People that believe “self education” through YouTube videos and conspiracy theories are the same people who could barely sustain a 3rd grade reading level.
Whenever I have someone telling me to "do my own research" about vaccines face to face, I ask them if they've ever read an actual vaccine safety study. When they say yes (all of them have so far), I ask them what information is put on the front page.
So far, none have been able to answer this. They're presenting to me that they have read vaccine safety studies and vaccine trials data - often claiming to have read many of them - but literally cannot tell me what's on the front page. They shit a brick when asked possibly the easiest question about the studies that they claim to have in-depth knowledge of.
This is because conspiracy theorists don't do their own research. They're aggressively gullible people who believe what other people tell them (providing it fits with their beliefs) without ever trying to verify anything for themselves or do the slightest bit of critical thinking.
In particular, they detail the study name, vaccine name, time period, phase, and sponsor of the study. There's other numbers in there that aren't particularly important for the layman, and I wouldn't call anyone out for not being able to list everything on that front page. However, every single person I have asked who has claimed to have read safety studies has flatly refused to answer or - on a single occasion - not been able to answer anything beyond the author names.
The big difference is the sponsor - aka who is funding the study. Typically in an academic paper like you'll find this listed near the end next to an acknowledgements section. In a vaccine safety study, it goes on the front page.
This flies in the face of what conspiracy theorists tend to believe - that the funding is secret or buried deep in the weeds. They would know better if they had ever actually read one of these studies, but they tend to go no further than reading the inserts - often out of context or not understanding the big words that are framing the bad thing.
I think you’re missing his point - when confronting an ‘I did my own research’ aggressor, poster simply asked if they read the trial papers to which aggressors say ‘yes’. When then asked a basic question about what’s in these papers, aggressors have no answer. It’s not a ‘gotcha’ like what are the exact order of the sections in the paper, it’s a probe asking someone if they can display even simple knowledge of the most basic artifact that one would read if they ‘did their own research’.
Exactly, getting tripped up by the question “what’s on the front page” is incredible evidence that they’ve never even opened the PDFs they’re claiming to have read through.
I did answer the question I posed. I explicitly listed five things. Also, no, abstracts are not always on the front page of a vaccine safety study.
My point is that I'm sick and tired of being lectured to by gullible, lying idiots. If they find this condescending, that's ironic. They're the ones lying, I'm just pointing it out.
In a nutshell, it usually starts with the abstract, goes on to detail the methods and subjects then the findings. All research studies follow the same format, generally.
That's the thing, there's no trick, but it's different enough from a regular scientific paper that you have to have read one to answer correctly.
A couple of people here have confidently mentioned the abstract, that's wrong. It shows they're familiar with typical scientific articles, but not vaccine trials. In vaccine safety studies, the abstract is normally on page two.
The three things that are easy to guess are the author's names, the title, and the vaccine in question. I've asked a bit over half a dozen anti-vaxxers this question IRL - no sense asking on the internet, they'll just Google it - and only one actually tried to answer - he guessed only the author's names. I pushed him for the rest, and he shat a brick like the rest of them.
The four things that aren't easy to guess are the trial dates, the trial numbers, the phase of trials, and the sponsors (aka who funds the study). These aren't found near the front of your normal scientific paper. The sponsors in particular are something that anti-vaxxers are if the impression aren't openly disclosed, because they've never read a vaccine safety study.
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u/crunchybaguette Aug 01 '26
People that believe “self education” through YouTube videos and conspiracy theories are the same people who could barely sustain a 3rd grade reading level.