Anti-vaxxers, intactivists and motivated reasoning

If you write a piece positive about medically approved vaccinations, as I did “>Dr. Albert Fuchs did “>Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz did “>here and “>My article also showed why certain vaccines that contain pork cells are also considered kosher by a wide variety of religious authorities of all denominations. The anti-vaxxers even dispute that conclusion, asserting that non-oral vaccines containing pork cells were definitely not kosher regardless of what any rabbi said. The smicha (rabbinic ordination) of the commentators is not made clear.

The argument of intactivists, as can be seen in the comments to Rabbi Yanklowitz’s article, is that neonatal circumcision is a traumatic mutilation of an innocent child which results in devastating physiological, psychological and sexual harm. Sometimes objections to circumcision seem to come from a specific unhappy circumcised male who reports a personal adverse effect. Sometimes the objection is accompanied by anger directed at the parents who permitted or required their non-consenting baby to undergo the procedure, these parents being described variously as insane, uncaring, willfully ignorant and anti-science.

I am not in a position to judge what issues any individual is working through. What does seem clear, though, is that the best science of the day has rejected the notion that male circumcision has widespread, adverse effects. Just over a year ago, researchers at the International Society for Sexual Medicine undertook a systematic review of 2,675 publications in the scientific literature regarding medical male circumcision. Their report, published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, “>American Academy of Pediatrics and the “>here and “>wrote not long ago, in a variety of published studies circumcision was associated with reducing sexually transmitted diseases and urinary tract infections. 

For Jews, of course, circumcision is not primarily a medical issue. The procedure became an integral part of Jewish life long before AAP, WHO and the idea of controlled clinical studies, and it did so for reasons quite separate and apart from any modern notion of science. The same may well be true for Muslims who are the vast majority of the “>motivated reasoning.”

Motivated reasoning is so strong that when faced with evidence that contradicts one’s pre-conceptions, instead of changing their mind, some individuals not only reject the new information, but cling to their discredited views even more firmly and energetically than before.  The social science shorthand for this result is the ““>Chris Mooney has written, well-designed studies over recent decades have demonstrated how difficult it is to alter previously held, though incorrect, information with accurate data. Says Mooney, “We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close.” Moreover, through neuro-imaging, neuroscientists have even begun to “>Brendan Nyhan and “>“When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions” showed that when confronted with a correction to a false or misleading claim ideologically oriented individuals did not change their views. In fact, in some instances, corrective information resulted in “backfire” and misperceptions actually increased.  

Nyhan and Reifler have also studied the problem of “>One paper suggests that corrections offering alternative causal explanations and corrections stated affirmatively may be more productive than simply providing facts neutrally. “>why vaccines work. OK, this is a different kind of graphic than Nyhan and Reifler had in mind. And perhaps Naro is more confrontational than necessary, but he offers affirmative explanations and his piece deserves circulation. (Unfortunately, I do not have a similar comic in praise of circumcision.)

Some research does suggest that there is a tipping point, a figurative moment when the provision of correct information often enough, in the right way, can change pre-conceptions. This research does not appear to be well developed, as yet, though. So, for the foreseeable future and maybe always, there will, apparently, be anti-vaxxers, intactivists, and others who see things, not as they are, but as they, for some reason, need them to be.

We, in turn, must continue to make available to the anti-vaxxers and intactivists (and birthers and young earthers and similar folks) the best set of corrective facts we have, but we also need to recognize that confrontation is not likely to be successful and may well induce the backfire effect. As Mooney has written, “paradoxically, you don’t lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values – so as to give the facts a fighting chance.”

Unfortunately, Mooney does not identify what those values might be for anti-vaxxers and/or intactivists. And websites catering to them are not helpful either. The emotional investment in their asserted positions runs deep. No doubt, we are going to need more studies about their cultural values in order to begin to understand how, if it is possible at all, to frame an affirmative and supporting narrative that will hold sufficient appeal to allow minds to be open.