in 2008
my son was born and being a new parent
can be stressful
there are so many decisions to make and
at the end of the day we just want to
make the best decisions for our children
my entire life i never questioned
vaccinations
and not vaccinating my son didn't even
seem like an option
but when the time came it was the first
argument my son's mom and i
really got into about parenting
decisions
when my son's mom and i were together
she was teaching children with autism
basically the school district here in
las vegas would pay for people like my
son's mom
to go and teach them independently while
the children took half days from school
i met quite a few of these children on
various occasions and they were all
extremely sweet and kind-hearted
this was my first time ever interacting
with children with autism
or their parents i saw how much their
parents love them and like me they just
wanted what was best for their child
life threw them a curveball that they
weren't expecting
and it hurt them that their child was
going to grow up with these challenges
during that time i was often afraid that
my son would develop autism
and how i provide the best life possible
for him if that were to happen
being new to the realm of people with
autism i didn't know what caused it
and what we don't know can be scary in
the 21st century we have so many
scientific advances
and answers to the universe but even for
experts in 2020
the causes of autism are still somewhat
a mystery but when it was about time to
have my son vaccinated
my son's mom was reluctant based on some
research she heard about
from the parents of children with autism
like i said whether or not my son would
be vaccinated
didn't even seem like a debate as
someone who respects science
i thought you'd be a fool not to
vaccinate with all of the viruses out
there that can kill children
although my son's mom and i argued about
this she's an amazing mother
and always has been it was difficult
arguing with her about the decision to
vaccinate our son
because i knew she would never try to
hurt him to this day she's one of the
best mothers i've ever met
but she was terrified that vaccination
may lead to our son having autism
as someone who tries to stay open-minded
when she asked me to watch a documentary
before solidifying my decision on
vaccinating our son
i said yes it was then that she
introduced me to a documentary about a
man by the name of andrew wakefield
the majority of people have heard of
anti-vaxxers but i'm typically surprised
about how many people haven't heard of
the fraudulent doctor
who started the anti-vaxxer movement in
the 1990s
this doctor released a paper linking
vaccinations to autism
and although the paper was retracted by
the prestigious scientific journal the
lancet
for being fraudulent over 20 years later
there was a gigantic movement around his
findings
today i know that andrew wakefield is a
fraud but when it came time to vaccinate
my own son
he sold me on the idea that this could
lead to my son developing
autism in recent video essays we've
discussed how to use critical thinking
skills
to improve our own well-being but what
about the well-being of the people we
love the most
in anti-vax circles andrew wakefield is
still lauded
as a hero despite being exposed as a
fraud
so in this video we're going to discuss
how that happened and how our cognitive
biases
can lead to us making terrible decisions
when we use
logical fallacies like the appeal to
authority we neglect being skeptical
just because someone like andrew
wakefield says something is true
i can't begin to imagine how many lives
have been lost due to the fraudulent
work
of andrew wakefield and i felt the need
to make this video discussing critical
thinking and skepticism
because we still have anti-vaxxers in
2020.
