Religious and Traditional Belief Systems Coexist and Compete with Science for Cultural Authority in West Africa
Abstract
This study examines the coexistence of science with Christian, Islamic and African religious beliefs and its implications for science communication. Using Moscovici's social representations theory and focusing on his accommodation hypothesis, the paper draws from experiences in mental health care, vaccination controversies and viral epidemics using case studies from West Africa. It also draws similarities from historical vaccination controversies around the world and the Zika virus epidemic in Brazil.
The paper shows that Moscovici's accommodation hypothesis of cognitive polyphasia better explains the coexistence of science and religious belief, which can, however, be double-edged. It also shows that coexistence can lead to a positive cross-referral system, as in the case of mental health in Ghana; can have initial negative outcomes, as in vaccination campaigns in Nigeria and Cameroon; or can aid the spread and eventual containment of disease, as experienced during the Ebola virus disease epidemic in West Africa.
Thus, while science remains a reference beacon in all controversies, its coexistence with religious belief can lead to an initial plunge in authority from which it eventually recovers. The choice of authority is also complicated by the dual role of some scientists as religious leaders and by previous untoward experiences with science, conspiracy theories and rumours about Western interventions in Africa.
1. Introduction
The truth in most of pre-colonial West Africa was informed by traditional belief systems, namely the gods, and enforced by practices and taboos. Divination through oracles, the word of the paramount ruler or a decision by a council of elders represented the truth. European colonial masters introduced Christianity, the scientific method and the Western legal system to West Africa. Islam arrived much earlier, along the trade routes from North Africa (ICG, 2010; Paden, 2005; Kenny, 1996).
During colonisation, both Abrahamic religions and the scientific method coexisted, while laws were enforced by the European legal systems. There were attempts by Islamic leaders in the north, over the decades, to replace traditional African beliefs; notable among those efforts was the Uthman Dan Fodio jihad, which envisaged a purification of Islam and the entrenchment of sharia law (see Anderson, 2002; Kenny, 1996). Christian missionaries and colonial authorities spread their faith through the erstwhile pagan south, while Islamic practices were left untouched in the north. Although Islam and Christianity were widely accepted in West Africa, traditional practices, such as Ifa, as a divination system, rather than being replaced, remained widespread in society and even spread from West Africa, and can now be found in the United States, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Brazil and other parts of the world (Abimbola, 1994).
The post-colonial era presents a mixture of pre-colonial and colonial practices: Abrahamic religions; atheism; the scientific method; the English and French legal systems and their laws; taboos; and traditional African beliefs and practices of appeasing the gods (Odebode and Onadipe, 2011; Ellis, 2008; McCall, 2004; Anderson, 2002; Abimbola, 1994). Just as Islamic leaders and Christian missionaries sought to replace traditional religious practices, the scientific method now seeks to replace all belief systems. This is not solely an African phenomenon. It was envisaged by Jawaharlal Nehru in his quest for ‘scientific temper’, as outlined in his book titled The Discovery of India (Nehru, 1985[1946]). The notion of scientific temper, a pan-Indian debate, was to instil a spirit of scientific enquiry in Indian society (Mahanti, 2013) and establish the cultural authority of science over religion (Raza, 2018). The term depicts a clash of ideas, in principle, advocating religious belief as a hindrance to the spread of scientific ideas in society.
Research by the Pew Research Center (PRC, 2010) shows that, side by side with their high levels of commitment to Christianity and Islam, many people in Africa retain beliefs and rituals that are characteristic of traditional African religions. In four countries, over 50% believe that sacrifices to ancestors or spirits can protect them from harm. In 14 countries, more than 30% say they sometimes consult traditional healers. The research also notes that, while recourse to traditional healers may be motivated in part by economic reasons and an absence of health-care alternatives, it may also be rooted in belief in the efficacy of that approach.
