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Study Finds Vaccine Science Outreach Only Reinforced Myths (arstechnica.com)

Ars Technica reports on a study suggesting that "Striking at a myth with facts may only shore it up." Applehu Akbar writes: Researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied public attitudes toward vaccination in a group whose opinions on the subject were polled before and after being shown three different kinds of explanatory material that used settled scientific facts about vaccines to explain the pro-vaccination side of the debate. Not only was the anti-vax cohort not convinced by any of the three campaigns, but their attitudes hardened when another poll was taken a week later.

What seems to have happened was that the pro-vax campaign was taken by anti-vaxers as just another attempt to lie to them, and as reinforcement for their already made-up minds on the subject. A previous study at Dartmouth College in 2014 used similar methodology and except for the 'hardening' effect elicited similar results. What's really scary about this is that while the Dartmouth subjects were taken from a large general population, the Edinburgh subjects were college students.

"The researchers speculate that the mere repetition of a myth during the process of debunking may be enough to entrench the myth in a believer's mind," writes Ars Technica, with one of the study's authors attributing this to the "illusory truth" effect.

"People tend to mistake repetition for truth."

465 comments

  1. This is by NEDHead · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sad

    1. Re:This is by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Just outlaw the shit and be done with it. Simple as that. No need to be sad about it.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh God, not again!

    3. Re:This is by arth1 · · Score: 1, Troll

      Just outlaw the shit and be done with it. Simple as that. No need to be sad about it.

      Nah, too many are far too entrenched in the judeo-christian belief that human life is sacred and children especially so for outlawing the shit to be feasible. So we're stuck with vaccines for now.

    4. Re:This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Being smart is actually quite hard. Even if you are born with a much higher-than-average IQ, all that brain power can easily go to waste on superstition if your upbringing is unfortunate.

      Even the well-educated will commonly fall into traps of fallacious reasoning. This is due, in part, to the brain's amazing flexibility in combination with its various survival strategies (some of which are not well-suited to the modern information-overloaded environment).

      Before you get too arrogant, and disdainful of the anti-vaxers, just remember that they haven't had all of the advantages you've had. And also you are probably wrong about a lot more than you realize.

    5. Re:This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Repeating truth causes falsehood? Fuck bitch no straight white folks that I know think like that. Rational skeptical analysts of all educations we be the tits! Must be emotocents and nibbers in that poll.

    6. Re:This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How does the saying go? "You can't reason someone out of a position they weren't reasoned in to"?

    7. Re: This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I feel like if you absolutely won this argument and everyone came around to your point of view, the only affect on any of our lives would be that you would stop complaining.

    8. Re:This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe the anti-vax folks would rather be infected with disease? I'm sure there are terrorists out there somewhere working to arrange that very thing. After which the average intelligence of H. sapiens will go up slightly, since most of the anti-vax group will have been weeded out of the gene pool. I see the last thing in the original article is, "People tend to mistake repetition for truth." Perhaps the thing to repeat is "You are an idiot. You are an idiot. You are an idiot. ..."

    9. Re: This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Belief in a big old sky daddy is surely the more noteworthy mental illness, given the potential for harm. Gender confusion on the other hand, pretty damn harmless.

    10. Re:This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just outlaw the shit and be done with it. Simple as that. No need to be sad about it.

      Ah, because "outlaw that shit" worked so well for governments perpetuating the lies about marijuana for the last century?

      It's truly pathetic that people fail to understand what the fuck has caused the masses to not want to believe the government. A habit of lying tends to do that shit.

    11. Re: This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. If you lie and no one ever knows then you can keep lying. But when you're found out, and you will be, your credibility is gone so even when you tell the truth, (if that's even possible for what is basically pathological lying at this point from the government and greater scientific community), so even when you tell the truth you will not be believed.

      The boy cried wolf too many times

      If you want vaccines to be accepted again you'll have to be completely transparent about absolutely everything. No paywalls for your papers and no silly graphics. Just, this is how it works and what's in it. You may find greater acceptance if you show that the new formula is a radical departure from the old and use the beliefs the anti-vaxxers have to market to them that the new drugs are verifiably safe

    12. Re: This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Climate change can be on the list and Islam is a religion of peace.

    13. Re:This is by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Obviously, I meant refusing vaccines. Public endangerment and shit.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    14. Re:This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is not at all obvious. None of us know whether or not you are an idiot.

    15. Re:This is by arth1 · · Score: 0

      Maybe the anti-vax folks would rather be infected with disease?

      Maybe there isn't such a thing as "the anti-vax folks"?
      This desire for binary thinking, us or them, is something I believe holds us back as sentient beings. Far more than measles does.

    16. Re:This is by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      But...but...I don't know that one myself!

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    17. Re: This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No vaccine = No public school

    18. Re:This is by dryeo · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And when the pharmaceutical companies do come out with a harmful vaccine? Just because there has been a pretty good record of vaccines being less harmful then the diseases they prevent doesn't mean that is always going to be true and having laws forcing people to take vaccines will motivate the drug companies to make more vaccines and possibly take short cuts with testing, especially if government decides that regulating the testing is bad.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    19. Re:This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what would outlawing vaccinations do? Guarantees mass infections of diseases no one in their right mind would ever wish on their children or grandchildren. Remember you CAN NOT GET THOSE DISEASES because your generation was vaccinated.

      I grew up raising cattle and have witnessed first hand what happens when animals are not vaccinated properly. And the extreme measures that are necessary to protect the species ie the nation's food supply when outbreaks occur.Worse case you put down the whole herd and burn the remains then bury them deep. IF there isnt a government eradication program that means possibly a family's entire wealth is gone and the bank will repossess your land because you can not pay off your debt secured by your land.

      My 5th grade elementary teacher had polio as a girl. She was very open about it. The X-raying because the doctors then didnt know what a virus was led to her sterilization. She was the first adult to discuss adoption with me despite my dad being adopted. She adopted 2 kids of her own. She also has muscle atrophy as a result of polio and had a strange walk from surgeries over the years.

      So go ahead and risk everyone's health and be anti-vaccine. Not saying they are risk free or fool proof BUT they sure as HELL beat the longer term alternatives.

    20. Re: This is by VirtualJWN · · Score: 0

      Tjere are newer and better solutions to disease than the AMA will allow to kill the virus and bacteria safely. More oversight needs to occur with drug monopolies now that IF Farben (bayer) has reconstituted. Btw the cattle and hog vaccines are WAY safer than human ones. Wealthy people eat livestock!

      --
      "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke
    21. Re: This is by VirtualJWN · · Score: 0

      That's CRAZY TALK! (organized science)! Hah "du-du-du Dude looks like a lady!"

      --
      "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke
    22. Re: This is by VirtualJWN · · Score: 0

      Tru dat! But wont happen until swamp is drained as bkth "pretend sides" are on the take on.congress. obamacare would have been Ryan or Romneycare! Big joke. Pres is at 50% popularity, congress is at repirted 15% reverse the media bias and real numbers are 65% and 0%.

      --
      "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke
    23. Re:This is by Keith+Henson · · Score: 2

      "This desire for binary thinking, us or them, is something I believe holds us back as sentient beings."

      I make a case that "binary thinking" is an aspect of population response to stress. In the stone age, stress was almost always the result of lower productivity of the local ecosystem. I.e., they ran out of food. The solution that always worked was to kill (or try to kill) neighbors. Typically these episodes happened once or twice a generation. Human psychology was strongly selected for these traits.

      The default state of human groups is not engaged in wars with neighbors. Wars are a way to get killed. Unless the alternative (such as starvation) is worse, groups of people don't engage in wars, such psychological traits were not select. What happens is a behavioral switch is flipped by hard times or the prospect of hard times. When flipped, xenophobic memes spread in the group, eventually synching up the warriors of the tribe for a do or die attack on neighbors.

      If an economically stressed population is an explanation for the spread of the anti vaccination memes, then, in the long run, reducing the stress on the population would reduce the opposition to vacinations. It's also understandable why such memes would be persistant. In this state, people are being irrational, driven by genes that are (in effect) rational--at least they were in the stone age.

      Even understanding what is going on doesn't help me propose a solution.

      "Far more than measles does."

      It turned out that measles is worse than people thought.

      https://www.princeton.edu/news...

      --
      End MGM. Get prospective parents of boys to Google: Men do complain
    24. Re:This is by arth1 · · Score: 0

      Remember you CAN NOT GET THOSE DISEASES because your generation was vaccinated.

      Remember your great-N-grandchildren CANNOT SURVIVE getting those diseases because you, your parents and children were vaccinated.

      The diseases themselves won't go away. They'll resurface, slightly mutated - sometimes not enough to fool the vaccination, but sometimes enough. And then, those with weak immune systems inherited from vaccinated ancestors will pay the price. Nothing selects against having a weak immune system, so having one becomes part of the gene pool.

    25. Re:This is by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      Person sees outreach campaign. Thinks, "there's a controversy?" Goes to look it up online. Sees that 99 out of the first 100 links are about vaccines being evil. Thinks, "I did my research, so my position against vaccination is sound!"

    26. Re:This is by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      And the bad vaccines do less damage to the world than the lack of vaccines.

    27. Re: This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then the vaccine court comes into play. If you're harmed by a vaccine then you get a hefty payment.

    28. Re: This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It turns out people are stupid and you can make a lot of money on their fears. Get a moron star or two to agree with you and a little news. Bam, sale a book! It's sad people take advantage of others to make a few bucks, but isn't that what society has devolved into. Do the world a favor and shoot an antivaxer as well as a few SJWs. I'm promoting a 1:2 ratio.

    29. Re: This is by Cyberax · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There's no such thing as "weak immune system" unless you're talking about people with HIV or other similar disease. Native Americans had perfectly good immune systems but they lacked protective mutations against smallpox. To get these mutations you need many generations of ruthless die-offs, and they still won't get you perfect immunity. Smallpox was finally eradicated only through vaccines.

    30. Re:This is by dryeo · · Score: 1

      And the bad vaccines do less damage to the world than the lack of vaccines.

      Do they? Think of a vaccine for the common cold that ends up with a long term .1% mortality rate. There's a spectrum of diseases from things like smallpox where even reducing the fatality from 75% to 25% is a huge improvement to things like the common cold and similar diseases that are unpleasant but very seldom fatal. There is also businesses that are highly interested in profit, to the point where they're likely to take shortcuts. It may not even be the active ingredient that is the problem, but an added preservative or such.
      It's just about as stupid to always think that vaccines are safe as to think they're never safe. Vaccine is a broad category.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    31. Re: This is by arth1 · · Score: 1

      To get these mutations you need many generations of ruthless die-offs, and they still won't get you perfect immunity.

      It doesn't need to be. It just needs to be better than your brethren.

    32. Re: This is by Cyberax · · Score: 1

      Nope. Being "slightly better" doesn't work against co-evolving diseases, it might eventually make diseases to be less promptly fatal but it's highly unlikely to completely eradicate them. For example, malarial parasite is estimated to be millions of years old but people are still very much susceptible to it. Tuberculosis bacteria has a similar history.

      Oh, and then there's the fun of new diseases jumping between species. HIV is a recent example.

      So without vaccines you're looking at endless generations of people with constant high mortality (Red Queen's race, don't you forget) from multiple diseases. The only way to change this is to become smart and utilize vaccines and other forms of bio-protection.

    33. Re: This is by arth1 · · Score: 1

      The only way to change this is to

      You lost me there. That's religion, not science.

    34. Re:This is by Qwertie · · Score: 1

      Looks like the authors of the study didn't look at the Debunking handbook, which basically says: always show the fact before (and after) the myth, explain where the myth went wrong, make the fact somehow more memorable or "sticky" than the myth, and don't overdo your rebuttal. If you play your card just right, you might get small decreases in rates of belief in the myth. Any mistake and you risk a backfire effect. To make this more difficult, many myths are driven by conspiratorial thinking, which has a self-sealing quality in which people think: "perhaps the debunker is one of them!"

