--- title: Why We Shouldn't Dismiss People Who Deny Facts description: Sara E. Gorman and Jack M. Gorman write in 'Denying to the Grave,' we're all prone to the human principles that cause science denial canonical: https://time.com/4466692/denying-to-the-grave/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-06T18:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-30T11:02:58.688Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why We Shouldn't Dismiss People Who Deny Facts og:description: We're all prone to the same human principles that cause science denial og:url: https://time.com/4466692/denying-to-the-grave/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ef78a8330bf6a38/6988a3fc524fc059e7df94fc/denying.jpg?branch=production&width=1120&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1120 og:image:height: 630 og:image:alt: denying.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why We Shouldn't Dismiss People Who Deny Facts twitter:description: We're all prone to the same human principles that cause science denial twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ef78a8330bf6a38/6988a3fc524fc059e7df94fc/denying.jpg?branch=production&width=1120&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why We Shouldn't Dismiss People Who Deny Facts > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Sara E. Gorman](https://time.com/author/sara-e-gorman/) and [Jack M. Gorman](https://time.com/author/jack-m-gorman/) Sep 6, 2016 6:00 PM UTC  Oxford University Press by [Sara E. Gorman](https://time.com/author/sara-e-gorman/) and [Jack M. Gorman](https://time.com/author/jack-m-gorman/) Sep 6, 2016 6:00 PM UTC Recently, we tried a little experiment. We typed “why are anti-vaxxers…” into Google. Google’s most common completions of this phrase were “why are anti-vaxxers so stupid” and “why are anti-vaxxers dangerous.” Then we tried the same thing with “climate change deniers” and found exactly the same phrase as the #1 hit: “why are climate change deniers so stupid?” But let’s try asking a different question for a minute: _Are_ anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers actually stupid? Are they just a bunch of idiots who are ignorant of science and incapable of understanding it? The answer to these questions is for the most part “No.” Many intelligent people fall into a wide variety of non-scientific [beliefs](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/14/why-smart-people-are-dumb-patients.html), from the relatively innocuous (such as the belief that you should “starve a fever”) to the extremely dangerous (such as the belief that the HIV virus is not the cause of AIDS and that antiretrovirals are toxic). And years of educational efforts on the part of public-health officials have often been unsuccessful at getting people to change their minds about a wide array of issues. In fact, there is even [evidence](http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/02/25/peds.2013-2365) to suggest that informational campaigns aimed at reversing scientifically incorrect beliefs can backfire. So where are these massive, time-consuming public health responses going wrong? The answer, we think, lies in a widespread failure to utilize a fundamental human tool: empathy. If we really want people to make decisions using sound scientific evidence, then we need to take an honest look at what’s driving those unscientific beliefs. Because it’s not ignorance, it’s psychology. All of us are prone to the same fundamental human principles that cause these cases of science denial. Research has proven that humans are distinctly uncomfortable with events or phenomena without clear causes, and when we don’t know something, we tend to fill in the gaps ourselves. Take the example of the parent whose child has autism, a devastating condition whose cause is unknown. Desperately trying to find out what caused your child’s autism, even if there is nothing you can do about it, is a completely natural human phenomenon. Since we don’t know why it occurs, it becomes easy to misplace blame. Moreover, humans do not assess risk in a measured or rational manner. Instead, assessments of risk depend a great deal on what is sometimes called “imaginability,” which refers to the ability to conjure an image of something in one’s mind. Because we are fundamentally empathetic creatures, we respond more to stories than to statistics. That’s precisely what makes it more natural for anti-vaxxers to “imagine” the risk of their children dying from a vaccine than it is for them to comprehend statistics that vaccines are safe. We should figure out why we are all so drawn to stories in the first place. 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