The discovery of the Okija Shrine in Anambra State, south-east Nigeria, which was patronised by prominent politicians, Christians and other elite groups seeking divine intervention in various endeavours, exemplifies the continued existence of beliefs in the efficacy of African religious practices among social groups (Ellis, 2008). The popularity of the Bakassi Boys, a vigilante group noted for using charms to fish out criminals, and the rise of folk justice (Smith, 2004; McCall, 2004) may have evolved from the disenchantment of the public with the slow pace of the Western judicial system and the belief that supernatural interventions can be used to arrest criminals believed to have evaded justice using spiritual powers.
The World Value Survey Wave 6 (Inglehart et al., 2014) emphasises the importance of religion in Nigeria, and the data is similar for other African countries. Eighty-nine percent of Nigerians agree that when science and religion meet, religion is always right; the figure is 84% in South Africa. When asked to rate, on a 1 to 10 scale, ‘How important is God in your life?’, 64% of Nigerian respondents choose 10 and 90% choose 8 or above. What is interesting is that these beliefs are held by those well educated in the scientific method. In Nigeria, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, a former university lecturer with a PhD in mathematics, heads the Redeemed Christian Church of God; Pastor William Kumuyi, a former university lecturer with a first-class degree in mathematics, heads Deeper Christian Life Ministry; and Pastor Daniel Adekoya, a former medical researcher with a PhD in molecular genetics, heads the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries. These three churches have the largest congregations of Pentecostal Christians in Nigeria and branches all over the world. For these pastors, being a scientist does not lead to rejection of religion; both can coexist.
Equally interesting is that churches in many African countries also provide clinical medical services. Hospitals are run by religious missions such as the Catholic Mission, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Pentecostal churches and other denominations. In addition, many churches in Nigeria have established universities where the scientific method is taught and practised. In Nigeria, the Redeemed Christian Church of God established the Redeemer's University; the Ajayi Crowther University was established by the Anglican Communion; Mountain Top University was established by the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries; Bowen University was founded by the Nigerian Baptist Convention; and Anchor University was started by the Deeper Christian Life Ministry.
A study of trust in cultural authorities in Nigeria (Falade and Bauer, 2018) found high levels of trust in scientists and religious leaders compared to trust in the military, politicians, the judiciary, foreign non-government organizations (NGOs) and local NGOs. Factor analysis shows that whoever trusts a religious leader in Nigeria is also likely to trust a scientific expert. A study of PhDs in a South African university also shows that 43% of doctorates acknowledged faith in an omnipotent god, across all faculties (Falade, 2019a).
The scientific method is thus at the nexus of competing cultural authorities in West Africa. In crises, this authority is often challenged by Christian and Islamic religious beliefs and practices (hereafter referred to as ‘modern’ beliefs) as well as African religious rituals, traditions and practices (hereafter referred to as ‘traditional’ beliefs).
Bauer et al. (2019) propose two model images of how science works against a background of goodwill in society: the ‘lighthouse’ and ‘bungee jump’ models. The lighthouse model sees science as a beacon of light reaching into the sky and towering over the chaos (storm) beneath, attracting attention and pointing direction. The bungee jump model sees science as a high holding beam with an elastic line, going through a temporary and sudden decline in authority followed by a resurgence when it is not crushed on the rocks (crisis) below.
In the context of competing cultural authorities, and using the lighthouse and bungee jump models, this paper examines how the uptake of science communication in Africa is affected by modern and traditional beliefs and practices. The paper also examines the impact of previous experiences with science, rumours and conspiracy theories. It examines studies from Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and compares them with a Brazilian study and historical perspectives from Europe.
2. Theoretical perspectives
The two main theoretical perspectives in this arena are based on, on the one hand, the relationship between cultural authorities and common sense, and, on the other, the varying trust placed on science, religion and other authorities.
2.1 Cultural authorities and common sense
The problem with issues relating to science and society hinges on understanding common sense, which takes inspiration from many sources, including science, which has increasingly become a very important component (Bauer, 2009). Those sources, or cultural authorities, are the building blocks for the evolution of social knowledge as it moves between different social contexts and is appropriated by different social actors (Jovchelovitch, 2008). How those sources shape the uptake of scientific information is the focus of the book Psychoanalysis: Its Image and its Public (Moscovici, 2008; translated from La psychoanalyse: son image et son public, first published in 1962). The book examined the ways in which Freud's psychoanalysis permeated French culture in the 1950s, and its findings remain valid today for studies of the transformation of social knowledge by science.