my goal with this video is to shed some
light on how something like this
could happen how we could better filter
out nonsense studies
and how these skills can help us in more
areas of our life
by using these tools it can help calm
our anxiety
because we'll know how to separate good
science from bad science
and make better decisions but before we
get started if you're new to the rewired
soul
we're cautiously skeptical and use
critical thinking to improve our mental
and emotional well-being
if you're like the rest of us and
actively trying to improve your own
thinking skills
and emotional intelligence make sure you
subscribe and ring that notification
bell
also another quick side note please
please please
do yourself a favor and check out the
new show love on the spectrum over on
netflix
it's about people with autism trying to
navigate the tricky
world of romantic relationships and it's
the most wholesome
thing i've seen in a long time and if
you want to learn more about
autism subscribe to my buddy dan over at
the aspie world
and i'm also trying to convince him to
do some videos about
love on the spectrum so i'll link his
channel down in the description below
as i write this script i now realize
that this is the first time i've ever
shared this story publicly
and i hope that by the end of this video
you have a little more empathy for those
who are anti-vaxxers
so you can learn to have better
conversations with them and hopefully
guide them towards the truth
back then during those early stage
pediatrician appointments
i didn't have the information that i
have today and i wonder how many people
still don't have that information after
watching the documentary about andrew
wakefield
it was time to make the decision about
whether or not to vaccinate our son
and if i'm being honest i still didn't
know how it was gonna go down
once we got to the pediatrician's office
we were two young parents at the time
and all we wanted was what was best for
our son
when the doctor came in and said it was
time for the first round of vaccinations
we declined some of them without
thinking about it i stood by my son's
mother's side
and agreed with her because i thought
it's what was best
once we told our son's doctor this he
immediately had a look of disappointment
although we didn't turn down all the
vaccinations
we skipped some of the more important
ones like the mmr vaccine
even though the doctor asked us why and
then tried to explain the science
we just felt like he was some auto
repair mechanic trying to upsell us
he prodded us a little asking why we
made this decision and we didn't tell
him we watched the wakefield documentary
but i'm sure he figured we heard about
those bogus research
as many other parents had my son was
born 10 years
after wakefield's study was published
and at that time
his work hadn't been formally retracted
you just heard my story about my one
child and how we avoided vaccination
based on wakefield's research
but think about how many others were
affected during that time
i can only imagine how many people
didn't vaccinate their children
due to the large anti-vaxx movement 10
years
after the retraction the numbers
must be astronomical so how did andrew
wakefield
fool the world and more importantly why
did he fool the world when asking these
questions we need to realize that it
starts with us
andrew wakefield is just one person but
we are the many
something that most of us don't think
about often is how ignorant we all are
on so many subjects for a moment i want
you to think about something that you
know extremely well
think about something that you know more
about than most people
maybe it's an aspect of your job that
you specialize in or maybe you have some
hobbies that many people don't know much
about
whoever you are there's at least one
topic that you know a lot more about
than the average person now i want you
to think about how many topics are out
there
that you don't know about this is
something that many of us can't even
conceive
because there's so much out there to
know most of us don't even know what we
don't know
our brains are like a hard drive and we
can only store so much information
even if we live a life of curiosity and
are passionate about learning
none of us will even be close to having
knowledge of
everything by the time we die this is
one of the reasons we're able to form
such cohesive societies
and why we must rely on each other
there's a debate
about whether or not humans are
naturally selfish or altruistic
studies show that we primarily operate
through something called
reciprocal altruism back in the day our
ancestors survived
better as tribes than as individuals
today we do the same thing
we share our knowledge and skills with
one another because none of us can know
everything
for example at a young age i started
building computers
and in my 20s i worked in the auto
repair business
i know more about computers and cars
than most people but i have to rely on
others
to fix things like the plumbing in my
apartment or
i have to turn to my co-workers with
questions one of the best things any of
us can do is humble ourselves on a daily
basis
and realize how much we don't know and
this also leads us to realize
why it's so important to have a strong
support group
unfortunately people like andrew
wakefield can take advantage of what we
don't know
despite what you don't know i'm sure
there are many things that you can look
up online and learn
but medical science isn't one of them if
you don't know how to cook a risotto or
fix your toilet
it's just a youtube video away but
people like andrew wakefield are able to
take advantage of the fact
