Here in America, we believe in majority rule. That proposition is actually never stated in the Constitution, but was a consensus that developed during the original ratification process, though it never made the text. Although not Constitutionally explicit, majority rule is nevertheless part of our DNA, part of our national understanding. So it is no surprise that we generalize the concept to everything else under discussion. We don't even need elections to determine that majority rules. A poll will do. Proposition: Angels exist in this world. Poll: A majority of Americans agree that angels exist. Therefore, Angels exist. Proposition: Vaccines cause Autism. Poll: A majority of Americans agree that vaccines cause autism. Therefore, vaccines cause autism. We don't seem to care about reality, only about perception. "Perception is reality." I have been told that a few thousand times in my client relations work. But perception is not reality, except for the perceiver. You may not believe in electricity, but contact with a 220V line while in contact with the ground will either convince you or remove you from the gene pool. You may not understand, but you WILL believe. There is a certain Darwinian logic here you may not appreciate, but still, it is hard to deny.
You may feel badly that a child dies of whooping cough, and it is hard to watch, I can tell you. Two generations ago in the US, more than 50 thousand children died every year from whooping cough, caused by the bacterium called Bordatella pertussis. Fifty THOUSAND. That is a lot of dead kids, and a whole lot of grieving families. Then along came the vaccine, and that number hit zero in ten years. There may or may not have been some casualties among the vaccinated. Maybe 150 per year. Tragedies indeed, if indeed they were even caused by the vaccine, but wait, take a second to contemplate that balance of harms. Even IF, and that is a big if, the vaccine caused 150 deaths, it prevented 15,000, for a net of 14,850 survivors. And the disease disappeared as a public health concern. Until a few people, convinced by pseudoscience and celebrity nonsense, decided to opt out for their children, because the disease is wiped out, and why take the unimaginably small risk for MY special, unique child? So the disease took advantage, gained a foothold, found new reservoirs, and started killing kids again. Public opinion, it would seem, does not regulate bacteria or viruses. And the children of the magical thinkers pay the price. Darwin may not have anticipated how human superstition would function as a survival disadvantage, but the results are undeniable. You opt out because a former Playboy Bunny says vaccines are bad on the morning news, and maybe your kid dies of a preventable disease. Maybe you have more offspring, maybe your genetic tendency to credulity survives to the next generation, but maybe not. The odds are not in your favor. But it is good for the herd. Maybe the gene for critical thinking will become more prevalent, and maybe the magical thinking gene will decline. Sorry about your kid, but she was a victim of her own parents' stupidity. We try as a society to protect kids from their parents, but that is the hardest battle to win of all. Social workers will testify to that fact without hesitation. They do their best in their anti-Darwinian labors, but fail all too often. When we eat our own young, there is not much society can do about it. The implacable force of natural selection continues to operate, without a care about any individual, or even any herd, and certainly without a care about majority opinion. So think hard about what you believe. Try to differentiate what you believe from what you know. Try to understand that there is much you do not know, and much you need to know, if we are to survive. A little doubt can be a good thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment