In some cases, maybe, but I volunteer with a local group that works to promote vaccination. We’re trying to get non-medical exemptions for kids attending public school removed in our state. I come in contact with a lot of anti-vaxxers. After a while, you start to notice how they talk about their “vaccine-injured” kids. They don’t like their kids. They don’t like parenting their kids. They talk about what a burden their kids are on themselves and society. Their kids cost too much to care for. They are a potential danger to society. They will never accomplish anything useful to society. It’s constant. I can’t imagine being their child.
But, of course, society doesn’t approve of not liking your kids. That’s the kind of thing that makes you a bad person. And these people know they’re not bad people. So how do they reconcile the cognitive dissonance? They blame vaccines. They don’t hate their child. They love their child. The “real” child vaccines took away from them. They hate autism. They hate vaccine damage. They aren’t terrible parents. They’re heroes, fighting against “Big Pharma.”
It’s not that they don’t understand science. It’s that their self-image requires them to actively invest in rejecting science. If you can catch people who are simply scared before they get in too deep, I think you can have empathy and provide them with good information. But this post suggests that if someone has reached the fringe, those fighting misinformation pushed them there by “shaming” them. Not always true. Many times, it’s about a need that science and information can’t address.