Tue Aug 20, 2019 11:00 am
#1714267
From this article: https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/t ... wont-work/
Seems like a perfectly sensible approach.
Seems like a perfectly sensible approach.
Taylor was anxious about the interview. She doesn’t like being labelled a ‘vaccine denier’, considering it ‘a very sinister term’ that she feels is associated with the Holocaust and climate change. For Taylor, the term ‘denier’ says more about the people using it than about her, because they are refusing to engage, instead calling her names.
This is the standard approach to anti-vaxxers, and it’s one I find very tempting too. Aren’t they simply dangerous deniers who deserve to be shouted at for the damage they are doing?
The problem is that insults don’t work. Taylor shuts down whenever anyone calls her a denier. Those who study denialism say this is a common reaction and that the best way to fight it is not with accusations or, indeed, by presenting reams of facts but first by finding common ground. And there is common ground: the reason anti-vaxxers give for their stance is that they want to protect their children, which is the same reason there are national vaccine programmes.
Tali Sharot, professor of neuroscience at University College London agrees that you can’t start the discussion by disagreeing about facts. Don’t talk about the autism and vaccine link, she says. Instead talk about what we agree on.
One group of researchers from the University of California decided to discuss with parents how vaccines protect children from deadly diseases, something that often gets forgotten in the debate. It had striking results: ‘Highlighting the common belief had a great effect and made parents three times more likely to vaccinate.’ They found common ground, they talked about something on which they could agree with the parents, and then it became easier to move on to the things that had scared those parents in the first place, such as the autism myth.
kanga liked this
Middle East Peace Expert. Military strategist. Former economist and epidemiologist.
Not always entirely serious.
-Still learning -
Not always entirely serious.
-Still learning -