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comment by wasoxygen
wasoxygen  ·  3862 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: New poll shows shocking lack of belief in basic scientific facts among Americans

    If I were asked if I felt confident in childhood vaccination in a survey I'd say "no."
Here is how the survey was presented:

   Please indicate how confident you are that the statement is correct.

   Childhood vaccines are safe and effective
   [ ] Extremely confident
   [ ] Very confident 
   [ ] Somewhat confident 
   [ ] Not too confident 
   [ ] Not at all confident
How would you respond?




cgod  ·  3862 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Very confident.

If the question was do you have doubts about the efficacy of vaccines the answer would be yes.

wasoxygen  ·  3862 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Very confident.
You're one of the good guys then. The article worries about those who were "not too confident" (11%) or "not at all confident" (4%), saying that "15 percent — have doubts about the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccines." PDF with results.

These surveys make me uncomfortable. I respect the 2 to 4% who refuse to respond. When the statement is "The Earth is 4.5 billion years old," what is the alternative? 4.6 billion years? 4.54 billion years? Six thousand years? I think you are expected to turn off most of your critical thinking and say "yeah, sure, everybody knows smoking causes cancer" (4% not too/not at all confident).