{"id":744,"date":"2011-01-06T21:38:49","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T21:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2011\/01\/what-the-vaccination-and-autism-scandal-teaches-us-about-science.html"},"modified":"2011-01-06T21:38:49","modified_gmt":"2011-01-06T21:38:49","slug":"what-the-vaccination-and-autism-scandal-teaches-us-about-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2011\/01\/what-the-vaccination-and-autism-scandal-teaches-us-about-science.html","title":{"rendered":"What the vaccination and autism scandal teaches us about science"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Those of us who have had personally strong and oft repeated
\nexperiences with the spirit world, and of nature as animate, are
\noften sympathetic to people attacking mainstream science. For example, I
\nknow several Pagans who have resisted having their kids vaccinated because of
\nsupposed research that indicated a link between vaccines and autism.  The
\nmainstream scientific opinion to the contrary was just “covering up.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Now it turns out that the data supposedly linking autism with
\nvaccines <\/span>was
\nbogus<\/span><\/a>, so bogus that it could not have been the result of honest
\nerror by even a semi-competent researcher. The British Journal of Medicine<\/i><\/span> retracted the
\narticle and Fiona Godlee, its editor-in-chief said<\/a>: <\/span><\/p>\n

“It’s one thing to have a bad study, a study full of
\nerror, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors, . . . But in
\nthis case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate
\nattempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the
\ndata.”<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

People Died<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

There are two dimensions of this scandal I want to discuss.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first is obvious and brief.  People died<\/a> because of
\nshoddy and dishonest science.  Not suffered, died.   Parents thinking they were doing what was best for their children made
\ndecisions that led to their children’s deaths. These were decisions they would
\nnot have made had those responsible for the ‘research’ they believed been men
\nof honesty and integrity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Science and Self-Correction<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

My second point is more complex.  Science makes assumptions
\nabout the nature of the world, and bases its work on those assumptions.
\n In that way it is no different than any other way we try and understand
\nour world.  Some of its assumptions reflect the rigid monotheistic culture
\nwithin which science emerged, and some of these are responsible for what I
\nconsider its blind spots.  But every mode of understanding has blind
\nspots.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where science is unique among the ways we seek knowledge is in
\nbeing a collective endeavor of people willingly submitting themselves to
\nstandards of evaluation they regard as fair, and these standards are capable of
\nover-turning any of its core assumptions.  Not only can they, they have.
\n For example, nothing seemed more obvious than that space and time are two
\ndifferent things.<\/span><\/p>\n

Science once overwhelmingly, even universally, affirmed as true<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Matter is inert<\/span><\/p>\n

2. The past was very much like the present, with no big changes<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Animals were like machines and
\nmechanism was the key to understanding them<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Reason worked best when divorced from emotion<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Human beings are
\ndifferent from animals and humanity is different from nature<\/span><\/p>\n

6. All scientific explanation is reductionist<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of these beliefs have been universally abandoned by
\nscientists and others are no longer easily taken for granted, with many
\nscientists believing they are false. I believe only number 6 has many defenders
\nanymore, and they are on the defensive.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no equivalent capacity for learning and transforming
\nour basic ideas in other ways of knowing because there are no equivalent means
\nby which central tenets of a position can be subject to an examination both
\nsupporters and opponents regard as fair.<\/span><\/p>\n

When evidence is ambiguous we see the same survival of old
\ntheories and attitudes in science as we see in any other area of human
\nlife.  <\/span>Biology is  <\/span>more complex than physics and less
\neasily subject to experiment and prediction.  <\/span>It has more competing views because of this.  <\/span>The social sciences are even more
\nafflicted with this problem, not because they are not scientific, but because
\nthere is more difficulty in demonstrating the inadequacy of a theoretical
\napproach. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

People of good will get committed to their theories, and when
\nthe evidence is ambiguous usually judge it in their theory’s favor.  <\/span>We still have Marxists around as well
\nas anarcho-capitalists despite what seem to me absolutely slam dunk evidence
\nthat these views are seriously in error, and that their valid insights need to
\nbe located within a better framework.<\/span><\/p>\n

But when scientists can agree on tests and evaluations, it is
\namazing what they can and have accomplished in freeing themselves from error. I
\nknow of no other area of knowledge which compares favorably.<\/span><\/p>\n

Science and Mystery<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

We often forget that science deals with the unknown.  It
\ngenerates an ever larger sphere of reliable knowledge, and the edges of that
\nexpanding sphere are where we encounter what we know we do not know.  That
\nis where scientists work.  What has been discovered in the past gives us
\nclues as to what remains to be discovered, but as new patterns and observations
\nemerge with the expanding sphere, old patterns are sometimes seen as partial,
\nor even illusory while new ones reveal themselves.   <\/span>In evaluating the unknown scientists need to rely on
\nwhat has worked in the past, at least until it obviously no longer works.
\n They have no choice. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For this reason their openness to the new is limited, and
\nsometimes explanations were quickly rejected that later were found to be
\nlargely true, such as the theory of continental drift.  Mistakes happen at
\nthe edges of this sphere, and they happen in both directions.  But at the
\ntime we cannot tell whether they are mistakes.  <\/span><\/p>\n

