"In the nearly 48 hours since President Obama, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul made their comments on vaccination, the issue has become a partisan sideshow...
...To stand against science in many places is to invite stigma and disdain...
In the quest for partisan advantage, everyone scrambles to clothe his or her beliefs in the guise of objectivity. The reality, however, is that our beliefs are nothing of the sort. We construct them outside the scope of scientific observation, with ideas that come to us through custom, experience, and education, and for which science gives little confirmation or support. 'We see what we want to see,' writes John Dewey in Human Nature and Conduct, 'We dwell upon favoring circumstances till they become weighted with reinforcing considerations.' In that environment, honest deliberation, he says, 'needs every possible help it can get against the twisting, exaggerating, and slighting tendency of passion and habit.'
Instead of trying to attack each other for our fealty to science—or lack thereof—let’s acknowledge the deep subjectivity of our views but try to use the tools and methods of science to help us inform and strengthen them; to challenge them, to sharpen them, and to try to root them in our shared reality."