What I learned from this video

I’ll post a link, here to the video. It’s basically a doctor reviewing a video between pro and anti-vaxxers. Not really posting this due to the debate though…I figure that folks have heard most of this before.

What I’m posting this for is really just myself, as there was one section that made me think…yeah, I do that, and, yeah, maybe THAT is why folks don’t find my arguments on this compelling. Basically, it’s around the 11:00 minute mark, and the guy who’s channel this is says something like “I’m really happy with these doctors who are using personal anecdotes instead of statistics and data on this, as it resonates more, especially with this audience, than just quoting statistics”.

That is so contrary to the way I think that at first I was like, huh? Data is everything! But then I thought about it, especially seeing the earlier reaction of the anti-vaxxers when one of the doctors did trot out statistics…which the host of this channel rightfully predicted would fall flat with the folks who were hearing it. While the doctor who gave personal anecdotes about his child or the one who talked about other children he’d seen who were ravage by various preventable diseases DID resonate a lot more.

I just wanted to share that thought. I found that very compelling (I still think that hard data is the most important thing though :p), as I found the part at the end, especially when they talk about the hostility…though I also agree with the host that these people were obviously hand picked because they were more reasonable than some of the anti-vaxxer crowd.

Personal stories/anecdotes resonate with people because of the emotion involved.

Unless the facts and data are consistent with peoples individual experiences, they typically have less impact, because we are consistently encouraged to question the validity of data, that there can be flaws, etc. But if the data lines up with our personal experiences we put more credibility with it.

Definitely. The trouble is that sometimes anecdotal information aligns with SOME data, but misses the big picture. In the video, one of the mothers was talking about how her child has issues with some vaccines (actual issues) and using that to say that a lot of anti-vaxxers are attacked and looked down on. But the doctors rightfully pointed out that no one is telling parents of children who actually have issues with vaccines are to blame for not getting their kids vaccinated. It’s parents opting out who are the issue…and, frankly, it’s her kid who will suffer BECAUSE folks who COULD get vaccines for their kids decide not too.

At another point in the video they were talking about various odds, and making blanket statements. Basically, the argument is that the 1 in a million odds are wrong because that’s not true for all vaccines or all situations. But, again, the doctors were pointing out that it’s not about the odds, and that they are different for different things, but about the risk or cost to benefit. One stat that was tossed out was a 1 in 3000 seizure rate for a specific vaccine, and that seems high…but the issue is, the cost of getting the disease is much worse than the risk of a seizure, even if the probability is more.

The anti-vaxxers did not reason themselves into their position, so they are not subject to be reasoned out of their position.

I think it is useful for scientists, politicians, journalists/writers, etc., to use reason and statistics to arrive at an answer. However, when it comes to communicating the answer, that takes a different approach - telling a story.

Unfortunately, it seems that many politicians and journalists/writers get stuck in the telling a story part without ever doing the reason and statistics part. Whereas scientists get stuck in the reason and statistics part.

Lots of people favor anecdotes and personal testimonials over solid scientific evidence, surprisingly including many Dopers.

As far as the vaccine ‘‘debate’’ goes, there are sources of anecdotes on the pro-immunization side, including the folks at www.pkids.org. Health professionals have also begun to realize the importance of bringing home the consequences of vaccine-preventable diseases through anecdotes.

A problem for physicians is that many of the younger ones have limited or no experience with these diseases (thanks to vaccination). They haven’t seen kids crippled or killed by polio, don’t know of families who’ve lost children to measles and may never have seen a case of Hib meningitis.

It’s hard to relate personal experiences when you haven’t had them.

Physician and vaccine researcher Dr. Peter Hotez recently wrote a book detailing his family’s struggles raising a daughter with autism, which of course he does not blame on the vaccines she received (she was showing indicators of autism not long after birth). Since antivaxers like to pretend that physicians don’t have experience dealing with either autism or vaccine-preventable diseases in their own families (it’s even claimed they deliberately don’t get their own children vaccinated), Hotez currently ranks near the top of the antivax Hate List.

My take is that while it’s useful for pro-vaccination folks to personalize their advocacy efforts, in the end it all comes down to adequate critical thinking skills. For those who don’t have them, no form of persuasion will overcome skillful scaremongering and appeals to paranoia.

The problem with using anecdotes for the pro-vaccine side is that one anecdote of a child with autism outweighs a hundred of “my kid got vaccinated and he’s fine”. Plus the whole point of vaccination is that it reduces the incidence of preventable disease, so there just aren’t going to be all that many anecdotes of children being harmed by not being vaccinated.

Plus, as Icarus points out, they’re not listening. I have partial hearing loss in one ear due to measles. I posted about it on an anti-vaxx messageboard (OK, I am a glutton for punishment). Did it even raise a ripple? Of course not. The responses tended more to “that’s better than autism, isn’t it?” and “you didn’t get that from measles - you got it from antibiotics” (which I wasn’t prescribed, because measles is viral).

Or the irritating argument of “maybe the chances are one in a thousand, but for the person who gets it it’s 100%” which is basically a signal “I don’t understand the concept of averages”.

Regards,
Shodan

Well, in the video doctors are using anecdotes talking about children who got those diseases, not just talking about kids who got vaccinated and nothing happened to them. They are describing the actual effects, even the horrifying ones that can and do happen to children who come down with these diseases. It puts some of this into perspective, especially since the anti-vaxxers tend to downplay or just ignore the real world effects of the diseases that are kept in check by vaccines.

Does it help? Probably not. I agree with you, the hard core anti-vaxxers are like any hard core CTer…they are the faithful, and no amount of facts or stats or anecdotes is going to sway them from what they know. They knows what they nose. But, this sort of thing might sway someone on the fence, someone who isn’t convinced but doesn’t really know enough one way or the other. That’s the real target, IMHO. Hell, that’s who I target when we have our periodic CTer of the day come in to start a thread (like the latest Peak Oil We Are All Doomed thread in IMHO). You can never really reach the faithful on anything…but you can often reach those on the fence or who haven’t committed themselves or just don’t know enough to have a real stance.