that we can't do the same with medical
science since we don't have the capacity
to know everything
we rely on experts like doctors and
medical researchers
and i want to make it clear that i think
the majority of medical experts
are trustworthy but due to our ignorance
on these subjects
it leaves us vulnerable to deception
even worse
we're vulnerable to the halo effect as
you've learned in previous videos the
halo effect
is when we take one positive attribute
of a person
and give it to all of their
characteristics for example we
unconsciously believe that since
andrew wakefield is a doctor and since
becoming a doctor
is difficult and since being a doctor is
highly regarded
he must be an ethical person due to the
halo effect
we forget that people like andrew
wakefield are human just like you and me
just like the rest of us people like
andrew wakefield can be blinded by money
or the potential fame of a breakthrough
discovery
as well as the ego's need for attention
and recognition
due to the fact that andrew wakefield is
human he's subject to the same cognitive
biases
that we all are he and every other
doctor
scientist and other person you regard as
smarter than you
is a person who has a mind that plays
the same tricks on them
these biases have led to many scientific
mishaps throughout the years
and i recently finished the book science
fiction's
how fraud bias negligence and hype
undermine the search for truth
by stuart ritchie and it's all about
this subject
i'll link the book down in the
description because it's well worth a
read if you want to learn more
about how to separate good and bad
science andrew wakefield is one of the
primary reasons
it's so important that scientists
disclose any conflicts of interest
when releasing their findings we'll
discuss andrew wakefield's conflict of
interest in a moment but it's important
to realize that this problem
happened long before his research
linking vaccines and autism
back in the 1960s a team of harvard
researchers released studies
stating that fats were more of a health
risk than sugar
what these researchers didn't disclose
was the fact
that this research was funded by
the sugar industry due to our
confirmation bias
of course we'll believe any study out
there that says sugar is actually good
for us
so we'll eat all the cookies and cakes
we want and we'll drink soda like it's
water
unfortunately the research findings were
bogus
and due to the conflict of interest and
these studies
it led to an obesity epidemic much like
the harvard researchers
andrew wakefield had conflicts of
interest as well
when conducting his studies linking
autism to the mmr vaccine
when releasing his findings to the
landsat andrew wakefield neglected to
disclose
that his research was being funded by
lawyers
working for parents who filed lawsuits
against
vaccination companies good science is
about finding the truth
and sometimes we don't like what the
truth is the average person like you and
i
know that science is about finding the
truth so we expect scientists to
practice the highest level of ethics
and seek the truth out but when someone
like andrew wakefield is being funded by
lawyers trying to prove that vaccines
cause
autism it shifted wakefield to finding
the non-existent link
since discovering that conflict of
interest the landsat
formally retracted wakefield's research
and stated
quote no causal link was established
between
mmr vaccine and autism as the data were
insufficient something new i learned
from stuart ritchie's book
is that andrew wakefield was also
working on his
own mmr vaccine to profit from it
due to the financial incentives
wakefield had from both the lawyers as
well as the possibility of creating his
own vaccine
wakefield created fraudulent research
it's been a decade
since the retraction of his research but
as you can see the damage is done
and he still has a cult following
recently my beautiful girlfriend tristan
and i
watched a vice documentary about
anti-vaxxers and they
invite wakefield to events like he's a
celebrity
as stated previously andrew wakefield is
only one person
so this starts and ends with us in the
final section
we're going to discuss the psychology
behind why people are anti-vaxxers
and how being skeptical and developing
critical thinking skills
can help us avoid this from happening
again
i'm happy to say that today my son is
fully vaccinated
and it's all thanks to our pediatrician
helping us
apply some critical thinking skills my
son missed his first round of
vaccinations
but on the next visit after a great
conversation with his pediatrician
we decided to vaccinate at the time this
was an extremely difficult decision
for my son's mom to make but she doesn't
regret it at all
in fact when she had her second child
with her new husband
there wasn't even a debate about
vaccinations
so how did my son's pediatrician
convince us to vaccinate
it was actually quite simple he just
asked us some questions
he asked if you knew for certain that
your son was going to contract one of
these deadly viruses in the future
would you vaccinate and we said of
course he then helped us realize
that the problem is that we have no way
of knowing if he'd get that virus
he then asked us how we would feel if
our son did catch one of those viruses
it only took a moment to think about it
and we immediately knew how awful did
feel
our doctor didn't call us terrible
parents and he didn't insult our
intelligence
he was kind and compassionate and he
helped us realize
that there's overwhelming evidence that
these vaccines are safe
and how many lives they've saved
fortunately we weren't as hard of a cell
as some of the anti-vaxxers out there
but i truly believe we were so easily