    35. Re:This is by Zaelath · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "I've researched this" is the most common lie I hear from idiots.

    36. Re: This is by Cyberax · · Score: 1

      Nope. That's science. Unless you want to assume sci-fi level nanotechnology, vaccines are the only effective way to combat diseases, as far as we know.

    37. Re:This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they want to die so badly, they can go jump off the nearest cliff.

      But they don't get to be carriers spreading that shit in population. Look up "herd immunity".

      Lock them up.

    38. Re:This is by jabuzz · · Score: 1

      That's a hypothetical vaccination that does not exist. The OP was taking about actual vaccinations, and point out from a statistical perspective the adverse outcomes from vaccinations is lower than the adverse outcomes for catching the disease from the result of not being vaccinated. Any vaccination that did not pass this threshold simply would fail to get regulatory approval.

    39. Re:This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have to agree on this one. I had the relative of a friend tell me about all the "research" she did on the expensive food supplements she was selling.

      It's not research when you simply read an endless series of opinion pieces, anecdotes about this or that person who was sick and then got better, and the common thread running through it all is the person seeking confirmation of their belief system.

      Food supplements can be replaced with just "food", at a quarter of the price. Also, if your diet is dominated by chips and softdrinks, supplements might actually help a bit. But you'd still be better off eating decent meals with a good variety of proteins, carbs and vegetables.

    40. Re: This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's enough reason to ban vaccines right there!

    41. Re: This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's religion. To go by "the Science" is to know what other things we can do because it's been tested... We could for example do certain hygiene or other measures such as not horrible up in schools or work. We don't know, because our science is, as frankly, weak as our faith. Some of us would rather just go with what we know.

    42. Re: This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry *herd up at work or school

    43. Re: This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not knowing your dick from your ass is pretty damn harmless huh? Nevermind what they may be subjected to by others in society, they literally may also have a warped sense of sexuality and all that comes with it to deal with, but you say it's all good so that makes it ok?

    44. Re: This is by parkinglot777 · · Score: 1

      The only way to change this is to

      You lost me there. That's religion, not science.

      I believe you have a problem with reading comprehension there. GP said "The only way to change this is to become smart and utilize vaccines and other forms of bio-protection" which is obvious about science. Religious may change the way of thinking (which could make the situation worse) but it does not do anything physically (unless you believe in miracle). You simply picked the portion and spin it to your own way...

    45. Re:This is by parkinglot777 · · Score: 1

      And when the pharmaceutical companies do come out with a harmful vaccine? Just because there has been a pretty good record of vaccines being less harmful then the diseases they prevent doesn't mean that is always going to be true and having laws forcing people to take vaccines will motivate the drug companies to make more vaccines and possibly take short cuts with testing, especially if government decides that regulating the testing is bad.

      So what you meant is that if a vaccine helps 99 people to survive and finally live on but 1 person was fatal and die, the vaccine must be stop because it is harmful? I understand that you may value lives very much; however, if the benefit is for the greater good (and in the case of vaccine, it must be significantly "greater" good), then to me I would take a shot (and pun intended).

    46. Re:This is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's simpler than that. Dump them all in Idaho and let nature have its way.

    47. Re:This is by dryeo · · Score: 1

      No, I mean that if vaccines are legislated, there is a chance that more useless vaccines may be pushed. A vaccine against the common cold that kills 1% or even .01% might not be a good trade off.
      I don't expect for profit public companies to always do the right thing. Look at the current opiod crisis, partially caused by businesses putting profit first and misrepresenting various potent drugs as being safe.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    48. Re: This is by arth1 · · Score: 1

      I believe you have a problem with reading comprehension there. GP said "The only way to change this is to become smart and utilize vaccines and other forms of bio-protection" which is obvious about science.

      No, whenever someone says "the only way", it's never science. In science, you have to be open for other options. If you're not open for your theories being replaced with better ones, and welcoming it should it happen, you're not preaching science, you're preaching rigid faith.
      There are countless examples of what we "knew" wasn't so, and as better data appeared, we found out otherwise.
      Being open to Gershwin's Law is a requirement for the scientific method.

    49. Re:This is by syntotic · · Score: 0

      It is because of the presence of Africans in Earth s System, but I am not believed! Not even after going formal and undeniably principled. Just to think in getting vaccinated with whatever is announced in pharmacy back receipt ads gives me the creeps when I have not heard about it my whole life and... something s missing, gut feeling.

    50. Re:This is by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      The diseases themselves won't go away. They'll resurface, slightly mutated - sometimes not enough to fool the vaccination, but sometimes enough.

      Yeah, like how smallpox came back and kills lots of people again.

      We can eliminate diseases where humans are the only carrier with vaccination. New ones will pop up by jumping to us from other species, but we can completely eradicate some existing ones like we did to smallpox and we're about to do to polio.

      --
      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
  2. People insist on being stupid by gweihir · · Score: 2

    Repetition does play a key-role, obviously, in enforcing lies. Just look at the mechanism of "prayer". This has been known for a very long time to work.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:People insist on being stupid by Mikkeles · · Score: 1

      Maybe, then, scientists should just repeat their findings continuously without bringing up, or trying to directly counter, the nonsense. That is: just repeat what they understand again and again, especially on pop media.

      The rational amongst us would then just have to read the actual papers to check assumptions and ask questions to refine the results.

      --
      Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
    2. Re:People insist on being stupid by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Many Scientists have working ethics and that prevents manipulation of people. The competition usually does not. Just look at politics and religion.

      Also, most Scientist are not in this for power or "winning". They know they have won. The other side is just too stupid to realize that.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:People insist on being stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Reality" is not "won", is "realized". That's the problem, people of science know that and knows that reality doesn't change on a whim, but uneducated fools think it does... those retards aren't only endangering themselves but everyone else, is like having a moron with a match inside a gun powder storage and against everyone's advice he lights it and throws it into the gun powder because he believes it's sand... he wont be the only one suffering but everyone one inside, even thou is due to his moronic beliefs. So no, doesn't matter if people of science realize, there's nothing "won" with that, just the realization that there are morons destroying our way of life and eroding our chances of survival as a whole... I wouldn't mind if their actions wouldn't only affect themselves, "hey, kill yourself, I don't care!", but it's not the case, their actions also impact me and everyone else.

    4. Re:People insist on being stupid by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      The reality is tied to genetic brain structures, whether an individual is tied more to belief structures or more to understanding. Those tied strongly to beliefs, those thoughts structures that become locked in and are used to interact with their world, require quite the mental jolt to unlock that belief and replace it with a new better belief and in some cases given time, understanding. More mental effort is required to undo bad beliefs than was used to create them in the first place, just their genetic nature. Unfortunately the required mental jolt can be quite destructive ie opposed to vaccines, loved one dies because they were not vaccinated, no longer opposed to vaccines.

      The real destructive core of the calamity is purposefully disruption of society selling false believes for personal gain, as perpetuated by many corrupt individuals, especially those in politics ie atheist politicians pretending to be religious in order to scam votes and sell the power they gained via those votes, whilst pretending to preach a religion, their actions clearly demonstrate they do no believe in. They also become involved in all sorts of other scams like anti-vaccination in order to gain more media attention and political power than can then sell.

      Reallity is the courts and legal system really need to crack down hard on fraud, on people selling lies for what ever reason, claim a fact for profit and can't prove it, then off to jail you go for all the harm promoting that lie causes and if people died, that does mean life sentences. Beware what facts you claim for profit, for media and political attention, if those facts are tested and proved false, than you should pay a price for the harm you have caused (keep in mind the profit motive, it needs to be there, just being stupid is an excuse but not being greedily so).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    5. Re:People insist on being stupid by gweihir · · Score: 1

      So you want what, scientist starting to do propaganda and effectively lie to people? That would make things worse.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    6. Re:People insist on being stupid by CustomSolvers2 · · Score: 1

      Repetition does play a key-role, obviously, in enforcing lies

      Even despite of agreeing with that statement, it doesn't describe the problem here. This article is about ignorance (vaccines provoking problems rather than solving them; a misconception which might have appeared for whatever reason) being reinforced with the repetition of reasonable explanations (sensible proofs about vaccines being good, which are misunderstood as lies by the target individuals who might be even plainly ignoring that new information).

      So, the prayer approach which you are referring is applicable at other point (firstly convincing vaccine-deniers that vaccines are bad). What the article describes is more about a self-defence resource of fanatics: not listening/caring/adequately understanding anything going against their fanaticism. Fanatics don't want to actually confirm/dismiss their assumptions, to accept that they might have been wrong all the time, to be responsible for all the consequences of their errors, etc. For them, there is no difference between reasonable or unreasonable critics; everything either supports or attacks their blind beliefs.

      --
      Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
    7. Re:People insist on being stupid by Whibla · · Score: 1

      Repetition does play a key-role, obviously, in enforcing lies

      Even despite of agreeing with that statement, it doesn't describe the problem here. This article is about ignorance (vaccines provoking problems rather than solving them; a misconception which might have appeared for whatever reason) being reinforced with the repetition of reasonable explanations (sensible proofs about vaccines being good, which are misunderstood as lies by the target individuals who might be even plainly ignoring that new information).

      Are you suggesting, as seems implicit in your statement, that vaccines never cause problems?

      Fanatics don't want to actually confirm/dismiss their assumptions, to accept that they might have been wrong all the time, to be responsible for all the consequences of their errors, etc. For them, there is no difference between reasonable or unreasonable critics; everything either supports or attacks their blind beliefs.

      Think carefully, before you answer...

    8. Re:People insist on being stupid by CustomSolvers2 · · Score: 1

      Are you suggesting, as seems implicit in your statement, that vaccines never cause problems?

      No. I will never dare to use a word like never when describing a so wide reality; not even in case of having a deep knowledge about it, what's isn't even the case. My statement isn't implying such a thing, only your (mis)interpretation does. I was merely highlighting what is considered common knowledge in medicine since quite long time ago: vaccines are helpful. In any case, my true intention was to use this specific situation as a mere example to describe certain scenarios, where providing further (presumably sensible and reliable) knowledge doesn't help.

      Think carefully, before you answer...

      If you are implying that my answer might ironically denote a latent fanaticism, I wouldn’t be afraid of that. I am pretty much the opposite of a fanatic blindly believing in whatever. I am reasonably sure about my ideas on the vaccine front, but would find any problem to update my position in case of being required.

      --
      Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
    9. Re:People insist on being stupid by CustomSolvers2 · · Score: 1

      I meant: "...but wouldn't find any problem to update..."

      --
      Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
    10. Re:People insist on being stupid by Whibla · · Score: 1

      Good response.

      To be perfectly honest I'd still question whether referring to 'vaccines causing problems as a misconception' doesn't imply that (you believe) vaccines don't cause problems, which isn't strictly true, although in generality I agree with you that vaccines are far far more beneficial than baneful. However, maybe the inference was all mine, and no implication was intended. No harm, no foul... :-)

      And yes, I was, albeit somewhat tongue in cheek, suggesting that certain responses would place you firmly in the fanatic camp. That your response was well thought out, non-adversarial, and didn't devolve to name calling or insults was a breath of fresh air, and does you credit.

      Thank you.

    11. Re:People insist on being stupid by CustomSolvers2 · · Score: 1

      'vaccines causing problems as a misconception' doesn't imply that (you believe) vaccines don't cause problems

      Perhaps not in general, but within this context should be clear. Saying that vaccines are fine as opposed to anti-vaccine people (who consider the whole vaccination idea bad) should be intuitively understood as good enough, what implies isolated cases being bad also included.

      to name calling or insults was a breath of fresh air, and does you credit.

      Thanks. Although honestly I don't see how a comment like yours could trigger any kind of insult. Because of your tiny (and completely reasonable) correction to my generic statement "vaccines are fine"? No sensible person should ever react aggressively to such a comment!

