Vaccine Evangelists, Apostates, and Apologists: An Essay Series by Jordan Henderson
A deep dive into the vaccine conflict
Nevermore contributor
wrote a must-read essay series exploring the vaccine debate from the lens of the Vaccine Evangelist, the Vaccine Apostate, and the Vaccine Apologist.Henderson writes,
This essay series is a deep dive into the vaccine conflict: the preaching of the Vaccine Evangelists, the refutation of that preaching by the Vaccine Apostates, and the protection of the Vaccine Evangelists by the Vaccine Apologists.
In it, he weaves together data, historical events, analogies, and concepts from a wide variety of sources in a cohesive way that sheds light on the vaccine question. What he’s accomplished here is very impressive, and he still makes the information accessible to the reader. While I haven’t verified his sources, I encourage everyone to look into the referenced material themselves.
So far, Jordan has published six parts in this series, with apparently more to come. In this article I’ll present a brief description of each part. Before taking a look at the titles though, a definition of terms is in order.
Evangelists preach and promote the faith.
Apostates have abandoned the faith and may work to actively undermine it.
Apologists defend the faith
With that in mind, let’s move on to the descriptions.
OVERVIEW
Part 1 - The Evangelists
Part 2 - Apostasy
Part 3 - The Red Herring: A Tour of the Motte
Part 4 - Spanish Death Data
Part 5 - The Apologists
Part 6 - The Apologists Continued
Part 7 - The Vaccine Apologist’s Playbook (to be published)
Part 1 - The Evangelists
As Henderson puts it, “Vaccine Evangelists preach, and have long been preaching, the doctrine of Salvation Through Vaccination in which they credit vaccines as having brought us deliverance from the high mortality rates, especially among infants and children in the 19th and early 20th centuries…” This is their message. Vaccines work because many deadly diseases of the past no longer work mayhem on the population. And obviously, we wouldn’t want to forget smallpox, or polio, etc.
Part II
Part 2 - Apostasy
Part 2 is an overview of Vaccine Apostates storming the Bailey and debunking the Vaccine Evangelist preaching (preachings, such as all the exhibits we reviewed in this first installment).
Part III
Part 3: The Red Herring: A Tour of the Motte
Just what the title implies; a walk through of the relatively undesirable but more defensible vaccinationist stronghold (notification of incidence data) to which they retreat when the Vaccine Apostates storm the Bailey, and an explanation of how Vaccine Apologists use incidence data and off topic questions, as red herrings to redirect the conversation away from the historical death data.
Part IV
Part 4. Spanish Death Data
“As with the other countries we have looked at, a drastic plummet in deaths attributed to infectious disease occurs in Spain in the 20th century. For Spain too, we can see that clearly vaccines could not have been the primary reason, nor one of the primary reasons for this decline. The central misconception of the Doctrine of Salvation Through Vaccination* is preached in Spain just as it is almost everywhere else, yet it is just as untrue for Spain as it is for the English speaking world.”
Part V
Part 5. The Apologists
“This essay installment is centered around the deconstruction of Dr. David Gorski’s vaccine apologetics. Gorski is a prolific writer and polemicist who has devoted a considerable number of his articles to defending the reputation of vaccines. The deconstruction of Gorski’s arguments will provide a springboard for hitting a couple especially interesting related topics.”
Part VI
Part 6. The Apologists Continued
An introduction to multiple Vaccine Apologists, with point by point dissection and counter criticism of their arguments.
Part VII
Part 7. The Vaccine Apologists’ Playbook (to be published)
An analysis and review of the principal strategies employed by the Vaccine Apologists.
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