As Jonathan Swift once wrote,

“Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect.”

This quote is also a fitting illustration of the problem it describes, as it is frequently misquoted and misattributed to other writers. But, arguably, a misattributed quote is of little consequence compared with misinformation that leads people to fear and reject things that are more essential to human health, like effective medical interventions. So what can we do about that?

For decades, early science communication relied on a simple strategy: present the evidence and expect people to change their minds based on numbers and graphs alone. In science communication studies, this is known as the Deficit Model, and it has been thoroughly debunked. Experience and research have, in recent years, shown that this approach rarely works. That’s because people cling to beliefs because they are entangled with identity, ideology, and community, not because they don’t understand fact-based arguments.

To persuade people effectively, scientists have to go beyond attempting to persuade people using data alone. They have to combine evidence with empathy and storytelling, to craft messages that speak to both the mind and the heart.

If it sounds challenging, it’s useful to understand why it works. The first thing to understand is that cognitive biases make false beliefs stubborn. Humans favour information that confirms what they already think – a tendency psychologists call the confirmation bias. The more emotionally charged a false claim, and the more it fits with someone’s existing belief system, the harder it is to dislodge. In this instance, attempting to correct a belief with facts alone may even backfire, potentially reinforcing them in the other person’s mind, which is known as the Backfire Effect (though the latest evidence suggests those fears may be overstated). This phenomenon helps to explain why vaccine misinformation persists despite decades of public health campaigns sharing vaccine data.

Misinformation sticks not only because of psychology but also because it travels as a story. Facts are inert, while stories are memorable and personal. Often, the outlier in a dataset tells the most compelling story; for example, a dramatic anecdote of a vaccine side effect, or a single extreme weather event carry more weight than tables of data that represent a different truth. We are a storytelling species: the human brain evolved to respond to narrative, to remember lessons and patterns embedded in social context. When scientists ignore this, evidence struggles to compete with storytellers who may not have the best intentions.

However, understanding why people believe false claims is only half the battle. Communicators also need strategies to make corrections stick, and this is where research in cognitive science and psychology offers insights.

First is the principle of identity-protective cognition: people reject information that threatens their social, political, or cultural identity. A correction framed as a direct challenge to someone’s worldview will almost certainly fail to convince them. This means that when countering a viewpoint, it’s essential to take into account and speak to the person’s belief system, meeting them where they are, rather than demanding that they step away from the groups and values that shape their sense of self.

Then there is the role of empathy, which is a surprisingly powerful – and often underused – tool. Science communicators who acknowledge concerns rather than dismiss them create space for dialogue. Studies show that people are more receptive to corrections framed around shared values than to confrontational messaging. For example, a climate skeptic may resist charts of carbon emissions, which represent abstract statistics, but is more likely to engage with a story about how extreme heatwaves are disrupting a local community. The human experience grounds the narrative into emotional storytelling, and allows a reframing of the data. Similarly, public health campaigns that frame vaccination as protecting loved ones or the broader community tap into emotional responses, reducing resistance.

Another important element is communicator trust. This refers to the confidence an audience has in the person or source delivering a message. It’s the belief that the communicator is honest, knowledgeable, and has good intentions. When people trust a communicator, they are more likely to accept, understand, and act on the information that person shares – even if it is scientifically false. Communicator trust is often built through credibility, authenticity, and consistency over time, and it is usually linked with the most effective storytellers.

It can be daunting to start from scratch with building trust in the digital world, but the good news is that some groups are already naturally more trusted than others, and they can leverage this to debunk misinformation more successfully. For example, doctors are generally highly trusted because of their expertise and perceived good intentions.

You may ask, if trust in doctors is so high, why do people reject vaccinations in the first place? And that is a very good question. Almost always in those instances, the doctor-patient trust has been eroded through a negative experience of some kind. Again, there’s positive news: studies show that even once lost, trust in doctors can be regained through transparency, empathy, and demonstrating competence. Being honest about uncertainties, listening carefully to patients, showing care for their well-being, and consistently providing reliable medical advice all help rebuild trust over time. This is an underused element of science communication that can yield significant results – studies have found that vaccine-hesitant parents often change their minds after being invited to have a one-to-one conversation with a qualified doctor, through having their fears heard and addressed respectfully.

Even in the most resistant populations, messenger choice matters. Research shows that peers, community leaders, or individuals with shared identity traits can influence beliefs far more effectively than distant experts. Similarly, relatable voices telling stories of climate impacts can persuade audiences that data alone cannot reach. It may seem counterintuitive that people are more likely to trust a single individual than broad scientific consensus, but it reflects how the human brain is wired – we respond more strongly to personal stories and relatable messengers than to abstract data, however robust it may be.

The implications of these insights are significant. To be effective, science communicators need to learn to craft messages that engage empathy through storytelling, in recognition of the fact that persuasion is as much an art as a science. Changing minds is not easy, but it is possible. Evidence shows that respectful, narrative-driven communication can reduce the influence of misinformation and encourage people to rethink deeply held beliefs. The goal is not to shame or lecture people, but to connect with them and guide them toward understanding without triggering defensive resistance. In a world saturated with misinformation, the ability to communicate science effectively is as critical as the science itself.

Ultimately, combating misinformation requires humility and persistence, but it is also necessary to build trust, strengthen understanding, and create a foundation for informed decision-making in society. If we want truth to keep pace with fake news, we need to learn to meet people where they are, communicate with empathy, and commit to the long, patient work of rebuilding confidence in reliable information. Only then can evidence claim a central position in public discourse, guiding decisions instead of being drowned out by convincing but misleading claims.

The post Why do people ignore evidence, and what actually changes minds? appeared first on The Skeptic.

The article continues by claiming that the measles virus does not actually exist. Lanka vaguely states that the causes of measles are well known, but he does not elaborate further. The article’s centrepiece was a provocative challenge with a clear condition:

The reward (100,000 euros) will be paid, if a scientific publication is presented, in which the existence of the measles virus is not only asserted, but also proven and in which, among other things, the diameter of measles virus is determined.

(Translated by positivists.org)

So, who exactly is Stefan Lanka, and what makes him believe his claims deserve serious consideration?

A Virologist Against Viruses (Or At Least Some of Them)

Stefan Lanka studied Biology at the University of Konstanz, specialising in marine viruses for his PhD. He supposedly isolated the first giant virus from the ocean. During this period, he developed an interest in HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus). After spending some time reviewing scientific articles, he became convinced that neither HIV, nor any retroviruses, actually exist. In time, Lanka extended his theories further and, with the halo of his academic resume and his command of scientific jargon, he gained a considerable following from germ-denialist and anti-vax communities.

Being a virologist and opposing the idea of viruses – at least some of them – may sound contradictory. It is barely the most surprising of Lanka’s ideas: he also claims that the evolution of ‘infection theory’ is actually connected to a web of conspiracies between France, Germany and Britain of the time, and that viruses were invented as a deliberate misinterpretation of the ancient theory of humorism.

Germ Denialism

Stefan Lanka’s approach incorporates various conspiracy theories. Challenging scientific consensus established over decades – or even centuries – requires the challenger to provide alternative explanations for why mainstream science remains dominant. Typically, this involves crafting elaborate narratives and drawing unfounded connections between unrelated events. Lanka follows this familiar path, connecting the dots between many historical events, from the Suez Crisis to the exodus of Jewish scientists from Nazi Germany. Unsurprisingly, he blames powerful industries and elites for these grand plots.

Lanka’s virus denialism also extended to the measles virus. He claims that, like many viral infections, measles can be “easily” explained by poisons, or psychosomatic factors, especially what he calls “separation trauma” (for example, when children start kindergarten). He further argues that virologists often misunderstand the very concept of viruses and that financially motivated corporations ignore this.

This kind of germ denialism is certainly a fringe idea, and it is unlikely to spread widely. Despite that, the timing of Lanka’s challenge was critical. Amid a measles crisis, the German government’s nationwide vaccination campaign drew the attention of anti-vax communities to Lanka’s challenge, even though it was published on a relatively small website.

Lanka singled out particular experts, such as Dr Annette Mankertz of the Robert Koch Institute. He claimed that if she truly cultured the measles virus as part of her research, she must therefore be able to state the exact diameter of the virus.

He had been targeting the institute in his germ denialism for some time, as the institute serves as Germany’s national public health authority, responsible for monitoring health and tackling both infectious and non‑communicable diseases. Yet, the response came from a completely unexpected person.

Round One: The Measles Case Unfolds

Weeks after Lanka’s challenge, medical student David Bardens contacted him to confirm whether it was serious. Lanka’s reply was vague, but it appeared the offer still stood. In early 2012, Bardens submitted six scientific papers as evidence for the existence of the measles virus, along with a covering note:

With the detailed compilation of literature attached I have given you both the proof of the existence of the measles virus and the required images and information on the diameter of the measles virus.

Please transfer the amount of 100,000 euros to the following account […]

I would like to thank you for the opportunity to acquire such a relatively big amount of money with such a relatively little effort.

With best regards,
David Bardens

(Translated by positivists.org)

After several weeks and a few follow‑up messages from Bardens, Stefan Lanka rejected the six papers, arguing that they were not from the Robert Koch Institute, failed to meet legal or scientific standards, and merely described normal cell functions rather than viruses. Bardens repeated his demand for the prize money via his attorney and, finally, in 2013, he filed a lawsuit in the Ravensburg Regional Court (Landgericht Ravensburg).

Proceedings began in 2014. The judge ordered an expert review of the six papers Bardens had submitted to see whether they met the challenge’s scientific criteria. Professor Andreas Podbielski, a German microbiologist and infectious-disease epidemiologist, was appointed as the expert witness. Podbielski completed his report in November 2014.

All six publications submitted by the claimant meet international scientific standards. Their combination demonstrates the existence and size of the measles virus. Thus, they fulfil the conditions of the challenge.

Lanka wrote a 58-page response to Podbielski’s expert evaluation. This response hints at Lanka’s playbook. While his headline argument was that the prize required a single publication, he also used the court as a battleground to challenge modern virology.

As in his other writings and interviews, he attempted to reframe the scientific process in pseudoscientific frameworks that served his narrative. For example, he claimed that scientific publications must comply with legal standards set by the Infection Protection Act (IfSG), and even argued that only a publication by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) would meet those legal requirements. The court rejected this: as Podbielski noted, the scientific validity of a paper is not determined by its origin or any legal status. Lanka also repeated a common germ-denialist claim that viruses don’t meet Koch’s postulates, 19th-century criteria framed for bacterial diseases, ignoring that virology now uses updated standards.

In early 2015, the court ruled in Bardens’ favour: the challenge was binding, he had met its terms, and Lanka was ordered to pay 100,000 euros plus interest and legal costs.

The court decision made headlines in Der Spiegel, the BBC, and other outlets. Many saw it as a clear victory for science over pseudoscience. Lanka received the “The Golden Blockhead” (Goldenes Brett vorm Kopf), a satirical award from the German skeptics’ group GWUP, akin to The Skeptic’s Rusty Razor.

In the end, Lanka and his supporters took an important lesson from this, and the anti-vax movement lost significant momentum. Truth won, science prevailed, middle-age darkness lost its hopeless battle against the enlightenment!

…well, not exactly.

Round Two: Lanka Fights Back

While Bardens’ side was celebrating, Lanka’s supporters were furious. They dismissed the ruling as propaganda and called the legal process suspect. Bardens and his lawyer were subjected to antisemitic abuse; he was accused of being in the pocket of “Big Pharma” and of belonging to the Illuminati. In a later interview, Bardens explained that he had received death threats, including one saying he should be ‘killed by injection’ and another involving an AK-47. He added that, for a time, he needed personal protection to appear in public.

Lanka himself didn’t stay quiet. In the days that followed, he kept attacking Bardens’ six papers, Professor Andreas Podbielski’s expert report, and what he claimed was the court’s failure to apply the “rules” of his challenge. He published a long piece setting out what he called the “measles process”, reprising his conspiratorial history of virology and asserting that his challenge had actually proved the measles virus does not exist. He even issued a veiled warning to GWUP over its mock prize, hinting at possible criminal and civil action.

After the decision was served on Stefan Lanka, he appealed to a higher court. With the first-instance ruling still in force, the Tettnang District Court issued a warrant for his arrest for non-payment. Despite the appeal, Lanka paid 121,000 euros to Bardens.

Despite paying under pressure of enforcement, Lanka pressed on with his appeal. He raised procedural complaints, including that he had been cut short at the hearing, and that a witness from the Robert Koch Institute should have been called. The court found those points unfounded, or that they were raised too late.

Lanka also claimed the reward was not public, because it appeared in a newsletter; the court noted that, in any case, his written confirmation to Bardens in January 2012 made the offer binding. His attacks on the six papers and on Professor Podbielski did not change anything. However, the judges accepted one of his readings: that the proof had to appear in a single scientific publication. Although Podbielski told the court that modern biomedicine rarely produces a single, all-in-one paper, the court adopted a literal interpretation of the terms.

On 16 February 2016, the Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart (Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart) reversed the decision and dismissed the 100,000 euros reward. The ruling turned on a technicality rather than a scientific question, as Judge Karl-Heinz Oleschkewitz stressed that it was not about whether the measles virus exists. “It is an illusion to believe that a court can rule on that,” he said. He also appealed to the reporters in the courtroom to be careful with their headlines.