Moscovici's three-prong paradigm proposes that when science meets common sense, it can be rejected, accommodated into existing systems of thought, or diffused into society and become accepted as a premise for behaviour. Moscovici's social representations paradigm, Joffe (2002, 2003) argues, is not about what is right or what is wrong but facilitates the understanding of social rationality and shared interpretive resources, which it reflects and cultivates. It also considers knowledge in relation to the local, social, cultural and historical contexts in which it is formed (Flick, 1998) and is useful in characterising the evolution of the content, structure and functions of the voices and images of public concern (Bauer and Gaskell, 1999). For Gaskell (2001), the paradigm assumes that social knowledge evolves within a dynamic public space of interaction, communication and debate.
2.1.1 Accommodation: Cognitive polyphasia and complementarity
Moscovici (2008) noted that a plurality of modes of thought can coexist within the same individual, and that this dynamism can be described as a state of cognitive polyphasia (Moscovici and Markova, 1998). The striking finding, according to Jovchelovitch (2008), is that, contrary to well-established interpretations of cognitive phenomena, the different forms do not appear in different groups or different contexts but are found to be capable of coexisting side by side in the same context, social group or individual. Furthermore, Falade and Bauer (2018) have shown that this relationship entails not merely the coexistence of parallel forms, but also complementarity, in which one way of knowing reinforces another.
2.1.2 Rejection and diffusion: Cognitive dissonance and hierarchy
For Moscovici, there can be diversity of opinions within the same social group or context, leading to, in addition to the accommodation hypothesis, the rejection of advice from scientific or other cultural authorities or its acceptance as superior knowledge and consequent adoption as a premise for behaviour (diffusion). Festinger's (1962) theory of cognitive dissonance provides an alternative two-prong paradigm of rejection or diffusion. For Festinger, the psychological discomfort inherent in cognitive dissonance will motivate an individual to try to reduce the discomfort and achieve consonance in favour of either the old or the new information. This is also the position of Luhmann (1986) on the transformation of social systems, as he argues that the communication of ideas may lead not to a consensus but to an open situation of rejection or acceptance. However, Falade and Bauer (2018) argue that this is not necessarily a choice between two forms, but can be a hierarchical relationship in which both coexist but one is rated higher in a particular context.
2.2 Trust in science, religion and other cultural authorities
Religion remains very important to the public in West Africa (Inglehart et al., 2014), and data shows that Nigerians have more trust in religious leaders and scientists than other cultural actors (Falade and Bauer, 2018). However, the same data also shows that the public bestows on both scientists and religious leaders similarly high levels of trust. This raises a dilemma in situations in which scientists and religious authorities have different opinions on the same issue, since, as Gaskell et al. (2010) argue, both are used as the basis of statements about the truth.
Some authors argue that the public's faith in science is similar to its faith in religion. ‘Trust’ and ‘faith’ (see Luhmann, 1998; Giddens, 2002, 2010) are used interchangeably here. For Durkheim (2001), faith in science was not necessarily different from religious faith, and Einstein (1940) believed that science could be created only by those who were thoroughly imbued with an aspiration for truth and understanding—a desire that he perceived to spring from religion. Einstein (1950) said that he could not conceive of a genuine scientist without a profound faith: ‘science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.’ Einstein (1954), however, made clear that his religion did not include the notion of a god, which he described as a product of human weakness.
But can scientists, driven by a desire that originates from religion, believe in God? While Professor Francis Collins (2006), a geneticist, argued that this is the case in his book titled The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Professor Richard Dawkins (2006), an evolutionary biologist, argued the opposite, that God almost certainly does not exist, in his book titled The God Delusion. Durkheim (2001) proposed a replacement model in which scientific representations replace non-scientific beliefs.
