[ SECRET POST #2718 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2718 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Mayim Bialik]


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[Pacific Rim]











Notes:

Might be another 12 am day. Response time will be slow, sorry.

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 016 secrets from Secret Submission Post #388.
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Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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Comments

[ex_mek82]

dissenting opinions are really important in higher education and especially science fields and I hate the idea that there's a party line you need to obey instead of questioning things and provoking discussion. the fact that this particular dissenting opinion is dumber than shit doesn't mean she should stop believing in it because that's what I think people with Ph.Ds in neuroscience should do.

A thousand times, YES.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with this completely.

[cushlamochree]

yeah I agree about dissenting opinions being important, and it's really weird and bad the way people try to dictate certain political positions as a function of being educated or intelligent. like, the way OP phrased it, it's almost like she has a PhD so she's in our gang and she's gone over to The Other Side by having these beliefs or something. and that is weird.

but at the same time, she's wrong about this and she's going to catch shit for being wrong, and I don't see how we can really change that. she shouldn't stop believing it because she has a PhD but she should stop believing it.

[diet_poison]

More correctly, she shouldn't stop believing it because we say it's wrong; she should stop believing it because it's wrong, independent of the assessment of a bunch of folks on an internet forum.

[a_potato]

Overall, I agree with your sentiment, but there's something that's bothering me about it (perhaps irrationally). I hope you don't mind if I just ask for quick clarification.

You are not saying that she shouldn't stop believing in it, full stop; you are saying that she shouldn't stop believing in it due to conceptions surrounding the group to which she belongs, correct? You are saying that beliefs shouldn't be formed or cast aside based on group membership?

[crunchysunrises]

For what it's worth, it makes sense to me.

[(Anonymous)]

It's not worth much, because it doesn't make sense, period. This is zip to do with values and beliefs and everything to do with FACTS. And fucking dangerous pseudo science.

[ariakas]

Being pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine isn't based on "belief" or "political orientation", which is a point you seem to be intentionally glossing over (or at least have yet to reply to the several people making it on that count).

You're right, there is no reason for her to stop "believing in the issue" because you think it's stupid or smart, the reason for her to stop "believing" is that there is literally no credible scientific evidence that vaccines are harmful. You're trotting out a red herring with this "belief" and "view" nonsense. No, it is not unreasonable to expect that a scientist should not be anti-vaccination based on said lack of evidence, and fall for fear-mongering, selfishness, and pseudoscience.

You're falsely equating this with political and religious views, when this is neither a political nor a religious issue - it's a scientific one. And she's wrong. Utterly, staggeringly, wrong. And no, someone with her level of education has no reason to be this wrong. You're also falsely equating this with meaningful dissent over a scientific controversy, which this isn't either. Vaccines are in no way controversial in the scientific community. This is not a "value" judgement.

[tabaqui]

THIS, jayzus.

[(Anonymous)]

Well said, thank you. I was trying to put my finger on why stella_down's reasonable sounding argument didn't feel right, but you nailed it.

[diet_poison]

this. this whole comment.

[a_potato]

Okay. So it seems that your position is sort of what I thought it was, in that you're for true objectivity and true skepticism. Science has its dogmas, and there's a tendency for people to overlook that because HEY, it's science!

That said, I think that when there is overwhelming evidence in favor of a particular position, it's reasonable to expect that one start to change one's beliefs. Really, the realm of science has become most dogmatic in the face of hard evidence; intelligent, highly educated scientists have denied the weight of it rather than face what it means. That sort of supports what you've been saying, in the sense that if some people hadn't dared to forge on despite prevailing opinion, then many incorrect paradigms would never have been overthrown. But, at the same time, it demonstrates that there's a point at which belief becomes grounded in something other than what's real, and I think it's worthwhile to challenge that sort of belief.

[nyxelestia]

same personal views, beliefs, political orientation, etc. as everyone else who's intelligent and has a Ph.D.

I think that's the disconnect right there.

You're calling it a political belief. The rest of us are calling it a scientific fact.

To put it in perspective, I view an anti-vax Ph.D. graduate the same way I'd view a doctor who believes that pregnancy can't results from rape. It is a very politicized belief, but more importantly, it's dismissing and ignoring a proven scientific fact - and if they don't know this basic thing, what else do they not know? Why should I trust them or anything they know?

In terms of intelligence and capability, I'd trust the doctor who thinks women deserve rape and should endure the ensuing pregnancy whether they want to or not, if he acknowledged that it was a rape that caused the pregnancy in the first place - even if his morals are bullshit, his science is sound.

