On the Respectful Insolence blog. Excerpt:
"No one, and I mean no one, brings pseudoscience, quackery, and antivaccine madness to more people than Oprah Winfrey does."
Combating the Oprah Effect
3 Comments
Leave a comment
My policy on commentsI'm adopting the policy of a blog I admire: “Comments are great; obnoxious comments get deleted. Deal." I also won’t post profanity, product pitches, or anything from anyone who doesn’t list what appears to be an actual e-mail address.
It is true.
We need to do a better job of educating people about science. It is not just Oprah. She is just the most popular misinformer.
There is a good article on Oprah in Newsweek:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/200025/output/print
While Orac typically get many praises from the science community, his approach of calling people quacks, idiots, crazies etc. will never change anyone suspicious of vaccinations, etc.
Yelling, screaming and talking in an unintelligible language (unintelligible to those outside of the science community) never helps. Just try to treat a spouse, the way he treats those who disagree with him and I think you'll quickly understand what I mean.
Sorry but if a person wants to have a positive impact, they will have to understand that compassion, restraint and diplomacy are necessary. Feeling or even being "right" is not enough: one just comes across as a scientific fundamentalist (i.e.,just another true believer.)
While there was a time in our culture where the image of a scientific truthseeker (think Arrowsmith and Salk) automatically had great influence, the history of scandals within the science, medical and research communities during the past twenty years has done great damage.