Science, according to Thomas Kuhn (as cited in Knight, 2004), is not some disinterested and isolated search for truth, free of metaphysics and manifestly a good thing in a naughty world. The history of science, he argues, is like the history of France, which is prone to revolutions, and each turn is associated with new beliefs about the world and with new language as the scientific community is converted to new ways of seeing and believing. Knight (1986) has also argued that, while it would be perverse to deny that there is progress in the sciences, there seems to be no way of knowing whether anything in present science will turn out to be true in the long run.
For Habermas (2003, 2006), post-secular society continues the work for religion that religion has done for myth, and secularisation is not a zero-sum game, since a democratic common sense remains osmotically open to both sides, without relinquishing its independence. Openness to both sides indicates coexistence or accommodation in what Moscovici (1984) described as cognitive polyphasia. Openness can also lead to rejection or acceptance of either form of knowing.
2.3 Methods and research objectives
Using Moscovici's accommodation hypothesis of cognitive polyphasia, this paper examines the coexistence of science and other cultural authorities in West Africa, in particular the roles of religions, customs and traditions in the uptake of science communication. The research approach is to review West African case studies that show how scientific advice is accommodated by other authorities in specific situations.
3. Case studies
Using the accommodation hypothesis, the following case studies examine the outbreak of the Ebola virus disease (EVD), which ravaged Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria, all in West Africa (Falade and Coultas, 2017). They also examine practices in mental health care in Ghana (Ae-Ngibise et al., 2010; Tabi et al., 2006; Gyasi et al., 2011); the tetanus toxoid (TT) controversy in Cameroon (Feldman-Savelsberg et al., 2000); the oral polio vaccine (OPV) controversy in Nigeria (Falade, 2015) and its occurrence in other countries and the Zika virus in Brazil (Falade, 2019b).
3.1 West Africa: Ebola virus disease
The EVD outbreak in West Africa exemplifies the role of science as a beacon of light (or hope) towering over a chaotic response to an invading species that has claimed more than 10,000 lives. It also shows the roles of non-scientific authorities in the uptake of scientific information (Falade and Coultas, 2017). Prior to the outbreak, the disease had been restricted to Central and East Africa. The only case in West Africa had been in Cote d'Ivoire in 1994, and the patient survived. Thus, the West African public had no previous experience of the disease.
3.1.1 Scientific perspectives
Ebola causes fever, vomiting, headache, muscle pain, diarrhoea, nausea, haemorrhagic fever and other symptoms and shuts down the immune system. To prevent the transmission of the disease, the public was told to avoid shaking hands, to wash hands frequently and to avoid ‘bushmeat’ such as bats and monkeys—the vectors. However, the symptoms were very similar to those of other known diseases, such as Lassa fever, dengue fever, malaria and cholera. Malaria also causes high fever and vomiting, while cholera causes vomiting and diarrhoea; both diseases are common in Africa.
3.1.2 Religious and traditional perspectives
At the beginning of the outbreak, pastors were laying their hands on the sick to cure them of ‘spiritual attacks’. A leader told pastors that all those who fasted for 100 days should have no fear of Ebola but that they should avoid laying their hands on the sick. A Muslim opinion quoted the Quran: ‘the Prophet said: There is no “Adwa” [transfer of a disease] by itself, but with the permission of Allah’ (as cited in Falade and Coultas, 2017).
The traditional practices of sitting on mats to mourn the dead and washing their bodies by Bassonians, Kru and Grebo people brought the uninfected into contact with the virus. Many traditional secret societies also believed that a dead member's ghost would torment others if they failed to observe the traditional rite of passage of washing the body of the deceased. Both traditional and modern religious practices provided a steady stream of new hosts for the disease.
3.1.3 Accommodation: Collaboration between science and religion
Many churches ordered the suspension of the practice of shaking hands as a sign of peace and the serving of Holy Communion directly to the mouth. A religious leader in Liberia called on fellow men of God to stop laying their hands on the sick as a means of healing them and told imams to stop bathing the bodies of the dead:
I beg you in the Name of Jesus … please stop laying hands on people in order to cure them of Ebola. To our venerable imams, I respectfully appeal to you in the name of Allah … please stop bathing dead bodies. (as cited in Falade and Coultas, 2017)
There were also calls for the suspension of traditional practices of mourning the dead.