      I understand that you can find many unmotivatedly-aggressive behaviours online, but perhaps you shouldn't normalise them by assuming that they are acceptable. Unreasonable, fanatic, disproportionately-aggressive, etc. people are all the same; it doesn't matter if they are left-/right-winged, support/attack what might make more/less sense, etc. When you stop trying to adequately understand others, start expecting your position to unilaterally prevail, start attacking anyone thinking differently or similar, you become the same kind of fanatic in my book and you get exactly the same amount of understanding from me (= none).

      --
      Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
    12. Re:People insist on being stupid by Mikkeles · · Score: 1

      'So you want what, scientist starting to do propaganda and effectively lie to people?'

      No; I want propaganda and no lying.

      --
      Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
    13. Re:People insist on being stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that wasn't even a subtle force of agenda!

    14. Re:People insist on being stupid by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Well, I can understand that. I just do not think it would work either. See, the people that are not open to facts already decided what they want to believe. Now, if they see both sides just using the same techniques (remember, they cannot recognize facts and hence they cannot see that one side lies and the other does not), they will just continue to select the side that suits their misconceptions.

      The other problem is that propaganda has no need for facts and hence any organization doing it is easily misused.

      But yes, it would be nice if this idea actually did work.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  3. Re:The science is not settled by gweihir · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nice lie you got there. The science has been settled about a century ago. Unfortunately, the vaccine against stupidity still eludes us.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  4. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please do keep your children from being vaccinated. The world is overpopulated enough as it is.

  5. What evidence would change your mind? by Desprez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's always important to ask, "What evidence would change your mind?"
    If the answer is, "Nothing." Then there is a big problem with the ideology.

    1. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by gweihir · · Score: 2

      This, unfortunately, is the standard case with the average person: They love their own misconception more than they want to actually understand what is going on. Probably because thy are scared to death.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      It's always important to ask, "What evidence would change your mind?"
      If the answer is, "Nothing." Then there is a big problem with the ideology.

      That goes both ways.
      What evidence would change your mind that effective and safe vaccines are a good thing in the long run?
      What evidence would change your mind that children getting sick and dying is a bad thing?

    3. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      I think that what we have to do is create some big conspiracy where "Big Homoeopathy" (or whatever) is spreading the antivaxxer ideas and see how quickly these idiots hop onboard.

    4. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      It does. Fortunately we have already proven one of them.

      Or maybe you failed history class.

    5. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      It's always important to ask, "What evidence would change your mind?"

      If evidence was something that convinced everyone there would be no anti-vaxxers. Unfortunately we're living in a world where we see news stories about babies dying and parents none the less thinking they still made the right choice because at least he didn't grow up with teh autism!

    6. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Maybe you failed reading comprehension class.
      Try reading it again - I wasn't looking for proof[*], rather asking what would be accepted as counter-evidence strong enough to change the position for these points.

      [*]: Arguably, if you prove something, it's not science, it's dogma that's not open for falsification or better theories. Which was exactly what the GP post was warning against.

    7. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by Your.Master · · Score: 1

      Those are value judgements, not fact judgements. It's not parallel. The anti-vaxxers don't tend to advance arguments that children getting sick and dying is good, nor do they even argue against effective and safe vaccines; they argue that vaccines are not effective and/or safe. That distinction is based on factual information and therefore we should be able to set an evidence threshold.

    8. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      The anti-vaxxers don't tend to advance arguments that children getting sick and dying is good, nor do they even argue against effective and safe vaccines; they argue that vaccines are not effective and/or safe.

      I beg to differ. I am opposed to vaccination precisely because vaccines are safe and effective. What, if anything, would it take to convince you we should not save lives through vaccination? If you say "nothing", you're as bad as the GP said.

    9. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      thing is, unless there is a continued effort to test what's ON the vaccines and share with the broad public these results, there will be no change because this shithead "science" experiments seem to be directed at which propaganda will work

    10. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, because all people who don't want their kids to be vaccinated are fanatics. Like those people who reccomend them to everyone else but won't do it to their own kids, like Dr. Oz.

      Since we're putting out general logical rules: You can't prove a negative. Therefore you can't prove that vaccines are safe. You can only say that they're not as dangerous as you think. Not as dangerous is still dangerous. It doesn't matter what statistical nonsense you try to spoon feed them. Trying to tell people that is not going to work because it's a deception.

      We're told every day how dangerous merury is right up till the point we put it in our teeth, and floride and etc. The medical industry is corrupt. They deserve to be viewed with sckepticism.

    11. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What evidence? For me, it's simple: Statistics on the vaccination status of children of all doctors, in general, and of children of immunologists, in particular. And, when politicians get in this game, the vaccination status of their children, too.

    12. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      I beg to differ. I am opposed to vaccination precisely because vaccines are safe and effective.

      WTF?

    13. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Predation keeps herds healthy. Diseases that are only mildly lethal kill more of those with weak immune systems or general health or recovery abilities than the average specimen. If predation is stopped, the genes of those with a less chance to survive a disease enter the gene pool at a higher rate. Fine, as long as everyone is vaccinated against every possible disease. But that is an impossibility. Diseases mutate, and new ones appear. When, in the future, our gene pool is permeated with low survivability to diseases, and a disease strikes, the disaster is going to be far worse than if we never vaccinated.
      We cannot play with removing evolutionary pressure without it coming back to bite us. There's no stopping evolution, we can only borrow against it. One day it's time to present our genes and pay up.

      In some ways, some of the vaccine deniers are possibly right in that vaccines cause autism, just not in the way they think. It may cause a higher susceptibility to autism in the next generation, because mildly averse mutations are no longer culled by predation, and specimens who carry them now get to procreate. And we see this - there's a correlation between when vaccination became common in various countries, and autism in the next generation in the same countries, and it keeps on growing as the drops of ink spread in the gene pool.

      So I'm against vaccinations for anything that has a slight but statistically significant chance of causing deaths or sterility. Except for in the elderly, where it won't have an effect on the gene pool, or those who take the vaccines with sterilization.

    14. Re:What evidence would change your mind? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a piece of shit survey. Take this question,

      Getting vaccines is a good way to protect my future child(ren) from disease.

      1) WHO is getting the vaccine, me or my future child(ren)? Me - a guy - getting a vacine - is not likely to do much for them.

      2) These are not current children but "future" children. A better way to protect your children is to follow the best course of action at the TIME you have them. This is proposing that children twenty, fifty years from now follow the best medical advice from twenty or thirty years ago.

      3) It is - at best - a less of evils argument. There is no 'good' to injecting a kid full of any shit. It may be necessary and better than the alternative ... but 'good' doesn't quite capture the essence of it ... IMO.

      4) It generalizes vaccines. We only take a fraction of those that have been developed. Some are downright nasty. It doesn't acknowledge this by saying "getting SOME vaccines".

      "Some vaccines cause autism in healthy children."

      If autism is 'caused' thusly by ANY environomental affect, then I suspect a thing like vaccines MIGHT BOTH cause and prevent autism. That is not presently considered credible. That said, I'm not taking the opposite position. Without knowing the cause (in particular, genetic or environmental), I'd shut my fucking mouth.

      Anyway, the more somebody studies the issue, the more objections one will find. Does it refute 'their point'? Frankly, since their point is group think, yes it does.

      Another weirdness was calling the 1988 MMR study a "myth". Using myth as a synonym for false or discredited is a mistake, IMO. The opposite of truth is not myth, of course. But questions like that make me wonder if I'm supposed to agree that it's a myth.

      Other fucked up things about the study is that it compares likely outcomes of children who get MMR to children who get measles (some of whom had the MMR shot). Note, they do not present outcomes for children who do not get the MMR vaccine.

      Anywho, it's all very curious propaganda. If they wanted an honest assessment of people's science understanding, I would get honest people to make the questions and presentation.

  6. Re:The science is not settled by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    What choice did the other kids have that your kids gave polio and measles to?

  7. A lie... by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

    ...repeated often enough becomes the truth - Joseph Goebbels. I could have saved them a bunch of time.

    1. Re:A lie... by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Interestingly, the texts by Goebbels are still in use as teaching materials. A true master of his game, if an utterly amoral one.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:A lie... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You believe that everyone who disagrees with your worldview is "Alt-right", so don't get all high and mighty.

    3. Re:A lie... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, can you cite the studies you or other have done in this field?

      Even if something seems obvious, you can't be sure until you have tested it.

    4. Re:A lie... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A lie ... "repeated often enough becomes the truth" ... or more correctly stated, believed [perceived] to be true. It's called denial!

      But the problem is it's STILL A LIE!

  8. Flu vaccine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Says it doesn't work right on the bottle. Many, many other vaccines work but shoving the flu vaccine down everyones throat isn't doing anyone favors, and damages the reputation of legitimate vaccines.

    1. Re:Flu vaccine... by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      WTF? I got the flu like every other year in college. Then I got a job and they gave out flu shots every year for free, which got me in the habit. Haven't caught the flu since, including when I went back to grad school and congregated with those same disease bags. My conclusion is that flu vaccines work just fine.

    2. Re:Flu vaccine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the flu vaccine is filled with mercury and asbestos isotopes

    3. Re:Flu vaccine... by gweihir · · Score: 1

      You seem to be unable to understand anything but black and white statements. Flu vaccines have a probability of working that is pretty good compared to what they prevent and what they have in residual risk.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    4. Re:Flu vaccine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The flu vaccine is actually a cocktail of vaccines, based on researchers' "best guess" on which strains will be most prevalent that year. It's not even remotely close to covering all mutations. Best case scenario, we get you, who didn't catch anything. Worst case, people die. Common case, you get the flu anyway. Why waste money and risk getting the flu by intentionally injecting it in yourself when it doesn't work half the time?

      Other vaccines, like MMR, whooping cough, tetanus, etc., have been proven to work, reliably, on a huge percentage of the population. Those vaccines are fine. Influenza is a bitch of a virus and mutates all the time. There will likely never be a 100% effective flu vaccine.

    5. Re:Flu vaccine... by morethanapapercert · · Score: 5, Informative
      First; yes the annual flu vaccine is against specific types of flu. BUT, a cocktail of, say, five vaccines against the strains researchers think are likely to be the most common OR the most serious in terms of symptoms is likely to make you immune to more than five types. Since the researchers want to make the vaccine as broad in application as possible, they try very hard to find target virus bits that are common to whole groups or families of strains. Thus, vaccine against flu A may make you 60% sure that you'll be immune to Flu A, but at the same time, that vaccine will make you more resistant, possibly even immune to flu strains Aa, Ab, Ac and so on.

      Second, "flu like symptoms" is far FAR from having the flu itself. People tend to forget just how horribly having a bad flu can affect them. You can still go to work, take care of the kids and so on with "flu like symptoms", but it is quite common for the actual flu to leave you bedridden for days. Even with routine flu infections, there is a risk of death. And the nature of the flu virus is such that we can never wholly predict when the next pandemic killer flu will appear. Remember that H1N1 has been fingered as the killer behind the "Spanish Flu", a disease that, in two years killed more people world wide than the entirety of WW1. Something close to 20% of people who contracted the disease DIED. With the vaccines we have now, mortality rate is something like 0.01% We've gone to entire families dying, to a percentage smaller than a rounding error. I'd say that very VERY effectively demonstrates the effectiveness of flu vaccines don't you?

      And while I'm at it, let me say that "flu like symptoms" are not contagious, but the flu certainly is. You can contract and pass along the flu for a day or so before you even have a hint that you're sick, and you can remain contagious for up to 10 days after first noticing symptoms. Being vaccinated reduces that window of contagion a great deal, making everyone else safer as well. (that is the bigger part of the herd immunity effect. The other part is that, with far fewer hosts to replicate in, the opportunities for the virus to mutate into something more virulent are drastically reduced.)

      --
      I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
    6. Re:Flu vaccine... by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      Well, they've been batting a thousand for the past ten years in my experience, and I'm paying for it anyway since it's free with my insurance, so...Imma keep on getting it.

