Kennedy Jr. was guilty of this faulty expression of logic when he stated that the "thimerosal generation is the sickest generation in the history of this country" (10). This statement refers to the belief that thimersosal, which is a mercury-based component that used to be in vaccines and was all but removed from them in 1999 (Scepter 16), is contributing to autism in children given vaccines. However, Specter not only cites the erroneous nature of this statement by indicating that the life expectancy for newborns is higher than it has ever been, but he also...
is talking about a part of vaccinations that had long been removed before his 2008 speech. It is quite clear that he was disputing rationality and making statements based on faulty logic.
Ultimately, the continued prevalence in the belief that autism is caused by vaccination is attributable to denial arguments, motivated reasoning, and denial movements that result in a distrust and deliberate ignorance of scientific facts to the contrary. Scepter's work provides a number of specific examples of these phenomena including denial arguments such as fake experts, cherry-picking,
logical fallacies and
conspiracy theories, and examples of motivate reasoning related to ignoring and disparaging contrary information while only seeking that which affirms one's opinion. The result is…