The church was also a source of medical aid. Several religious institutions in Sierra Leone, including the United Brethren in Christ Church Conference, received funds from abroad for medical equipment, and the Abundant Life Chapel Liberia Orphanage served as a home for children who had lost their parents to the disease.
3.2 Ghana: Mental health
The use of modern and traditional religious beliefs and practices for mental health care in Ghana is very widespread (Ae-Ngibise et al., 2010) and provides the first port of call for most people in rural areas who are constrained by their poor access to hospital treatment and by the cost of the treatment (Tabi et al., 2006). While their traditional religious healers use herbs and other spiritual methods to care for mental health patients, their modern religious healers believe in the efficacy of prayers to cast out the ‘demons’ suspected of being behind the ailment.
Ae-Ngibise et al. (2010) cited a government official who said ‘healers have been part of our societies for a very long time and whether we like it or not, people with mental problems are going to go to them.’ This statement was corroborated by a staff member of an NGO, who noted that ‘the greater percentage of all cases of mental illness are addressed by healers’ (Ae-Ngibise et al., 2010). Traditional and modern religious beliefs and Western clinical medical practices coexist in Ghana, as in most African countries (Anyinam, 1987; Ensink and Robertson, 1999; Puckree et al., 2002).
3.2.1 Public perceptions of mental health
In Africa, mental health problems are often believed to have spiritual origins. Ae-Ngibise et al. (2010) observed that many of the respondents they interviewed highlighted that traditional and faith healers were like clinical psychologists, providing counselling, in contrast to the curative approach of clinical medicine. Those views were also expressed in research by Tabi et al. (2006), in which one of the participants said that her experience of a family member being cured of epilepsy by a herbalist had led her to believe that there were diseases that required a spiritualist. Another participant in the same study said that the hospital approach was based on physical signs, while certain supernatural things were revealed to the herbalist to aid treatment.
3.2.2 Accommodation: Collaboration between science and religion
The health-care system supporting mental health in Ghana appears to have evolved into a collaboration between Western clinicians and traditional African and Western religious healers. These interactions consist of a ‘cross-referral system’ (Gyasi et al., 2011), which is, however, largely unofficial. Ae-Ngibise et al. (2010) quoted a nurse as saying they paid visits to mental health patients and encouraged the patients to also use hospital services. A pastor told the same authors that he normally referred his patients to the hospital first, before asking them to fast and pray. A Muslim healer also said that he referred patients to the hospital if he had tried all other possible methods and the ailment persisted. In addition, a health programme director reported the need for a relationship between clinicians and faith-based healers, since he had seen successful management in cases in which the church encouraged patients to take their drugs and kept managing them.
Tabi et al. (2006), however, argued that their findings suggested a complex system of competing authorities in the making of healthcare choices by Ghanaians. Traditional and modern religious practices, Western clinical medicine, Western education, advice from family and friends and personal experience all coexist in both individuals and communities in Ghana, and combine to shape health-care choices.
3.3 Cameroon: Politics, religion and the tetanus toxoid vaccine
The TT controversy in Cameroon is a case study of how competing cultural authorities clash, characterising the bungee jump model of a fall into the abyss for science.
3.3.1 Public reaction to the tetanus toxoid vaccine
An anti-tetanus vaccination campaign was launched simultaneously with a major shift in state population policy (Feldman-Savelsberg et al., 2000), which involved the legalisation of contraception and a campaign promoting family planning. This occurred during a period of heightened political tension between the West and Northwest provinces, often referred to as the ‘unruly Grassfields’, and the central government. Opposition parties and democratic movements were also being formed in the months surrounding the launch of the anti-tetanus vaccination campaign. The campaign also occurred during a period of public disagreement between the pro-life Catholic group (the Family Life Association) and the central government over the safety of TT vaccine compulsorily administered to girls of childbearing age only by the government.
