Science
Junkie-January 16, 2011
In the interest of fairness and balance, and before I get
negative and nasty, here are a couple of genuine media achievements to cheer
about. Just don’t get carried away: any notion that mainstream media are
dedicated to presenting the truth would be naive. With that caveat, I propose
three hearty cheers for the British Medical Journal and award-winning
journalist Brian Deer for his meticulously
documented report about a major scientific fraud that led to a significant
public health problem. To quote the Journal’s sharply worded introduction:
In the first part of a special BMJ series, Brian Deer exposes
the bogus data behind claims that launched a worldwide scare over measles,
mumps, and rubella vaccine, and reveals how the appearance of a link with
autism was manufactured at a London medical school.
Also,
a somewhat restrained Hip Hip Hooray for ABC's Anderson Cooper, who conducted a scathing interview with
Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced British researcher Deer caught in the
headlights of his first-rate investigative journalism. The contemptible Wakefield
moved to Texas in 2001 and subsequently became a hero in the weird world of the
U.S. anti-vaccination movement. He has been embroiled in problems stemming from his infamous 1998 MMR-autism study since at least 2004. Last May
his medical license was revoked for “serious professional misconduct” related
to that study. Predictably, Wakefield and his supporters claim he is the victim
of a conspiracy by the vaccine makers and their allies in the medical
establishment.
I
am hesitant to praise Anderson Cooper, mainly because of the shoddy medium he
works in, with its history of cynical pandering to popular myths and
misconceptions. But I'll make an exception in this case while remaining keenly aware
that corporate TV news coverage is not going to improve (e.g., by valuing facts
and well-reasoned analysis), at least not in my lifetime.
My
disdain for mainstream media, especially for its chronically inept science
coverage, is shared by many in the scientific community. Dr. David Gorski,
writing at the Science-Based
Medicine blog site about Wakefield's ethical problems, referred to the
mainstream news media as “useful idiots.” Generally, prominent charlatans and
sincere but deluded ideologues like the anti-vaxers have little to fear from
popular network “news” and “documentary” programs or even from the mainstream
press. More often, they can count on “fair and balanced” network TV to directly
or indirectly promote their unproven medical, paranormal, political, and
religious claims.
I
offer The Oprah Winfrey Show as
exhibit number one. Oprah has consistently been one of the prime media
culprits, irresponsibly providing an uncontested national platform for all
kinds of pseudoscience, quackery, New Age mysticism, and woo. Two of her star
guests were the irresponsible anti-vax celebrity spokespersons,
actress/whatever Jenny McCarthy and her former boyfriend, the noted scholar,
Jim Carey. Amazing, and shocking, that a couple of deluded actors can persuade
millions of people to doubt or reject the scientific consensus on a simple,
affordable procedure that saves
on the order of 9 million lives a year and could save almost twice that
number if all children were immunized. What these prominent anti-vaxers are
doing is nothing less than a life-and-death proposition for some victims of
their misinformation campaign. Just check out this web page at Oprah.com for a sample of the quality of McCarthy’s evidence and reasoning.
You have to be impressed by her “warrior spirit” persona and her emotional
appeals, like this one:
What number will it take for people just to start listening
to what the mothers of children who have seen autism have been saying for
years, which is, “We vaccinated our baby and something happened.”
Something
happened. Wow, that’s great, Jenny, I guess correlation is causation after all.
Thanks for the enlightenment. I was sort of under the impression that autistic
symptoms often are noticed around the time children receive their first
vaccinations, but from now on I’ll get my information from mothers. I know there
are skeptics who say your son is not autistic, that he most likely had a
different condition with similar symptoms to autism. But who are they to
question the assertions of an indigo mom of a crystal child whose autism was
cured by chelation therapy? Or of a mother who wrote the foreword to Dr.
Andrew Wakefield’s latest book? I guess I was too busy reading all that
sciencey stuff to pay proper attention to you and Oprah.
Okay,
enough of that, except that it’s pretty typical of what the U.S. has come to in
terms of the kinds of messages that influence people. Oprah, with her millions
of adoring viewers, is but one prominent culprit – the liberal Huffington
Post also provides a national platform for McCarthy, Carey, and their ilk. As
the estimable Brit Dr. Ben Goldacre points out at his Bad
Science blog,
. . . the media have systematically and irresponsibly
misrepresented the evidence on MMR. . . . MMR vaccine uptake has dropped from
93% to around 75%, and to below 50% in London. Furthermore, the media have
shown no sign of recognizing and acknowledging their role, and so it seems
likely that they will go on to cause further harm on this but also, more
importantly, on many other issues.