As expected, anti-vax communities did not hear the judge. Immediately after the appeal decision, Lanka presented the ruling as if his challenge had proved the measles virus does not exist. He argued that Bardens had not met the terms, that the expert report was flawed, and that the court had actually confirmed his position. Within days, he spun the ruling into a claim that measles vaccines don’t work.

Following his lead, German denialist and anti-vaccine outlets framed it as a sweeping victory over modern medicine. German New Medicine, for example, claimed the decision aligned with Ryke Geerd Hamer’s theories, even though Hamer had previously made antisemitic allegations about Lanka and accused him of legitimising virology. The further the story travelled, the further it drifted from reality: the “Higher Regional Court” became the ‘Supreme Court’, Bardens became “the medical science community”, measles dropped out of the picture, and the takeaway morphed into the sweeping falsehood – “no scientific publication to prove that viruses exist”.

For his part, David Bardens was surprised by the appeal outcome. He had expected the court to read “a scientific publication” as “at least one paper”, given Lanka’s claim that “there wasn’t even a single publication proving the measles virus or determining its diameter”. As it turned out, that narrow single-paper reading was arguably Lanka’s weakest point in the appeal, and it ended up saving him. Bardens asked the Federal Court of Justice to hear the case, but it declined. Either way, the damage was done; the reversal wouldn’t undo it.

Years on, misinformation about the measles case persists in Covid-19 denialist circles and across alternative-medicine platforms from New Zealand to the United States. Stefan Lanka continues to publish articles and give video interviews misrepresenting the court ruling and promoting HIV and Covid-19 denialism.

Conclusion

The measles case between Stefan Lanka and David Bardens leaves a mixed picture for critical thinkers. Firstly, David Bardens deserves credit. Whatever the final ruling, he put in time, money and personal energy for a piece of sceptical activism. He did so in full view, aware that some fringe communities can turn hostile when challenged. That commitment is worth acknowledging before we look at what this case can teach about effective skeptical activism.

The outcome wasn’t great. Lanka, his followers and a wider network of vaccine deniers, conspiracy circles and alternative-medicine outlets walked away with a handy piece of clickbait misinformation. Stripped of context, it has been recycled again and again.

Even so, it’s too harsh to judge the case solely on that basis. The reversal was based on a narrow technicality. Bardens had little room to manoeuvre. Even if a further appeal had been admitted and gone the other way, vaccine denialism would have found another piece of clickbait; they hardly need help.

It’s also easy to say the challenge should simply have been ignored. The case gave Lanka undeserved international attention; if he was left alone, the plea might have stayed within his own denialist circles. History suggests that prize challenges, such as the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, rarely shift committed opponents. Furthermore, Lanka’s challenge turned into a trap for Bardens; the “single publication” condition was effectively impossible to satisfy. Still, saying this now risks hindsight bias since, at the time, nobody knew Bardens would lose on that technicality.

The measles case ran for about five years. In the end, it is hard to say anyone changed their mind. It swayed neither camp, and for undecided observers, it offered a confusing legal parade rather than a clear scientific resolution. As a public spectacle, it felt more like a draw than a clear result.

So, what to do the next time a conspiracy influencer throws down a challenge? Do we take it up, or leave it be?

Looking at the measles case, one lesson stands out: there’s no room to lose. These challenges should be approached with care, and the risk of backfire weighed seriously. For instance, the courtroom proved a risky venue. Science is not decided by legal technicalities, but court cases often are. Litigation is slow and costly. Court proceedings attract uncontrolled publicity, lend a false sense of equivalence, and invite punchy, misleading headlines with binary outcomes.

The measles case also shows how the denialist playbook works.

Stefan Lanka isn’t just any opponent of mainstream science; he is a trained biologist. That background lends him credibility and can make his claims harder to dismiss at first glance. He often wraps arguments in scientific jargon that sounds persuasive but collapses under expert scrutiny. He repeatedly shifts the goalposts to counter valid points (e.g. by demanding a single ‘killer’ paper). Like many denialists, he relies on the Gish gallop, flooding the audience with legal, scientific and historical half-truths to create the impression of overwhelming evidence. He builds his case on a conspiratorial scaffold in which hidden elites and shadowy plots explain away the scientific consensus, while positioning himself as the sole navigator of the real story. That scaffold is supported with irrelevant historical contexts (such as 19th-century European politics), pseudo-legal mistruths (the ‘legality’ of publications, the Infection Protection Act and the role of the RKI) and outright disinformation.

In the end, the measles trial wasn’t a win or a loss so much as it was a reminder of how messy these confrontations can get. It’s no surprise that broad scientific consensus can’t stop a story being stripped for parts and repackaged for fresh audiences. Denialist circles often sit inside echo chambers, where everyday sceptical tools don’t reach; what works in open debate rarely works in a ‘cultic milieu’. Even so, people do change their minds and some walk away from denialism. It isn’t a zero-sum game – it is still slow, patient work that moves the needle.

This piece was originally published in 2020, for the Turkish skeptic blog Yalansavar. It has been translated and expanded for publication here.

Further Reading

• The Bardens vs Lanka Case | Chronology and documentation
• Ravensburg Regional Court judgement
• Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart judgement

The post Stefan Lanka, virus denialism, and proving science in the courtroom appeared first on The Skeptic.

As history shows with the likes of Harold Shipman, there are certainly sad and disastrous events that occur in human and veterinary medicine that we can learn from to ensure they never happen again. They are, thankfully, rare.

Yet sometimes, people believe – magnified and exacerbated by social media – that there is widespread harm being done because a mass of professionals is ‘in’ on a conspiracy, trying to make money, trying to harm pets, and more. This is not true. But, as with most things, the loud and vocal minority can make a lasting impact – especially when they set out to attack the integrity of a compassionate profession.

One example is anti-vaccination rhetoric. A 2020 study into human vaccination concluded that, over a 20-year period, vaccines were remarkably safe. Similarly, a 2004 canine study found no temporal association between vaccination and ill-health in dogs. Although there is always risk with any medication, and medication reactions obviously do occur, the preponderance of the evidence supports minimal risk of harm from vaccines. Even when we look more closely at some specific brands of vaccination that are particularly vilified, the evidence still suggests incredibly uncommon and rare adverse events.

You need only to look at the re-emergence of measles in the UK and USA; countries that had previously, due to vaccination, almost managed to eliminate the disease. New data suggests that it could soon become endemic again if vaccination levels remain as they are.

This re-emergence was fundamentally caused by a now-disproven paper that linked autism to a vaccine, and subsequent erosion of trust in science by misinformation. The General Medical Council found the paper’s author, former doctor Andrew Wakefield, guilty of serious professional misconduct – but, despite the publication’s withdrawal and being disproved by numerous studies, there are still people who continue to cite Wakefield’s research as evidence of the harms of vaccines.

Medical skepticism has been subject to social-psychological research, which found strong correlations between vaccine skepticism and adherence to complementary and alternative medicine and conspiracy ideation. A 2019 study by Cuevas et al. suggests that mistrust toward healthcare may unfavourably affect patient-clinician interactions and patients’ outcomes. To tackle it, we can’t just present facts, because facts do not change minds; we need to implement a more systemic long-term strategy to address the root causes of medical mistrust.

One 2020 paper (Scherer et al.) looked at three theoretical perspectives on why certain people are susceptible to online misinformation: lack of knowledge or literacy to discriminate between true and false information; having strong pre-existing beliefs or ideological motivations; and neglecting to sufficiently reflect about the truth or accuracy of news content encountered on social media.

Addressing pre-existing beliefs, research from Toomey et al. found that factors such as worldview, religion, and political beliefs have strong associations with rejection of science related to controversial issues. Not only that, but our bias towards those factors also means that we see data compatible with the beliefs we currently hold as more ‘valid’ than data that could refute those beliefs. This was further supported by a 2015 paper that showed acceptance of scientific evidence depends on the availability of such alternative points of view as religious faith and political ideology; if scientific results conflict with a readily available alternative view, individuals are less likely to defer to the research.

Furthermore, we are highly sensitive to the beliefs and actions of those in our immediate circle or community – is this the hunter-gatherer ancestral background rearing its head? One paper by Douglas et al., (2017) reported social motives (the desire to belong and to maintain a positive image of the self and the in-group) as a driver of conspiracy ideology.

So, while behavioural change can occur at the individual level, broader impacts require a focus on social networks and systems. This is a great example of how social media platforms are exacerbating these beliefs, as people enter an echo-chamber and feel part of that community or movement. Trying to engage in reasonable discussion with individuals who choose to engage aggressively is likely futile; data that runs contrary to their view is likely to drive them further away.

Additionally, the physical strain of your time and resources and mental drain on your emotions means direct confrontation is not likely to change minds. Does this mean we shouldn’t ever ‘call out’ or counteract medical misinformation? Perhaps not.

There is often a silent majority, quietly reading, sitting on the fence. These people, not yet aligned to any particular view, will potentially read your professional, calm, polite and robust replies, and you may make a difference to them. Evidence does show that those people exposed to correct information are less susceptible to conspiracy or misinformation than those who have not been exposed to the correct information first. This is called inoculation theory – offering a logical basis for developing a psychological “vaccine” against misinformation.

A paper by Douglas et al. (2017) discusses factors such as epistemic motives (the human desire to find causal explanations for events, building up a stable, accurate, and internally consistent understanding of the world) and existential motives (the need for people to feel safe and secure in their environment and to exert control over the environment) as other reasons people will latch on to alternative or conspiracy views – because it gives them an answer and control over a situation they feel out of control of.

This is noteworthy in veterinary medicine – sadly, animals get ill and die, and sometimes these events are unexpected. We do not always do a post mortem to confirm diagnosis, maybe due to financial cost, or owners’ wishes. Owners, in their understandable deep emotional state of grief or mental duress (anyone who has lost an animal companion can attest to this), can try to find answers as to what happened – and can settle on blaming the vaccine/medication the pet had a week, month or even year prior, especially when anti-vax info is easily accessible when you start to search for it. Again, vaccine reactions do occur – this is the importance of pharmacosurveillance – but overall they have been proven incredibly safe.

Toomey et al.’s 2023 study concluded that most attitudes and behaviours regarding research decision-making are not based on the rational evaluation of evidence, but determined instead by a host of contextual, social, and cultural factors and values. Therefore, providing additional information – even in accessible formats – is not likely to lead to significant changes.

So, facts will not always change minds, and a social media argument is unlikely to be beneficial, helpful or fruitful to you or the other person, and will probably cause both of you considerable anger, anxiety and frustration. Ultimately, you both believe you’re right, and on reflection want the same thing – a healthy, happy pet (you’re just going about it via different routes, one of which may not be evidence-based). But there is some indication that effective techniques exist.

With that in mind, how do we best get people to evaluate, remember and engage in evidence-based information?

‘Message elaboration’ is a term that broadly refers to the amount of effort that an audience of a message has to use to process and evaluate a message, remember it, and subsequently accept or reject it. One paper from 2022 looked into the presentation of a message and its contents, evaluating how successfully it was received. The results indicated that including statistical evidence in messaging reduced elaboration, improving audiences’ understanding, with fewer misperceptions and increased perceived message believability. Facebook messages presented in this way also were associated with higher audience intentions to share, like and comment, showing greater engagement and favourability. The research also found that messages including text and an image had better message elaboration than image-only messages. This shows that, if we want to engage effectively with people on social media, we should consider how we present our messaging, as well as what we’re saying.

Benecke and DeYoung’s 2019 study looks at the broader picture, and identifies the need for a long-term educational strategy. In their work, they explain that medical professionals must take a different approach to education, including outreach to vulnerable communities and individuals; they also note that social media platforms have an active role to play in monitoring and banning false information.

In terms of bridging the gap between medical professionals and the public, and opening up conversation that’s more likely to help than hinder, we need more spaces for group dialogue, where we can listen to multiple perspectives and “embodied knowledge”, which can help us alter our message to make it more likely to be well-received, and to think more carefully about whom we seek to target with our message. In essence, we should tackle medical misinformation, but we must be strategic in how we do so.

Direct contact with clients and veterinary teams can also end in a positive or negative interaction. Perceived dismissive attitudes, judgement or defensive behaviour by a veterinary team will likely build bigger walls and shut down opportunity for conversation and compromise.

Some of these issues can be mitigated by ‘physician-focused’ changes. For example, a study found the effects of mistrust can be countered using patient-centered communication skills. These include soliciting the patient’s concerns and priorities, and being responsive to the healthcare needs and belief system the patient identifies with. One study found that medical professionals might be able to buffer patients’ levels of medical mistrust using patient-centred communication.

Medical misinformation is rife in human and veterinary medicine. It is frustrating, and can cause poor patient outcomes. But we, as veterinary professionals, have to accept some accountability in how our behaviour shapes communication and our perceived image. There is no simple answer as to how we tackle it, but ensuring we engage in the right way can ensure we help, rather than hinder, communication with those with alternative views.