Rumours that the vaccine contained sterilising substances were interpreted by the opposition as revealing a deliberate attempt to reduce their population for electoral reasons, posing a threat to the Grassfields region's most culturally valued resource—human fertility. The tragic murder of a revered father who was a school administrator only reinforced rumours that the vaccine could make girls sterile (Feldman-Savelsberg et al., 2000).
In the early months of 1990, the controversy led to girls squeezing through doorways and leaping from the windows of their schools, fleeing the vaccination teams. The rumour soon spread to the Far North and East provinces, and the fear it created in public minds led to the immediate end of vaccinations in schools. The aftermath of the controversy was a sharp rise in teenage pregnancies and abortions as vaccinated girls sought to confirm their ability to bear children.
3.3.2 Sterilising vaccine: An international debate
The sterility campaign by the pro-life group against the TT vaccine continued worldwide. In 1995, an international pro-life organisation in the Philippines issued a statement declaring that the TT vaccine being administered to women of childbearing age in that country and in Mexico contained anti-human chorionic gonadotrophin (anti-hCG) hormones, which were capable of causing sterility in women (Miller, 1995).
The hormone hCG is necessary for the initiation of pregnancy and is produced in large amounts throughout pregnancy. There were indeed trials using anti-hCG vaccines partly funded by the World Health Organization (Jones et al., 1988; Jones, 1996) that involved two intramuscular injections and a promise of contraception effective for six months. The basic principle of a contraceptive (or antifertility) vaccine is to use the body's own immune defence mechanisms to provide protection against an unplanned pregnancy. The contraceptive, however, became a weapon for the pro-life campaigners and in their narrative was transformed from an ‘antifertility vaccine’ into a ‘sterilising vaccine’.
3.4 Nigeria: Politics, religion and the oral polio vaccine
As part of the global effort to eradicate polio, national immunisation days were set aside in Nigeria by the federal government, commencing in the last quarter of 2000. This campaign was resisted from the onset by some religious leaders in northern Nigeria, who described the exercise as being against Islamic injunctions; rumours of contamination with the AIDS virus were also widespread (Falade, 2015).
3.4.1 Public revolt
The crisis was aggravated in July 2003 when, in the midst of a nationwide campaign, two very influential Islamic groups—the Supreme Council for Shari'ah in Nigeria and the Kaduna State Council of Imams and Ulamas—declared that the vaccine contained antifertility substances and was part of a Western conspiracy to reduce the population of the developing world. The revolt peaked when some states in northern Nigeria, led by Kano State, banned the use of the OPV, citing its ‘contamination by sterilising substances’. The Kano State Governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, described the ban as ‘the lesser of two evils … to sacrifice two, three, four, five even ten children to polio than allow hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of girl children likely to be rendered infertile’ (as cited in Falade, 2015).
Notably, many of the scientists supporting or opposing the vaccination exercise were from different disciplines (see Jasanoff, 1987), and some were also Islamic scholars. Among those opposed to the vaccination were a medical doctor, a pharmacist, a medical biochemist and a professor of science education. In favour were a professor of medicine and immunology, a professor of virology and a pathologist.
3.4.2 Religious perspectives
The West was seen as having a secret Muslim depopulation programme following wars in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, which appeared to be against Muslim countries. An Islamic cleric said, ‘If they really love our children, why did they watch Bosnian children killed and 500,000 Iraqi children die of starvation and disease under an economic embargo?’ (as cited in Falade, 2015). Also, in 1996 there was the infamous Pfizer Trovan drug trial in Kano State, during which some children died. Kano, the most populous state in northern Nigeria, was the first to ban the vaccine. An Islamic sect also declared immunisation to be un-Islamic.
3.4.3 Scientific perspectives
While the disagreement focused on safety, debate over the scientific risk of the vaccine was largely avoided. One in 200 infections would lead to irreversible paralysis. One in every 2.7 million first doses would lead to vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis. Another problem is circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses when the vaccine changes genetically and the virus circulates in the population (which is rare). Immunodeficient vaccine-derived poliovirus also arises when some individuals become chronic long-term excretors of vaccine-derived polioviruses (CDC, 2012; WHO, 2012; GPEI, 2012; Minor, 2009; Modlin, 2010).
