Mantus

Thank you everyone for the wonderful responses. I have to say that this thread has generated more point of views than I can respond to in detail so please forgive in advance if I skip anyone or fail to address all your points.

The Media,

It bothers me to no end when media places quackery and superstition on level ground with science. They’ll bring in some idiot who believes in healing power of rocks he found in his back yard and sit him across a table from a scientist with decades worth of education and experience. They’ll then proceed to give them equal airtime, opportunity and respect in the name of being “fare and balanced”. This kind of process completely deflates the credibility of a scientific background. It’s like brining in a toddler to argue constitutional law with Kenneth Starr and giving them both “fair and balanced” opportunity to present their points. “Wait a second Mr. Starr. Looks like Billy put down his fire truck and is ready to make a point on the second amendment…”

Willtravel,

I agree with you. Proper education is a cure for many social ailments. While I’ve seen the denialism mentality among educated people it takes a group of un-informed individual to drive the groupthink and put blinders on each other that is necessary to maintain an unfounded point of view. A better educated general population is more likely to check itself against superstitions – as many posters are doing for me in this thread by pointing out flaws and gaps in my understanding of this subject.

So the question is: what kind of education? I believe that everyone should have at least a basic understanding of how our world works. Building perspective from an early age is of great importance.

Filtherton,

I couldn’t agree more that scientists like any other human being are susceptible to human flaws and need to be accountable for their actions. However, the superstition led movements mentioned in my OP do very little to hold science accountable and accomplish nothing but spread ignorance and waste resources for real inquiry.

The first hurdle is that it takes a certain amount of knowledge and experience to properly review science based issues. I believe this to be a major cause of strife between the general public and science. Many anti-science movements use this divide between public and the ivory tower to their advantage by vilifying entire segments of the scientific community in order to discredit it. This is seen as painting all microbiologists being the pockets of Big Pharma or all genetic researchers and chemists as employees of Monsanto or all evolutionary biologists as godless heathens that believe Jesus was a monkey. This is not having healthy skepticism but outright paranoia.

The second hurdle is people who adhere to superstitious thinking are close-minded. First they shut out all sources of conventional knowledge on the subject and then proceed to develop their own mythology and doctrine surrounding their beliefs. Just look at all the bullshit information available regarding alternative medicine out there. These people don’t read medical journals; they study dogma to strengthen their own ignorance – it’s almost as if they are anti-knowledge.

That is an extreme by far. Clearly most of the population is more rational but they are still influenced by such people. As a species we respond to emotion. A scientist will rarely tell you that they are 100% certain of anything. A snake oil salesman on the other hand will put his heart and soul behind his beliefs. This is why Jenny McCarthy’s “mommy instinct” gains credibility over cold hard science in the minds of many.

Anyways I have to run, You gave me much to think about, I’ll continue this on the weekend…

Dippin,

Thank you for posting those statistics. Since then I to have made an effort to check facts presented by the anti-anti-vaccine movement and found that in almost all cases they impact has been blown out of proportion if not blatantly lied about. That was a big eye opener.

roachboy,

I'm not writing a paper up for review here. The terms I used are vague on purpose. I realize language is important and if I choose to pursue this field in inquiry further I'll need to communicate better. If you can think of better semantics based on what you've read in my posts I'll be more than happy edit them.

Cheers everyone!