Why there aren’t just two sides to every story
On Feb. 4, 2015, news media and the internet exploded over the news that a Queens University professor was teaching anti-vaccine material in a university-level health class. Melody Torcolacci’s Physical Detriments of Health class quickly came under fire for providing students – individuals specifically present in her class to learn factual material – with a perspective that is not only riddled with controversy, but is grotesquely antiquated and ridiculously lacking in evidence or scientific merit.
Shortly after the initial news was reported, students, anti-vaccine crusaders, and pro-vaccine advocates took to websites like Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr to either defame or defend Torcolacci. As of Feb. 9, Torcolacci has been granted leave from teaching Health 102 at Queens University for the rest of the term.
Torcolacci spent little time publically defending herself – this fact lends credence to the concern that much of the information circulating online is the result of rumour and hearsay. However, lecture slides from the class, published by current and former students, seem to indicate that Torcolacci did make a point of attempting to educate her students about the supposed dangers of vaccines. Regardless of what the anti-vaccine movement might have to say, vaccines save lives, vaccines don’t cause autism, and vaccines prevent the spread of excruciatingly devastating illnesses.
The fact of the matter remains that science is not a biased entity intent on serving the highest bidder. Science is devoid of prejudice and reports facts based only on the data observed during experimentation. This is why there certainly are studies linking vaccines to a myriad of health defects, including autism. In fact, the most cited study that condemns vaccines was published in 1998 by British former-surgeon and former-researcher Andrew Wakefield. However, since its publication, the paper has become one of the most widely disproven scientific articles in the history of research, progress, and advancement.
Torcolacci, Wakefield, and Jenny McCarthy – one of America’s most notorious anti-vaccine champions – are merely a surface problem to a deep-rooted cultural issue. As a culture dedicated to justice, fairness, and equality, we tend to believe that there’s more to an issue than a single side. It’s why we have courts, it’s why we have impartial judges, and it’s also why we have a multitude of different ways to have our collective voices heard. We love equality so much that, in our quest for democracy, we sometimes let those who are the least-educated and least-qualified shape the collective cultural conversation. The loudest among us – often the least-capable to do so – shape the thoughts and minds of the rest, and this is, occasionally, undeniably preposterous.
There is a notion that there are two sides to every story. This is a fallacy. Sometimes there are 10 sides to a story, while sometimes there is only one. In our quest for fairness and balance, we let emotion and passion overrule reason and logic, and therein lies the root of Torcolacci’s current conundrum. It is morally attractive to consider issues from multiple perspectives. This stimulates thought, challenges reason, and allows us to reflect on the decisions of our past, present, and future. It allows others who haven’t yet had their voices heard an opportunity to say what’s really on their minds; it lets us know what the other side has to say about things.
Science, however, is not an exclusive club devoted to the most popular ideas. It is an inclusive forum that merely asks for evidence as proof of membership. The best part about science, of course, is that it will admit to being wrong – assuming that corroborated evidence is produced for a panel of trained experts. Then, and only then, will the textbooks be reprinted.
The fact remains that, at the time of this writing, there isn’t a single refuted, defended, or peer-reviewed scientific paper that links vaccines to the early onset of physical, mental, or psychiatric death. The idea that anyone continues to argue otherwise is absurd, simply because this issue has been resolved. The jury is out on this particular scientific conundrum, and everyone – except for a terrifyingly vocal minority – agrees that, when it comes to pure, unbridled fact, science always trumps irrationality.