[p2p-research] Inflamed passions -- Why do vaccines trigger such passionate debate?

[Ryan Lanham]

Hi Paul,

The points you raise are interesting.  I doubt you have the capacity (as I
would doubt about any of us) to determine what is "balanced."   I trust you
about as much as I trust Fox to be "fair and balanced."  I don't mean that
as an insult.  I trust myself similarly.  Balance is a peer project not an
institutional or individual one.  Fairness entails conflict, doubt and
vetting, in my opinion...as does all legitimacy.

Science, health and public health peers now overwhelmingly find vaccines to
be good science and good public health policy.  Is it possible the peers are
wrong?  Yes.  That judgment needs to be weighed by all competent
individuals.  Most are not competent--even those who believe themselves to
be competent (see recent discussions regarding self-assessments of
competence).

The consequences of any person's decisions need to be weighed by various
levels of social communities...just like FSG or other abominable social
practices (like not vaccinating for Hep B, in my opinion).  Personally, I
feel people should be punished for FSG, and people should be punished for
their children getting Hep B if they were offered a vaccine.  But I am a
strong statist, and I find libertarian ideas intriguing but dangerous, in
the main.  Contextually for where humans are today, I see them as
interesting but simply wrong.

Others start from differing views and perspectives.  One perspective ought
not to rule.  In my view, various perspectives must be vetted through some
logical decision process that is transparent, open to realistic change, and
hard to corrupt by individuals and groups.  Those are hard to find.
Scientific peer processes so far appear the best we've got.

Part of the issue for P2P is whether social education, norms, standards and
approaches can be institutionalized in distributed environments.  If they
cannot, P2P is the greatest elitist scheme yet devised.  It clearly does
have an elitist aspect to it so far...that is why I think it is popular
with intellectuals and loners rather than highly social community-builder
types (in my experience).  I would type myself, by the way, as the former,
and a wannabe in the latter group.  The social leaders are generally out
there building communities of those in need, not those who see the world
like themselves.  It takes all types, however, to make progress.

It is possible, though extremely unlikely, that vaccines are the next leaded
gas..  But I seriously doubt it.  Science doubts it, more importantly.
Seemly only cranks and ignorant persons are in the opposition judging from
the wide-scale and frequent science blogging and journalism on this topic
from well-respected peers.  If half of the scientific community sat up and
said...whoa...there is grave doubt here!  I would listen more intently.  So
far, that is not the case.  No major scientific board, union, institution or
even well-qualified leader has worked to discredit wide-scale vaccination.
Most who have done so have extremely dubious credentials and histories.

I do not share you suspicion that profit motives move most people to evil.
It clearly does move some.  For my part, large numbers of institutions are
generally not involved in great conspiracies to enrich themselves while
shooting people up with dangerous drugs.  Whether there are systematic
issues associated with profit and ill-placed incentives is a whole other
story.  On that I think we could easily agree.  But healthcare is not about
enriching doctors and pharmaceutical companies any more than P2P is about
building the intellectual and technological reputations of a few vanguard
coders and social innovators.  In the short run, people can make bad
decisions based on their ego and social needs and desires.  It is, in my
view, a dangerous and nearly psychotic sort of cynicism to see ill-motives
everywhere.  I do not accuse you of that.  I'm just saying that there is a
spectrum of good faith, and it is easy to lose good faith in humanity and
most of its institutions.  I personally describe those who reach such points
as socially/mentally ill.

Still, those who work for the future must break social relationships more
easily than those who more inclined to live in the present.  Innovators are
destroyers.  But so are quacks, charlatans, cranks and (often) the mentally
ill.  Legitimacy is everything.  That's why I think it is such a profound
P2P topic.  It is also one we little focus on.  The source of legitimacy in
science is peer review by vetted experts.  It is imperfect, but so are all
other schemes of legitimacy.  The future of P2P will belong to those who
sort out legitimacy in a way that is workable and acceptable to large
numbers of loners/intellectuals and also those with conventional systematic
legitimacy as it already exists.  Hard to do...maybe impossible.

Ryan
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