Neo-Obscurantism Unmasked

Ultra-Vaccinism

Ultra-Vaccinism is a modern religion that worships of vaccines as a cult object; it is based the vague pseudoscientific belief that all vaccines are absolutely safe and absolutely necessary, and that they must be forced on the population regardless of whether they agree or not.
The purpose of this page is to expose and debunk the various logical fallacies and scientific falsehoods that qualify Ultra-Vaccinism as a form of state pseudoscience and religious fanaticism.

Logical fallacies

• False dilemma
  Addressing a subject as if it had only 2 possible alternatives.
  Example: discussing vaccines as they were either *all* safe or *all* harmful without differentiating between the countless types; arbitrarily dividing people into "pro-vax" and "anti-vax" and forcing them to choose one side.
• Strawman
  Twisting the opponent's claims in order to make them look easier to debunk.
  Examples: calling free-vax activists "anti-vaxxers"; claiming that anyone who does not blindly support vaccines is "against vaccines" or even "against science" itself.
• Moving the goalpost
  Changing the argument of the dispute in order not to admit defeat.
  Examples: discussing the *safety* of vaccines, and then deflecting towards their *efficacy* when the first is shown to be lacking, or vice-versa; discussing the risk/benefits ratio of vaccination against a relatively harmless disease like flu, and then deflecting towards the risk/benefits ratio of vaccination against a completely different and lethal disease like smallpox when the risks are shown to be superior to the benefits in the first case
• Cherry-picking
  Systematically select only the few cases that support one's own thesis, while hiding all those that don't.
  Examples: only quote experts and studies who support vaccines while never mentioning those who don't in order to give the false impression that the entire scientific community agrees with them; mentioning single cases of debunked critical studies (like the Wakefield case) in the attempt to pass off *all* evidence against vaccines as either pseudoscientific and/or fraudolent; keep reporting cases of unvaccinated people who died from a disease while keeping silent on those who died despite being vaccined.
• Appeal to autority
  Claiming that something is true just because an authority on that field said so.
  Examples: keep asking for titles and credentials instead of addressing the arguments; keep repeating to "trust the experts" even when logic and evidence prove them wrong.
• Appeal to emotion
  Trying to trigger strong emotional reactions in order to discourage rational thought.
  Examples: keep focusing on the "millions of deaths" caused by diseases that vaccines allegedly prevent; posting shocking pictures of people affected by such diseases; accusing unvaccinated people of being selfish, dangerous or that they're "disrespecting the dead".

Scientific falsehoods

(work in progress...)

(...)

Return