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Overreliance on testimonies and personal experiences that contradict scientific research
Epistemic relativism, or “the subjectivity of how knowledge is determined”, is a philosophical view that social conventions determine scientific facts. In this viewpoint, facts are subjective and based on historical context, social and cultural norms, and individual standards. From this perspective, there is no objective knowledge. Several forms of epistemic relativism have been linked with vaccine opposition.
For some people, relativism implies that scientific evidence and subjective experiences are equally valuable in generating knowledge, or that personal experiences outweigh evidence. Common expressions of extreme relativism include:
This theme privileges anecdotes and personal experiences over scientific evidence, referring to first-hand ‘testimony’ and personal narratives as ‘evidence’ that vaccines are injurious and harmful.
Healthcare professionals and scientists must take into account personal preferences and experiences, as testimonials are often useful to discover possible effects that are uncommon or only occur within certain minority groups. Current medical practice is open to patients and their families actively participating in decision-making, which is important to ensure informed consent and achieve greater engagement with treatments.
Dialogue between patients and healthcare professionals is most productive if it is guided by empathy, and an opportunity for the patient to affirm the reasons underlying their attitudes and to express understanding for that. That’s why it is important to understand the attitude roots behind people’s overt opinions. To affirm a person’s underlying attitude root does not mean we need to agree with the specifics of their argument. For example, we can acknowledge that:
Healthcare professionals and scientists must take into account personal preferences and experiences, as testimonials are often useful to discover possible effects that are uncommon or only occur within certain minority groups. Current medical practice is open to patients and their families actively participating in decision-making, which is important to ensure informed consent and achieve greater engagement with treatments.
Overreliance on testimonies and personal experiences diverts us from a more general picture of medical treatments.
On the one hand, testimonials are often unreliable, because they are affected by a wide range of biases and misperceptions—for example, people can exaggerate, mistake correlation for causality, or even lie if they are motivated by vested interests.
On the other hand, the success of a medical treatment should be assessed through a cost/benefit calculation using large samples of patients, for which we have developed reliable statistical methods.
Thinking that extremely rare accidents are the norm could discourage us from engaging in virtually any activity, such as going to the park and eating at restaurants.
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