I’ve been reading an interesting discussion about communicating science that began with Chris Mooney’s article in the Washington Post basically saying that scientists are ineffective at communicating science to the lay public and it’s up to scientists to communicate more effectively to science deniers. True, but Mooney seems to advocate more listening to scientifically illiterate people attempt to refute the science of climate change, or evolution, or vaccination. PZ, Orac, and PalMD among others voiced some legitimate criticisms. Here’s Mooney’s first response to the criticism (the conversation continues in recent entries on his Discover blog).
With the various points about ineffective science communication fresh in my mind, I read the arguments of a mother who is refusing vaccines for her child.
In the course of listing the many things she (IMO, unnecessarily) regrets about how she previously parented her child, she mentioned regretting having him vaccinated. She said at the time she allowed his early vaccinations, she was young and stupid and just blindly followed what her doctor told her to do. Like so many others, she was an uneducated lemming.
She reported that when she first refused vaccines, her pediatrician lectured her. Of course this resulted in even deeper entrenchment of her vaccine refusal, and this speaks to ineffective science communication.
I am very empathetic about how hard it is to sort out all the conflicting opinions and misinformation about childhood vaccines. I suspect that for this mother and many others like her the legitimate science demonstrating vaccine safety and efficacy and demonstrating genetic underpinnings of autism is just more evidence of an imagined conspiracy of doctors and pharmaceutical companies who deliberately harm children (including their own, apparently).
I started thinking (again) about why some people are so resistant to science, logic, and reason when it comes to certain topics. I guess we all have our sacred cows. (I’ll write about some of mine in a future post.) I have personally never found discussing the medical literature to be an effective response to anti-vaccination pseudoscience. I think it’s very important to promote the science, but IMO there are underlying cultural constructs that foster the anti-vaccine movement.
Here’s what I think is going on in the types of parenting peer groups that promulgate anti-vaccination. The subcultures I see most strongly associated with anti-vaccination are populated by white, middle-class, educated mothers (for the most part) who have opted out of careers to stay home with children. Because our larger society devalues childcare, parenting and teaching, these mothers suddenly find themselves lacking status and respected roles in society. I found this to be extremely unsettling when I first left the workforce. Many mothers then seek status among themselves, engaging in what one of my friends calls “competitive parenting.”
In this paradigm the goalposts are always moving, and it begins with childbirth. Homebirth is considered the optimal method of childbirth and confers the most respect, while surgical birth is on the opposite end of the spectrum. After becoming a mother, there seem to be all sorts of other litmus tests of “good” mothering involving dietary taboos, behavioral expectations, and so on.
It also appears that this type of subculture evolves increasing intensity over time because status seems to depend on setting oneself apart from the unwashed masses. If most mothers in a given group breastfeed for example, the high-status mothers breastfeed longer. If most mothers begin buying organic yogurt, the high-status mothers culture their own yogurt at home.
There are few more powerful symbols of mainstream culture than medicine. The high-status mothers in such groups tend to be the ones who reject modern medicine and use chiropractic, naturopathy, homeopathy and so on, often in tandem. Of course they also reject vaccines.
These mothers set themselves apart by claiming superior knowledge over medical doctors. They have the time to read the vaccine package inserts, claim to be able to understand the complex pharmacology of various types of vaccines, and claim a working knowledge of the human immune system. It’s empowering for someone with very little status in the larger society to place herself above some of the highest-status people in our culture. The pressure on other mothers to conform to this “ideal” is intense. No one wants to be the ignorant, “uneducated” outlier.
I don’t know how to communicate science more effectively, but I would welcome a major cultural sea change that placed far more value on the work of stay-home parents, teachers, and other childcare providers. Perhaps that would eliminate some of the judgemental competition that I think underpins anti-vaccination attitudes.
Although it’s always frustrating to see mothers falling for the anti-vaccine propaganda, I’m equally saddened that the mother I read about believes she was a terrible mother prior to conforming to the norms of her particular subculture.
Here’s what I think is going on in the types of parenting peer groups that promulgate anti-vaccination. The subcultures I see most strongly associated with anti-vaccination are populated by white, middle-class, educated mothers (for the most part) who have opted out of careers to stay home with children. Because our larger society devalues childcare, parenting and teaching, these mothers suddenly find themselves lacking status and respected roles in society. I found this to be extremely unsettling when I first left the workforce. Many mothers then seek status among themselves, engaging in what one of my friends calls “competitive parenting.”