    7. Re:Flu vaccine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You intentionally left out the last word of the quote you were referencing from your source. You're not really someone who I would consider to have a whole lot of integrity, i.e., you're a fucking liar. Here are what the other major brands of flu vaccinations say on their labels:

      Fluarix: Clinical studies show a reduction in influenza disease in vaccinated vs placebo groups.
      FluMist: Clinical studies show a reduction in influenza disease in vaccinated vs placebo groups. The data for FluMist are the most impressive, getting as high as 96% efficacy with certain flu strains.
      FluVirin: Only shows immunogenicity data, induces antibody response that exceeds the threshold defined for success.
      FLUZONE: Only shows immunogenicity data, induces antibody response that exceeds the threshold defined for success.
      Afluria: Only shows immunogenicity data, induces antibody response that exceeds the threshold defined for success.
      Agriflu: Clinical studies show a reduction in influenza disease in vaccinated vs placebo groups.

      The FDA doesn't approve the use of a vaccination based upon whether or not the vaccine actually prevents said disease, but on whether or not said vaccine can generate a strong antibody response.

      Please don't comment on things you don't understand.

      https://www.fda.gov/biologicsbloodvaccines/vaccines/approvedproducts/ucm112909.htm

      "Postmarketing Studies subject to reporting requirements of 21 CFR 601.70

      Products approved under the accelerated approval regulations, 21 CFR 601.41, require further adequate and well-controlled confirmatory clinical studies to verify and describe clinical benefit. We remind you of your postmarketing study commitments specified in your submissions dated September 21, 25, and 27, 2006. These commitments, along with any completion dates agreed upon, are listed below.

      To conduct Study IDB 707-108, a comparative safety and immunogenicity study of FluLaval and Fluzone ® in adults 50 years of age and older. The study was initiated in October 2005. The final study report will be submitted by November 30, 2006.
      To conduct Study IDB 707-106, a placebo-controlled clinical endpoint study of FluLaval in subjects 18-49 years of age. This two year study was initiated in September 2005. The final study report will be submitted by December 31, 2007.
      We request that you submit future clinical protocols and clinical study-related documentation to your IND --------; please provide a cross-reference letter to this BLA."

    8. Re:Flu vaccine... by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Oh well, I tried. No way to cure stupid. Incidentally, there are statistics in large companies where they can demonstrate reduced sick-days when they started giving free flu-shots to people, but those would not convince you either, so I will not bother looking them up.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    9. Re:Flu vaccine... by morethanapapercert · · Score: 1

      I'll see your single article and your claim that there are no studies on how effective the flu vaccine is and raise you SEVENTY NINE THOUSAND FUCKING EXAMPLES of scholarly studies on flu vaccines found with a 12 second Google search. Read that again you muppet, seventy nine thousand studies by educated and trained researchers who have done studies and have put them out for peer review, granting other experts an opportunity to poke holes in their findings, results and conclusions if at all possible. Every type of flu vaccination, every possible combination of flu vaccine and patient, ranging from pediatric to geriatric, including workplace, school and pregnancy situations.
      Your entire article, clearly so well researched and thoughtfully written is entirely based on "viewing with alarm" one line of warning text in the insert from one single example of flu vaccine. IT DOESN'T SAY THERE ARE NO STUDIES ON FLU VACCINE EFFECTIVENESS, IT SAYS THERE HAVE BEEN NO CONTROLLED STUDIES SPECIFICALLY WITH FLULAVAL And that is largely because all of the individual ingredients in the formulation HAVE been tested and been found to be safe in these kinds of applications. Then there is the fact that you can't really test vaccine for flu A until flu A hits your area and makes a whole lot of people sick and kills a few. What researchers do instead is infer results to some degree. E.G. previous vaccines A, B and C have been tried, we now know how well they worked in the real world, so based on that, we can come up with next years vaccine based on those findings.
      The only part of warning insert that is actually a semi-legitimate concern is the use of thiomersal as a preservative agent. Yes, Thiomersal contains mercury, albeit in truly minuscule amounts. The scientific consensus seems to be that, since it is such a tiny amount and NOT in the form of elemental mercury, it is safe to use it in vaccinations. (certainly the amounts of mercury in a vaccine are infinitesimal compared to what was routinely used in dental amalgam for fillings.)
      That said, if you want to play it safe, there ARE non-thiomersal formulations available.

      --
      I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
    10. Re:Flu vaccine... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      the flu vaccine is filled with mercury and asbestos isotopes

      PLUTONIUM! You forgot plutonium. And little spy cams that migrate to your eyeballs so they can see what you see. And each dose has a different RFID tag that's injected into you that can be tracked by satellite. Must remember the satellites!

      For what it's worth paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep, it starts when you're always afraid, step out of line the man will come and take you away.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    11. Re:Flu vaccine... by IcyWolfy · · Score: 1

      Have 40+ controlled trials demonstrating reduction of flu intensity after vaccination:

      Bridges CB, Thompson WW, Meltzer MI, Reeve GR, Talamonti WJ, Cox NJ, Lilac HA, Hall H, Klimov A, Fukuda K. Effectiveness and cost-benefit of influenza vaccination of healthy working adults: A randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2000;284(13):1655-63.
      Govaert TM, Thijs CT, Masurel N, Sprenger MJ, Dinant GJ, Knottnerus JA. The efficacy of influenza vaccination in elderly individuals. A randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial. JAMA. 1994;272(21):1661-5.
      Darvishian M, Bijlsma MJ, Hak E, van den Heuvel ER. Effectiveness of seasonal influenza vaccine in community-dwelling elderly people: a meta-analysis of test-negative design case-control studies. Lancet Infect Dis 2014; 14(12): 1228-39.
      DiazGranados CA, Dunning AJ, Kimmel M, Kirby D, Treanor J, Collins A, Pollak R, Christoff J, Earl J, Landolfi V, Martin E, Gurunathan S, Nathan R, Greenberg DP, Tornieporth NG, Decker MD, Talbot HK. Efficacy of high-dose versus standard-dose influenza vaccine in older adults. N Engl J Med. 2014;371:635-45.
      Talbot HK, Griffin MR, Chen Q, Zhu Y, Williams JV, Edwards, KM. Effectiveness of seasonal vaccine in preventing confirmed influenza-associated hospitalization in community dwelling older adults. J Infect Dis 2011; 203: 500–8.
      Chen Q, Griffin MR, Nian H, Zhu Y, Williams JV, Edwards, KM, Talbot HK. Influenza vaccine prevents medically attended influenza-associated acute respiratory illness in adults aged 50 years. J Infect Dis 2015; 211: 1045–50.
      Ohmit SE, Victor JC, Rotthoff JR, et al. Prevention of antigenically drifted influenza by inactivated and live attenuated vaccines. N Engl J Med 2006; 355(24): 2513-22.
      Ohmit SE, Victor JC, Teich ER, et al. Prevention of symptomatic seasonal influenza in 2005-2006 by inactivated and live attenuated vaccines. J Infect Dis 2008; 198(3): 312-7.
      Jackson LA, Gaglani MJ, Keyserling HL, et al. Safety, efficacy, and immunogenicity of an inactivated influenza vaccine in healthy adults: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial over two influenza seasons. BMC Infect Dis 2010; 10: 71.
      Beran J, Wertzova V, Honegr K, et al. Challenge of conducting a placebo-controlled randomized efficacy study for influenza vaccine in a season with low attack rate and a mismatched vaccine B strain: a concrete example. BMC Infect Dis 2009; 9
      Beran J, Vesikari T, Wertzova V, et al. Efficacy of inactivated split-virus influenza vaccine against culture-confirmed influenza in healthy adults: a prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. J Infect Dis 2009; 200(12): 1861-9.
      Monto AS, Ohmit SE, Petrie JG, et al. Comparative efficacy of inactivated and live attenuated influenza vaccines. N Engl J Med 2009; 361(13): 1260-7.
      Madhi SA, Maskew M, Koen A, Kuwanda L, Besselaar TG, Naidoo D, Cohen C, Valette M, Cutland CL, Sanne I. Trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine in African adults infected with human immunodeficient virus: double blind, randomized clinical trial of efficacy, immunogenicity, and safety. Clin Infect Dis 2011; 52(1): 128-37.
      Osterholm MT, Kelley NS, Sommer A, et al. Efficacy and effectiveness of influenza vaccines: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet ID 2011(12): 36-44.
      Frey S, Vesikari T, Szymczakiewicz-Multanowska A, et al. Clinical efficacy of cell culture-derived and egg-derived inactivated subunit influenza vaccines in healthy adults. Clin Infect Dis 2010; 51(9): 997-1004.
      Treanor JJ, El Sahly H, King J, et al. Protective efficacy of a trivalent recombinant hemagglutinin protein vaccine (FluBl

    12. Re:Flu vaccine... by MiniMike · · Score: 1

      ... asbestos isotopes

      You have made an elementary mistake...

    13. Re: Flu vaccine... by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      Many people think a flu vaccine with 23% effectiveness doesn't make a difference and why bother. The benefit of doing it only needs to be like 7% effective to have a noticeable impact. The "small" percentage of people that benefit are the high risk and compromised immune systems. Any percentage in less dead through preventable means is a good thing.

    14. Re:Flu vaccine... by dbIII · · Score: 1

      ... asbestos isotopes

      You have made an elementary mistake...

      No problem, it's a silly con anyway.

    15. Re:Flu vaccine... by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      Nah you get more plutonium from chemtrails.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    16. Re:Flu vaccine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What flu shots doesn't give you a flu? After a flu shot you would get a flu for about a week or two, and this triggers your immune system and your immune system remembers the strain, then stores it in some volatile memory which needs to be refreshed (by additional flu shots) every couple of months or every year. A flu shot is just a cocktail of flu viruses being injected to your veins to make your system "learn" how to defend against those strains.

      That's how I understood it, and explains my flu each time I get my flu shots.

    17. Re:Flu vaccine... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      To throw another anecdote on the pile, for decades now, every year I've gotten the flu shot xor the flu.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  9. I thought it was "Hitlers big lie" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Big lie was "repeat a lie often enough and loud enough, and it becomes mistaken for truth."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie#Hitler.27s_use_of_the_expression

    1. Re:I thought it was "Hitlers big lie" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So that's where CNN got the tactic from...

    2. Re:I thought it was "Hitlers big lie" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's the altcuck MO right there.

  10. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Those who survived will probably be doing fine without vaccines.

  11. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People don't die of these diseases anymore.

  12. My son was vaccinated.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And he turned into a transsexual. So clearly autism causes gender dyslexia.

    1. Re:My son was vaccinated.... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      And what's so bad about that again? :-) Except that now you have one more person telling you to put the damn seat down when you're finished!

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    2. Re:My son was vaccinated.... by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1

      My daughter was vaxxinated, and now she runs OpenVMS.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
  13. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh look, a flat-earther! You probably also believe the moon landing was a hoax and all of that too. Do they call you "uncle daddy"? Do you resort to prayer instead of modern medicine too? What's it like to pretend the year is 1817?

  14. Some people *need* to believe. by Nutria · · Score: 1

    And I don't mean "I'll have another beer".

    50 years ago, these people would have gone to church every Sunday, and had their children vaccinated in a Church-sponsored public health drive.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    1. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by arth1 · · Score: 1

      I think you're making the same mistake as these researchers did: Placing all your opponents in one box, painting the most popular perceived belief of your opponent on the box, and attacking it.
      That's a recipe for failure.

      People are against vaccination for many different reasons, and by placing them with a group you hate, you're alienating them, and ensuring that they won't listen to you - you've already proven that you're not interested in facts, only in railroading.

      The way to fight ignorance is by making truth available. Not by telling people "you're brainwashed". Especially not if showing signs of being brainwashed yourself, jumping to conclusions based on what you "know", but never bothered to find out.

    3. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by rahvin112 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem with any complex science is that understanding the mechanism behind it is complex and requires a significant amount of time and learning. It's easier to dismiss the science in these cases, particularly where someone is protected by herd immunity or the global changes in climate are just beginning to be noticeable at a broad level.

