I assume that many will already have read that the often cited paper linking autism to vaccines has retracted. Little to debate there. However an interesting point was made by the editor of the Lancet (the journal in which it was published) made an interesting point:

 

We used to think that we could publish speculative research which advanced interesting new ideas which may be wrong, but which were important to provoke debate and discussion. We don’t think that now. We don’t seem able to have a rational conversation in the public space about difficult controversial issues without people drawing a conclusion which could be very averse. … The 19th-century days where you could sit in the salon at the Royal Society and have a private conversation amongst your fellows just doesn’t exist anymore. So I think yeah, too much information in this particular case is a bad thing, which seems to go against every kind of democratic principle that we believe in. But in the case of science, it seems to be true.

 

What do you think?

 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/did-the-media-inflame-the-vaccine-autism-link/?hp

Power of an argument = (volume of argument) * (number of articles that can be thrown in to support it*)

 

 

* - not necessarily peer reviewed

Originally Posted by Horton

 

So I think yeah, too much information in this particular case is a bad thing, which seems to go against every kind of democratic principle that we believe in. But in the case of science, it seems to be true.

I'd say the way he phrased it above is significantly inaccurate.

 

Too much indiscriminate information within a peer-reviewed journal is a bad thing, and for which such reasoning is entirely compatible with democratic principles.