Further Reading

• Kraft, Patrick & Lodge, Milton & Taber, Charles. (2015) Why People “Don’t Trust the Evidence”. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
• Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M., & Cichocka, A. (2017) The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science.
• Anne H. Toomey (2023) ‘Why facts don’t change minds: Insights from cognitive science for the improved communication of conservation research‘. Biological Conservation.
• Abid MH, Kumah A, Newera A, Hafez P. (2024) Patient-Centered Healthcare: From Patient Experience to Human Experience. Glob J Qual Saf Healthc.
• Browne, Matthew (2018) “Epistemic divides and ontological confusions: The psychology of vaccine scepticism, Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics”.
• Mitra,Tanushree Counts, S. & Pennebaker, W, J. (2016) “Understanding Anti-Vaccination Attitudes in Social Media” 
• Insights from Psychology: Medical Mistrust and Patients’ Decision Making – KJT Group
• Cuevas, A. G., O’Brien, K., & Saha, S. (2019). “Can patient-centered communication reduce the effects of medical mistrust on patients’ decision making?” Health Psychology.
• Huzar, T. (2021) Medical mistrust linked to race/ethnicity and discrimination (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Kinlock BL, Parker LJ, Bowie JV, Howard DL, LaVeist TA, Thorpe RJ Jr. (2017) “High Levels of Medical Mistrust Are Associated With Low Quality of Life Among Black and White Men With Prostate Cancer“. Cancer Control.
• Incidence of Measles in the United States, 2001-2015 | Global Health | JAMA | JAMA Network
• “I Know Things They Don’t Know!”: The Role of Need for Uniqueness in Belief in Conspiracy Theories: Social Psychology: Vol 48, No 3 (hogrefe.com)
• The Role of Conspiracist Ideation and Worldviews in Predicting Rejection of Science (plos.org)
• Lewandowsky S, Gignac GE, Oberauer K (2015) “Correction: The Role of Conspiracist Ideation and Worldviews in Predicting Rejection of Science“. PLOS ONE.
• Sharp rise in measles in England amid fears over ‘anti-vaxxers’ | MMR | The Guardian
• Benecke, O., & DeYoung, S. E. (2019). “Anti-Vaccine Decision-Making and Measles Resurgence in the United States“. Global Pediatric Health.
• Doctor who linked MMR jab to autism is struck off | The Independent | The Independent
• Kiang MV, Bubar KM, Maldonado Y, Hotez PJ, Lo NC. (2025) “Modeling Reemergence of Vaccine-Eliminated Infectious Diseases Under Declining Vaccination in the US“. JAMA.
• Jacobs JW, Booth GS. (2025) “Unreliable Vaccine Information and the Erosion of Science“. JAMA.

The post Facts won’t change minds about animal medicine, so should we bother trying? appeared first on The Skeptic.

The discovery, however, is just one of many revelations from the survey conducted by Brazilian Ergon Cugler, a researcher at the National Research Council (CNPq) at the São Paulo School of Business Administration at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (EAESP-FGV). The work resulted in a series of seven studies focused on different aspects of conspiracy theories in Brazil and their interrelations, as well as an interactive map detailing its popularity and reach in 19 Latin American countries and territories.

Climate denialism and anti-science, for example, appear as a path to broader conspiracism, such as the New World Order, Globalism, QAnon and other theories of global domination. These, in turn, open the door to more harmful groups and religious radicalisation, with the framing of society’s conflicts as part of a true “spiritual battle” for the future of Humanity. Manipulation is also very present in apocalyptic, survivalist, occult and esoteric communities, where it serves to sell “quantum courses” and “miracle cures” such as CDS and MMS, in a cycle of misinformation dissemination and monetisation that feeds itself.

In search of data

The survey began in 2023, when Cugler was a member of the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (Ibict), a research unit linked to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI). Cugler developed a free, open source software called TelegramScrap to automatically extract and organise data from open groups and channels on Telegram. The tool searched for certain keywords, as well as identifying “related communities” suggested by the application itself, and links and invitations to other Telegram channels and groups published in those conversations.

Cugler points out that one of the advantages of using Telegram for this type of survey is that, unlike other messaging apps like WhatsApp, when you join a community on Telegram you can read all the posts made there in the past. In some cases, his system was able to recover posts dating back to December 2015, almost a decade ago, providing a broad overview of conspiracy theories and their advance in recent years in Brazil and Latin America.

With the help of TelegramScrap – and constant work to update the interactive map – Cugler analysed more than 58 million pieces of conspiracy theory content published by around 5.3 million users across over 800 communities and channels on Telegram, which he divided into 15 categories ranging from “conspiracy theory in general” to “reptilians and creatures”, including “climate change”, “UFOs” and “flat earthers”. More than half of the content was identified as being of Brazilian origin, as were around half of the users. Together, this content has accumulated views in the order of tens of billions, hundreds of millions of shares and tens of millions of reactions.

“I’m happy to have the data, but sad to see the volume”, he laments. “This project was born looking only at Brazil as part of Ibict’s effort in partnership with other ministries and the federal government to think about strategies to combat disinformation. But over time I expanded it to include 19 countries on the continent, and another category, which is transnational conspiracy theories, which cross borders.”

The researcher emphasises, however, that the survey is not intended to be exhaustive. For example, closed communities are excluded, whose content can only be accessed with the permission of the group owners, and therefore cannot be searched by his tool. He also cannot determine with certainty the nationality of users or communities, making the classification based on indirect clues, such as the language used, mentions of the names of countries, use of their flags in the group descriptions, and addresses for orders and deliveries of the products sold.

“I can’t tell if the user is Brazilian, Colombian or Peruvian, but I know that the community is Brazilian if it’s in Portuguese, or Peruvian if it has a Peruvian flag and talks about Peru. The users in these communities tend to be from that geographic area, but there may be people from other countries who are there too”, he explains. “And it’s also interesting to see that they translate content. For example, there’s a post that says that autism is caused by parasites. We see this in Spanish, in a group from Peru, and then we find the same text translated into Portuguese, with the same commas, with the same messages.”

Business model

In light of this, Cugler is preparing the first study covering data from across the continent, focusing precisely on misinformation and conspiracy theories involving autism spectrum disorder, in partnership with the National Association for the Inclusion of Autistic People. He mapped 150 supposed causes of the problem spread in these communities – from oil and plastics to Doritos – and 150 false cures promoted and sold.

“These people have actually turned misinformation into a business model”, he says. “They set up huge groups, sometimes with 20,000 or 30,000 members, and post content there every day to create panic. They’ll post things like ‘you have 550,000 worms in your intestines’ and then say: ‘but don’t worry. There is a deworming protocol to get these worms out of your intestines’. And in the next post the will be a link for the user to buy this protocol. They create the problem and sell the solution.”

The researcher reports that this type of content is very common in anti-vaccine groups and does not only involve so-called “alternative” medicines, but also includes e-books, online courses and other digital products.

“These are communities that seem to have been set up just to sell, to monetize the anti-vaccine discourse“, he says. “In them, you often have the same image guiding the person to the problem, solution and purchase, acquisition. It is constant.”

Cugler points out that Telegram’s very design favors this business model, by recommending misinformation content and channels to those already on the network. In doing so, Telegram encourages users to take a journey through the service that takes them deeper and deeper into the Alice-hole of conspiracy theory communities there, in a practical demonstration that the best predictor of belief in a given conspiracy theory is already endorsing another conspiracy theory.

“What’s serious is that I’ve been crossing all categories of communities and there’s not one that doesn’t have a link to another, they all communicate with each other in some way”, he says. “I could solve a problem with an inappropriate medication and go to a New World Order group, which would then have a link to a group of historical revisionism and political radicalization. And this also shows the possible journey of this user, who sometimes can enter a community unwittingly because he’s outraged with the government, or has a legitimate doubt about vaccines, and ends up captured. He starts to think that there are reptilians dominating the world, and then if he takes chlorine dioxide he’ll protect himself from their nanobots, and in the end he’ll end up in a radicalization group.”

In his specific study of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, he noted how the anti-vaccine narrative is often intertwined with larger conspiracy theories, suggesting that those who join anti-vaccine communities are quickly exposed to a larger web of misinformation and fear.

“The ideas propagated in anti-vaccine communities are not limited to health, but expand to theories of global domination, manipulation and apocalyptic crises produced by a supposed elite. This pattern highlights how anti-vaccine theories function as a gateway to a vast network of misinformation, where each narrative reinforces the others, creating a continuous cycle of radicalization”, he adds.

Cugler also describes in the study how certain communities act as opinion leaders or dissemination centres, where health misinformation is widely shared. This internal network reflects the creation of its own ecosystem, in which conspiracy narratives feed on each other, creating a vicious cycle of misinformation.

“This dynamic suggests that, once inside this network, it is difficult for followers to break away from these beliefs, as they are continually exposed to narratives that reinforce their distorted worldview, making the community a closed space of radicalization and resistance to information that is contrary to or based on scientific evidence”, he points out.

A clear sign of this detected by the study is the way in which the fraudulent study by former British doctor Andrew Wakefield linking vaccines and autism continues to come up in conversations as an argument against vaccination, despite having long since been retracted and removed from the scientific literature as being totally invalid.

“This persistence reflects the resilience of this conspiracy theory, which has been widely debunked by the scientific community but continues to be promoted by these communities as a hidden truth”, Cugler said. “The idea that vaccines cause autism serves as a focal point for different misinformation narratives, creating a common ground that connects health issues to broader issues of distrust of conventional medicine and authority.”

The intersection between health misinformation and esoteric narratives creates a highly influential and attractive network for new members. “By mixing global conspiracy theories with alternative beliefs”, Cugler explains, “these communities are able to create a disinformation network that is both complex and attractive, increasing its reach and the difficulty of dismantling these narratives”.

New level

The timescale of the data that Cugler obtained also allows us to observe how the “popularity” of conspiracy theories reached a new level with the COVID-19 pandemic, at least on Brazilian Telegram. His study reveals that anti-vaccine narratives experienced a 290% increase during the health crisis, with a growing interconnectivity with other conspiracy theories that were not limited to health themes, especially those of “global domination” such as Globalism and the New World Order.

“The number of messages, engagement, users, all of this has changed levels. We saw an increase during the pandemic, a peak and, when the pandemic was over, and a drop – but to a level much higher than before”, he reports. “And even when we look at specific terms, such as ‘chlorine dioxide’ or ‘deworming’, we see the same pattern. Brazil seems to be supporting a good part of the conspiracy theories focused on health systems, on quackery.”

A possible explanation for this is another phenomenon also observed in studies on beliefs in conspiracy theories: these ideas become part of the identity of their followers and their sense of belonging to groups, whether political-ideological or religious.

“There is an instrumentalization of faith to sell miraculous health solutions, but it is also very present, for example, in apocalypse and survivalist communities, which also monetize, but in a different way: they sell knife kits, military clothing kits. I saw a group even selling bunkers, teaching how to build a bunker on your land to be able to survive a supposed apocalypse”, says the researcher.

Regarding the link between conspiracy theories and political positioning, Cugler cites a study conducted by a former IBICT colleague as part of her doctoral thesis that indicates that the events of January 8, 2023 in Brasília, when protesters attacked the headquarters of the Three Powers in an attempt to trigger a coup d’état, could be predicted from conversations in radical groups on Telegram.

“It shows the step-by-step process of these communities, which go from conspiracy to some kind of ideological framework and then, suddenly, they are there invading Brasília, because they think this will help ‘liberate Brazil’ from the New World Order”, he says. “I only started extracting this data after the event, but imagine if there had been a structure beforehand? From the government itself, from the security agencies? There could even have been some kind of anticipation there.”

The post Latest studies map conspiracy theories in Brazil and Latin America appeared first on The Skeptic.

Of course, my standard level of ire for Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is quite high. He is an anti-vax, science denying, fear-mongering conspiracy theorist who has a disturbing history with the corpses of megafauna. So it came as a surprise to me just how much more hatred I was able to muster for him on April 16th, when he launched a dangerously misguided crusade against autism. The opening bid of which was a grotesquely inaccurate speech that pushed the common alternative medicine refrain that the increased prevalence of autism is the result of some environmental toxin rather than the increase in testing people for autism. In the speech, Kennedy pledged to find the “cure” for autism by September, and he vowed to do so with a wildly unethical collection of private medical data from people’s doctors, pharmacies, insurance companies, and wearable devices.

The speech, which was occasioned by a new CDC report that noted an uptick in rates of autism, was ripe with misinformation. Kennedy dismissed the prevailing science about genetic inheritance, declaring it a “dead end” — on no scientific authority other than that which he gleaned in law school; accused the public and the media of succumbing to a “myth of epidemic denial,” and thereby implied that the scientific community was perpetuating a myth of denial; and in so doing, he grossly disparaged people with autism. He described children with on the spectrum as:

“[K]ids who will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

And, of course, much of the immediate response consisted of people pointing to all those tax-paying, baseball-playing, job-holding, poem-writing, date-going, unassisted shit-taking people with autism that so very clearly disprove his point. But as instinctual as that might be, it subtly plays into the Nazi-esque framing that he’s crafted around the issue.

Because yes, there are some places on the autism spectrum where people can’t use the bathroom unassisted. But so what? Do we value human beings now based on how hard it is for them to take a shit? How much their existence inconveniences us? And why the hell are the first two items on that list about “productivity to the state”? Paying taxes and having jobs? Is that how Robert Kennedy sees human beings? As potential contributions to the state?