This is why science needs the innovators who will push their
\nresearch in areas others have not explored.  <\/span>To do so it takes a certain amount of commitment to one’s
\ntheories.  This commitment is emotional, and predisposes the innovator to
\nweigh confirming information more heavily just as the same emotions connected
\nto a contrary attitude encourages the skeptic to more heavily weigh the
\ndisconfirming.  On balance, who has the better case comes out in the wash.<\/span><\/p>\n

What enables this to work is that MOST scientists are committed
\nto a search for truth, and so play by the rules.  This makes the actions
\nof the corrupt both rare and seriously disruptive, because science depends on a
\nhigh level of trust as well as of openness to examination. Science is a highly
\nethical undertaking even when it pretends to be “objective.”  <\/span>The fraudulent vaccine research is the
\nkind of thing that is most destructive to science. But as we are seeing, again
\nit is self-correcting. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It is science’s capacity for self-correction that is most
\nimpressive to me. No one likes to admit they are wrong, and careers have been
\nbuilt on old authorities. Yet even its greatest authorities can be
\nreplaced, as Newton’s model was replaced by Einstein’s.  <\/span>And physics accepted even
\nmore unusual theories through quantum mechanics.  <\/span><\/p>\n

We have never come up with anything else to compare with science as a
\nmeans for discovering reliable knowledge no matter who we are or where we live.
\nBut the price for this achievement is uncertainty on the margins.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fallout of my argument means that the more strictly
\nscientific the issue, the more we should rely on scientists as a community, not
\nbecause they are always right, but because they are better able to find and
\ncorrect errors about the physical world than is any other community. Whether it
\nbe vaccines, global warming, the disappearance of bees, or any other issue that
\nis open to scientific investigation, the strong presumption should be to go
\nwith the community.  Alternative communities have a far far worse record
\non self-correction of their knowledge about the physical world.  <\/span>This does not guarantee the scientific
\ncommunity will not later decide it was wrong.  This has happened.
\n But it’s the best bet we have given that we ourselves know little about
\nthe subject.<\/span><\/p>\n

BUT YOU”RE A WITCH!<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Then someone might ask, why am I a polytheist who does shamanic
\nhealing even though most scientists are skeptical to hostile on such matters?
\n Is there not a disconnection here?<\/span><\/p>\n

My answer is pretty simple and on two levels.  First. I’ve
\nhad encounters where polytheism is the most reasonable explanation, and until
\nscientists can generate such experiences and show they are amenable to human
\ncontrol, or that I have biological problems that also manifest in other ways
\nthat impede living life, I see no reason anymore to spend much energy in doubt.
\n Further, the people I seek to help have a tendency to be helped, and in
\nmost cases describe the experience in very similar terms. The same work by
\nanother apparently helped me recover incredibly rapidly from a debilitating
\nstroke (slightly over two months from not being able to write my name and
\nwalking and talking with difficulty to driving alone across the continent
\nwithout difficulty.).<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, when I first encountered magick, and people who
\ndemonstrated an ability to interact with the spirit world, spirits I could see,
\nI did a LOT of reading about science in hopes of seeing how such phenomena
\nmight be scientifically shown to be plausible. I finally gave it up.  <\/span>Science depends on certain assumptions
\nthat can not be met in these areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

First, that what we study is what it is independently of our
\nattitudes or, if our attitudes could influence it, we can mask them from what
\nwe study.  <\/span>If deities and certain
\nother spirits exist we can not guarantee their ignorance in this way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, scientific methods all assume that nature is either
\nessentially passive, deterministic, or subject to our control.  <\/span>A galaxy is not subject to our control, but is passive in
\nrelation to our observations.  Quantum mechanics is not strictly deterministic, but its indeterminacy is able to be mathematically described and the results have great accuracy.  <\/span>So we
\ncan predict things and measure things. 
\n<\/span>Anything we can experiment upon is subject to our control at least to
\nsome degree.<\/span><\/p>\n

Third, by its very nature science is poorly equipped to evaluate
\ninteriority, the kind of experience that beings have.  Given that so many
\nof these experiences involve perceiving or experiencing meaning, the
\nsignificance of something, a careful scientist will take a skeptical position:
\nscience has nothing at all to say<\/i><\/span> about the validity or invalidity of such
\nexperiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I have almost no patience with the atheists who proclaim
\ntheir faith as universally true – no more than with Evangelicals or Marxists
\nwho proclaiming a different faith.  But on matters that are well suited to
\nscientific investigation, and have been investigated, I’ll go with science
\nbefore I go with anything else.  Always.<\/span><\/p>\n

I would have had my kids vaccinated. And this year, like every
\nyear, I got my flu shot.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those of us who have had personally strong and oft repeated experiences with the spirit world, and of nature as animate, are often sympathetic to people attacking mainstream science. For example, I know several Pagans who have resisted having their kids vaccinated because of supposed research that indicated a link between vaccines and autism.  The mainstream…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-and-technology","category-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat the vaccination and autism scandal teaches us about science - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2011\/01\/what-the-vaccination-and-autism-scandal-teaches-us-about-science.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What the vaccination and autism scandal teaches us about science - A Pagan's Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Those of us who have had personally strong and oft repeated experiences with the spirit world, and of nature as animate, are often sympathetic to people attacking mainstream science. 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