3.4.4 Accommodation: Collaboration between science and religion
Kano State eventually accepted the potency of the vaccine produced in Indonesia. Speaking about the acceptance, an Islamic preacher said, ‘From what we were told at the meeting, the polio vaccine to infertility ratio had been exaggerated.’ A Kano businessman, who was also at the meeting, said, ‘Even though I do not understand most of the medical jargon of the committee, I am convinced the polio vaccination should go on.’ The Kano State Governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, who had earlier banned the vaccine, later administered it to several babies. Also, following a five-day immunisation tour of Egypt in 2007, the Emir and spiritual leader of Gombe, Abubakar Alhaji Usman Shehu, admitted to journalists that, although he went on the trip as a ‘doubting Thomas’, he had since been convinced of the vaccine's compatibility with Islam (Falade, 2015).
3.4.5 Vaccination: An international debate
McKinnon and Orthia (2017) compared the 19th and 21st centuries in Australia and found that government campaigns have not changed much and have been based on scientific facts, which are, however, likely to get lost in the plethora of information sources on the internet. For Leask, Willaby and Kaufman (2014), societal circumstances may contribute to a growing parental hesitancy. They include increasingly ‘crowded’ vaccination schedules; a lower prevalence of vaccine-preventable diseases; the hypervigilance of parents in relation to children and risk; and an increasingly consumerist orientation to health care (see also Pereira et al., 2013). The debate over the appropriateness of vaccination campaigns has been with us for centuries and has cut across continents (Table 1), and, given recent events in the United States (Song, 2013), may continue into the foreseeable future.
| Countries | Years | Communication themes / suspected effects | Opposing groups | Vaccine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 1721–1722 | Transmits syphilis, plague, leprosy | Clergy and scientists | Smallpox |
| England | 1840–1871 | ‘Mark of the beast’, against civil liberties, transmits syphilis | Working class, liberal reformers, church, scientists, etc. | Smallpox |
| United States | 1890–1922 | Medical tyranny, coercion, ungodly | Scientists, Antivaccination League, Christian Scientists | Smallpox |
| Brazil | 1904 | Torture code, vile secretions expelled from sick animals | Middle class, elite, church, press, congress members, etc. | Smallpox |
| United Kingdom | 1974 | Neurological complications | Scientists, public | DTP |
| Japan | 1975 | Neurological complications | Fallout of UK episode | DTP |
| United Kingdom | 1998 | Autism | Scientists, public | MMR |
| United States, Australia, New Zealand | 1998 | Autism | Fallout of UK episode | MMR |
| Cameroon | 1990 | Sterilising vaccine | Catholic priests and opposition politicians | TT |
| Tanzania | 1990 | Sterilising vaccine (anti-hCG) | Scientists, Islamic preachers | TT |
| Nigeria | 2001–2009 | Western conspiracy, contamination with HIV and antifertility substances | Islamic groups, politicians, scientists | OPV |
| United States | Post-2000 | Asthma, diabetes, Guillain-Barré syndrome, encephalopathy, autism, inflammatory bowel disease, mercury exposure, intussusception, Gulf War illness | Scientists, public | DT, DTaP, DTP, hepatitis B, measles, MMR, OPV, rubella |
Source: Falade (2014).
3.5 Brazil: Politics, religion and the Zika virus
The outbreak of Zika virus disease in Brazil, like the Ebola virus disease in West Africa also shows the devastating effect of an alien species and that public debates have both scientific and non-scientific perspectives. The focus here is the tension between politics, religion and science.
3.5.1 Scientific perspectives
Zika virus was discovered in 1947 in monkeys in Uganda but had no known adverse effect on humans in Africa. The disease then moved from Africa to Asia and, by 2015, had begun to spread in Brazil, in a population with no immunity. The Aedes mosquito species transmitting Zika in the Americas are Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, which also transmit yellow fever, dengue fever and chikungunya. The symptoms of infection—fever, rash and joint pain—are similar. But, while the other diseases had previously been established in the Americas, Zika was unknown. Also, the previously known diseases do not affect the foetus, while infection by the Zika virus during pregnancy can cause infants to be born with microcephaly. In adults, there is an increased risk of neurological complications, including Guillain–Barré syndrome.