As terrifying as Kennedy’s “conclusions-first” approach to science is, the far more concerning element here is the eugenic presumptions that undergirds his presumptions; this idea that what we want is a world without autism. But a world without autism is a world without so many of the people that I love. And even if you could somehow extract the autism and leave the person, you’d be siphoning away a lot of the “them” that I love.

But as we all know in the skeptical community, this seam of eugenics runs beneath a lot of the alt-medicine scene; never acknowledged openly but always just below the surface. It’s there in the bigoted horror some parents feel when they realise their genes could be faulty enough to make a kid with autism and scramble for some external villain to blame. It’s there in all their ableism about us making our health in our minds; a mindset that necessarily excludes those with congenital conditions and necessarily ostracises anyone unfortunate enough to develop a chronic condition after adopting this worldview. And it’s there in RFK Jr.’s presumption that neurotypical is an ideal that we should be trying to funnel people into.

Everything about RFK’s position is terrifying beyond belief, but nothing is more terrifying than the eugenics groundwork he’s laying by defining people with autism as leeches on the state who need to be cured and prevented. I know a lot of people who can’t play baseball or hold a job or write a poem or take an unassisted shit. What will Kennedy’s cure for them look like?

The post Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s “autism cure” quest reeks of eugenics appeared first on The Skeptic.

Disinformation is, in the strictest sense of the word, the composition and dissemination of information that is knowingly false or misleading with the aim of influencing individuals, groups or public opinion in favour of strategic, political, ideological, economic or even personal interests. It is not new for people, companies, institutions and governments to deliberately lie, whether to protect themselves, attack, discredit or hinder opponents and enemies, promote their agendas or obtain some kind of gain or profit.

There is no shortage of historical examples. From the Allied operations that helped convince the Nazi leadership that the invasion of Europe would take place through the Calais region in World War II, to the oil industry’s struggle to first deny the harmful effects on public health of adding lead to fuels, and then global warming and climate change, to the tobacco industry and the link between smoking and cancer.

Until recently, disinformation initiatives were laborious and slow. But today, with the internet and social media, lies travel at the speed of light, reaching well-defined target audiences with surgical precision, or as weapons of mass destruction of truth, credibility or public trust in people, policies or institutions. It is no coincidence that in recent years we have seen the rise of several anti-science movements, from the seemingly harmless flat-earthers to the clearly dangerous anti-vaccine movement, as well as the advance of radical ideologies, notably the far right, and religious fundamentalism.

In an attempt to understand this phenomenon, however, a new science has also emerged. It is called “Agnotology”, the study of the production and promotion of ignorance, of how people, groups, communities or even entire societies can remain or are kept ignorant or oblivious to certain information and facts, and the interests that this serves.

This field already has its researchers in Brazil, such as Nayla Lopes, a PhD student in Political Science at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). As part of her thesis, Lopes seeks to establish a link between denialism in the Covid-19 pandemic and a deliberate promotion of ignorance in the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

“My goal is to study people’s denialist behaviour regarding the pandemic,” she says. “Before, I had the impression that there would be a limit to this behaviour, that ensuring the survival of oneself and those one cares about would outweigh this denialism. But what we saw was that this limit being repeatedly exceeded. People risked their own lives and the lives of those they cared about in the midst of one of the biggest health crises in history.”

Question of intention

According to Lopes, one of the biggest challenges of agnotology is to determine the intentionality of the spread of ignorance. Fortunately for her – and unfortunately for Brazil – the former president himself did not shy away from offering evidence of this in relation to the pandemic, with measurable impacts on the number of cases and deaths from Covid-19 in the country .

On more than one occasion, for example, Bolsonaro confessed that he was “the only head of state in the world” to have gone against the main recommendations of experts and health authorities to prevent the spread of the disease, such as social distancing. At the same time, there is no shortage of examples of the times he encouraged people to gather in crowds, some of them at the worst moments of the pandemic in Brazil, when the country was recording thousands of deaths per day. These were events in which he also made clear his opposition to the use of masks, another fundamental non-pharmacological measure to try to control the spread of the virus.

“By repeatedly saying that he was ‘the only head of state’ who was against these non-pharmacological measures and using this as a kind of ‘badge of honor’, Bolsonaro only gives more proof of his intention”, considers Lopes.

This also includes the discourse of minimising the health crisis, such as the many times the former president referred to Covid-19 as a “little flu” that could be easily cured by a non-existent “early treatment”.

“Who expects the president of a country to lie blatantly?” asks the researcher. “This type of minimisation by a person whom the public looks to for information and leadership fuels a tendency to calm down and become less alert at the individual level. Which, in the case of the pandemic, has made people even more vulnerable to the disease.”

The result was a direct, and tragic, impact on pandemic statistics in Brazil: “It is no coincidence that we observed, for example, that places with a higher proportion of Bolsonaro supporters also had a higher mortality rate from Covid-19 .”

Furthermore, the former president did not act alone. It was not uncommon for Bolsonaro, members of his government, or his supporters to enlist supposed experts to try to legitimise his denialist discourse, in a typical disinformation tactic and further evidence of intentionality.

“When people first started talking about agnotology, the studies were about the tobacco industry and its strategy of spreading uncertainty and doubts about the relationship between smoking and cancer, the ‘merchants of doubt’ (a reference to the title of the book by science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway on the subject),” Lopes recalls. “And experts play an important role in constructing this discourse. The tobacco industry funded studies to sow doubts about the scientific consensus, and the oil industry followed suit with climate change, in a format that seeks to bring scientific legitimacy to the agnotological discourse. During the pandemic here in Brazil, for example, we had the so-called ‘Doctors for Life’, a group that gained notoriety by prescribing useless ‘Covid kits’ and defending nonexistent ‘early treatment’.”

Lopes explained for those studying agnotology, the process of promoting ignorance, disinformation is key. And it can come in many forms, not necessarily lies, such as the straw man fallacy or anecdotal evidence, causing confusion in the public’s mind.

“There is no need to lie to present a denialist framework of reality,” she emphasises. “During the pandemic, for example, Bolsonaro said he took hydroxychloroquine and got better from Covid-19. But he could very well have taken nothing and got better, too. It is not a lie that he got better, but it changes the focus of the issue. Personal experience is not necessarily a lie, but it is incompatible with the scientific method. It is all part of the tactic of sowing doubt, and thus science is discredited by agnotological agents.”

Documentary evidence

Another important aspect of the work, says Lopes, is the collection of documentary evidence of the deliberate promotion of ignorance by these agnotological agents. In the cases of the tobacco and oil industries, history has shown how they accumulated knowledge about the relationship between their products with cancer and climate change, respectively, and their actions in an attempt to cover up or confuse the issue. The Covid-19 pandemic, however, is a recent event, which initially makes it difficult to study with the benefit of time and distance.

Once again, however, the former president, members of his government and his supporters made the researcher’s work easier, leaving many traces of denialist actions. Lopes recalls that, while in the first wave of the pandemic it was still possible to have doubts about the best strategy to face the health crisis, from mid-2020 and the beginning of the second wave of Covid-19, it was already established that hydroxychloroquine did not work against the disease, and the search for a supposed “herd immunity” was not only illusory but dangerous, with the potential to cause thousands of deaths and the collapse of health systems.

“There are more than a thousand warning documents ignored by the Bolsonaro government ,” she says. “From the second wave onwards, it was already possible to distinguish what worked and what didn’t in preventing the disease. Even without a vaccine, it was already possible to alleviate the situation with non-pharmacological measures. The information was available. So much so that Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom, and even (Donald) Trump in the US, in a way corrected the course. Bolsonaro insists to this day that he was right, even in the face of the tragic numbers of the pandemic in Brazil.”

The Brazilian Senate’s pandemic parliamentary inquiry also helped to accumulate documentary evidence about the denialist actions of the federal government and its supporters during the health crisis. Among them, Lopes cites the attempt to change the hydroxychloroquine package insert, discussed in a meeting at the Planalto Palace, and the “Brazil cannot stop” campaign, also conceived and implemented by the presidential office via the Presidency’s Communications Secretariat (Secom).

“The idea of ​​all this was to mislead and confuse the public. There’s no way to say it wasn’t intentional”, he says.

Another example of this, the researcher adds, was the so-called Covid-19 “data blackout” promoted by the federal government. Back in June 2020, the Ministry of Health stopped releasing consolidated figures on the pandemic in the country, and then, forced by the Supreme Federal Court (STF) to provide the information again, manipulated the structure of the epidemiological reports to reinforce the government’s denialist discourse, such as with the decision to highlight the number of recoveries and minimise deaths. These decisions led Brazilian media outlets to join forces in a consortium to verify the information and ensure its credibility with the public.

“Information control is another aspect of this action. Not only the framing, but also the provision of basic information about the pandemic was neglected by the Bolsonaro government,” she says. “Even if people did not want to be guided by what political leaders said, they had difficulty informing themselves about the reality of the pandemic in the country so they could make their own decisions.”

Given this, Lopes believes he will have sufficient evidence to support the agnotological thesis of promoting ignorance in the Bolsonaro government that helped fuel the denialism of part of the Brazilian population in the face of Covid-19.

“Hydroxychloroquine, early treatment, herd immunity, people didn’t come up with these ideas alone,” she says. “Putting it all together, we have a very likely scenario of agnotological intentionality on the part of Bolsonaro, his government and supporters regarding the pandemic.”

The post Studying the promotion of health misinformation by the Bolsonaro government appeared first on The Skeptic.

At the simplest level, there are those who say that we all have a right to free speech, and nobody’s right to that should ever be infringed upon. But such an absolutist position rarely holds up to scrutiny. Do we have the right to make false statements during financial transactions? We all accept that we do not have that right – we call that ‘fraud’, and we’re all happy to accept that our free speech doesn’t give us the right to commit fraud.

What about the right to yell racial slurs at people, do we have a free speech right to do that? Most, though not all of us, would concede that we don’t – that’s hate speech and discrimination. What about the right to make unwanted sexual remarks at people? Again, most – though definitely not all – will recognise that there’s a line there, and that crossing that line strays from free speech into sexual harassment. People will disagree over where that line lies – because some will feel that anything unwanted is by definition wrong, and others will try to excuse behaviours with defences like “deep down, they’re fine with it” and “well, how is anyone meant to flirt these days, it’s PC gone mad”. But most of us agree that there is a line there.

And of course, we have the defence of comedy: well, it’s only a joke, can’t you take a joke, we have to be able to joke about everything, after all, it’s a comedian’s job to push boundaries, even if people get offended by it. Though, when one of those comedians is criticised, inevitably they and their legion of diehard fans react with immediate and visceral offence – because, while they tell you it’s OK to joke about anything, in practice what they mean is it’s fine to joke about everything other than the thing they care about. Or to put it another way, when comedians fill their Netflix specials with cheap barbs at the expense of marginalised people, they’re not pushing boundaries, they’re showing you which targets they don’t care about.

Personally, for what it’s worth, I do think it’s important that comedians have the freedom to joke about anything at all, it’s just that the more emotive and sensitive the subject, the more skill is required to write jokes about it. If you’re juggling balls and clubs, you don’t have to be very skilful to pull it off, but if you try juggling knives when you haven’t the skill to do it, you can’t complain when you cut yourself.

I’m someone who cares a lot about the need for free speech, but I am also deeply suspicious of people who claim to be free speech absolutists, as often they are either people who subscribe glibly to a position they haven’t fully thought through, or they are very aware that what they mean is the freedom to say things that they personally agree with. And with that in mind, I want to consider Toby Young’s Free Speech Union.

Toby Young’s version of scepticism

The Free Speech Union describes itself as a non-partisan, mass membership public interest body that stands up for speech rights. And according to their website, they “champion the right of people from all walks of life to express themselves without fear of punishment or persecution”.

And these sound like noble goals and the kind that, on the face of it, any skeptic should be happy to endorse. It is also why science charity Sense About Science decided it a worthwhile endeavour to partner with the Free Speech Union to put on a series of lectures on the topic of science and free speech, culminating in May 2024’s event “Science Under Pressure — Restoring Public Confidence”, a conversation between the director of Sense About Science, Tracey Brown, and the General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Toby Young.

This, to me, seemed extraordinarily misguided. While the event blurb promised to help the audience understand how to “public distinguish between relevant expertise and those who merely have strong opinions and loud voices”, in my opinion (and I’m not alone), Toby Young is one of those loud-voiced, strongly opinionated people whose output undermines public confidence in science.

As well as being the General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Young is the founder and editor of the website “Lockdown Sceptics”, latterly rebadged as “Daily Sceptic”, which has been spreading misinformation about the pandemic since 2020, including articles from authors such Clare Craig, Mike Yeadon, and more.

The Daily Sceptic has been nothing but fulsome in its praise for Andrew Bridgen MP, the former-Tory-MP-turned-conspiracy-theorist, whose work sowing mistrust and dubious vaccine statistics in parliament has been dissected in The Skeptic previously. However, to the Daily Sceptic, Bridgen is treated as a brave and important whistleblower who should be celebrated, and defended, especially from the unfair ‘attacks’ of fact checkers or those who accuse him of antisemitism.