In this paradigm the goalposts are always moving, and it begins with childbirth. Homebirth is considered the optimal method of childbirth and confers the most respect, while surgical birth is on the opposite end of the spectrum. After becoming a mother, there seem to be all sorts of other litmus tests of “good” mothering involving dietary taboos, behavioral expectations, and so on.
It also appears that this type of subculture evolves increasing intensity over time because status seems to depend on setting oneself apart from the unwashed masses. If most mothers in a given group breastfeed for example, the high-status mothers breastfeed longer. If most mothers begin buying organic yogurt, the high-status mothers culture their own yogurt at home.
There are few more powerful symbols of mainstream culture than medicine. The high-status mothers in such groups tend to be the ones who reject modern medicine and use chiropractic, naturopathy, homeopathy and so on, often in tandem. Of course they also reject vaccines.
These mothers set themselves apart by claiming superior knowledge over medical doctors. They have the time to read the vaccine package inserts, claim to be able to understand the complex pharmacology of various types of vaccines, and claim a working knowledge of the human immune system. It’s empowering for someone with very little status in the larger society to place herself above some of the highest-status people in our culture. The pressure on other mothers to conform to this “ideal” is intense. No one wants to be the ignorant, “uneducated” outlier.
I don’t know how to communicate science more effectively, but I would welcome a major cultural sea change that placed far more value on the work of stay-home parents, teachers, and other childcare providers. Perhaps that would eliminate some of the judgemental competition that I think underpins anti-vaccination attitudes.
Although it’s always frustrating to see mothers falling for the anti-vaccine propaganda, I’m equally saddened that the mother I read about believes she was a terrible mother prior to conforming to the norms of her particular subculture.
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Comments
It would be interesting to compare the stridency online with how these parents actually conduct themelves in person, as well, to see if they are perhaps more restrained in the real world?
My heart breaks for autistic parents, and I understand how compelling anti-vaccination can be. It's the same line of reasoning as "if I don't smoke, I'll never develop lung cancer," or "if I don't dress provocatively, I'll never be raped." Of course this ignores unvaccinated autistic children.
I was also thinking that it would be interesting to compare the furor of the anti-vaccination movement in the US and England with countries that are far more parent-friendly in their parental-leave and healthcare & education policies. It seems to me that such societies might place greater value on parenting and children. It would be interesting to see if the competitive paradigm I wrote about is as common in such cultures.
I want to point out that individual parents might choose to culture their own yogurt (or whatever) and not turn that into a public indictment of parents who buy yogurt at the store. It's the ones who are intolerant of deviation from their personal paradigms who drive the competition and ratchet up the stakes, IMO.
What's missing to from all this is a discussion of something Chris said:
According to a 2009 study in the New England Journal of Medicine, children who go unvaccinated by parental choice (rather than because of inadequate access to vaccines) tend to be white, from well-to-do families and with married, college-educated mothers.
I looked that up. It's true. It's also true that undervaccinated children are a different group, and, according to the same study, are undervaccinated due to, "factors related to the health care system or sociodemographic characteristics."
We all know what that means, don't we, friends? It means that refusing vaccines is a decision made from privilege. Those crazy bloggers can argue all day long about whether to build bridges or to scream at Jenny McCarthy, but what they are ignoring is that rich, educated, white people are hurting our public health because they can. Poorer, darker parents would be happy to take those pesky vaccines off their hands. And while vaccine refusniks sit discuss vaccines over $4 lattes, Latino babies are the ones dying.
Thanks!
My Trophy Husband and I were talking about this issue in the context of climate change denial. He brought up a really great point about how the criteria for credible evidence is much more rigorous for peer-reviewed scientific studies, yet people who don't have a strong understanding of the scientific method apply false equivalence to their "evidence." Plus you're absolutely right about confirmation bias and ignoring or dismissing anything that fails to validate a denialist's opinion.
Thanks for the discussion!
You're right that we should tag the scientific consensus as provisional or research as ongoing, or at least make sure everyone in the discussion understands that science isn't making non-falsifiable claims.
Thanks for pointing out the name-calling. I hate when skeptics/critical thinkers resort to logical fallacies like ad hominem... I wasn't trying to be a jerk, but the term denialist does come with a great deal of baggage and derision and probably doesn't set the stage for effective communication. I'm going to try to come up with a different way to speak about parents who refuse vaccines. Perhaps if we revise how we talk about each other, that will help us communicate better with each other.