So that's what's been going on, in Britain and in the U.S.,
and it will likely persist as long as a gullible public continues to uncritically
swallow an endless variety of ignorant, manufactured, and misleading claims
made by celebrities and interest groups distinguished mainly by their lack of
knowledge and appropriate credentials. All the while the purveyors of
misinformation continue to become more sophisticated and effective in
persuading the public to reject scientific findings (e.g., evolution and
climate change). I attribute this lamentable state of affairs in part to the
failure of our educational system to teach anything remotely approximating
critical thinking or an appreciation of scientific method.
Call
me a cynic if you want, but it's basic: corporations and interest groups are
not going to spend millions to sponsor accurate and honest programming that
challenges viewers’ biases and interests. They and the networks want nothing as
much as high ratings, and truth is often an annoyance and a casualty. Yes, it
is almost that simple: If most viewers believe in spooks – and they do
– then you don't debunk spooks or other popular paranormal or
pseudoscientific beliefs, certainly not in prime time. The monied class has
appropriated the medium and the message to its own advantage – no
surprise there.
Are
the broadcasters and sponsors really that cynical? I say yes, absolutely,
certainly, without any doubt – that is who they are and what they do.
Deception in news and so-called documentary programming is so pervasive that
the public has become desensitized and indifferent, so that when nut jobs like
Sarah Palin start shrieking about “death panels,” there is little or no
outrage, no proportional response. Basically, they just get away with it. For
another thing, lots of citizens want to believe deliberate claptrap –
there’s a huge market for reasons to hate Obama, liberals, gays, etc., and it
matters not to that market if the information is true or false. The torrent of
dangerous misinformation is now so overwhelming that those who might be moved
to express their outrage don't even know where to start. So when someone tells
me to temper my anger and be more loyal to the country – and it has happened – my
immediate inclination is to ask, “Loyal to what?” But that’s another topic for
another column.
A
few conclusions:
Vaccination
stands as one of the great triumphs of medical science. The current vaccination
schedules are safe, and opposition to them is irrational and harmful.
If
the eminently sensible, science-validated precaution of getting one’s children
vaccinated can be undermined in just a few years by well-funded groups of
mostly sincere but misguided ideologues, what hope is there that this country
will get back on a rational course?
Journalists
in mainstream news media have largely abdicated their responsibilities and sold out to the infotainment demands of their corporate employers, who
expect them to pander to or manipulate a gullible public. Instead of
aggressively investigating and exposing deceptive practices, today’s crop of
journalists downplay or ignore those practices. Honest, investigative reporting
is increasingly relegated to dedicated bloggers such as Drs. Goldacre and
Gorski who work from ethical conviction rather than for money. But then almost
all the best information and analysis I read these days comes from people who
do it for free, out of a sense of ethics and public service rather than for
monetary gain.
Ideologies
are often faith-based, unsupported by sound evidence and reason; and committed
ideologues are extremely resistant to facts and rational arguments, much like
religious fanatics, maybe worse.
A
major reason for public acceptance of dangerous nonsense is the failure of the
education system to teach a basic understanding of and respect for the methods
of scientific inquiry and critical thinking.
We
in the reality-based community must take the initiative in an aggressive and
organized fashion and form what amounts to an army of truth squads. Scientists,
educators, journalists – everyone who respects science and reason –
should get involved to the best of their ability, as some few already have. We
must start speaking out consistently and forcefully to counter the toxic
messages of deluded ideologues and corrupt media. Responses to falsehoods
should be timely, widely disseminated, and sustained. And consistent: Even if
the deceivers are on our side, any public figure or organization that
deliberately misleads the public should be ruthlessly exposed – named, shamed, and
shunned (audio interview). What is true must take its rightful place as our
foundation value.
In my previous column I proposed that ideological commitment
stems from human nature. It once served us well during our evolutionary era,
but no longer. Ideologies now collectively pose the greatest threat to peace,
prosperity, and survival. People in advanced nations must get serious about
transcending many of homo sapiens’ natural inclinations if we’re going to
safely navigate the treacherous currents of the 21st Century.