Daily Sceptic authors have uncritically reproduced a full transcript of his error-strewn parliamentary addresses on multiple occasions. In at least those latter instances, Toby Young shared the articles from his Daily Sceptic to his Twitter account so, even if he were to claim he did not fully endorse them, he ought at least to be aware of them.

A misleading approach to Covid statistics is also common at the Daily Sceptic, including an article that, even as recently as January 2024, continues to misunderstand or misrepresent the purpose of the Yellow Card scheme for reporting medical side effects. The article, jointly penned by Dr Carl Henegan and Dr Tom Jefferson, claims that the Yellow Card data shows there have been 2,546 deaths linked to the Covid vaccine – but, crucially, it misses the context that the data is not designed to claim causation, just to cast as broad a net as possible to help identify patterns.

The authors include the note:

The MHRA considers its previous estimates of underreporting (that only 10% of serious reactions are reported) should not be used as indicators of the reporting rate for COVID-19 vaccines, as it considers there is high public awareness of the Yellow Card scheme. There is no evidence of this heightened awareness, and it is plausible, given the previous estimate, that the number of suspected adverse reactions could be 10-fold higher than the number reported.

This, again, is highly misleading – medical side effects to common medications are often under-reported, possibly even to the level specified here… but that is far more often true of very trivial side effects. Headaches, sore arms, and mild fatigue are all side effects of vaccination that plenty of people will experience, but few will ever report them. So most of those trivial side effects may be entirely missing from the Yellow Card data (although, less so in the case of the Covid vaccine, because of the elevated public conversation around the potential for side effects).

However, if people were regularly dropping dead as a direct result of their vaccination, it’s incredibly unlikely that their death would go unreported – especially at a time when medical professionals were actively looking for any indication of unforeseen dangers. It is how the rare blood clotting issues caused by the Johnson & Johnson vaccine were quickly discovered and the use of the vaccine limited to reduce the chance of issues arising.

That the article in the Daily Sceptic missed, misunderstood, or misrepresented the purpose of the Yellow Card Scheme suggests a serious oversight by the authors and editors.

Elsewhere, in the article “Are We Being Gaslit Over the Cause of the Princess of Wales’s Cancer?”, we are led to question whether it’s rather unusual that both Kate Middleton and her father in law have cancer at the same time, and therefore whether the cause might be… the Covid vaccine:

“What is for certain is that – for whatever reason – King Charles and Princess Catherine are in a growing group of previously healthy people being diagnosed with cancer…

“If you want to look at some primary source material, search for “vaccine induced cancer” and “vaccine induced T cell suppression” – you’ll probably have to search for it on Rumble and other platforms like that.”

That post is written by Melissa Kite, who it is worth pointing out, is also a colleague of Young’s at the Spectator – where Young is listed as Associate Editor.

The Daily Climate Sceptic

Covid is not the only important issue that the Daily Sceptic spreads misinformation about – Young’s daily dose of scepticism includes a heavy dose of climate change denialism, including headlines like:

• Report Slams Governments and Media for Spinning Climate Alarmism From IPCC Reports Without Scientific Evidence
• Net Zero Promoters “Have No Idea What They Are Doing” Over Multi-Trillion Dollar Battery Costs, says New Report
• Climate Crisis Shock: No Change in Average U.K. Temperatures for More Than Two Decades
• Arctic Ice is Not “Rapidly Vanishing” – Study Finds Similar Trends Over At Least 200 Years
• CO2 Has Almost No Effect on Global Temperature, Says Leading Climate Scientist
• Shocking Failures of Climate and Covid Science Highlighted by Critical New Report

Each of those stories – and, in fact, a deluge of others – are based on reports, statements or experts provided by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the climate denialist charity which The Skeptic named as the winners of the 2022 Rusty Razor award for pseudoscience.

The Daily Sceptic’s reliance upon the GWPF (latterly rebranded to “Net Zero watch”) as its most frequent source for climate change contrarianism appears to be something of a sore spot for Young. Back in April, naturalist and climate activist Chris Packham appeared on a BBC news programme and pointed out the evidence that demonstrates the reality of climate change, saying (according to an account Young himself published in the Spectator):

‘It doesn’t come from Toby Young’s Daily Septic [sic], which is basically put together by a bunch of professionals with close affiliations to the fossil fuel industry… It comes from something called science.’ 

Young took great exception to this characterisation, complaining to the BBC and accusing Packham of a “smear” that was “false and defamatory”. As a result of complaints, including that by noted free speech advocate Toby Young, the BBC removed recordings of the programme in question.

In fairness to Toby Young, Packham’s assertion was false: there is no evidence that the Daily Sceptic is a well-financed front of the fossil fuel industry, and its articles are not put together by professionals who have close ties to that industry.

However, it remains true that the Daily Sceptic have published scores, if not hundreds, of articles whose central arguments have the effect of undermining public confidence in the reality of climate change, based on reports issued by a climate denialist charity dogged by allegations of association with the fossil fuel industry.

It is possible to argue that Packham was being charitable to the Daily Sceptic in assuming that the publication would only so enthusiastically parrot the talking points of a climate denialist organisation if it was being paid to do so, whereas the reality appears to be that the Daily Sceptic is uncritical in its reproduction of GWPF material because it genuinely believes in it.

A ‘sceptic’ by any other name

I first came across the Daily Sceptic in Telegram groups related to the White Rose antivax movement, which continues to enthusiastically share and approve of the work of Young’s team. However, a search among those same groups for mentions of the Free Speech Union shows the sentiment is far less positive – as best as I can tell, these antivax, conspiracist spaces actively dislike the FSU. Yet it’s hard to argue that there is a substantial difference between the positions of the Free Speech Union and those of the Daily Sceptic; indeed, why would there be, when both organisations have clear overlaps in terms of writers, directors, and editors?

But, with different brands comes the ability to be different things to different audiences… which brings us back to those “restoring public confidence in science” conversations, in partnership with Sense About Science. Sense About Science and their supporters might recognise the problematic positions of the Daily Sceptic, but when it comes to the Free Speech Union, who could possibly be against free speech?

It is possible to argue that, despite the misinformed scientific positions endorsed by Young’s Daily Sceptic, the mission of the Free Speech Union is still one worth supporting, because they are a “non-partisan membership public interest body that stands up for the speech rights of people from all walks of life”. That it is not a case of left or right, nor a case of science or pseudoscience; their goal is to protect the free speech of all, regardless of viewpoint.

It certainly isn’t hard to prove the FSU’s commitment to the free speech of one side of the political or ideological spectrum: their site has a video testimonial from Conservative activist Darren Grimes explaining that the FSU helped when he was being investigated by the police for racist remarks historian David Starkey made on Grime’s show, and the FSU also features video interviews with historian and conspiracy theorist Neil Oliver, and ‘anti-woke’ writer Andrew Doyle, among many more. Toby Young even explained in the Spectator that the FSU believes “even Tommy Robinson has the right to protest”. Laudable stuff.

But what of the other side of the ideological spectrum? Where is the FSU’s non-partisan support for those who espouse views that aren’t ones shared by Young, Douglas Murray, Andrew Doyle et al? When an employment tribunal collapsed after members of the panel were found to have tweeted statements that were anti-Tory, the Free Speech Union… had no issue with the tribunal’s collapse. We can presumably surmise that free speech does not extend to using one’s personal time to make jokes about the Tory party. We may wonder how the non-partisan FSU would respond to someone being censured at work for tweets critical of the Labour or Green parties.

Similarly, when plans were introduced to prevent workers for the Civil Service from wearing lanyards that showed their support for social movements, the FSU published two separate articles in support of the proposals, neither of which found much to criticise about a ban on expressing personal opinions in the workplace. Again, we may wonder how the FSU would have responded to a ban on wearing symbols of causes they happened to agree with.

The FSU’s positions are just as remarkable regarding the causes they decline to pass comment on. While Young is keen to highlight Tommy Robinson’s right to protest, he and the FSU have been oddly silent on whether Dr Sarah Benn has the right to peacefully protest against climate change without being suspended by the GMC, or whether Trudy Warner ought to have been threatened with jail for holding up a placard advising climate change protestors of their legal rights. The FSU’s position on climate protesters has amounted to chastising them for acts of vandalism – concerns they apparently didn’t feel the need to express over protests from Tommy Robinson and his supporters.

The freedom to be partisan

Just to be totally clear, I believe that the FSU has every right to only take an interest in cases they ideologically agree with and care about, and they’re also completely within their right to be silent about, or even actively condemn, free speech protests made by people or causes they disagree with. I believe they’re even allowed to do that while claiming to be non-partisan, though personally I’d prefer to see them be more honest with themselves about which causes are likely to move them to action.

I only raise these criticisms because, if you didn’t know much about the FSU or the organisations in their orbit, you might argue that, while you disagree with them about vaccine science or whether the climate is changing, you can respect the fact that they have a wholly and impartially committed view on free speech. My point is that, in my opinion, their defence of free speech is more conditional than they might recognise.

Personally, ideological hypocrisy is not the reason why I wouldn’t work with or endorse any project that involves Young or the FSU – for me, the red line is their associated contrarian positions on vaccines, Covid, and climate change. But for people who are willing to overlook those concerns in order to stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of free speech, that ideological hypocrisy ought to present an issue.

The risk here is that credible organisations that have worked hard to build a strong reputation for sound science, critical thinking, and open debate might end up lending some of their reputation and credibility to the FSU and, by extension, to organisations like the Daily Sceptic.

Those organisations have every right in the world to choose who they partner with and what events they run, but, by the same token, we have the right to point out where we think they’ve got something wrong and where we have concerns. Indeed, it is our freedom of speech to do so.

The post Toby Young’s Daily Sceptic and Free Speech Union are no allies of critical thinkers appeared first on The Skeptic.

It would be comical, were it not a tragic spectacle, with the convex dome of the Senate acting as the circus tent. Soon after invoking God at the opening of the proceedings, the master of ceremonies – that is, president of the session – gave an idea of ​​what would come with what can only be described, gently, as a half-truth. In a jubilant tone – and in a clear attempt to give legitimacy to the event – he stated that the session was approved “unanimously” by Brazilian senators.

However, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details. The reality is that request 1046/2023 , was inserted as an “extra-agenda item” literally in the final two minutes of the Senate’s agenda on 28 November 2023, by senator Weverton Rocha (PDT-MA), the second secretary of the House table, who was at that time acting as president of that session. Weverton then opened a symbolic vote, which was over in a matter of seconds (as recorded in the Senate Diary of that date):

Voting on the application.
The senators who approve it remain as they are.
(Break)

Application approved.
The requested session will be scheduled by the General Secretariat of the Bureau.
In other words: there was no vote, so it’s impossible to claim or deny that this “thematic debate session” on the vaccine  was “unanimously” approved by the Brazilian senators. 

Still, the “show” must go on. In the session introduction, the senator presiding over the work promised a “scientific” and “technical” debate, which would leave “any type of ideology or political issue aside”. A point he would contradict shortly afterwards, with an open criticism of the inclusion of the paediatric COVID-19 vaccine in the PNI, an inclusion he described as “alarming”. Invited to speak about this serious issue? A litany of exclusively anti-vaccine activists, from Brazil and abroad.

Before the guests entered the scene, however, the president of the session set the “stage” with a video featuring testimonies from alleged victims, and family members of alleged victims, of the COVID-19 vaccines in Brazil. Emotional appeal is a common tactic of misinformation spreaders, and exploiting the tragedy of rare real-life cases of deaths and other severe adverse events possibly associated with vaccination is a frequent weapon of anti-vaccine movements.

The reality, however, is that according to the latest epidemiological bulletin on the subject from the Department of Health and Environmental Surveillance of the Ministry of Health, Brazil registered only 50 deaths that had a “causal relationship considered as consistent with vaccination” (level A), out of almost 385 million doses applied throughout the country between January 2021 and March 2023 (with the exception of the state of São Paulo, which was not part of the analysis). None of these deaths with the highest probability of causality with vaccination were children or adolescents, with only one case of death due to myocarditis classified as “B2: Undetermined”, because “investigational data conflict regarding causality”.

The most recent COVID-19 Special Epidemiological Bulletin published by the Ministry of Health, in December 2023, records 211 deaths from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) associated with COVID-19 among Brazilians under the age of 19 last year alone. More than half of those cases (112) were in babies under one year old, and another 59 in children aged between 1 and 11 years. With 3,562 deaths recorded between 2020 and 2022, there were almost 4,000 fatalities from COVID-19 in this age group by the end of 2023.

Furthermore, the same bulletin points to the registration of 2,121 cases of Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome (PIMS) associated with the disease throughout the pandemic, causing 144 deaths, with an unspecified number of suspect occurrences still under investigation. It is no coincidence that the number of registered cases of PIMS related to COVID-19 fell drastically once Brazil began to vaccinate children aged 5 to 11, in January 2022, cases fell from 868 in 2021 to 442 in 2022, and just 68 last year.

Among the entire population, there were more than 38.2 million cases of COVID-19, and 708,638 deaths, between February 2020 and December 2023. Again, the numbers show the importance of vaccination: they fell from 424,107 deaths in 2021 – most of them in the first months of the year, when it had barely started – to 74,797 in 2022, and 14,785 last year.

