Authority quotes
[back] Authority

[Get this paean to authority.] "We also have an unavoidable duty to listen to the people who know more than us.  I simply asked our doctor if she was triple-vaccinating her own children. Armed with her simple 'Yes', I happily watched her vaccinate each of mine." [Aug 2007] The anti-MMR mothers who are putting us all in danger

Authoritarian followers trust untrustworthy authorities

Stage 1 or Stage II is the stage at which a person has blind faith in authority figures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Scott_Peck  Scott Peck M.D

All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.--Krishnamurti

"Perhaps the chief argument used in favour of vaccination is that of "authority." It is said that the medical profession are in favour of vaccination, that they know all about it, and it is folly for anyone who has not been medically trained to have an opinion on the question.
    I would suggest that a real authority is a man who has devoted some years of his life to the study of the vaccination question and who is unbiased by any pecuniary advantage or professional sympathy in the conclusions at which he arrives.
    If such is the standard of authority then "authority " is on the side of the anti-vaccinators. We have the opinion of the late Dr. Collins, who was a public vaccinator, but who resigned that appointment because he considered vaccination did great harm and no good, and he wrote a book to prove his case. We have the opinion of Dr. Creighton, who was employed by the publishers of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica " to write an article on the subject of Vaccination ; he thereupon made a careful study of the question, and came to the conclusion that vaccination was not only useless, but dangerous. There is Professor Edgar Crookshank, who has published two ponderous volumes on "The History and Pathology of Vaccination," a work which he undertook in order to demonstrate the scientific basis of vaccination ; but the result of his inquiry was to show that there was no scientific basis for the practice, and he expressed the opinion in his book that the practice would fall into desuetude.* Then we have the opinion of Dr. Walter Hadwen, of Gloucester, who has made a special study of the question of vaccination, and who also has decided that it is both useless and dangerous. Then we have the opinion of Sir William Collins, a medical man of the highest eminence, knighted on the occasion of the King's coronation, who also considers that vaccination is a bad thing. Then we have the opinion of Alfred Russel Wallace, LL.D. Dublin, D.C.L. Oxon., F.R.S., &c, that "Vaccination (is) a Delusion, its penal enforcement a Crime." The names I have mentioned above constitute, indeed, an authority worthy of respect."  [1921] Vaccination and the State By Arnold Lupton MP.

    Another 'common sense' principle that's finally coming to the fore is that it's foolish to try to get an entourage of blind imitators; sycophants.   These fickle flatterers are pure poison.  The old paradigm of leadership is falling away and the new one, which is based on personal example and entails no assumed personal authority, is emerging.  There's no money or sex  payoff with the latter, so ambitious folks don't seek it Wink but if one will pursue personal integrity one will generate a lot of good examples for others and will make a few genuine friends in the process. --Don Croft

[Arrogance] ''Condescending Tone.   Not all doctors are condescending. Let me make that point very, very clear upfront. I know there are wonderful doctors out there who listen patiently and respond in a human fashion to the concerns of their patients!  However, many Pediatricians are extremely condescending, especially when a parent questions vaccines! I had one doctor once march me down the hall to show me his numerous and impressive university and post graduate degrees beautifully framed on the wall! His point? 'I’m smarter and more educated than you are. You are a nobody to be questioning my Authority.' My response? I walked out.''

"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had."----Michael Crichton M.D.,

"In George Orwell's 1984 one of EngSoc's three "truths" was "Ignorance Is Strength." Have you ever noticed how ignorant people have a great deal of strength in their convictions? Not being able to think is, at least subconsciously, terrifying. Unable to arrive at ideas and understandings on one's own, every idea must be held onto like a life preserver in the sea beside a sinking ship. Every idea is as important as every other idea because there is no mechanism to judge between them.  "Authority" (the Church-School-State Establishment) is strengthened by ignorance as well. The ignorant must rely on Authority for opinions. This keeps Authority on top. The "conspiracy" has a vested interest in maintaining this druggie-like dependence on Authority. It is a very short "hokey-pokey" little step from authoritarianism to totalitarianism."----Jerry E. Smith

"Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude.  In the Press and Encyclopaedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side."----Goethe

"Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority."--T.H. Huxley.

"The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong."----George Bernard Shaw.

"Also we see here that only the testimony of experts can be admissible. Here again it's the doctrine of high medical authority, even necessarily overriding whatever experts had to say, weighed against what "everybody knows". "----Stan Lippmann

"It amazes me, though, that so many people will only listen to such information if it is delivered by a medical doctor or group. If a non-medical health practitioner — or an informed layperson — tells them something, they disregard it, no matter how much evidence is presented as proof. If, on the other hand, a medical doctor proclaims something, they accept it without question."--Terry A. Rondberg, D.C.,

The majority consists of fools, utter fools. Beware of the majority. If so many people are following, that is enough a proof that something is wrong. Truth happens to individuals, not to crowds. From Osho International Foundation

"In George Orwell's 1984 one of EngSoc's three "truths" was "Ignorance Is Strength." Have you ever noticed how ignorant people have a great deal of strength in their convictions? Not being able to think is, at least subconsciously, terrifying. Unable to arrive at ideas and understandings on one's own, every idea must be held onto like a life preserver in the sea beside a sinking ship. Every idea is as important as every other idea because there is no mechanism to judge between them."Authority" (the Church-School-State Establishment) is strengthened by ignorance as well. The ignorant must rely on Authority for opinions. This keeps Authority on top. The "conspiracy" has a vested interest in maintaining this druggie-like dependence on Authority. It is a very short "hokey-pokey" little step from authoritarianism to totalitarianism."----Jerry E. Smith