I get that people aren't perfect and people say and fall for stupid shit all the time. I do it all the time, everyone does. But given the amount of attention this particular issue has received, if a hard-science Ph.D. grad says they don't believe in vaccines, then I am distrustful of their education because either a.) they have done their research and are dismissing it all to support this viewpoint, or b.) they haven't done their research and still made this claim. Even if she was somehow put on the spot and forced to answer the issue without a chance to research, then the best answer would have been "I don't know enough about this issue to answer this".

[(Anonymous)]

I think there's a difference between having an unpopular point of view and working on the science behind it to try to prove your point vs. supporting a false study to say vaccines cause autism and putting people's lives at risk because of it.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with the general sentiment that dissenting opinions are good for science, but science is about coming to a conclusion via experimental evidence. Questioning the party line, given supporting evidence, is perfectly valid. But that's where I think the difference is between comparing conservatism/religion (as beliefs that educated and intelligent people hold) vs anti-vaccination. I majored in a hard science at a conservative Christian university, and all of my professors both had Ph.D. degrees and were Christian - but science and religion are not wholly mutually exclusive. There is no hard evidence to support religion, but neither is there evidence entirely contradicting it. So, believing in evolution doesn't negate the possible existence of a God. None of my [science] professors, however, were Creationists.

In contrast, the evidence does not support anti-vaccination. If she believes in the anti-vac movmement, it's not because she saw the scientific proof that vaccines are bad. So, in this case, I do think that as a scientist, she should be smarter than that.

[(Anonymous)]

Dissenting opinions are good. Dissenting opinions are who causes more research to be done, in order to validate or invalidate the claims on each side.

In this case, that research has been done, and the jury is in: vaccines don't give you autism, vaccines save lives.

It's a bit like the climate change debate: 97% of scientists in the field agree that androcentric global warming is happening, but apparently the dissenting 3% get to dictate policy on the matter because not everyone 'agrees'.

Like, I am very much a fan of questioning the biases of science and looking at difference ways of understanding the world and all the jazz as a dyed in the wool lefto pinkie humanities student. But there is a point where you need to say 'to the best of humanity's ability we have shown X to be so', and go with that, and save your Devil's Advocate energy for something that deserves it.

[beverlykatz]

I agree with the basic sentiment of this comment, and I think it's an important point to make. But there's a difference between belief (or disbelief) in a political value or a religion, which are subjective things and not "correct" in any measurable way, and belief (or disbelief) in something that can be objectively measured.

Being an anti-vaccer (vaxer?) is like not believing in global warming: you can think whatever you want, but that doesn't make you any less wrong, and it does make you a lot less intellectually credible. Either she believes that the anti-vacc studies are true, which means she hasn't done a lot of research, or she knows they're false and chooses to ignore the facts. For a scientist, either answer is really concerning.

[augustbird]

"opinions on vaccines" aren't based on "party lines". vaccines are based on decades worth of research by hundreds of research groups culminating in thousands of papers. vaccines are based off of diagrammed biochemical mechanisms that take advantage of everything we know about our immune system.

the fact that she has a phd in neuroscience means that there's a huge chance she has at least an undergraduate education in the theory behind vaccinations. the fact that she likely understands the science, knows that the original paper was a hoax and has been retracted, is at least aware of the dangers of breaking herd immunity--makes her "opinion" hypocritical at best and dangerous at worst, especially because of the authority she wields because of her education. in science, no matter how beautiful or elegant your hypothesis, until you find data to support it, it will not be included in the body of knowledge. it's both disingenuous and harmful to push unfounded and panic-inducing theories onto the public who might not have access to better information.

sorry if this comes off as strongly worded--this is like, one of the three things i have an intense opinion on.

[(Anonymous)]

it's both disingenuous and harmful to push unfounded and panic-inducing theories onto the public who might not have access to better information.

This is a good point, esp regarding her authority bc of her education.

(I sort of wonder about the other two things, now...)

[mechanosapience]

While that's true, you're conflating belief in an unprovable hypothesis with belief in a disprovable hypothesis that has, in fact, been disproven. Not all opinions are equally valid, particularly when said opinions are contradicted by reality. It's an especially dramatic WTF, considering that Mayim Bialik has a PhD in a sub-field of biology. It's not the first time I've seen this sort of thing (I've met a surprising number of molecular biology grad students who don't believe in evolution), but it still puzzles me.

[(Anonymous)]

dissenting opinions are really important in higher education and especially science fields and I hate the idea that there's a party line you need to obey instead of questioning things and provoking discussion.

This.

I'm not a scientist by any stretch of imagination, but I love seeing/reading/hearing a good discussion between people sharing their opinions, beliefs and so on, maybe even backed up with 'evidence'.

(To add, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this whole thread. I'm not sure how everybody jumped to the conclusion that you are anti-vaccine, but I guess it's a very hot topic right now.)