All these numbers confirm that the vaccines against COVID-19 approved and applied in Brazil are safe and effective, and that the possible risks posed by vaccination are much smaller than those suffered by those who decide to face the disease without the protection of the vaccine. The deaths that could perhaps be attributed to the vaccine are no more than 50, while deaths from COVID-19, before vaccines were available, were in the hundreds of thousands – a number that fell drastically after the vaccines were rolled out. 

Lack of science, plenty of misinformation

None of these facts and data, however, were presented in the arena – I mean, plenary – of the Senate. Nor, of course, the science and impartiality that was promised by the senator president at the beginning of the session. Overall, what we saw instead was the repetition and recirculation of typical topics of anti-vaccine disinformation in the form of half-truths, unsubstantiated claims, exaggerated statements, and outright lies.

We heard that children do not suffer serious illness and death from COVID-19, and therefore the risks of vaccination do not outweigh the benefits – which the above illustrates is clearly not true. We were advised that vaccines are unnecessary because there is an “early treatment” of COVID-19 in cocktails that include medicines such as chloroquine or ivermectin – a hypothesis completely debunked by research in 2020. We were told that vaccines are inefficient, and that they do not prevent hospitalisation or deaths – a statement clearly disproven by the data. And we were warned that vaccines, especially those involving the messenger RNA (mRNA) mechanism, are causing a wave of sudden deaths of relatively young people, in what was yet another statement disconnected from the data.

It is saddening and revolting to see public structures, built and maintained with the money of the Brazilian people, being used to host almost eight hours of such a depressing spectacle.

The post An anti-vaccine circus takes over the Brazilian Senate’s paediatric vaccinations discussion appeared first on The Skeptic.

‘Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig gets 40,000 new followers on Twitter’.

In June of 2023, the most popular podcast in the world gave an uncritical platform to one of the most prolific anti-vaccine activists in modern history, and allowed almost every outlandish, outdated and already–debunked falsehood that flew out of their mouth to go unchecked.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s record needs no introduction to readers of this magazine. Neither does Joe Rogan’s. Yet this particular episode marked an important milestone in cementing Rogan’s reputation as a bona fide industry leader in credulous platforming of pseudoscience. Appropriately, the debacle also threw into question the vital issue of ‘debate’ itself. Particularly the public, verbal variety.

After the podcast aired, vaccine scientist Dr Peter Hotez shared an article calling the episode ‘an orgy of unchecked vaccine misinformation’. Rogan then publicly challenged Dr Hotez to appear on his podcast, opposite RFK Jr, and contest the issues in person with Rogan as moderator. Hotez did not accept.

In the weeks that followed, pundits and specialists alike questioned whether such a venture could ever yield useful results. What is the point, they argue, of entering into such a debate when one side is so clearly committed to goalpost shifting, gish galloping, and misrepresenting their opponents? The idea that Rogan would be an impartial moderator is plainly risible. Likewise, his audience appears more entrenched than ever before, more prone to selectively edit the resulting footage, and more likely to declare victory no matter what happens.

Moreover, the idea of asking a medical health professional to debate a vexatious activist with a fringe position – as though they are equal, valid, opposing sides of an argument – is ludicrous. One has spent the last few years working on the frontline of a pandemic, when not conducting life-saving research, and the other has withered on the wild vines of Twitter, with zero professional skin in the game, having never treated a sick patient in their life. 

It has been argued that even the very format of a verbal debate, such as it would stand on the Joe Rogan Experience, would mean that a conversation notionally about communicating scientific truth would inevitably descend into point scoring, linguistic jousting, and the eventual valorisation of whoever happened to bellow the loudest. After all, knowledge overconfidence is worryingly associated with anti-consensus views. At best, such an exchange would serve only as a garish spectacle in the ongoing coarsening of public health discourse.

And finally, perhaps more importantly, many brilliant scientists and well-respected pro-science advocates contend that debating RFK Jr publicly would be not only a profound waste of time and energy, but even counter-productive. Simply entering into a debate with someone considered by many to be a ‘crank’, it has been argued, creates the mirage of a live question where there isn’t one among experts, as well as the false impression that debate is alien to science to begin with. Platforming fringe views on such issues necessarily risks elevating, emboldening, and even legitimising them.

I sympathise with every single concern listed above, and believe that each of them speaks to a very real discursive malaise that the pandemic years have done a terrible job fomenting – but whose origins, of course, predate the pandemic by several decades. However, I do not believe that any of these concerns have anything to do with why it is important to debate RFK Jr. The claim that neither he nor Rogan are interested in the pursuit of truth – and that their most hardcore listeners are unlikely ever to be persuaded – is a misdiagnosis of both the problem and the solution. 

This is not about convincing Rogan, RFK Jr, or even their most dyed-in-the-wool fans. This is about whether we choose to squander one of the best opportunities in living memory to reach a sizable minority of famously politically un-aligned podcast listeners in Rogan’s enormous audience by letting a rhetorically fierce vaccine expert make RFK Jr squirm on camera.

Whether we like it or not, Rogan’s podcast – notorious for its at-least-notional devotion to a detached ‘devil’s-advocate’ centrism – plays host to possibly the single largest tent of fence-sitters in the country, given that the podcast’s oversized reach happens to dwarf cable news‘. Writing off Rogan’s entire listenership as ‘unreachable’ ignores the fact that 55% of them are vaccinated, as well as relatively politically diverse overall, despite the prevalence of a few obvious trends – his listeners are often young and frequently men. Listeners praise the podcast, accurately or otherwise, for its ostensibly ‘flexible, unaligned political agenda’, and Rogan himself for his ‘curiosity’ and willingness to listen to a wide range of perspectives. While we should retain a healthy scepticism over just how open minded Joe Rogan really is, this seems to be the single most repeated reason why his listeners claim they like him. 

A substantial proportion of people who occupy tentatively neutral terrain within a controversial topic can act as a wild card with the power to determine whether a particular view survives in the mainstream, or drifts into obscurity. And, unfortunately, this wild card is up for grabs by both sides. Arguing that some views ought to be beyond the pale for engagement – especially when the issues in question have already been settled by real experts – crucially abandons fence-sitters to a salivating opposition.

Such a forfeiture is made all the worse at a time of pronounced political urgency – a context often overlooked by those who argue against engaging. As political commentator Medhi Hasan argued on MSNBC:

“Why would anyone think that’s a debate worth having? What next? Neil deGrasse Tyson debates Alex Jones on astrophysics? Noam Chomsky debates Lauren Boebert on Cartesian linguistics..? Experts shouldn’t agree to debate cranks. I mean, no serious person would consider having a pre-eminent World War II historian debate a holocaust denier.”

Aside from the fact that reactionary movements against Cartesian linguistics and astrophysics have yet to be spearheaded by Lauren Boebert and Alex Jones – at least at time of writing – it is imperative to point out that a holocaust denier is not currently fronting a rising campaign to be President of the United States. Nor is one currently boasting the highest favorability ratings of any individual candidate in the race, beating both Trump and Biden in the 18-34 age group, successfully peeling away big donors from the GOP and, prior to that, polling at 20% within the Democratic Party itself. 

Should the day come when a holocaust denier is the second most popular candidate in the Democratic Party behind the actual President – and who is making worrying advances as an independent in a notoriously precarious race – I certainly would hope that experts might feel it worthwhile to take notice. 

Any sense of political and contextual urgency – wherein some dangerous ideas happen to be prospering more rapidly than others – is completely absent from Hasan’s argument. Further, I would argue that anti-vaccine advocacy is no less heinous than, say, pro-war apologetics – yet presumably Hasan believes that debating John Bolton was a perfectly worthwhile endeavour, despite Bolton’s predictable evasiveness. The interview was watched by roughly half a million people, and the recording remains on YouTube for posterity. In years to come, anyone sincerely curious about Bolton’s record will have no problem finding and watching it. This, as Hasan himself must realise, is a good thing.

Making a favourable impression in the minds of the uncertain is a very effective way of guaranteeing a future in which we continue to outnumber the vaccine-critical. Far from the absurd task of trying to elicit an admission of defeat from a conspiracy theorist – let alone a change of heart – this is about providing a potentially life-saving off-ramp for those caught temporarily in their tractor beam. And their gut-level suspicions are only being stoked by Hotez’s refusal to engage, and the scientific community’s notional endorsement of this refusal.

I believe that arguing against such a debate is a serious tactical misstep, and one that happens to look away from a mountain of evidence to boot. It ignores the plethora of historical cases in which a rhetorically-equipped activist stepped into ideologically unfriendly territory and succeeded. Noam Chomsky, Rutger Bregmen, Michael Brooks, Krystal Ball, Bernie Sanders, Ross Greer, Mick Lynch, Christopher Hitchens, and Marianne Williamson have all debated ‘cranks’ publicly, often on the ‘crank’s’ own platform. They did so at different times, for different causes, and with differing approaches. They each, in their own way, absolutely nailed it. And, in doing so, helped set forth a marvellous ‘how-to’ of tackling contrarians on their own turf. While such individuals may be rare, that is no reason not to find them, enlist them, and put their talents to good use.

Claims that nobody could possibly survive in such a bad-faith, hostile environment disregards the abilities of today’s many fierce, pro-vaccine advocates who literally train for situations like this every single day by debating professional anti-vaccine contrarians who are far less respectable than RFK Jr. Put simply, these activists eat Kennedys for breakfast.

Dr Peter Hotez owes nobody a debate, and based on his recent public appearances he may not be the best choice for challenging RFK Jr in such a combative context anyway. Hotez comes across as a brilliant, affable, mild-mannered specialist who has far better things to do than engage with an irksome troll on a platform for irksome trolls. The idea of forcing him to debate Kennedy – as opposed to simply enlisting any of the passionate activists above who would be delighted with the opportunity – would be like playing a game of chess by trying to force a knight to behave like a pawn.

If we adopt a big-picture view of the strategic battle against misinformation, we would do well to recognise that everyone has a part to play in the cause. Experts, activists, journalists, public speakers, educators, artists and creators all have varying skill-sets and areas of expertise. Why wouldn’t we want to use our allies by stationing them in the areas in which they can be most effective? Here, we have a legion of skilled and steadfast activists at our disposal, and we refuse to use them at our peril. Just because our task is difficult does not mean that it cannot be done well. Additionally, anybody tentatively sympathetic to Joe Rogan’s covid contrarianism is unlikely to seek out media appearances of a vaccine expert on a mainstream, corporate news channel, let alone read their book. We must meet them where they’re at. Appealing to the vast enclave of fence sitters in Rogan’s audience is too good an opportunity to squander.

The problem is not RFK Jr’s intransigence, and the solution is not trying to convince him. The problem is a coasting middle ground at risk of taking him seriously due to his rising exposure, and the solution is to firmly disabuse them of his nonsense – preferably with wit, verve, and zeal. Ultimately, as much as we may resent it, presentation matters. If we are serious about the task of reducing vaccine hesitancy – and blunting the momentum of a rising anti-vax presidential candidate before it’s too late – we must acknowledge the importance of public debate as just one of many aspects of the fight to get right. And those who bemoan its futility, funnily enough, almost always get it wrong.

Failed attempts

In and amongst the chorus of scientific Skeptics warning against debating RFK Jr, one voice stood out to me in particular. Significant, I felt, due to the direct personal experience from which they spoke. In the New York Times, Farhad Manjoo related an incident in which he engaged a notorious conspiracist publicly, and it did not go well. In this case, the conspiracist happened to be… RFK Jr himself.

Manjoo debated Kennedy on the issue of US election fraud in 2004 on public radio – an encounter Manjoo now believes was ‘a mistake’, and should serve as an example of why such endeavours are doomed by design. In doing so, whether he realises it or not, he has inadvertently provided a near-perfect, textbook model of how not to go about these kinds of confrontations.

He says:

“There’s this basic unfairness when you debate a conspiracy theorist. Your side is bound by evidence. You have to say what has been proven. You have to cite the truth. But they can just make up anything… So when it’s my turn to speak, I have to kind of get into all of the complicated reasons [why RFK Jr was wrong]… I have to say where the numbers come from… It just becomes a very droning recitation of facts, compared to [Kennedy’s] overly simplistic declaration that Republicans stole the election.”

Acknowledging that he had hoped the facts would speak for themselves, Manjoo continues:

“I had expected that the audience would clearly see that the numbers he was peddling were not correct… I don’t think that’s what happened at all.”

Manjoo concludes:

“I don’t think there’s much good that can come from debating a conspiracy theory. I think that you risk making the problem much worse… The best thing to do is kind of ignore it, because ideas that are crazy enough will just kind of go away by themselves perhaps if we don’t fan the flames.”

Incidentally, immediately after making the above statement, Manjoo mentions the fact that conspiracy theories happened to proliferate during the first Donald Trump presidency. The political phenomenon of Donald Trump, I would argue, is not a good example of a problem simply going away by ignoring it.

Curiously, Manjoo appears genuinely surprised that a spouter of nonsense would have the gall to spout nonsense during a debate. Almost as though it caught him off guard – rather like diving into a tank with a hungry shark, and then being flabbergasted that the shark had the audacity to bite you. 

