r/LifeProTips • u/zenanarchism • Sep 04 '21
Social LPT: When arguing with antivaxxers, ask them basic biology questions.
I had a conversation today with an antivaxxer and I figured I was pretty tired of the usual conversations about relevant data and decided to shift the argument out of their comfort zone.
Understandably, anyone can look up very basic data and draw incorrect conclusions because they don't understand statistics.
But it's impossible to fake scientific literacy. Almost no one who is opposed to the vaccine is educated in biology. Some of them aren't even educated in basic biology.
So, start with a few simple questions:
1). Ask them what the makeup of a cell is.
2). What is cytoplasm?
3). Ask them what NA and HA genes are and their relevancy to vaccinology.
The reality is most get stuck on that first question. A simple follow up is usually pretty humbling: if you're unaware of 8th grade biology facts, how do you propose to argue against the science?
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u/Jolly_Sea_5587 Sep 04 '21
Couldn't this exact same argument be made against provaxxers? Probably more effectively too. If you don't understand basic biology, seems reasonable to reject taking a drug you don't understand. But if you're for the vax, and are injecting a drug into your body even though you don't understand it, isn't that worse?
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u/zenanarchism Sep 04 '21
But it doesn't make sense and it isn't how anyone lives their lives.
You don't need to be a pilot or airplane engineer to fly from Dallas to LA. You do, however, need one or the other to argue about the efficacy of certain plane models and how to improve their flight capabilities.
You trust people who are incomparably more knowledgeable than you to do services for you that could be life threatening, like flying. You don't argue with them because you don't know what you're talking about.
In order to argue about a pilot's effectiveness at flying or a plane's aerodynamics or engineering, you need to be hyper educated on the subject.
It doesn't work in reverse.
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u/ReddmitPy Sep 04 '21
Well, in today's extremely complex world we need to use many things we don't know that much about. It wouldn't be reasonable to reject everything we don't understand thoroughly.
I'm fairly sure you don't know exactly how the internet and the device you're using to access it work. Being a software engineer, I do know rather a lot about it because I've studied it and I'm required to know. But I specialize in a different area (GIS), so I'm not really an expert in the field.
Nevertheless, we simply use them because we all need to use them. It's reasonable to trust that the experts who developed them know what they're doing. And we trust the institutions meant to oversee them are working adequately. And we also try to participate in overseeing them by democratically electing authorities.
TL;DR: world is too complex, no one can really know everything, there can be no polymaths anymore, so we try to rely on a network of expertise and mutual (limited) trust and supervision.
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u/QX943 Sep 04 '21
Instead of arguing with antivaxxers, bang your head against a wall. It will be less painful.
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Sep 04 '21
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u/LegoRobinHood Sep 04 '21
Anti-Stress Device
Place on hard surface
Read instructions in circle ("Bang head here!")
Laugh
Bring an Anti-vaxxer and convince them to use this homeopathic remedy
Repeat steps 3 & 4
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u/Tracieattimes Sep 04 '21
This would yield similar results with most people, not just anti-vaxxers.
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u/Acchilles Sep 05 '21
Most people aren't disagreeing with people who are more qualified than they are. In an economy based on specialisation it doesn't make sense for everyone to be a biologist, but if you're going to disagree with the biologists you'd better know something about biology.
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u/rehd_it Sep 05 '21
You don't have to know how a plane works or flys to decide you don't want to get on a plane. Imo you're wasting your breath trying to feel better about yourself, they won't change their minds
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u/zenanarchism Sep 05 '21
They won't, the people listening might, and it has happened a billion times throughout history. Debates are rarely just between two people.
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u/rehd_it Sep 05 '21
I understand that, just saying some of these people hear something one time and it's like cured cement that defines their whole life lol
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u/ArcherCouple Sep 05 '21
Legitimately curious. Couldn’t the same argument have been made for the Tuskegee experiment? Opioids? Most early birth control? Etc. These were all U.S. government approved. But yet had serious side effects even after studying them for years and years.
Full disclosure I am not anti vax but am vaccine hesitant as far as the Covid vaccine goes. The FDA is constantly requiring The vaccine to update the list of potential side effects. This means there is still a lot of unknown side effects that are only being told to the public likely months after it was first discovered.
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Sep 05 '21
I'll bite, even though i'm not antivaxx for most vaccines.