      So the vaccine and climate science deniers take the easy path. Until the 10 years of record temperatures (each year sets the record for highest temperature) or a Measles outbreak kills someone they love.

      The problem becomes when that person's denial directly threatens the lives of others. Unlike climate science, Vaccines and herd immunity provide protection for that 3-4% of people who cannot be vaccinated due to severe allergies. When that parent doesn't get their kid vaccinated and their kid is part of a pandemic that takes lives they should be prosecuted for negligent homicide. And yes I absolutely mean it, the people who's family members died in the Disneyland outbreak should be suing every single person that got the virus and wasn't vaccinated. They should take them for every dime they've got. Only when there are real penalties for those who choose to risk everyone else's lives by failing to get vaccines will people take vaccines seriously as a public health initiative.

      You don't want to vaccinate? Go live somewhere where vaccines aren't given. Discover the panacea of living where you can die any time from completely preventable disease.

    4. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FFS this! Mod this up! The whole world needs to understand this.

    5. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

      The way to fight ignorance is by making truth available. Not by telling people "you're brainwashed".

      The study shows otherwise. It's almost impossible to overcome paranoia, especially with facts.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    6. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by arth1 · · Score: 1

      The study shows otherwise. It's almost impossible to overcome paranoia, especially with facts.

      No, facts is the way. You just have to make sure you offer the facts and don't jam them down people's throats, nor imply that they're stupid. Otherwise, they will ignore you, or even be more convinced than ever before that you're not acting in their best interest, only in your own. Or that you are the one who have drunk the cool-aid.
      Be rational, not confrontational. Grin and bear it that it does take time, because the alternative of trying to force something on people that they don't fully understand will just ensure that it takes even more time.

    7. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I think you're making the same mistake as these researchers did: Placing all your opponents in one box, painting the most popular perceived belief of your opponent on the box, and attacking it.

      Perhaps, but there's a core of activists pushing exactly the same line based on Wakefield's scam and they are probably more of a worry than anyone who has got there independently.

      For example, in Australia it was all kicked off by an anti-vaccine activist from California getting some time on radio. According to her Wakefield is a Saint and everyone's local doctor is in the pocket of Big Pharma.

    8. Re: Some people *need* to believe. by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      I agree with Barbara and disagree with you. I have no idea who you're writing about. Can you think of anyone in your life where that actually worked? I can only think of people around me where I gave up on giving them facts long ago and they continue to believe in incredibly stupid things.

    9. Re: Some people *need* to believe. by arth1 · · Score: 1

      I agree with Barbara and disagree with you. I have no idea who you're writing about. Can you think of anyone in your life where that actually worked? I can only think of people around me where I gave up on giving them facts long ago and they continue to believe in incredibly stupid things.

      Irreligion is a good example. In the countries that tried bashing it in, like the Eastern Bloc, religion and superstition is strong. Whereas for countries that worked on spreading factual information, supernatural beliefs are at all-time lows and still declining.

      Then there are countries that promote religion, like the US, and others like China that suppress religion but not superstition, so as long as you don't call it religion, belief in ghosts, ancestor spirits, horoscopes and lucky numbers still gets you counted as a proper atheist...

    10. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      No, facts is the way.

      Lol you are literally proving the point of the article. When resented with the results you simply insist the opposite must be true and me telling this will only make you more and more sure. Which is, rather ironically, precisely what the article says.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    11. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Herd immunity is a myth. In the US, 75% of everyone is an adult. most of whom have not received boosters now recommended as essential by the CDC. Even if half of adults were up to date, which they aren't, only 62.5% coverage would be achieved. All the manufacturers state their vaccines require 85-96% coverage to provide herd immunity. So basically we are living without herd immunity, and people are not dying in the streets.

    12. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So the vaccine and climate science deniers take the easy path. Until the 10 years of record temperatures (each year sets the record for highest temperature) or a Measles outbreak kills someone they love.

      Yep with all that advanced tech they had back thousands of years ago to analyse and record this irrefutable data you base all these amazing stats on right?

      You don't want to vaccinate? Go live somewhere where vaccines aren't given. Discover the panacea of living where you can die any time from completely preventable disease.

      I do as a matter of fact and I am not very provax whatsoever. What's terrible IMHO is how these companies can exploit even half intelligent people.

      In my local area yellow fever and dengue is monitored, the govt monitors these sorts of things "Okay" because say yellow fever is currently present in the adjacent state so therefore I take JUST the yellow fever shot. Get it?

      I'm going to say it one more time so you get it (and to other provaxers) "I take _just_ the yellow fever shot" because it seems feasible to me to get it and its only I'm only being immunised against one or two diseases at a time. The problem in my view as it has always been those cocktails. They are proven to be dangerous (even though the numbers are low) its because of the high number of chemicals and the plethora of side-effects which are actually listed and its done in this way to save cost. Its really just that simple.

      There will come a time where we'll see a "rich persons" process and a "everyone elses" processes to vaccination (If it doesn't already exist). Over time the collateral damage gets mopped up for the greater good, sort of like cancer and smoking and how 50 years ago doctors used to prescribe cigarettes to patients as a means to relieve stress. Overall the problem is solved but its not done pretty its done as a numbers game.

      Science has always taught us one thing. Over a long period of time sometimes the "right way" is most likely the completely and most absolutely wrong way to achieve a desired result. You only have to look at the combustion engine too see one example.

      They are inefficient as they require a gearbox and requires thousands of movable parts. They also produce noise and create waste. Yet we had the electric motor for nearly just as long with only minor attention paid to said technologies surrounding an electric motor for a car. And when oil became the way business was done electric cars were attacked.

      You could say I feel sorry for antivaxers but really I don't because I'm certain there would be bad apples / extreme opinions skewing both sides of the discussion. However, up until recently provax had strong Govt support, now it doesn't as much, which is just further evidence that it's a play. Ideally I believe there needs to be a more moderate approach to the whole thing.

    13. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by arth1 · · Score: 1

      No, facts is the way.

      Lol you are literally proving the point of the article. When resented with the results you simply insist the opposite must be true and me telling this will only make you more and more sure. Which is, rather ironically, precisely what the article says.

      Read the next sentence. It's on the same line.

      To recap: Spread facts and make them available to everyone who wants to listen, but don't push them on people, and don't ridicule your opponents' beliefs, or you will trigger resentment.
      If people are not given a fair chance to make their own decision but told why they should choose your point of view, of course they are going to just stop listen. It's human nature to push back.

    14. Re: Some people *need* to believe. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Actually, it's education, increased health, and being better off economically that resulted in the decline of religion. When people have access to better health care, they have less motivation to pray to god to heal them. When they are better off economically, they have less need to pray that god lets them win the lottery as a reward for believing. And when they are more educated about science in general, they can see just how stupid and devoid of proof all religions are. That's why religion is more and more a cultural, rather than a religious, thing.

      And no, believing in superstitions, ghosts, ancestor spirits or lucky numbers does not get you counted as a proper atheist. Atheism is the rejection of ALL supernatural beliefs.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    15. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      The facts are available to all. And there's absolutely NO reason not to ridicule people's harmful beliefs. Their beliefs are rooted in emotion, not logic, so appeals to logic are doomed to fail. You've got to hit them where it hurts.

      And when you do, and they have an experience that betrays all that they believe (such as the unfairness of a loved one dying despite living a righteous, reverent life and being prayed for all the time when they are terminally ill), they will remember the taunts and consider that they have been a fool. Until then, they have absolutely zero motivation to look at the facts.

      As proof, look at all the people who still think Trump is doing a great job, despite the facts. You're not going to convince them with facts, so might as well throw rocks, and when they finally figure out they've been betrayed, their anger at having been made a fool and a subject of public ridicule will steel their resolve to never be a sucker for that guy again, no matter how many arguments his supporters make.

      Logic has nothing to do with emotional responses, and religion is an emotional, not logical response to the world around us.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    16. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by Nutria · · Score: 1

      by placing them with a group you hate

      Where in the almighty fuck do you get the notion that I hate religion?

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    17. Re: Some people *need* to believe. by arth1 · · Score: 1

      And no, believing in superstitions, ghosts, ancestor spirits or lucky numbers does not get you counted as a proper atheist. Atheism is the rejection of ALL supernatural beliefs.

      I know that, you know that, but the Chinese official statistics don't know that, which is why it's funny to see China so often listed at the top of atheism charts.

      The Netherlands and Scandinavia are better models for how ignorance gradually dies out when everybody have access to facts, and denial groups receive no special attention, neither positively nor negatively. They wither and die - it just takes time.

    18. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by arth1 · · Score: 1

      And when you do, and they have an experience that betrays all that they believe (such as the unfairness of a loved one dying despite living a righteous, reverent life and being prayed for all the time when they are terminally ill), they will remember the taunts and consider that they have been a fool.

      Here's where your opinion and mine differs. I think it just as likely that they will take it as a sign that they didn't believe hard enough, didn't fight back at the taunters enough, didn't kill enough gays or abortion/sexchange doctors, and that those who taunted them are more the enemy than ever, as God showed them.

      My recommendation is to not taunt them, so you don't make them victims and yourself enemies. Let them wither and die, while the next generation is given opportunity to not follow in their parents' footsteps. Take away unfair advantages allowing indoctrination for either side, like tax breaks and schooling where knowledge is suppressed, and more and more of their kids will come over to the light.

    19. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      How is the next generation supposed to see the alternative if you dont make a lot of noise?

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    20. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by arth1 · · Score: 1

      How is the next generation supposed to see the alternative if you dont make a lot of noise?

      They're not going to seek it if you do make a lot of noise. Let things take their time. People aren't going to change their minds like a flip of a coin. They're going to see results, learn at school and other media, and take their good time. That may be infuriating, but any push will generate a push-back.

    21. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      They're never going to seek it - they're being brainwashed. One day either the penny will drop or it won't - but education won't do it; it certainly hasn't worked with all the anti-vaxxers, microwaved food is dangerous because it's contaminated with microwaves, homeopathic remedy idiots, flat earthers, moon landing and chem trail conspiracy believers, etc.

      Let it generate pushback. It forces them to defend their beliefs - and some will find that they cannot. Others, well they're immune to logic and education anyway, same as people who are paranoid are extremely resistant to any form of help.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    22. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by not+flu · · Score: 1

      Judging by the Ars Technica article, no reason to believe the facts was given, no explanation where the myth came from and why it's wrong was wrong was given. Is it any wonder nobody was swayed? People don't actually believe just anything written on paper, who knew!

      The conclusion drawn in this study is wrong. People aren't mistaking repetition for truth, the presentation just sucked.

    23. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by arth1 · · Score: 1

      They're never going to seek it - they're being brainwashed. One day either the penny will drop or it won't - but education won't do it; it certainly hasn't worked with all the anti-vaxxers, microwaved food is dangerous because it's contaminated with microwaves, homeopathic remedy idiots, flat earthers, moon landing and chem trail conspiracy believers, etc.

      But it has worked, in countries that let the crazies die out with neither attacking them nor give them special status. It doesn't work in the US, because the US both attacks their views and at the same time protects them through allowing specialized schooling, tax exemptions and "parental rights". That's setting up for backlash, and that's exactly what's happening. And that doesn't happen in other countries.

    24. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by Whorhay · · Score: 1

      There actually already is a rich/poor path for vaccinations, with probably a healthy sized middle ground. Essentially if you've got the money you can afford homeschooling or schools that don't require vaccination. Or you can find a doctor that will support spreading the vaccinations out over a longer time period.

      The only vaccine we've skipped in my family is the chicken pox. We've passed on that one because it's basically an economic vaccine for families that want to plan their chickenpox outbreak because they can't afford a random week or two of sick time to take care of a sick kid. It is relatively ineffective so far as vaccines go requiring multiple boosters which can cause subsequent outbreaks.

      Our families approach was to spread the vaccinations out over a longer time period so that we didn't have to worry about multiple side affects from multiple vaccines all at the same time. It meant more visits to the Doctor which results in more money out of pocket. The normal vaccine schedule is driven in part by the concern that a kid might not see a Doctor frequently enough to get all the vaccines so they pile them on in an attempt to get them all done. Our kids didn't go to daycare and had limited contact with other children for those first few years so there was plenty of time to spread out the vaccines without risking them to exposure.