While reflecting on his debate appearance with RFK Jr, Manjoo seems quite unaware of the penetrating critique he gives his own performance. Having listened to the debate myself, I agree with him – it is indeed a ‘droning recitation of facts’. It could certainly do with some energy, some panache, some humour perhaps. Maybe even a creative barb or two. When dealing with a clown, I believe some licence to be colourful is afforded. When you have the facts on your side, irony, charm and a tongue-in-cheek approach can be tremendously fruitful in winning over curious listeners. 

Simply scurrying around behind RFK Jr, correcting each and every little inaccuracy he makes, ensures that you’ll never break free from the confines of his vapour trail. Expecting the facts to speak for themselves does not work when dealing with someone who has forged a career out of obscuring facts. I share Manjoo’s frustration about the asymmetry of evidentiary responsibility, having written about it myself. But claiming that the venture itself is futile, simply because one’s own approach didn’t succeed, is a highly unimaginative conclusion to reach. I agree with a slightly modified version of Manjoo’s verdict; debating a conspiracy theorist may well risk making the matter worse… if you are ill-prepared or ill-equipped. 

The tactics of deflection, evasion and obfuscation have been RFK Jr’s modus operandi for decades now – almost all of which is public record. These are the tricks of the trade, the tools for which he is famed. The idea that a sophist might deploy sophistry during a debate should be the very minimum we expect and, importantly, prepare for. If witnessing a professional conspiracist hurl wild, baseless claims is something that will blindside you, then you may not be ideally suited to challenging them in a public debate.

Not everybody flourishes in a debate environment. It is certainly not incumbent on specialists in a given field to develop such a skill. And such an enterprise is definitely not the be-all and end-all of combating misinformation. I argue simply that we should allow our experts and activists to each play to their strengths. Because when rhetorically equipped activists step into the fray, they can be astonishingly effective. 

Successful attempts

Some have voiced reasonable misgivings along the lines of biased editing – how can we trust that any debate footage will be used and edited fairly? However, when the historian and author Rutger Bregmen appeared on Fox News with Tucker Carlson, he devised and executed an ingenious way around this issue with astounding results.

The interview was civil to begin with, but quickly went off the rails. After challenging Carlson pointedly on his own hypocrisy in discussing elite tax avoidance, something that Carlson clearly had not anticipated, Bregman prompted the following outburst from his host:

“… I just wanna say to you why don’t you go fuck yourself, you tiny brain – I hope this get’s picked up because you’re a moron!”

Bregman handled the incident with humour, nerve and aplomb, responding to Carlson’s tantrum with a wry smile:

“You can’t handle the criticism, can you?”

After the incident, Fox News informed Bregman that the segment would not air at all. However, unbeknownst to them, Bregman had secretly recorded the exchange in its entirety, apparently having anticipated this turn of events. Once it became clear that his appearance would not see the light of day, Bregman leaked it himself. It remains on YouTube with several million views, and even the comments on Fox News’s own subsequent video attempting to explain Carlson’s actions are generally not favourable to the host. It was an audacious stunt that successfully brought the issue of elite tax avoidance hypocrisy to the mass attention of Fox News viewers – some of whom may well have questioned their favourite politico’s motives as a result.

In addition to his pitch-perfect composure in the face of Carlson’s meltdown, Bregman’s example shows us that when it comes to circumventing the biased hand of an editor, we have permission to be creative. Bringing along a confidant to covertly record the exchange allowed Bregman to make two things plainly visible to Fox News viewers – their favourite host attempted to hide something from them, and when accused of being ‘a millionaire funded by billionaires’, he seemed suspiciously rattled. Whyever could this be…?

The combination of a forceful, substantive challenge with a teasing style can go a long way.

In a TV segment that was broadcast on Good Morning Britain in early 2019, contrarian pundit Piers Morgan gave the radical MP Ross Greer a very unflattering introduction. Greer had recently labelled Winston Churchill a ‘white supremacist mass murderer’ in a tweet. After Morgan taunted him for ‘applauding [his] own genius’ on Twitter, he asked Greer to begin the interview by explaining himself. 

The 60 seconds that followed are an absolute masterclass in how to flourish while facing a hostile interlocutor:

“Absolutely… Piers, you’re a sensitive soul; yesterday you accused me of being a racist for pointing out that you look like honey-glazed gammon. If you want an example of real racism, you just have to look to Churchill – he talked about his belief in the “triumph of the Aryan race’. He hated Indians with a passion – he said they were “a beastly people with a beastly religion”. When a famine broke out three million people starved to death… He used poison gas against Kurds, against Afghans. He was a strong supporter of Britain’s concentration camps in the Boer War where 28,000 people died. He’s always advocated the use of… “terror” bombing campaigns. His own cabinet had to stop him… from bombing protesters in Ireland.”

Greer manages to give an opening statement that includes a surfeit of accurate historical events, direct quotations from the political figures involved, as well as a joke – albeit a churlish one – at the expense of the host who antagonised him. He speaks briskly and clearly, as though he is aware he is dealing with a host who might try to interrupt him. When Morgan later attempts to imply that Churchill single-handedly won the Second World War ‘through the power of his rhetoric’, Greer visibly laughs. Outraged, Morgan immediately attempts to chide him for laughing, allowing Greer the opportunity to succinctly dispute the preceding analysis again.

The incident made national news, with many outlets placing particular focus on Morgan’s lack of composure. The incident remains on YouTube having garnered millions of views, and comments were generally favourable to Greer. Passing viewers of the morning news who may well have been unfamiliar with Churchill’s broader record – owing to a near-unanimous idolisation by mainstream press – were given a pocket-sized precis of the former Prime Minister’s murkier side.

Were we to glean any lessons from Greer’s performance, I think they would be:

1. Come prepared.
2. Speak briskly and push through interruptions.
3. Don’t be afraid to laugh if something is ridiculous. 

Although not debating a ‘crank’ as such, similar tactics were deployed quite effectively by Mick Lynch during the UK rail strikes in the summer of 2023. Anyone considering debating RFK Jr might do well to remember that judiciously executed mockery can be lethally effective.

A more recent example that showcases the efficacy of ridicule and sarcasm to an even greater extent occurred when Bassem Youssef appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored. Although Youssef is indeed a professional satirist, it is valuable to notice how such an approach seems to lend its user a stylistic upper hand in an otherwise precarious environment – the polar opposite of Manjoo’s approach in the aforementioned debate with RFK Jr. One way to let an audience know that an opponent is laughable is to invite an audience to laugh at them.

While adopting a bold, assertive approach certainly can be beneficial, quiet charm and affability can persuade quite powerfully too. Dave Rubin likely did not expect much from Marianne Williamson when he invited her to appear on his show, given her idiosyncratic presence in the political landscape of the US at the time. Over the course of an hour-long interview, their conversation covered mass incarceration, reparations, slavery, open-borders, and myriad culture-war moral panics that constitute the currency of Rubin’s entire brand. Their exchange can be summarised by a single line, delivered gently by Williamson:

“Dave… Have you read up much on slavery?”

Williamson’s tone never deviates from that of a patient school-teacher, gainfully tasked with the thankless duty of educating an errant student. In discussing the case for reparations in the US, she calmly and repeatedly clarifies the difference between Rubin’s tired, specious notion of ‘collective guilt’ and that of ‘taking responsibility’:

“This is not about guilt. There is a difference… If you have a company that takes over another company – you inherit their assets and you inherit their debts”.

The analogies she uses are clear, easy to understand, and delivered elegantly – in stark contrast to Farhad Manjoo’s efforts against RFK Jr in 2006. Despite Rubin’s almost admirable persistence in misunderstanding what she is talking about, she never relents her poise and her lucid exposition. The comments section of the interview yields some interesting results:

• ‘i was skeptical [sic] at first, but her depth of knowledge and ease of conversation really changed my mind about her.’ – @joe42m13
• ‘Not gonna lie, this was a lecture for me too. Never thought Marianne Williamson would explain things so plainly and so eloquently. Good stuff’ – @alexg2890
• ‘Marianne is more impressive than I gave her credit for’ – @MissySqrrr
• ‘Lmao even Dave’s own audience is dunking on him in the comments section’ – @RaitoYagami88

Lest we forget, these are comments on a video posted by a channel criticised by experts for platforming race and IQ quackery. The sheer fact that Williamson was able to give a basic US history lesson to the viewership of the Rubin Report – and for viewers to actually warm to her – is a remarkable achievement. Charm and personability, it seems, can make quite a durable Trojan horse. We can’t know for sure, but I suspect Williamson understood perfectly the environment she was walking into, and the task at hand. Convincing Rubin was never on the cards. Slowly peeling away some of his viewership was the name of the game.

Williamson herself, it should be said, has an unfortunate history of veering dangerously close to entertaining anti-vaccine narratives, despite committing to funding vaccination programmes fully via a universal healthcare program – one of only a few candidates to do so. Just as we are free to evaluate her to-ing and fro-ing on vaccine messaging, we are similarly at liberty to mine her rhetorical tactics for utility. Vaccine vacillating notwithstanding, she nailed the exchange above.

Audience response can be instructive. One ex-Jordan Peterson fan wrote of how watching the Canadian celebrity psychologist debate the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek led to his impression of Peterson ‘crumbling’. Witnessing how ill-prepared Peterson was for the debate was not lost on other audience members too:

• ‘Jordan Peterson’s opening is a first year uni essay done the night before’ – @WanderingSTar5270 (1.4k likes)
• ‘imagine reading the communist manifesto once and thinking you can take on a post-marxist philosohper [sic] in a debate’ – @jasonkazazis (1.5k likes)

Although this particular debate is mercilessly long and both parties could be said to boast a reputation of sophistry of varying kinds, Žižek plainly disassembles a number of Peterson’s contradictions in a way that resonated with viewers. Peterson’s debate with Matt Dillahunty yielded similar results, having usefully provoked Peterson into admitting that he does not believe that art would exist without belief in God – a claim wild enough to give even Peterson fans pause for thought.

Noam Chomsky famously debated William F. Buckley Jr on his own turf in 1969, during the US invasion of Vietnam, for an episode of Firing Line. Chomsky confidently and persistently challenged his opponent on the wider contextual motivations for US imperial interests abroad, conspicuously highlighting Buckley’s own gaps in historical knowledge. Buckley’s frequent interruptions and shifting of goalposts earned him the title of ‘professional subject changer’. Years later, Chomsky recalled that:

“At the end, he [Buckley] was pretty angry. He said he would invite me back but, of course, I never heard from him again.”

Chomsky’s dogged insistence on factual truth and unflagging perseverance in drawing attention to historical inaccuracies is a valuable precedent. It is echoed in Krystal Ball’s appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, Michael Brook’s appearances on i24, and James O’Brien’s cross-examination of Nigel Farage on LBC. 

Additionally, Chomsky attempts novelly to resist the framing of the debate as ‘two equally valid opposing sides’ by disclosing at the outset:

“There are certain issues… such that by consenting to discuss them, one degrades oneself and to some degree loses one’s humanity”. 

Readers familiar with Chomsky’s style will note the acerbic humour of beginning an exchange by saying ‘before we go on, this conversation is a fundamental affront to my humanity’. However, I think it is possible to imagine appropriating this tactic against RFK Jr by beginning any debate with a similar verbal frontispiece; ‘Just so we’re clear, for anybody who happens to be listening, this entire conversation is a circus’. As we have seen, audiences appreciate candour and humour. Such devices fare well in conversations at risk of becoming a ‘droning recitation of facts’. 

Admittedly, the examples I have given thus far have all involved either an impartial moderator, or taken the form of a televised interview. However, I believe it is still possible to do well in far more dire circumstances – when your opponent, your moderator, and even a majority of the audience are flatly opposed to you.

In April 2019, Bernie Sanders appeared at a town hall event organised and hosted by Fox News – the first time a Democratic presidential candidate appeared for such an event on the network. The event was chaired by not one but two Fox News hosts, who were asking and fielding questions. The segment was broadcast to 2.6 million Fox News viewers around the country, and Sanders’ stated aim was to bring the issue of universal healthcare to an audience notionally opposed to him.

Only one month prior to this, the DNC declined an invitation from Fox News to moderate a debate amid concerns the network would not be ‘fair and neutral’. It is difficult to imagine a finer example of being outnumbered in enemy territory.

By all accounts, Sanders triumphed. Despite appearing on a network virtually synonymous with contemporary political casuistry, Sanders managed even to earn applause breaks when discussing single-payer healthcare, immigration and climate change. A strong message delivered simply and robustly can make a startling impression, even when the very structure of the format you are operating within appears dead set against you.

Similarly, in the year 2000, Christopher Hitchens debated the President of the Catholic League Bill Donohue at the Union League Club in New York City. The debate predated the cultural phenomenon of ‘New Atheism’ by a number of years, thus rendering Hitchens bereft of the legion of admirers he would soon acquire. The event was sponsored by a Roman Catholic organisation. Hitchens’ opponent was a Roman Catholic layman. The moderator of the debate was a Roman Catholic priest. Hitchens was given measurably less time to speak than his opponent – as well as being frequently cut off by the moderator – and the audience were largely unsympathetic to his side of the aisle. At one point, when Hitchens suggested that homosexuality is an entirely valid form of human love, the room audibly jeered. 