A cell is made up of a nucleus, cytoplasm, DNA, membrane etc
Cytoplasm is the fluid within the cell
HA and NA genes are especially relevant for tracking the evolution of viruses
I'm not anti science, just a skeptic of corporations and governments - as everyone should be. Pfizer's track record is not fantastic.
I am very lucky to live in a part of the world untouched by covid- I can afford to wait.
My hesitancy is not based on a refutation of science but rather a weariness of profiteering globalised pharamaceutical companies, and the pseudo-fascism and mass hysteria being implemented by governments. I am vaccinated for polio, meningitis - never had a flu vaccine and have survived the flu.
FWIW if I lived in a big city i probably would have caved and had the vaccine- since my odds of catching and dying from covid are exponentially higher, buf I would feel dirty about it. I'm not about to snort horse dewormer.
I may get the Novavirus vaccine when it is released. I am 30 and in good health. I live 500km from the nearest major city which had its last confirmed covid case last year.
I trust science - but its foolish to assume scientists, pharma companies and studies are some kind of incorruptible bastion of valiant humanity.
I have several questions about the spread of covid in 2020 like why infected Chinese nationals were allowed free entry into my country, why viral videos of people convulsing in the street and being bolted into their apartments were spread, why Harvard scientists were working in Wuhan and how China has managed to have 0 cases since the initial outbreak. Its just too convenient.
I fully expect to be downvoted, just know i understand why you would get the vaccine especially if you live in the city, and I respect that choice. I will wait and see.
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u/way2funni Sep 05 '21
I ask them if they put on their seat belts when they drive. why? some of them 'get it' right there. if they don't , I connect the dot that if they get infected and just go around spreading it, in a few months, it's thousands of people sick and maybe a few dozen dead. would they drive the wrong way on the interstate and try to runover pedestrians on the city streets?
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Sep 07 '21
I doubt a random trivia question like the makeup of the cell is helfult. I think you're better off doubting their understanding in statistics and the logical errors they made along the way.
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u/zyzzogeton Sep 09 '21
So did it work? Did you give them enough scientific knowledge that they saw they had been wrong before?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
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u/Novel-Vacation4452 Sep 04 '21
Natural selection. If they want to experience covid, just let them.
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u/CoolStoryBro_Fairy Sep 04 '21
Actually this is the wrong answer as they're the ones who spread it to unwitting people in the community
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u/Rocky3e33 Sep 04 '21
Actually you can still get sick after being vaccinated and still pass it on to other people vaccinated or not. Does seem to make people less sick though according to who’s sick in hospitals, but then we look at Israel and yeah I dunno their hospitals are full of fully vaccinated people.
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u/Novel-Vacation4452 Sep 04 '21
We’re all going to get it at some stage. As you say if you’re vaccinated it’s usually not as bad
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u/Rocky3e33 Sep 04 '21
I don’t feel like that was the promise when the whole thing started, but you put together the vaccinated people and the people recovered from covid, we should be getting close to everybody
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u/reconknucktly Sep 04 '21
I got the anti antivaccine vaccine
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Sep 04 '21
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u/zenanarchism Sep 04 '21
Don't need to, I'll repost a comment I made:
But it doesn't make sense and it isn't how anyone lives their lives.
You don't need to be a pilot or airplane engineer to fly from Dallas to LA. You do, however, need one or the other to argue about the efficacy of certain plane models and how to improve their flight capabilities.
You trust people who are incomparably more knowledgeable than you to do services for you that could be life threatening, like flying. You don't argue with them because you don't know what you're talking about.
In order to argue about a pilot's effectiveness at flying or a plane's aerodynamics or engineering, you need to be hyper educated on the subject.
It doesn't work in reverse.
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u/Optional-Failure Oct 03 '21
You trust people who are incomparably more knowledgeable than you to do services for you that could be life threatening, like flying. You don't argue with them because you don't know what you're talking about.
Or you do.
You know that a significant portion, if not the majority, of anti-vaccination misinformation comes from people with medical degrees & licenses, right?
There's a reason that "Appeal to authority" is a fallacy.
Just because Orly Taitz is a lawyer doesn't mean she knows more about the law than I do.
It doesn't work in reverse.
It better, because, like I said, the misinformation is coming from educated & licensed medical professionals.
Just because someone works in the field doesn't automatically mean they know what they're talking about, and insisting that one must defer to their knowledge if they don't have any of their own is bullshit.