sold
because of how he had the conversation
with us
when it comes to the topic of
vaccinating the conversation can get
heated
but we need to remember why it gets
heated
we care about our children but the
anti-vaxxers care about their children
too
oftentimes when we insult an anti-vaxxer
we're also calling them a bad parent
or trying to degrade them if we hope to
convince people
we need to have a calm rational
conversation
and ask questions but these questions
can help us in all aspects of our lives
in his book factfulness 10 reasons why
we're wrong about the world and why
things are better than you think
hans waltzing also discusses ways we can
become better critical thinkers
using anti-vaxxers as an example he says
to ask yourself
what would it take to make me believe
vaccines are safe
if the answer is nothing could ever
convince me
then you aren't critically thinking
critical thinkers have an
openness to changing their opinions when
presented with new evidence you can use
this first tip
of asking questions in other areas like
when you're feeling depressed
ask yourself what would it take to
disprove my thoughts that nobody loves
me
when i'm personally feeling depressed i
purposely find an example of one person
who loves me
like my son or my girlfriend if even one
person loves me
it means my mind is lying to me when it
says that quote unquote
nobody loves me if we're anxious we can
ask ourselves
what will it take for me to believe that
the worst case scenario won't kill me
well how about the fact that we've
thought this before and we're still
alive
next let's discuss the second reason why
we fell for andrew wakefield's lies
and more importantly why it's so hard to
change our beliefs
when you're arguing with anti-vaxxers
it's easy
to just think about what you're seeing
on the surface in your mind you believe
that if they just let go of this idea
that vaccines cause autism they'd be
fine
but it goes much deeper than that much
like other conspiracy groups like q anon
or flat earthers
we must remember that anti-vaxxers and
other conspiracy theorists
are part of a community one of the
reasons people hold on to their beliefs
so tightly is due to the fact
that if they let go of that belief they
also lose
friends and sometimes even family
members this happens with religion
all the time as well as someone who grew
up here in las vegas
i know a lot of mormons many of my
friends growing up have left the
religion
but it was extremely difficult because
their entire family is mormon
and so is everyone that they grew up
with if a person all of a sudden
starts believing vaccines are safe they
lose part of their group
as well as part of their identity which
is difficult this also perfectly leads
to reason number three
which is cognitive dissonance dissonance
is when our brain has two conflicting
beliefs
so it irrationally justifies stories to
be rid
of the dissonance for example even when
presented with evidence
that andrew wakefield's studies were
fraudulent a person will make up reasons
not to believe the story because then it
also mean
that their community of friends is wrong
too
we also want to believe that we're
intelligent independent people
nobody thinks that they're falling for
cognitive biases
so dissonance can often push us deeper
into our beliefs
throughout the years it's been proven
time and time again that those who
believe in conspiracies
only believe in them more when you try
to disprove them
here's a quick example of how cognitive
dissonance may work
in an anti-vaxxer's brain when presented
with evidence
that andrew wakefield is a fraud and
remember this is happening on a
completely
unconscious level the scientific journal
that published andrew wakefield's study
has since retracted it but if that was
true that mean that i'm a bad parent
because
i didn't vaccinate my child it also mean
that i'm a bad person
because i've convinced others not to
vaccinate this would also mean that i'm
not intelligent
well this can't be right because i'm not
a bad person and i
am intelligent so what else could be
going on
well big pharma does have a lot of power
and money
so maybe they paid off the lancet to
retract wakefield's study
and if they're trying to silence him
that means i need to work even harder to
spread the word about how vaccines
are dangerous now do you see how easily
we can go from being presented with
evidence
that just makes us believe the wrong
thing even more
another example is why some people don't
believe their significant other
is cheating when a friend gives them
evidence the person may think that their
friend is just
jealous and wants to sabotage the
relationship because you never date
someone who cheats
you're a much better judge of character
than that as for numbers 4 and 5 on our
list we're going to look at logical
fallacies remember
logical fallacies are arguments we use
to justify a premise
but they don't prove anything the two
logical fallacies often used by
anti-vaxxers
are the appeal to authority celebrity
and the appeal to nature
when they say andrew wakefield is a
doctor therefore he must be telling the
truth
that's the appeal to authority logical
fallacy
there is no law of the universe that
says a doctor cannot
lie and recently we discussed how jenny
mccarthy
helped push the anti-vaxx narrative and
this is the appeal to celebrity
in both of these cases the primary
culprit is the halo effect
we must always remember that people are
people and they're just as fallible
as you and i despite their status
next is the appeal to nature the appeal
to nature logical fallacy states
it's natural therefore it's good or it's
unnatural therefore