    25. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by urusan · · Score: 1

      So the vaccine and climate science deniers take the easy path. Until the 10 years of record temperatures (each year sets the record for highest temperature) or a Measles outbreak kills someone they love.

      If the local populace's reaction in Liberia and Sierra Leone to the Ebola outbreak in 2014 is any indication, many people won't get the message even after a serious outbreak kills many in their community.

    26. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      People aren't mistaking repetition for truth? Adolph Hitler coined the term "big lie", Joseph Goebbels perfected it. Repeat a big lie often enough, people will believe it.

      Trump uses the same technique all the time.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    27. Re:Some people *need* to believe. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      No, what happened was cultural change that allowed different ideas to propagate. It isn't working in the US because the American culture is dysfunctional, a culture where for vast numbers of people tradition carries more weight than reality. Has nothing to do with specialized schooling or tax exemptions or "parental rights" - other countries have all three and yet Americans are known the world over to be the suckers for snake oil.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  15. Re: The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you stupid?

  16. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Vaccination should be a requirement to use any public space.

  17. Critical thinking should be taught from the start by Baron_Yam · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, it's annoying when your kids question you all the time, and I feel for teachers who have to deal with everyone else's kids... but maybe we ought to stop with the Santa and Tooth Fairy and all the other 'cute and harmless' lies we tell kids.

    Instead, we ought to be asking them what they think, and why, and then show them where they've made errors... so when they come up against something new, they have a fighting chance of figuring it out without someone holding their hand the whole time.

    The best experience I ever had in school was a teacher mocking me for being afraid to be wrong, which is really the fork in the road where you either try to figure something out or just shut down and stick with your initial belief. We need more of that for our kids.

  18. Reject science, get cut off from it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you don't vaccinate, you don't get medical treatment. Eat watery sugar if you want, but no actual medicine.

  19. More complicated that ignorance or "psychology" by Advocatus+Diaboli · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The modern anti-vaccination movement is one manifestation of public loss of trust in institutions and credentialed "professionals". The thing is.. most anti-vaccination types do not doubt the existence of infectious diseases or that some vaccines are very useful and effective. It comes down to other issues such as their inability to trust obviously greedy "professionals" who recommend vaccines against 15-20 diseases (some of which are uncommon). At that stage, more than a few people start wondering if it is more about profit and domination of others than helping people. Also, a lot of the popular ideas pushed by medical profession for decades such as "fat makes you fat", "jogging is good exercise- regardless of age" etc plus promising to treat diseases with newer and expensive drugs which have little to no effect on most disease endpoints (mild to moderate Depression, Type 2 Diabetes etc) do not help their cause- to put it mildly. https://dissention.wordpress.c...

    1. Re:More complicated that ignorance or "psychology" by rahvin112 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No one makes money on Vaccines. They are subsidized by the government because drug companies can't produce them at a cost high enough to make a profit. Almost every vaccine sold is subsidized by the government. So your argument about profit kinds falls on it's face in such a scenario, after all the drug companies would much prefer to give you a pill to treat the symptoms of the disease than a shot that prevents it.

      Why wouldn't you want to get a vaccine for a disease that could kill you? Even if it is rare in your current age group? I've yet to encounter a vaccine for something that doesn't kill people, and even the ones that rarely kill can often do significant damage even if you survive it. And most of the ones that are rare in the US are rare because people are vaccinated.

    2. Re:More complicated that ignorance or "psychology" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Common vaccines might be subsidized, but after seeing the bill for my travel vaccines which I got at the county govt travel center (part of the county health system), I'm fairly certain that yellow fever and a few others are NOT subsidized. The vaccines are expensive enough that I had to sign up about a month before getting it and they schedule everyone who wants it to come in the same day.

      I vaguely remember booster shots for the common things running about $15 each, but a few were in the $250+ range like Japanese encephalitis. Not all health insurance covers all vaccinations.

    3. Re:More complicated that ignorance or "psychology" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit hoser. Drug companies make an average of 37% profit on their vaccine production. Look it up !

    4. Re:More complicated that ignorance or "psychology" by cryptizard · · Score: 1

      That's pretty low compared to drugs which can have margins in the 10,000% range. iPhones have a 200% profit margin. Companies have to make something or else they just won't produce. I think 37% is fairly reasonable.

    5. Re:More complicated that ignorance or "psychology" by LienRag · · Score: 1

      No one makes money on Vaccines.

      That is definitely not true for modern vaccines.
      I have family that used to work on the marketing side of one of these fancy new vaccines for those rare diseases and I can assure you that the company they were working for is not a charity...
      Plus, I did check what I could of the science behind it (disclaimer: I have a scientific formation, but am not a medical doctor) and the choice of vaccination was for the least controversial; apparently it did not bring better results than early diagnostic by a simple test done annually on at-risk patients.
      But nothing on the other ways of dealing with that disease than vaccination ever surfaced in the marketing argumentation towards health professionals made by this company, marketing which was more about fear-mongering concerning this disease and praise about the new vaccine.

    6. Re:More complicated that ignorance or "psychology" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      obviously greedy "professionals" who recommend vaccines against 15-20 diseases (some of which are uncommon)

      A lot of "uncommon" diseases were far more common before vaccines.

    7. Re:More complicated that ignorance or "psychology" by urusan · · Score: 1

      The parent is talking about what people think, not what the actual situation is. It's easy for someone who doesn't do their research to think it's profit-motivated, even if it isn't.

    8. Re:More complicated that ignorance or "psychology" by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      one of these fancy new vaccines for those rare diseases

      If you don't even know what the vaccine is called or what diseases it prevents, then I call bullshit.

    9. Re:More complicated that ignorance or "psychology" by LienRag · · Score: 1

      I obviously know the name of the disease but won't disclose it since it's family I'm talking about, not publicly available information.
      You're absolutely free to call bullshit though, I was just trying to help.

  20. People just have to believe in something by rmdingler · · Score: 1
    Politics and religion are but two examples of deeply held belief sets that no amount of contrary new evidence can sway.

    It seems important to us as a species to have these settled world views, and I wonder why that's important.

    Maybe banding together intellectually is an important feature in our tendency towards tribalism.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  21. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    but maybe we ought to stop with the Santa and Tooth Fairy and all the other 'cute and harmless' lies we tell kids.

    Not arguing in favor for it, but not exposing them to this they might grow up believing adults / the general public always tell them the truth.
    The Santa lie should make them skeptic. Maybe it makes them question "is the whole god thing a lie, too?".

  22. I don't get it by stabiesoft · · Score: 1

    But then there are those people who don't think we went to the moon or even the crazier the earth is flat group in colorado. I'm a skeptical guy myself, but really vaccines? I guess when we have a big polio outbreak again and have kids in iron lungs the no-vax group will have to live with what they did.

    1. Re:I don't get it by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      I prefer to seek out the positive from this depressing possibility. Do you suppose it's possible to get a conspiracy theory going that there is no moon at all?

    2. Re:I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's what pisses me off the most. The anti-vaxxer nuts have already been vaccinated against most stuff. They won't suffer, it's their kids who will suffer. I wish we could make an anti-vaccine and give these people that, then infect them with polio or something and see how much they enjoy it.

    3. Re:I don't get it by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Just tell them it's a death star.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:I don't get it by bugs2squash · · Score: 1

      Maybe on 8/21 you can convince them there is no sun for a while

      --
      Nullius in verba
    5. Re:I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sadly their kids will have to live with it too. If there was a way to inflict the suffering these idjits are inflicting on their kids right back onto them instead then I'd call that karma.

    6. Re:I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, thanks to QI (UK TV series) we know that there is a strong argument that there is no moon, but there is 'The Moon'
      What we call 'The Moon' might be more appropriately classed as a 'co-planet', i.e. the Earth and 'The Moon' orbit around a common center of gravity. We can carry on calling it 'The Moon' on the understanding that it's just a name, not implying that it is 'a moon'.

      Same as 'Monster Island' really; it's just a name, it's actually a peninsula.

    7. Re:I don't get it by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      I guess when we have a big polio outbreak again and have kids in iron lungs the no-vax group will have to live with what they did.

      No, they will just blame "big pharma" again for suppressing homeopathic "cures".

  23. Most people are just not too brite by jcbarlow · · Score: 2

    We techie folks spend much of our lives hanging out with our peers. This tends to give us a rather warped sense of the average intelligence and rationality of the general population. The fact is that most folks just feel overwhelmed by facts and data and really don't want the responsibility of choosing their own path through life. They would rather have someone they trust tell them what to do and think. Hence the popularity of religion and autocrats. It is counterproductive to try engaging these folks in some sort of rational fact based argument. That just makes them fearful. Try to remember that they are not acting stupid in order to annoy us; they're just in over their heads.

    1. Re:Most people are just not too brite by Vinegar+Joe · · Score: 1

      And that's the problem right there. People who are competent in one field seem to think they competent in ALL fields. Nothing but pure arrogance.

      --
      "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
    2. Re:Most people are just not too brite by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed. Most people have no idea what Science can do and what it cannot do. Most people are unable to verify a fact more complicated than the existence of gravity (not talking actual numbers here, that most people cannot verify either, despite a stop-watch, a coin and some pretty basic math being all it takes). We tech-folks can do these things and the brighter ones of us have done them countless times and _know_ this approach works. But the average person is still using the old mechanisms of trust and belief that predate Science. Consequentially, they get screwed over all the time, because they understand nothing and are easy targets for manipulation. And when some of them pick some arbitrary things to make a stand on, they usually pick wrong. This is just one more instance of that going on.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:Most people are just not too brite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are verifying a model of gravity. This is why non-technical people can't understand science. Shorthand uses like ”prove gravity” doesn't express what is really happening. Then some idiot comes along and correctly says you can't prove gravity and has the references from other technical people that contradict you. This makes the technical seem stupid because we go around ”believing gravity” and not ”believing gravity”.

    4. Re:Most people are just not too brite by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      When a friend of mine moved house (from Kings Cross, London, in about 1997), the removal man asked her what she thought stars were. She replied "like our sun, but far away".

      Then she asked him why he asked. He said he always asked all his clients, and had done so for more than 20 years, just out of interest. She asked him what was the most common answer, and he replied "holes in the sky where heaven shines through".

      Neither of us know where this idea comes from, or why it should be the most common answer in central/east London (which is extremely culturally diverse, and has been for 2,000 years). Anyone else know?

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    5. Re:Most people are just not too brite by Whibla · · Score: 1

      I can hazard a guess:

      Something they've seen.

      Of course that doesn't explain the heaven part, but social memory tends to be persistent, and the fact we're talking about people moving house implies a certain age threshold. I'd be curious about any trends in the answers he's received tbh, as 20+ years is quite a long time...

    6. Re:Most people are just not too brite by LoLobey · · Score: 1

      ..."don't want the responsibility of choosing their own path through life." They want to choose, but they want the choices to be easy and fit into their biases.

      --
      We have nothing to fear but fear itself! And Spiders!
  24. Re:The science is not settled by BitterOak · · Score: 1

    The choice to be vaccinated.

    --
    If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
  25. Re: The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You mean, the science has been *bought* by big pharma a long time ago.

    It wasn't even difficult because they knew that once a few key players in the scientific community claim something, the sheep not only follow but also defend that claim as if they had seen evidence themselves. This is a reverse pyramid, quite similar to religion; everything rests in a very narrow point that nobody in the rest of the structure ever question.

    If big oil and big chem had realized that, they would have crushed the global warming thing a long time ago.

  26. Bright by DogDude · · Score: 1

    The word is "bright". "Brite" is not a word.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
    1. Re: Bright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's that warped sense of intelligence he mentioned.

      I've known people who can architect ridiculously complex integrations and implement them faster than should be humanly possible...

      Who live paycheck to paycheck on six figures.