The Aedes mosquito is also found in Florida and Hawaii, and in hot weather in northern parts of the United States. It is also found in warm parts of Europe, including France, Portugal, Spain and Italy. Given its movement from Africa to Asia and the Americas, anxiety over its possible spread to the United States and Europe through returning travellers raised a global alarm at a time when the spread of EVD from Africa to the United States and Europe was still fresh in people's memories.
3.5.2 The church, politics and abortion
The Catholic Church is opposed to abortion and all forms of contraception, but those practices are among the options for protecting women against the disease. This reignited the debate over the church, the state and personal choice in Brazil. A cardinal in Brazil said that mothers must accept babies born with microcephaly ‘as a mission’, and that abortion was out of the question. In contrast, Pope Francis was more open to contraceptives, arguing that avoiding pregnancy was not like abortion, which he viewed as a crime and an absolute evil. Some Brazilians sought solace in God. One woman, when confronted with a diagnosis of possible microcephaly for her child, said, ‘It's God's will: He wanted us to have a baby like this’.
In the United States, one report noted that, while the feud on Capitol Hill over how to respond to the virus appeared to be a fight over how much money was needed, beneath the surface were issues that had long stirred partisan mistrust. They included Republicans' fears about the use of taxpayers' money for abortion and possible increased use of contraception, and Democrats' worries about protecting the environment from potentially dangerous pesticides (see Mooney, 2005).
4. Conclusion
Over the years, modern religious believers— Christian and Muslim—have sought to replace traditional beliefs. At the same time, scientists have sought to replace modern and traditional religious beliefs with scientific approaches. The diffusion model theorised by Durkheim has not been fully realised, as evidence suggests two additional options when society is faced with a new phenomenon: rejection or accommodation. This agrees with Habermas's (2003, 2006) observation that post-secular society continues the work for religion that religion has done for myth, and that secularisation is not a zero-sum game, as a democratic common sense remains osmotically open to both sides.
The acceptance of science by religious authorities in Nigeria during the vaccination controversy and in West Africa during the Ebola crises has shown that Moscovici's accommodation hypothesis provides plausible explanations for the social phenomena prevalent in West Africa, where religion and science coexist and at times collaborate. Further evidence of collaboration is found in the treatment of mental health patients in Ghana, where there is cross-referral between modern and traditional healers and Western clinical practitioners. This phenomenon of cognitive polyphasia is also observed in the study of the Zika virus in Brazil and in the occurrence of controversies about vaccination worldwide. It affirms that scientific facts are not enough but are nested within other authorities.
This study has also shown that, while science remains at the centre of debates among cultural authorities, its position as ‘superior’ knowledge is often challenged by the religious, political and traditional spheres. Trust in science is not helped by rumours and conspiracy theories about the motives for scientific intervention, previous experience with Western powers and botched scientific experiments. The vaccination controversies in Nigeria and Cameroon show the effects of religious and political authorities on the uptake of scientific information, leading to a ‘bungee jump’ in scientific authority. However, while science may take a plunge, that is not a death knell, as it soon bounces back.
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Biographies
Bankole Falade is a research fellow with the South African Research Chair in Science Communication, Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST), Stellenbosch University. His research areas include the interactions between science and religion; perceptions of health and disease; and public trust, interest, engagement with and attitudes to science. Before joining CREST, he was a teaching and research fellow at the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Sciences, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies, University of Bielefeld, Germany. His recent works include ‘Science and the news flow 1990–2014’ (see Bauer MW, Pansegrau P and Shukla R [eds], The Cultural Authority of Science: Comparing across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. New York and London: Routledge); ‘I have faith in science and in God: Common sense, cognitive polyphasia and attitudes to science in Nigeria’; and ‘Scientific and non-scientific information in the uptake of health information: The case of Ebola’.
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