'do they prevent widespread epidemics of horrifying diseases', then anyone who says 'no' is in denial. There is really no 'grey area' when it comes to the efficacy of vaccination in that regard. None.

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The "vast majority" of people commenting, sharing and liking anti-vaccination information on Facebook are women, a new study finds.

Researchers dug into the world of anti-vaccination people — better known as anti-vaxxers — by looking at data from six of the largest, public anti-vaxxer pages on Facebook. By analyzing two years' worth of data from these pages, the researchers determined that these communities are extremely active, negative in tone and primarily female.

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The sentiments expressed in these Facebook pages were "quite negative in tone, suggesting that users of the anti-vaccination pages feel not only morally outraged about the practice of vaccination, but structurally oppressed by seemingly tyrannical and conspiratorial government and media," Smith said. Moreover, many posts had conspiracy-style beliefs placing blame on the government and media, Smith said. A 2011 survey found that conspiracy-style thinking is common among the general public and more pronounced in anti-vaxxers, a 2014 study in the American Journal of Political Science found.

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TheLightShinesOn wrote:

I don't get why people take science seriously when so many ridiculous and obviously untrue things come out of it, especially with no evidence to support what they are claiming.

Do you guys not know how the modern day practice of science came about? or what kind of people started the idea?

Either you don't know or don't care and love to live in bliss.

Edit:

To inform those who aren't allergic to the truth, and if you are able to watch this video and understand it, here's some facts you can research yourself and confirm:

https://youtu.be/ijv00kcGX7I

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TheLightShinesOn wrote:

Do you guys not know how the modern day practice of science came about? or what kind of people started the idea?

Either you don't know or don't care and love to live in bliss.

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鬼殺し wrote:

Careful observers will note that posting random youtube links as 'proof' of anything doesn't work. Cite hard science. Articles. Peer reviewed material. Reputable websites and resources. Easily cross-referenced stuff.

No one in their right mind is going to see 'watch this video for proof' and be convinced. Most won't even click the link. And for good reason: *anyone* can make a video, and that video can say anything. But if the best the fringe has to offer is viral pap like the art project turned fundamental crackpot doctrine 'Zeitgeist', why bother?

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TheLightShinesOn wrote:

To inform those who aren't allergic to the truth, and if you are able to watch this video and understand it, here's some facts you can research yourself and confirm:

https://youtu.be/ijv00kcGX7I

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鬼殺し wrote:

Careful observers will note that posting random youtube links as 'proof' of anything doesn't work. Cite hard science. Articles. Peer reviewed material. Reputable websites and resources. Easily cross-referenced stuff.

No one in their right mind is going to see 'watch this video for proof' and be convinced. Most won't even click the link. And for good reason: *anyone* can make a video, and that video can say anything. But if the best the fringe has to offer is viral pap like the art project turned fundamental crackpot doctrine 'Zeitgeist', why bother?