      "Techies" are rarely as universally smart outside their own narrow domain as they believe.

      But that goes for every profession.

    2. Re:Bright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The word is "bright". "Brite" is not a word.

      brite
      variant of bright (adj.). It figures in English phonetic spelling reform from at least the late 19c.; as an advertiser's word it dates from at least 1905 (" Star-brite Metal Polish," made by the Star-Brite Company of Lancaster, Pa., U.S.).

    3. Re:Bright by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Language is a living thing, Mr. language-nazi.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    4. Re:Bright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And cancer is when living things grow uncontrolled.

    5. Re:Bright by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      There's many things that are living but still completely wrong. Case in point: Anti-vaxxers.

  27. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by loonycyborg · · Score: 2

    Anti-vac trend can also be considered a form of critical thinking. Not everyone have time or inclination to properly research everything so there is always a need in some sort of trust chains in research of such information. The issue here is that official trust chain associated with government and mainstream science is no longer widely accepted in the populace. People just turned to new trust chains due to official ones too often pushing poorly researched and self serving information. If you're spreading too much nonsense and misinformation then even truth you share along the way can get tarnished.

  28. It's not just prejudice, I'm afraid. by sehlat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Consider the long and body-strewn history of companies whose products have done enormous damage to large numbers of people.

    The cigarette companies were denying that their cute little puff-sticks could cause cancer after a decade in which the causality was as firmly established as 1+1=2. The company that brought out thalidomide was still denying their product maimed unborn babies quite some time after the evidence was rolling in like a tsunami. Monsanto is even now busy suppressing evidence that their roundup product causes cancer.

    I could cite a bunch of other instances, but it all comes down to the proven fact that corporations lie about the disasters they cause. They have every reason to: Cleaning up their mess or making amends to the victims will cost them money!

    "...once a man gets a reputation as a liar, he might as well be struck dumb, for people do not listen to the wind." -- Robert A. Heinlein Citizen of the Galaxy

    1. Re:It's not just prejudice, I'm afraid. by gweihir · · Score: 2

      Yes. And now do the same for companies that produce food (and lump them all together as well, please, as you have done for your example). Should you stop to _eat_? Or should you start to find out what the actual details were, the players, the motivation, the Science?

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:It's not just prejudice, I'm afraid. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Yep, companies are totally the same as the proven history and wealth of medical knowledge we have gained along with the many scientific studies. If you can't separate the two you're really not much better than the anti-vaxxers.

      Monsanto is even now busy suppressing evidence that their roundup product causes cancer.

      And that just shows that you rely entirely on prejudice rather than scientific fact (just like the anti-vaxxers). Monsato was accused of ghost writing and preventing research from happening, but to date there's zero evidence of Roundup causing cancer. Suppressing research is not the same as proving the opposite.

    3. Re:It's not just prejudice, I'm afraid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't matter WHAT business they're in. Corporations worship Mammon, and have no other goals or gods.

  29. Methinks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...the science doth complain too much!

  30. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You err on the side of stupidity, actually. Caution would be to protect your kids from dread diseases, f*ckwit.

  31. Re:The science is not settled by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Fascinating.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  32. Other issues. by whoever57 · · Score: 1

    Does this explain climate change denial and the election of Donald Trump?

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    1. Re:Other issues. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No, the DNC and Hillary Clinton are responsible for the election of Donald Trump.

    2. Re:Other issues. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1, Informative

      No, the DNC and Hillary Clinton are responsible for the election of Donald Trump.

      Sounds like a typical Trump and Trump supporter response - blame someone else. :-)

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    3. Re:Other issues. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, the DNC and Hillary Clinton are responsible for the election of Donald Trump.

      Sounds like a typical Trump and Trump supporter response - blame someone else. :-)

      Actually, OP is right. DNC and Hillary Clinton did not marshal an effective campaign. Just like with Bush-Gore, another example where the electoral college overcame the popular vote, the DNC simply didn't do their job. W. should have taught them that simple-talk to simple people can win.

      Trump supporters do indeed do that thing you say... "blame someone else," but in this case it's true. Against a guy like Trump, it was the DNC's race to lose, and they lost, not just to Trump but also a lot of House and Senate seats. They need to completely re-think their game - blaming the Russians, flat-earthers, crusty white males, or whomever is not going to get them out of this hole.

    4. Re:Other issues. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      blame someone else

      Blame? We give thanks every day. Please; run another establishment race panderer with 30 years of ethics problems. Don't ever change.

    5. Re:Other issues. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Are you saying that if the DNC and Hillary's campaign hadn't colluded that Sanders would still not have won the nomination, and not gone on to wipe the floor with Trump? Both parties have to share the blame.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    6. Re:Other issues. by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Sounds like a typical Trump and Trump supporter response - blame someone else. :-)

      Um, it wouldn't make much sense for Trump supporters to "blame" anyone for electing Trump. That would be the realm of left-wing voters wondering how the heck the Democrats managed to lose. How Hillary lost to Obama back in 2009 is pretty easily explained by the charisma and skill he displayed in law school. How she lost to Trump, eh... it had to be a vote against her as much as a vote for Trump. I'm not sure the pounding Trump is taking in the media actually helps or whether it just twists the knife in the wound that the American people would rather have this guy than her...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    7. Re:Other issues. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will assume you're being sarcastic... 8-Q

    8. Re:Other issues. by Whibla · · Score: 1

      Probably (partially - almost certainly), and not really, in that order.

    9. Re:Other issues. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      So, what you're saying is "Help! Stop me before I vote again!".

      I've come to the conclusion that human beings are moral agents, and are responsible for their actions. Therefore, the ones responsible for his election are the ones that actually voted for him, both in primaries and the general election.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  33. "People tend to mistake repetition for truth." by Vinegar+Joe · · Score: 1

    Consensus?

    --
    "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
  34. College students ain't what they used to be by petes_PoV · · Score: 3, Interesting

    while the Dartmouth subjects were taken from a large general population, the Edinburgh subjects were college students.

    Half the population of school-leavers now go to university in the UK. That is despite the fact that there are only sufficient "graduate level" jobs for a small fraction of them.

    While the smartest graduates will get those jobs, the rest will be left with a crushingly large bill for their 3 more years of "education". You have to question just how clever those remaining graduates actually are.

    So it comes as no surprise to learn that in this topic, university students can act just as dim as "ordinary" people - since most of them are exactly that.

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
    1. Re:College students ain't what they used to be by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Why do you tell us bollocks like this?
      Studying in Scotland is free of cost. You are supposed to pay a 'honour fee' of 2000 pounds at the end of your studies.
      There are no 'crushing large bills' ... moron.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    2. Re:College students ain't what they used to be by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      You have to question just how clever those remaining graduates actually are.

      The statistics say both that college graduates have better chances, and that most people are screwed. But if you put those two things together, it still makes sense to go to school. If you're already screwed, who cares if you're double-screwed? You go to the same place no matter how many times over you are screwed if you kill yourself.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:College students ain't what they used to be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not the graduates that end up under-employed that end up paying that large bill though. They won't hit the threshold for making progress payments on the loan, so it won't cost them anything. For those that do get graduate level employment, it's effectively an extra 9% income tax. I was in the first year of students on that deal and it took until I was 30 to pay my loan off. This year's graduates will have 3 times the size of debt I had, so it's a lifelong graduate tax they'll never pay off.

      The worst of the problem is due to hit in 2045. That's when the government has to start writing off the unpaid loans of the first wave of students.

    4. Re:College students ain't what they used to be by Whibla · · Score: 2

      Why do you tell us bollocks like this?
      Studying in Scotland is free of cost. You are supposed to pay a 'honour fee' of 2000 pounds at the end of your studies.
      There are no 'crushing large bills' ... moron.

      You're quite correct if the student is from Scotland or mainland EU.

      You're completely wrong if you're talking about students from England, Northern Ireland, or Wales.

      Given that the GP made no reference to the origin of the students, nor did the study specify that the students polled were exclusively 'native', your absolute statement, as fact, is unwarranted, and your use of the term 'moron' unpleasant and unjustified.

    5. Re:College students ain't what they used to be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >While the smartest graduates will get those jobs,

      I think that if we were in a smartocracy, we would know.

    6. Re:College students ain't what they used to be by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Thank you for the clarification.
      Sounds not really plausible, though :)

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  35. Re: The science is not settled by gweihir · · Score: 1

    You have no clue how Science works. Here is a hint: It is pretty easy to "buy" something that is actually true, but almost impossible to buy an obvious lie in Science. Of course, in public opinion, things are a bit different.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  36. Re:The science is not settled by Namarrgon · · Score: 1

    I haven't personally verified relativity myself, but my GPS still works. Just like vaccination, it's been repeatedly tested and proved over decades by scientists and statisticians from countries all over the world, and peer-reviewed papers for each of these experiments are freely available to those who care to look.

    I'd cite you some links, but that'd probably just strengthen your belief in the myth.

    --
    Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
  37. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Generally, I'm in favor of vaccines that work. (That is, not a crapshoot like influenza, which not only mutates all the time, but the vaccine often gives patients flu-like symptoms anyway)

    If we blindly require vaccination (all of them, remember), where does the blame fall when someone becomes injured or dies from a vaccine? Who pays for that? Who takes responsibility?

    As expected, you don't have a well-thought-out answer for that. Nobody does. They're too busy fighting about their ideals to think about the practical effects of enforcing their views on others.

  38. Re:The science is not settled by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2

    No, most of us rely on professional scientists to do studies and perform experiments. That's why we have more confidence in the results, rather than listening to theory and speculation from amateurs. It's no different than how we rely on professional engineers to build our bridges and skyscrapers, rather than try to build them ourselves.

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  39. Re:The science is not settled by ArylAkamov · · Score: 1

    Science is never settled.

  40. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The "experiments" are those dead anti-vaxer babies.

  41. No problem. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

    Not only was the anti-vax cohort not convinced by any of the three campaigns, but their attitudes hardened when another poll was taken a week later.

    I'm sure they'll perk up when they get their Darwin Awards.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  42. in the words of Ron White by gtall · · Score: 1

    ...stupid is forever.

    1. Re:in the words of Ron White by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      I prefer the words "You can't fix stupid", but probably because, while he did say "stupid is forever", that was merely a segue to his actual shtick. They might find a vaccine for stupidity someday, but they won't use it, thereby cementing the veracity of his tagline. :^)

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  43. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's the boy who cried wolf, in a nutshell. I don't agree with them, but I understand the viewpoint.

  44. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by sehlat · · Score: 1

    "Ought to" and "will do" are two separate things. The authorities have a very vested interest in keeping the populace credulous. A skeptical public would overthrow them in an hour.

  45. Lies! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Stop trying to confuse me with the facts! I've made up my mind!"

  46. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes. And they work as advertised, which is: not perfectly on every individual, so the whole society needs the herd immunity. Which anti-vaccers are endangering, in fact they outright destroyed it in some areas of Europe (for measles, at least). So, we have to thank the anti-vaccers in Europe for killing children and endangering everyone to prove a point that did not need any more proof in the first place.

    Heck, you don't even need to be a scientist, you only need to go into areas where people who did not get vaccinated from endemic diseases are getting ill all the time, and you and your family, who did get vaccinated (and got bitten by the !@#$!@#$ mosquitoes just the same), don't get ill.

    Jeez, even the optional H1N1 vaccines, which are in the very end of "low effectiveness" -- you often end up getting slightly ill, instead of seriously/dangerously ill -- can be easily seen working when you have a major outbreak, like we had in Brazil two years ago. More than 8000 people *DEAD* among the non-vaccinated, less than 100 among the vaccinated, plus a very sharp decline on hospitalizations (and deaths) two weeks after the massive vaccination campaigns *AND* no outbreak on the next year (the government started vaccinating people two months in advance, there was some spillover from the previous year, and much much more people got vaccinated).

