Dr. Wakefield’s Dissonance Experiment
7th February 2010
Behind anything related to health and safety always lurks dissonance. We tend to love that for which we suffer which is the simple way of describing dissonance. Consider that we’re talking about life and death, pain and misery, and what does and does not prevent, moderate, or palliate. We often cannot prove at the falling off a log criterion of proof that something does or does not help or hurt. We are limited in our knowledge, but unlimited in our human nature. A sad example of dissonance arises now with the professional humiliation of Dr. Andrew Wakefield who claimed falsely in a 1998 paper, published but now retracted by the Lancet, that vaccines and autism are connected in a causal, scientific relationship.
Virtually from the moment Wakefield published his research, researchers doubted it not simply as weak science, but as fake science, made up science, science in that great tradition of Fake British Science begun with Dr. Cyril Burt and his fabricated studies of IQ. It took over 10 years to demonstrate the fraud and deception in this paper and prove it to the editors at Lancet. Wakefield produced findings that no one else could replicate and the reason was simple: He made it up.
Where’s the dissonance in this?
Jim Moody, a director of SafeMinds, a parents’ group that advances the notion the vaccines cause autism, said the retraction would strengthen Dr. Wakefield’s credibility with many parents.
“Attacking scientists and attacking doctors is dangerous,” he said. “This is about suppressing research, and it will fuel the controversy by bringing it all up again.”
This response is a classic, almost stereotyped, reaction. When some people receive compelling disconfirmation of a belief, they do not adjust their belief in the direction of the disconfirmation, but rather move to strengthen the belief against the disconfirmation. More important than the belief resistance will be following behavior that becomes more radical, intense, and fervent. The belief moves from reason to zealotry.
The simplest explanation for this apparently baffling counter-reaction is found in our selves, most particularly, our self concepts. All humans have a self concept, a set of beliefs that define who they are, what they do, their very humanity and individuality. All humans also have self concept beliefs that include things outside of themselves, for example, their children. Some parents cannot have a calm and rational discussion about their children’s flaws, real and perceived, because criticisms of the child are experienced as criticism of the parent’s self concept. When dissonance strikes, it usually follows upon a disconfirmation of a vitally important belief that is part of our self concept. Thus, to change our belief with the disconfirmation is not simply a matter of changing the data entry in the encyclopedia of our minds, it means we must also change the definition of our self.
I see this dissonance process not only in some parents with autistic children, but also the editors of Lancet. In their brief statement of retraction, they note:
Following the judgment of the UK General Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Panel on Jan 28, 2010, it has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation. In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were “consecutively referred” and that investigations were “approved” by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record.
The clear inference in this retraction is the proof of ethical violations. No direct mention is made of fraud and fabrication of data which was what started the uproar in the scientific community. No one could have suspected any ethics violations in the original research, but the shaky data and the shakier theoretical explanation were apparent from the start. Yet, the original Lancet reviewers and editors missed that bad science and published it anyway. Now, after over 10 years of analysis and formal investigation that includes fraud as a central finding, Lancet editors can only admit acting on the basis of ethical issues.
I suspect they cannot believe they were so incompetent with their original review of the paper. Shootfire, even journalists got hip to the fraud before the Lancet board. Such incompetence is beyond their self concept beliefs – I’m smart! – so the retraction arises in factors beyond smart, like ethics violations with informed consent and absence of committee oversight. Yeah, ethics was the big problem here. That fake data wasn’t so bad, but lying about informed consent procedures will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!
No dissonance here, folks. That only happens to normal people, like the ones we scientists do research on. But, you can bet from here on out that the Lancet will be spotting ethics violations like George Costanza spotting raccoons on a road trip.