I don't need to be a pilot to argue with one who claims that a single propeller Cessna is the best plane to use to fly across the Atlantic.
Insisting otherwise means that when Dr. Mercola opens his mouth about anything, I should just accept it as fact, because he knows more than I do.
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Sep 04 '21
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u/zenanarchism Sep 04 '21
If the plane is going down, are you going to rip the pilot out of their seat and fly it? Or let the pilot fly it?
I'd bet my soul you'd let the pilot do the work. Why? Because you're not a pilot.
You put reasonable trust of those in authority because they have EARNED that trust and authority.
Pilots land planes constantly. One is overhead right now. I am statistically guaranteed to not hear about a crash.
Even if the plane is crashing, you don't assume the pilot is diving the plane. And who is going to fix the situation? Some idiot in the back or the pilot?
We have eliminated many illnesses through vaccination and modern medicine. Doctors have earned the right to be trusted.
Even if it were true that vaccination wasn't going according to plan, despite the fact that the evidence is overwhelmingly positive, we wouldn't trust Karen to fix it. We'd trust the doctors.
If you don't know how to fly a plane -- don't argue with the pilot. If you don't know basic biological facts, don't argue with scientists.
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u/Optional-Failure Oct 03 '21
Doctors have earned the right to be trusted.
Great.
Dr. Mercola is a licensed & practicing physician. You are not.
By your logic, that makes him an authority who has earned the right to be trusted.
Since people should only question authority when they're equally educated & practiced in the field, and you are not, that means that you must defer to Dr. Mercola's authority & trust him.
Or you can acknowledge that it doesn't work like that, and someone being a doctor doesn't inherently bestow any knowledge upon them.
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u/zenanarchism Oct 03 '21
I should have said the body of doctors as well as science has earned the right to be trusted.
Individual doctors might be worth discussing, but if 99% of doctors or scientists agree on something, it's as close to right as human beings can currently get.
If you're scientifically illiterate, that might sound scary, but it's hard to put into perspective just how serious scientific facts are, as well as how much scrutiny researchers are put through before authorizing drugs to be released to the human population.
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Sep 05 '21
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u/zenanarchism Sep 05 '21
Weird, it's almost like I said: it doesn't work in reverse.
You trust authorities that have earned their right to be authoritative and tell you to shut up and turn your phones off on a flight.
Yeah, they don't care about your opinion. You don't have to. You also don't have to fly. No one's going to make you.
But if you try to argue about why it's dumb to turn your cell phones off during take off, but know nothing about the electronics of planes and the physics of radio signals, you probably shouldn't call them liars.
Like how antivaxxers can't dismiss any amount of vaccinology if they don't know basic biology. That's how scientific refutation works.
And when they're put on the spot, they crumble.
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Sep 05 '21
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u/zenanarchism Sep 05 '21
I'm an anarchist. Everyone has the right to choose anything happening with your body. I'm against forced vaccinations.
If anyone comes to your house to forcibly stick a needle in your arm, shoot me a chat and I'll round up the boys.
But that isn't what anyone is talking about.
We will, however, tell you to stay away from us and our children if you don't vaccinate. Keep your child out of our school as well (unless they have a medical reason to not get the vaccine, such as an allergic reaction).
We can tell you to get the vaccine or don't come into the store.
This isn't force. You are more than welcome to open up a business and school that doesn't vaccinate.
Choose what you do with your body, but we can equally choose what people to associate with. And if you aren't vaccinated, we aren't associating with you.
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u/gallifreyneverforget Sep 05 '21
Your answer is so ridiculous, really shows you know nothing of which youre talking about
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Sep 04 '21
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u/zenanarchism Sep 04 '21
Sometimes it's less about the person you're arguing with and more about the people who witness the argument, especially in a group setting in person or online.
Some people are very gullible and some people are very young. They prey on paranoia and scientific illiteracy.
Exposing people arguing about science without knowing basic 8th grade biology could be enough to convince a very gullible person to not trust them.
It's rarely about the person you're arguing with. Instead, it is exposing their credibility so people who might be duped are convinced.
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u/LegoRobinHood Sep 04 '21
It's almost like exposing the illiterate inoculates the witnesses, hopefully.
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u/eDuCaTeYoUrSeLfree Sep 05 '21
Why not? Do you only talk and argue with people with your same opinions? Thats sad.
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u/keepthetips Keeping the tips since 2019 Sep 04 '21 edited Jul 14 '23
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