it's bad many people in the anti-vaxx
movement
use the appeal to nature to argue that
natural remedies are the answer despite
there being no legitimate scientific
evidence
personally i'm someone that loves
natural medicine
and i'm constantly reading the latest
research on it so i try to be mindful of
myself
using this logical fallacy we must
remember that just because it's natural
doesn't always mean it's good for
example natural disasters like tsunamis
earthquakes
and tropical storms that take thousands
of lives are natural
but we wouldn't say that they're good
for us there are some poisonous berries
out there that can make us deathly ill
so it'd be wrong to argue that because
they're natural they're good
finally we're going to talk about the
last reason andrew wakefield was able to
sell us on his lies
and that's our need for control earlier
we discussed how much there is that we
don't know
it's 2020 and we still don't have all
the answers we're still fighting to find
a cure for cancer
and just a few years ago i lost my
grandmother to parkinson's disease
it's scary to think that we don't have
ways to cure some of these illnesses
let alone prevent them when we don't
have the answers
we feel like we don't have control and
that's scary
as a parent it was terrifying to me that
my son might develop autism
not only that but addiction runs in my
family and i'm worried that my son may
develop an addiction later in his life
unfortunately when we're afraid the
rational part of our mind
shuts off and we search for ways to make
sense of this crazy world
recently last week tonight with john
oliver discuss this when it comes to
conspiracies around covid
when we don't have answers we'll look
for anything to give us peace of mind
but we must stay vigilant as badly as we
want ways to prevent
autism we can't fall prey to
conspiracies or bad scientific studies
like those of andrew wakefield as
terrible as the coveted pandemic is
i'm absolutely terrified thinking about
how many people will refuse
to get the vaccine when it comes out yes
we all try to do our best for our
children and our families but we must
also remember that our decisions
affect the people in our communities as
well as around the globe
there are many people who can't be
vaccinated due to various illnesses
so we have a responsibility to get the
vaccine
to try to keep those people safe we need
more people to understand
that the anti-vaxx movement was built on
the lies and biases
of andrew wakefield but we also need to
remember there's a right way
and a wrong way to have these
conversations so
before you start screaming at an
anti-vaxxer on social media
ask yourself how would i respond if
someone said this to me
if you don't like having your
intelligence insulted there's a good
chance that others don't like it either
hopefully now that you know about some
of the cognitive traps that people fall
into
and the critical thinking skills
necessary to avoid bad science
we can all start having better
conversations around vaccinations
all right everybody thank you once again
for making it all the way through
another video essay and like i've always
said there are plenty of beliefs out
there where if you believe in it
do your thing as long as it's not
hurting anybody
but i feel compelled to discuss critical
thinking
and how to be skeptical when we're
discussing something like vaccinations
because this can hurt other people and
we're in the midst
of a global pandemic and on the brink of
discovering a vaccine and there are a
lot of people
who don't want to get it because of some
bad
science you know what i mean so again i
think the most important takeaway from
this
if you're really trying to be a critical
thinker is ask yourself ask yourself
what would it take for me to know that
this was
false right like what evidence could i
be presented with
if we're in a place where no evidence
could prove otherwise
then we're not critically thinking we've
made up our mind
and that's not a great way to live just
making up our mind about things and
nothing can change it
right like think about the relationships
we have with other people
think if you you did think that your
significant other was cheating on you
what evidence would it take to believe
that they're not
if you say nothing then what kind of
relationship is that
how much trust is actually there right
and like i said i get it this world is a
crazy
scary place i'm somebody with a
generalized anxiety disorder
and when i don't have control i can
freak out but
practicing critical thinking and all
these skills that we talk about in
recent videos
it really helps to soothe and calm my
anxiety now
because i can think rationally about
these things instead of letting my
mind go all over the place all right and
if you need additional help with your
mental health
i personally use better help online
therapy there is a link always down in
the description
and in the pin comma below it's an
affiliate link so if you would like to
try affordable
online therapy use my link and a little
bit comes back to help out the channel
all right but anyways make sure that you
share this video i i hope
it helps some people think about you
know uh
vaccinations and autism and just a lot
of different conversations if you like
these videos where i discuss
kind of like conspiracies or different
beliefs and things like that
please let me know because i can do a
million of these but just let me know if
you like these all right
anyways that's all i got for this video
if you like this video please give it a
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you're all awesome all right thanks
again for watching i'll see you next
time
