I’ve always been a believer. As a young man, I held very strong beliefs and I was seldom shy to tell you about them. Along life’s journey I erred and learned much from experience. In all my years, the single most valuable thing I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter how strong something is believed, it only matters how correct the belief is.
The most critical of beliefs are those which, by definition, affect life and death. The Polio virus doesn’t care what you belief, only whether or not you and your loved ones were vaccinated. And yet here we are in the USA where vaccines are available to all, required of nearly all as schoolchildren, and yet 1,299 persons have died of vaccine preventable illnesses. Too many of them are children who are dead or mangled because their parents believed incorrectly. Please, example your beliefs, and don’t be one of those parents.
I agree with your premise for the most part but what of the placebo effect?
You’ll have to explain further. I thought the placebo effect was an inert substance or treatment that “caused” an ailment to alleviate. Such as the old, “take two aspirin and call me in the morning,” trick that works 85% of the time and has nothing to do with aspirin. What does the placebo effect have to do with immunology and virology? More specifically, what does the placebo effect have to do with the recent outbreaks of preventable diseases that would not happened if the victims parents had gotten their children immunized?