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b_b · 4754 days ago · link · · parent · post: Anti-vaccine hysteria causing resurgence in preventable disease, with bonus delayed diagnoses
Well, in all fairness to me, there is a different way that I speak on this forum as opposed to an education forum. You're obviously a well informed person, so we can speak about pretty in depth subject matters. Its part of my career to educate the public about biology, and of course one has to modify the severity of one's language depending on the audience. However, in my experience as a professional biologist, I can say that I have never changed any one's mind who is a denialist of any sort about vaccines or evolution or the age of the universe, independent of what approach I have taken. It would be equitable to changing one's mind about whether God does or does not exist. When someone has a belief, they have a belief.
No, not in fairness to you. This is the third post - to you - where I've said, essentially, "this isn't 'denialism', it's fear, and if you go in on a war footing you're going to push someone on the fence over the edge."
This is not an existential question. This is a "there's lots of conflicting data and I don't know who to trust" question. The way you deal with those types of questions is by saying "well, this means this, this means that, and in my professional opinion as a biologist there are bigger things to worry about than vaccines." The fact that we're not even arguing about whether vaccines are good or not says a lot: all I'm saying is "you're arguing wrong" and you keep coming back with "DENIALISTS WILL NEVER CHANGE THEIR MIND." Change the tense - I'm willing to agree that no amount of argument from you will change their mind because you see them as infidels.