There has been much written about conspiracy-style alternatives to science and how to best address them. Writing in EMBO Reports, sociologist Ted Goertzel offers his opinions (Open Access; PDF file).

I invite people to read the article for themselves. Some readers more familiar with scientific-related conspiracies may wish to skim over the introductory passages. Below I offer a few quotes from the article as starters for discussion. I’ve offer a few quick words to some of them.

On the Wakefield/MMR story:

The media highlighted the story, despite the study’s very small sample size and speculative causal inferences, and the public reaction was much larger than the medical and public health authorities anticipated. The reasons for the public reaction included resentment of pressure on parents, distrust of medical authorities and the potentially catastrophic nature of possible risk for a vulnerable population. [...] While the authorities responded by citing findings from large epidemiological studies, much of the press coverage highlighted anecdotal accounts and human-interest stories. The recovery of public confidence in vaccination might have been due more to revelations of a conflict of interest on the part of the physician who published the original article—which was eventually withdrawn by the journal—than to the overwhelming evidence for the lack of a relationship between vaccination and autism rates.

Here I’m not so much interested in the science, but what drives these sorts of concern in the public and what resolves them. What do you think best resolves these issues. In the case of the Wakefield/MMR “affair” how effective do you think the research studies have been at putting this to rest? (Or is it the communication of these that matter more in your opinion?)

On ‘two sides’ and media “balance”:

Dissenters from mainstream science often invoke a meme that there are two sides to every question and each side is entitled to equal time to present its case. George W. Bush famously suggested that students be taught both evolution and “intelligent design” theories so that they could judge which had the most convincing argument (Baker & Slevin, 2005). Similarly, climate change ‘sceptics’ demand equal air time for their side of the argument and, at least in the beginning, the media were more than willing to grant it in the interest of ‘balance’.

[...]

This advocacy meme is used widely in law courts and political debates and it can work well when the question at hand is one of taste or morality. It does not work well for scientists because there are objective right and wrong answers to most scientific questions.

It strikes me that this effectively exploits the mainstream media’s “standard” practice of presenting “alternative views.” (I worry sometimes that the/a main reason is to “justify” that they have “correctly investigated” an issue. In New Zealand I have seen apologetic remarks to this effect on current affairs programmes.)

It’d be good to see media not fall for this. In the case of material based on evidence, if an ‘alternative’ has little evidence, it deserves little or no air-time. If it’s not backed by substance, it’s not an alternative but an opinion and for fact-based stories it is what is known that matters, not opinions.

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