Despite every odd being overwhelmingly stacked against him, Hitchens managed to put his case forward dynamically and unequivocally, as well as calling out in no uncertain terms the stark homophobia proudly on display in the room. By the end of the event, Hitchens was earning a small smattering of increasingly spirited applause. However, even if every single audience member was left somehow unmoved by his efforts, the act of committing to record a clear and damning challenge of the Catholic Right’s positions is valuable, and guards against possible future efforts to backtrack as the institution succumbs to the rising tide of social progress. The debate has enjoyed more than a decade on YouTube, and Donohue’s stale pronouncements on evolution, homosexuality and AIDS are at the mercy of history. 

While much can be said about Hitchen’s broader political activism, his economy of language within a debate format is particularly useful to appraise critically. His deft balance of humour, rhetorical skill and unflinching nerve makes him ideally predisposed to these kinds of public confrontations. Similar tools should be utilised against RFK Jr advisedly.

Let us turn now to examples both recent and germane to the field in question; to pro-science advocates successfully challenging anti-vax campaigners in a public setting. I believe that each of the following activists would flourish while debating RFK Jr and would likely be delighted with the opportunity to do so. Crucially, they each manage to integrate a bold, disputatious style with the ability to be ruthlessly evidence-based and entertaining to a wider audience.

On the 31st of January, geneticist Dr Ian Copeland publicly debated Steve Kirsch, an anti-vax campaigner that even Alex Berenson manages to find fault with. To the uninitiated, Kirsch’s exploits, stunts and low standards of evidence make RFK Jr look almost respectable. The debate took place online, in the setting of a ‘Twitter Space’ – a medium that facilitates live audio conversations. Spaces carries the advantage of being able to support your arguments instantly by posting links to research for listeners to review in real time. 

Thanks to Dr Copeland’s spirited, combative style, and his unrelenting insistence that his opponent support his arguments immediately with adequate evidence, Kirsch floundered in the debate. Upon Kirsch’s claim to have personally accrued a data set that purported to demonstrate vaccine-related harms, Dr Copeland asked him to provide a p-value for his statistics, so as to affirm any statistical significance. Not only had Kirsch not calculated one, he did not appear to know how to do so in the first place. Dr Copeland exposed Kirsch so thoroughly, aided by similarly robust contributions from “The Veg Doc”, and scientist and activist Aysha Mirza MBS – rhetorically gifted in their own rights – that Kirsch lost his composure entirely around the 1:22:50 mark.

Kirsch is no stranger to humiliating debate appearances, having endured a similar experience on the 1st of June 2023. A scientist and activist named Cat Morgan debated the question ‘do vaccines cause autism’ with Kirsch, who had suddenly become enamoured with the topic. Morgan did tremendously well. When listening to the debate, it became clear within the first 30 minutes that Kirsch did not even know what autism was. Kirsch said:

“These children reacted very badly to the measles vaccine… Whether you want to call that autism or not call that autism, I don’t care…”

If we needed further confirmation that Kirsch speaks with great confidence on issues he knows almost nothing about, this debate provided it. Despite being quite outnumbered, Morgan aptly and deftly untangled every tired, Wakefield-adjacent trope that came from Kirsch and his acolytes, all while offering clear and compelling explanations for the phenomena they were attempting to flag. Morgan’s ability to keep her cool in the face of Kirsch’s tone-deaf pronouncements on autism was unimpeachable. As well as being a compassionate expert on the granular details of the vaccine-autism non-link, Morgan herself happens to be autistic. Soon after the debate, Kirsch blocked Morgan.

A pro-vaccine activist who goes by the cunningly deceptive handle The Real Truther (TRT) has demonstrated similar prowess in exposing anti-vaccine chicanery, having debated Ed Dowd on Dr Drew’s show. Dr Drew can hardly be considered an impartial moderator and TRT was given very little time to make his case. Yet TRT effectively and directly challenged Dowd to explain Sweden’s historic negative excess deaths in 2021, 2022, and 2023 despite boasting a significantly higher vaccine uptake than the US, and with less confounding variables such as gun violence. Dowd responded by claiming that excess deaths were in fact going up for 2023, which TRT disputed immediately.

TRT has an enviable talent for squeezing research-laden yet entertaining rebuttals into almost no time at all – a skill that made him a suggested candidate to take Peter Hotez’s place in a debate against RFK Jr on The Joe Rogan Experience. I believe this would be a phenomenally wise idea. Our undertaking is not to convert Kennedy’s most extreme followers, but rather to peel away enough fence-sitters so as to demobilise his outreach and blunt his effect. It creates a public record of trickery being dismantled in real time – available to view permanently to future generations of curious people. 

Insisting that facts ought to speak for themselves is having absolutely no effect on RFK Jr’s polling numbers. Nor is it doing anything to reach the vaccine-hesitant. Concerns about potentially ‘elevating’ dangerous views are rendered moot by the fact that those very views have already enjoyed uncritical airtime on the world’s largest podcast. Spending precious hours bemoaning the cheapening of public discourse is a luxury we cannot afford when a worryingly popular anti-vax contender is challenging an incumbent with favourability ratings at a record low. Decrying public debate as a crass, boorish pursuit simply allows our opponents more scope to appeal to fence-sitters and more time to build momentum unimpeded. 

Every second we spend arguing against ‘fanning the flames’ could be better spent by going about the business of putting out the fire. We must keep Kennedy where he belongs: firmly at the fringe. Debates, done well, can change minds. RFK Jr must be challenged by a formidable vaccine expert. Forcefully. Publicly. Now.

The post Given his rising influence, the case for debating RFK Jr has never been more urgent appeared first on The Skeptic.

The event included the group’s founder, Simone Gold, who served most of a 60 day federal prison sentence for participating in the Jan 6th Capitol Hill Insurrection, and was headlined by Dr Robert Malone of Joe Rogan fame. Recognise anybody else? For your sake I hope not.

Enhance:

Yep, that’s James “Ok Groomer” Lindsay, the guy who should be famous for having predicted that globalists would murder five billion people over the past few years, standing right behind Dr Malone. In previous articles I’ve covered Lindsay’s connection to white Christian nationalist politics, his time spent in anti-vax sympathetic spaces like a party hosted by Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago, and how he was cited as an expert at the most recent Better Way conference. As far as I know this is the first time he’s donned the performative white lab coat for an event such as this, and may be the first time he has ever worn one given that his doctorate is in mathematics and not medicine. So, when I saw there was a video of Lindsay on the America’s Frontline Doctors website, I thought this was going to be a follow-up article about how Lindsay was spreading his ideology into new spheres of conspiracism.

That is not what this article is about.

Lindsay, it turns out, is the least terrible part of the video, and that’s despite his brag at one point that he went to the airport knowing he had Covid and still only wore a mask when he was forced to. In the video, titled “The National and Human Psyche by Dr James Lindsay and Dr. Mark McDonald”, Lindsay sits down with Dr McDonald to talk about their shared hatred of the social justice left, and their experiences touring the country talking to folks about the twin horrors of wokeness and children with autism. To be clear, they aren’t decrying the struggles of achieving equity for children with autism, or even the deeply misguided attempts by anti-vaxxers to prevent autism by refusing vaccinations. Instead, as best as I can tell, their point is that autistic kids are terrible compared to properly raised kids, and that they’re what’s wrong with society. That’s what this article is about.

McDonald is a practicing psychiatrist and author of the book “United State of Fear: How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusion”. In his book, McDonald claims we are suffering from a mass delusional psychosis “rooted in the natural anxieties of women on behalf of their children and families, inflamed and amplified by sensationalistic media, and driven over the top by hamfisted authoritarian measures from those in power”. This is your standard macho-masculine anti-lockdown rhetoric, glazed with psychological jargon.

In the discussion with Lindsay, McDonald blames society’s ills on “hyper-secularisation, meaning an attack on religion”. He does so while sitting next to someone who actively advocated for secularisation until very recently, and at no point do either of them express even an awareness of that fact, much less any cognitive dissonance about it. Their opening statement is just broad pearl clutching that:

what used to be virtuous, courage, sacrifice, family, religious belief, they’ve all become tainted… and been replaced with communalism; big government, self-sacrifice to the higher power meaning the government; narcissism, which is huge; emotional instability; hysteria; and selfishness.

There’s a lot to unpack here: the conservative anxiety about the loss of a fictional noble past, the fear of modern tyranny of the state over every aspect of life, and then the need to pathologise political opponents as insane to the point of being ethically dangerous.

McDonald critiques the left’s “attack on the family, meaning elevation of single parent households married to the government rather than two parent households married to the community and the land”. I always worry that my time studying antisemitic conspiracism has made me paranoid, but when I hear someone lamenting a fall from a fictional noble past and calling for a return to heteronormative families living in idyllic agrarian communities, I can’t help hearing a longwinded version of the Nazi call for “blood and soil”.

McDonald also describes Covid lockdowns as “raped humanitarianism” that succeeded because “the US we’re a kind open people… because we haven’t been through some of the horrid histories of other countries.” To which, I have to wonder which country he thinks has a worse history than a country built on violently stolen land, worked by violently enslaved peoples, that has violently perpetuated exploitative capitalism to the point of murdering both American activists and democratically-elected leaders of other countries. Maybe the British, or the countries that we have both exploited, I guess.

If McDonald had stuck to soft peddling the trad fash life and whining about atheists, I wouldn’t be writing about him. However, he goes on to claim that social media has “developed and encouraged the rise of an out-of-proportion degree of authority and presence of autistic people”. His reasoning is that society is now dominated by autistic people because they can run society online without having to engage in face-to-face interactions. He never comes back to this point, but it’s just so wild to hear it lumped in with boilerplate conservatism, I wanted it noted. Meanwhile, Lindsay just nods along to all of this like it is completely normal.

Adults with Autism are apparently not the only threat our society faces: children with autism are also the worst, according to McDonald. I’m not being hyperbolic, McDonald explicitly (at 0:17:57 in the video) explains that he and Lindsay:

were just talking about how the non-autistic children, the ones that are polite and respectful, that we run into as we travel the country, are always home schooled, always, they’re lovely, they’re not indoctrinated they’re just taught reality and common sense and good values and then they grow into their own.

To be clear, McDonald is explaining how all the nice, good children he meets are home schooled, implying that all the disrespectful children he met were either autistic, publicly schooled, or both. No mention of a differential outcome for autistic children who were home schooled, possibly because they don’t fit into McDonald’s worldview, or perhaps he doesn’t think they exist. It’s not like he explains his need to attack autistic children as a way to attack secularism; the sense I got is he seems to just find them genuinely unpleasant to be around. Lindsay hedges ever so slightly, but agrees that the internet:

took the normal filters off… and I don’t wanna necessarily say just autism, but any kind of social awkwardness or introversion upload onto social media very easily. It’s a borderline personality disorders playground.

No real pushback from a guy who pathologically needs to take his own advice and log off.

At this point, I had to learn more about McDonald, and I’d say it gets worse but I’m pretty sure there’s no farther down than shit-talking autistic kids, so let’s just say it just gets weirder. The Q and A starts with a question about when America started to struggle with fear of one’s neighbour. McDonald steps up first with a big swing at “tribalism”, which he claims has been happening since the 60s and 70s, explaining how “feminism is entirely a movement based on hate and the destruction of both femininity and masculinity, entirely,” before clarifying he only means post-war feminism, not the suffragettes – who, of course, were a movement famous for never questioning femininity or using violence against men to get results.

The undercurrent of anti-feminist and incel-adjacent language made me wonder, and a Google search turned up his 2022 Substack article “Why American Women are Undatable: Nobody wants to play with a porcupine”, where he echoes many of the things he discusses with Lindsay, especially “the utter decline of the presence and valuing of masculinity in the United States” lamenting that “we have a nation of Eunuchs”. When asked about the causes of the collapse of gender norms, he mumbles about “oestrogen in the water” before pointing out a more real problem that young men don’t know how to function as well as we might like in many social contexts.

they don’t know how to speak, how to talk, how to date, how to express their desires for a woman, for a job, for money, and this is the core of masculinity, and if you can’t do that, then you have opened up a chasm and vacuum into which hyper-feminity flourishes and hyper-feminity is just as unbalanced as hypermasculinity. You want all raping and violence, go all male, you want all histrionics and crying, go all female.

00:30:00

It seems true that people in general, and men in particular, are struggling with making connections in our modern world, but that seems more likely to be a product of the alienation of late-stage capitalism than the fact that men are no longer allowed to properly express their violently rapey nature in culturally-approved ways. The Substack is worth reading out loud for some amazing whinging about girls wearing over-sized unfeminine clothing, projecting “limitless entitlement”. Here’s just one gem in an emerald mine’s worth of horrifying treasures:

Women in this country have been taught that looks don’t matter, that career is more important than family, that men are either dangerous or weak and incapable, and that the world would be a better place if only women were in charge. Everything they are taught is wrong.

Bear in mind, this is the guy who said “you want all raping and violence, go all male”, so the signals are a bit mixed.

Sometimes I get hung up on needing a philosophical point to these articles, a deeper way to explain how McDonald’s anti-feminist, incel-adjacent rhetoric is tied in with his antivaxxerism and fetishising of trad conservative naturalism. Not this time. McDonald reminded me that sometimes our job is just to show the public what these conspiracy mongers sound like when they’re masks off around friends.

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