Propaganda Techniques: False Connections:--Transfer:
"Transfer is a device by which the propagandist carries over the authority, sanction, and prestige of something we respect and revere to something he would have us accept." http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/propaganda/transfer.htm

And they found "that" was the most important one of all, because, by training the children to accept these other monopolies [and] never question authority........Flexner was John D. Rockefeller's "stool pigeon" in setting up the takeover of the entire medical school industry by Carnegie Foundation, which was a Rockefeller Foundation subsidiary at that time.......When you say "Carnegie Foundation", you're talking about something that has no substance. It's entirely under the domination of the Rockefellers. .................He (Abraham Flexner) did "The Flexner Report", and this changed the medical schools of the United States from homeopathic, naturopathic medicine, to allopathic medicine -- which was a German school of medicine which depended on the heavy use of drugs, radical surgery, and long hospital stays. That's what we've got today, allopathic medicine."---Eustace Mullins.   [Interview 2003]  by Tom Valentine  

It's even better if you can put your message in the mouth of someone the public trusts. This is called the "third-party technique" and was also pioneered by Bernays. Surveys show that scientists are widely trusted, so the public-relations industry hires "scientific experts" to say things beneficial to the industry's clients. PR firms also deliver messages through journalists, doctors, and others who appear to be independent, trustworthy sources of information. For example, the public is naturally suspicious when pesticide companies claim their poisonous products are safe. But if former surgeon general C. Everett Koop, one of the nation's most trusted public figures, says pesticides are safe, we're more likely to believe the message. After all, Koop warned us about AIDS and tobacco, so wouldn't he be up- front about pesticides, too? Sadly, no. PR strategists scored a major victory in 1990 when Koop spoke out against Big Green, a referendum that would have regulated or banned many pesticides. His opposition was considered an important factor in the referendum's defeat. WAR ON TRUTH The Secret Battle for the American Mind An Interview with John Stauber

"The fallacy of authority is believing things to be true because of the authoritative source of the information. It must be true because I read it in the paper, saw it on television, the surgeon said so, The Lancet published it. Authority is deeply rooted in medicine because the patient seeks advice in order to obtain an explanation which is more credible than that of friends and relations.
        "A respect for authority is the basis for most medical education. Students may become so used to memorising that they become prey to the illusion that the reason for learning to parrot lectures and textbooks is that they are the ‘truth’ (Pg. 33)….Authorities naturally support the status quo, which gives them the right to that accolade. When William Harvey published his discovery of the circulation of the blood he was given the cold shoulder. He complained to his friend Aubrey that after the book came out, he lost most of his patients, as it was ‘believed by the vulgar that he was crack-brained’ and all Physicians were against his Opinion, and envied him: many wrote against him."--Petr Skrabanek

"One of the most common emotional manipulations used by doctors on journalists is "How could what they say be true? Why would we say anything other than the truth? What have we got to gain by making kids sick? We got into medicine because we love children…" I love it. I simply lead journalists to the filing cabinets, the medical articles, the masses of information, and let the journalists judge for themselves the motives of such accusers. But when I say to journalists "You’ve seen all my hard data, now where is their evidence? Where is their hard fact? Where is their proof?" the situation changes. Such is the conditioning of journalists that they cannot confront the realisation that they have demanded total factual accountablility from me yet walked out satisfied that the letters after someone’s name guarantees authenticity of every word said. So they fall back on the fallacy of authority."--Hilary Butler

"On April 6, 2000, nine national nonprofit organizations issued a joint statement http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/article/2223.html (vaccine/shill2) on the importance of immunization to the prevention of vaccine-preventable diseases"--AMA statement  

Albert B. Sabin Vaccine Institute
American Liver Foundation
Children's Liver Alliance
Every Child By Two
Hepatitis Foundation International
Immunization Action Coalition
Latino Organization for Liver Awareness
National Educational Association
Parents of Kids with Infectious Diseases

Vaccine are safe and effective because these organisation said so

[Book] Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future http://www.whale.to/v/bk.html

Classic use of authority:
"His theories are not new and have been reviewed at least three times in the past year by expert groups including diabetologists, immunologists, vaccinologists, geneticists, epidemiologists and biostatisticians all of whom have agreed unanimously that Dr. Classen has totally misinterpreted data that he has extracted from studies in Finland and elsewhere, and has built a hypothesis for which there is absolutely no evidence. These reviews have been sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Vaccine Safety, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health and the Vaccine Initiative of the Infectious Diseases Society of American and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society."--Dr Katz

Before the ruling, 12 organisations, including the Medical Research Council, the British Medical Association and the Faculty of Public Health, released a statement re-affirming their commitment to the triple MMR vaccine. [2010 Jan] Damning verdict on doctor who linked MMR with autism

Amid concerns that the MMR and autism row will resurface during the General Medical Council hearing, institutions that include the Royal Colleges of Paediatricians, General Practitioners, Pathologists and Physicians have released a statement that reads: “The undersigned believe that the MMR triple vaccine protects the health of children. A large body of scientific evidence shows no link between the vaccine and autism.” It is also signed by the Medical Research Council, the British Medical Association and Great Ormond Street children’s hospital among others. 2007 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2080353.ece

"I should say that the recommendations on measles mumps and rubella that the Government are following are supported by the World Health Organisation, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of Nursing, and the Community Practitioners’ and Health Visitors’ Association."--Tony Blair,  Dec 18 2001

The Institute of Medicine, which I think is an impeccably independent body, has looked at all the evidence and said there's no connection. I think that's the truth. ---Dr. Tim Johnson