What do goalposts have to do with vaccines?
Nothing really.
They do have a place in folks who argue that vaccines aren’t safe, don’t work, or aren’t necessary though.
Moving the Goalposts on Vaccine Safety
Moving the goalposts refers to a logical fallacy in which someone decides they want different evidence to win their argument, typically because their previous evidence has failed.
For example, after thimerosal was removed from vaccines, anti-vaccine folks began to say that it was really aluminum and formaldehyde that were the toxins in vaccines.
And after they realized that the double-blind, randomized, placebo controlled studies on vaccines that they had been calling for had already been done, they moved the goalposts to calling for saline placebos.
It never ends.
Just like when playing soccer though, you can’t move the goalposts once you start playing.
More on Moving the Goalposts on Vaccine Safety
- Are There Hidden Ingredients in Vaccines?
- Ask 8 Questions Before You Skip a Vaccine
- More Questions to Help You Become a Vaccine Skeptic
- What Are the Greatest Tricks Anti-Vaccine Folks Use to Persuade Parents to Skip Vaccines?
- The Fatal Flaw in the Anti-Vaccine Movement
- Moving the goalposts
- They Keep Moving The Goalposts
- Antivax 101: Tactics and Tropes of the Antivaccine Movement
- One Vaccine, One Ingredient and Anti-Vax Talking Points
- Move the Goalposts… It’s Time to Talk Aluminum
- “Green Our Vaccines”: The fallacy of the perfect solution
- Satire – Anti-vaxxers volunteer to help move goalposts at local soccer field