Festival, Robert De Niro pull anti-vaccination film

[Triggered Fridgekin]

One day after defending the scheduled screening of a controversial documentary linking vaccinations to autism, Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Robert De Niro announced Saturday that the film, directed by the author of a discredited study on the subject, is being pulled from the event.

The film, Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe, was scheduled to debut April 24 at the 15th edition of the prestigious film festival. It is directed by Andrew Wakefield, known to many as the father of the anti-vaccine movement. He authored a 1998 report on vaccinations and autism that was later retracted, He also had his medical license revoked.

The decision to include the film in the festival, which runs April 13 to 24 in New York, resulted in outrage from many who are upset that the film's inclusion could offer legitimacy to a study debunked by leading scientists.

Source

Seems like it's bringing out a ton of anti-vaxxers and is also catching heat for censorship.

Thoughts?

[GennGreymane]

Censorship is an issue when its government sponsored.

[Spectral]

Seems like they did the right thing. Giving a platform to anti-public health propaganda has some negative consequences.

[Manabomb]

Censorship is an issue when its government sponsored.

I don't mind censoring people that have been discredited from their field and are still spouting their baseless claims like he knows something the rest of the 99.9% of the scientific community doesn't.

[THE Bigzoman]

I don't mind censoring people that have been discredited from their field and are still spouting their baseless claims like he knows something the rest of the 99.9% of the scientific community doesn't.

I do.


You're putting a stop gap in the scientific process.

All ideas, whether right or wrong, begin as an outlier until the establishment gets blue in the face with facts.


And before you knee jerk "anti vaxxer!", i'm arguing this in principle and not in support of an idea.

[GennGreymane]

Seems like they did the right thing. Giving a platform to anti-public health propaganda has some negative consequences.

And most importantly its not government sponsored, its a private organization that is saying they will not give a platform (like most cases of censorship many complain about on this forum). There are other venues.

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I do.


You're putting a stop gap in the scientific process.

All ideas, whether right or wrong, begin as an outlier until the establishment gets blue in the face with facts.


And before you knee jerk "anti vaxxer!", i'm arguing this in principle and not in support of an idea.

directed by the author of a discredited study on the subject, is being pulled from the event.

The study has been discredited numerous times.

[THE Bigzoman]

And most importantly its not government sponsored, its a private organization that is saying they will not give a platform (like most cases of censorship many complain about on this forum). There are other venues.

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The study has been discredited numerous times.

Read what I write.

Again, they all start out like that.

Keynesian theory, started out as a "discredited outlier"

The world being round, started out as a "discredited outlier"

They were dismissed; laughed at by the scientific community, until shown otherwise with irrefutable real world examples or new knowledge.

[Sky High]

good for them and good for the rest of us. no need to give a platform to such garbage.

[Manabomb]

I do.


You're putting a stop gap in the scientific process.

All ideas, whether right or wrong, begin as an outlier until the establishment gets blue in the face with facts.


And before you knee jerk "anti vaxxer!", i'm arguing this in principle and not in support of an idea.

But the principle and the idea are based on non-facts. Sure, all ideas start at the basis of non-fact, but the in this -particular- case the scientific community has gone literally out of its way to disprove and discredit everything this person has researched.

Call it the last step of the scientific process that few people ever talk about, yet is the most important. Fact checking.

I'm not saying there never was cause to research into the idea that vaccines could cause autism or other mental disorders in children. I'm saying that now that we know that it's complete bullshit, we can stop tuning into the crazy train.

[GennGreymane]

Read what I write.

Again, they all start out like that.

Keynesian theory, started out as a "discredited outlier"

The world being round, started out as a "discredited outlier"

They were dismissed; laughed at by the scientific community, until shown otherwise with irrefutable real world examples or new knowledge.

They have yet to show any scientific advancement, and this is a film festival, not a scientific conference.

[THE Bigzoman]

They have yet to show any scientific advancement, and this is a film festival, not a scientific conference.

We're getting somewhere. Now read it again.

In Principle

[GennGreymane]

We're getting somewhere. Now read it again.

In Principle

You can stand on principles for days, but this is a film festival. There is no scientific debate here. Only propaganda for what is at this time, a falsehood.

[THE Bigzoman]

You can stand on principles for days, but this is a film festival. There is no scientific debate here. Only propaganda for what is at this time, a falsehood.

It was less about the claim itself and a film about how the scientific community handled the original idea poorly.

[GennGreymane]

It was less about the claim itself and a film about how the scientific community handled the original idea poorly.

They did not. Not accepting an idea is not handling it poorly. Many studies have happened since. Same result.

[Crissi]

Having an opinion doesn't entitle you to a private platform for that opinion. If they want to not show it, that's fine. I mean it's been discredited so many times that it's like discrediting the sun rotated around the earth people.

[Endus]

Read what I write.

Again, they all start out like that.

Keynesian theory, started out as a "discredited outlier"

The world being round, started out as a "discredited outlier"

They were dismissed; laughed at by the scientific community, until shown otherwise with irrefutable real world examples or new knowledge.

This is simply not accurate.

They did start out as outliers, but those views were never "discredited". No evaluation of their merits had been conducted, and when such evaluations were conducted, those ideas were found to bear merit, and were largely accepted. That initial skepticism and evaluation is not the same as the discreditation that Wakefield and his work received; they faced that same initial skepticism and the evaluation determined that not only did his arguments not have merit, Wakefield had deliberately and fraudulently manufactured and misrepresented the facts in question. That is where his work was discredited; when it was determined he was a liar and a fraud, which occurred after his work was evaluated for merit.

It's not remotely comparable to new ideas that challenge preconceived assumptions, but bear actual merit when given their due consideration and evaluation.

You are confusing an initial stance of skepticism, with an evaluation of an argument on its lack of merit and the discredit that results from determining that it was a deliberate fraud.

[purebalance]

Read what I write.

Again, they all start out like that.

Keynesian theory, started out as a "discredited outlier"

The world being round, started out as a "discredited outlier"

They were dismissed; laughed at by the scientific community, until shown otherwise with irrefutable real world examples or new knowledge.

He used false information and was SCIENTIFICALLY proven wrong. The world being round was never scientifically proven wrong. Honestly I would say the world being flat is more akin to anti vaxxers.

[Manabomb]

We're getting somewhere. Now read it again.

In Principle

In principle it's really, really easy to assume that everything is possible. We live in a universe were there are outcomes to specific events, however. The outcome to whether or not vaccines can cause autism is "No. They don't." and supporting someone's idea on the principle of "one day they could be right" is the same reason we still have social religions.

[Ol Scratch]

The world being round, started out as a "discredited outlier"

No it didn't. Well, maybe in prehistoric times by people who've never seen the horizon in their collective lifetimes. But not by anyone with a brain in the last few thousand years. (And yes, if you think intellectuals in the 1400s though the world was flat, you'd be wrong.)

And no, it's not censorship. Censorship is when a government tries to suppress you. A private organization telling you to fuck off with your idiotic drivel isn't censorship anymore than them telling you that you need to wear shoes in order to enter their establishment is.

[Zecora]

Source

Seems like it's bringing out a ton of anti-vaxxers and is also catching heat for censorship.

Thoughts?

While I don't like to see it pulled, so long as it is a private film festival, they are free to do as they wish. Damn dumb of them to first okay it and THEN pull it though...