  47. Isn't it time to get serious . . . by rickyslashdot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    IF a child - who is NOT inoculated spreads a disease throughout his/her peer group, then it's high time to start prosecuting their parents for criminal mischief, at the very least, for allowing their child to be a carrier and disease vector simply because they refused to get that child vaccinated. Prosecution levels should even be allowed to go as high as "involuntary manslaughter", although, to me, it's NOT involuntary, it's premeditated, and should be criminalized to the full extent of those statutes.
    Granted, this doesn't solve the problem resulting from that incident, but it WILL send a message to all the other parents that refuse to get their children vaccinated. Basically, if you allow your child to be a disease carrier, then YOU are responsible for all the harm caused to the other children who are harmed, disabled, crippled, or even killed - ALL THROUGH YOUR OWN NEGLIGENCE, or your BELIEF SYSTEM.
    It makes no difference whether the issue is religious, personal, or just plain obstinate hard-headedness - YOU are the reason another child (or children) contracted a disease that could have been prevented with current vaccination regimes.

    OK, so it's a sad and sometimes horrific (in case of permanent disability or death) situation, and there are many who would say that the parents (and child) have suffered enough - - - BUT the situation is SOLELY the responsibility of the child's parents / guardians to see that they are given the best medical care available - and that INCLUDES THE VACCINATIONS !

    There is a serious line of demarcation between religion and scientific medical processes - and if the 'BELIEF' faction is allowed to put the health and lives of the other children at risk, then I BELIEVE they should be removed from the general population - - - as in ISOLATION WARDS / CAMPS.

    Sorry if this sounds a bit fascist, or absolute socialistic, but there is just too much at stake to allow this type of behavior to endanger the health and well-being of the majority of the population - - - simply because someone says "My FAITH says I should NOT do this".
    Take your FAITH and use it to cure the harm caused to the other children endangered by your actions (or INactions).

    GET YOUR VACCINATIONS - REGULARLY and ON TIME - - - to protect the whole world.

    cheers . . .

    --
    redneck geek
    1. Re:Isn't it time to get serious . . . by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 0

      Actually you sound incredibly naive, not fascist. It sounds like you really lack the life experience to understand why that is a truly dangerous idea. A few deaths is bad, but the death of freedom from state mandated injections is far, far worse.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    2. Re:Isn't it time to get serious . . . by rickyslashdot · · Score: 1

      Sorry I came across that way on the issue of 'state mandated injections'. That was NOT the issue - it is that IF you don't vaccinate, then stay out of the general population. That is a far milder point of contention than 'state mandated anything', and a much fairer alternative! Unless you are willing to accept the liability of causing disease, disability, or even death to other children, then get your child vaccinated.

      It's sorta' like giving your child a cap gun pistol to play with (vaccinated), vs a loaded 9mm (un-vaccinated). One is fun, the other is life-threatening, not only to the child but to his/her classmates. (OK, so let's not get into the issue of playing with guns - ALL kids do, even if it's just finger-pointing and saying "BANG-BANG")

      I hope all your children have had their jabs.

      cheers

      --
      redneck geek
    3. Re:Isn't it time to get serious . . . by Mkkby · · Score: 2

      This is a troll comment. You might as well blame your troubles on immigrants/illegals/migrants/tourists bringing in new microbes.

      Live in a closed society or never go outside and perhaps you will be safer.

    4. Re:Isn't it time to get serious . . . by rickyslashdot · · Score: 5, Interesting

      OK, Zero__Kelvin, I surrender. I am not going to argue the validity of my comparisons any longer.

      YOU, on the other hand, need to learn to focus on the reality of DELIBERATELY un-vaccinated children lowering the herd immunity and causing pain, suffering, and sometimes even death to those that did not have the opportunity to get their vaccinations - whether through recent immigration, economic issues, or simple ignorance.

      I hope you never have to live through the grief I am still living with because of a simple MEASLES vaccination (MMR) that was late - and my daughter is deaf - FOR LIFE - because she caught the disease from a 'religious objector' (through no fault of his).
      I will live with this issue for the rest of my life - because I was not timely in getting Deborah's MMR booster on time.

      Get off your BS nit-picking and actually try to do something that HELPS the world - not just a piss-ant word-war on who is the most explicitly accurate in their analogies!

      I've tried - really hard, considering, to be decent about this debate, but you are basically just a royal asshole.

      I may get banned - but YOU will have to learn to live with your conscious - - - and just MIGHT eventually learn to be civil and courteous when posting.

      --
      redneck geek
    5. Re:Isn't it time to get serious . . . by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 0

      If your story is true then I'm sorry you didn't get your child vaccinated, and it makes sense that you would need to blame someone else, but you should probably get some counseling. CBT might help as well. Think of it as an opportunity to learn a new language that few know, which could help you bond in ways you otherwise wouldn't.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    6. Re:Isn't it time to get serious . . . by fafalone · · Score: 1

      That's cleaning up the mess after the damage is done. Vaccinations should be mandatory with no non-medical exemptions. Refusing to vaccinate should be treated no different than the nutters who medically abuse children in other ways like refusing to take a very sick child to a doctor. It's abuse and impermissible; your religious beliefs don't let you get away with child abuse, and that's what non-vaccination is.

    7. Re:Isn't it time to get serious . . . by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      A few deaths is bad, but the death of freedom from state mandated injections is far, far worse.

      You have the right to remain stupid.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    8. Re:Isn't it time to get serious . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RE: Herd immunity. I think you forgot to count the adults who outnumber children 3 to 1 and are insufficiently vaccinated.

    9. Re:Isn't it time to get serious . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes one does, which is a damn good thing for you!

    10. Re:Isn't it time to get serious . . . by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Both an unvaccinated child and a child with a loaded gun are more likely to kill others than vaccinated children who do not yet know of their Second Amendment rights. The child with the loaded gun is more dangerous, that's all.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    11. Re:Isn't it time to get serious . . . by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      Smart people are less likely to kill people than idiots, so by your argument you are like a child with a loaded gun.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    12. Re:Isn't it time to get serious . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Man, you are a piece of shit.

  48. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Sique · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The main problem is that in the 1960ies and 1970ies, Global Cooling was a threat. With so much dust and dirt in the air, it was quite possible that the dust shield would reflect much of the sunrays back into space and thus trigger a global cooling.

    Yes, we got the problem with the dust tackled. And the threat of a Global Cooling has diminished. And yes, climate scientist were right then.

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  49. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps voting rights should be contingent upon demonstration of minimal critical thinking skills. Kinda like how you can't get a driver's licence if you cannot demonstrate you can drive. You don't get to vote if you cannot demonstrate you can think critically, maybe discern a few logical fallacies, recognize incorrect inferences, etc. Setting the voting bar at breathing, eating, shitting, and not killing those around you, isn't all that high.

    The increasing prevalence of irrationality is wearing me down. I don't really care what you think, as long as you know why and can provide sound explanations if you want to tell anyone else about it. Otherwise, pstfu.

  50. Re:The science is not settled by swillden · · Score: 1

    Nice lie you got there. The science has been settled about a century ago.

    Thimerosol wasn't used in vaccines 100 years ago, so your claim is impossible.

    To be clear I know that there is abundant evidence that Thimerosol, in the quantities used in vaccines, at least, does not cause autism or any other problem, and that even though vaccines aren't risk free, not vaccinating is vastly more risky. But to say that all possible concerns about modern vaccines were laid to rest 100 years ago is ridiculous. 100 years ago, we still thought smoking tobacco was fine, if not actually *good* for you.

    It would not be shocking to learn of newly-identified problems with vaccines, particularly in newer formulations. Though it would be shocking indeed to learn of problems worse than polio, measles, mumps, rubella, etc. because we know that without vaccines those will kill and maim large numbers of people every year.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  51. How do you get people to google? by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    That's a serious question. I can't tell you the number of times I've read some nonsense on /. that would be completely debunked by credible sources by highlighting the post, right clicking and choosing "Search Google for XYZ...". It's not just ignorance. It's wilful ignorance. I guess you could call it faith. Reminds me of this

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  52. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by techdolphin · · Score: 1

    "If you are not making mistakes you are not trying or challenging yourself." It is important to keep that in mind. I went back to school later in life and got my MA in journalism. In one class, I was willing to take a guess, and often I was wrong. I think the professor gave me an A because of my willingness to to take risks in answering questions.

  53. Natural selection is cruel. by Pezbian · · Score: 1

    n/t

    --
    In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
  54. Re:The science is not settled by swillden · · Score: 1

    "The science has been settled" says the scientism expert. Did you do the experiments yourself?

    Here's a simple study you can do: For each of the childhood diseases we vaccinate for routinely, examine the history of outbreaks. Compute the average number of deaths and maimings for each. Then, check current statistics. Use the data to test your hypothesis (whatever it might be) about the benefits of vaccination.

    Report your findings to the class.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  55. Higher quality of truth by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes, it's annoying when your kids question you all the time, and I feel for teachers who have to deal with everyone else's kids... but maybe we ought to stop with the Santa and Tooth Fairy and all the other 'cute and harmless' lies we tell kids.

    Instead, we ought to be asking them what they think, and why, and then show them where they've made errors... so when they come up against something new, they have a fighting chance of figuring it out without someone holding their hand the whole time.

    The best experience I ever had in school was a teacher mocking me for being afraid to be wrong, which is really the fork in the road where you either try to figure something out or just shut down and stick with your initial belief. We need more of that for our kids.

    Damore's essay was a fascinating peek into the sociology of lies.

    The vast, vast majority of discussion about this(*) fell into two categories:

    1) He said *that* shocking thing! (Countered with "He didn't say that")
    2) He wrote prejudiced opinions not based in fact (Countered with "He cited references for each position he took")

    Note the pattern here: the vast majority of discussion can be described as "make something up, then complain about it".

    It's a complete surprise to me how *much* dishonesty arose over this incident. I suppose it's partly due to MSM wanting to drive clicks to their sites: Gizmodo published the essay with the references removed, bolstering item #2, and CNN headlined that Damore argues women aren't suited for tech jobs for "biological" reasons, which ginned up a lot of outrage on item #1.

    There were a handful of lessor discussions in the same mould(**).

    It's fascinating because this is one example where anyone can drill down to the exact truth in moments - the published news reports are available, the words he used are available for comparison, everything everyone said is now part of the written record.

    Despite all this - despite the truth being so easy to determine - the vast majority of discussion of every aspect of this incident has been based on lies and attempts to correct them.

    We can find the truth quite easily. How, in the face of Gizmodo and CNN, can the average person do that?

    Maybe it's time we stopped worrying about what people think, and examine how they *come* to the beliefs they have.

    Having a higher quality stream of truth would be a good first step.

    (*) You can verify this for yourself: check the commentary for any of Slashdot's recent articles about Damore's essay (such as this one). The rule holds true for other social media channels.

    (**) Including: the citations he used were from institutions with clear bias, the citations he used didn't confirm his point, he claims to be a PhD but isn't (an ad-hominem attack unrelated to his point), he's not allowed to cite scientific studies because he's not himself a scientist (wtf?), he can't sue Google because CA is an "at will" state (difference between "fired for no reason" and "fired for the *wrong* reason).

    1. Re:Higher quality of truth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Maybe it's time we stopped worrying about what people think, and examine how they *come* to the beliefs they have.
      Often I think it really comes down to the first opinion you or anybody hears on a subject and that first impression can last months or years. If you never check the original sources you're always going to get someone's bias, however malignant or benign.
      I remember how the news and popular media treated Sarah Palin. Further, a friend emailed me some hoax article about how she tried to get Harry Potter books banned. I pointed out to him that it was a false internet rumor, with citation, but he wasn't swayed. He insisted that that was the sort of thing she would do. Basically dismissed it as fake but true because he made his mind up based on what other people were saying about her. He earnestly believed that it was Sarah Palin herself who said "I can see Russia from my house!"

    2. Re:Higher quality of truth by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3

      2) He wrote prejudiced opinions not based in fact (Countered with "He cited references for each position he took")

      I read the thing and no he didn't. He cited references for some of the positions he took, and make a bunch of rather large extrapolations on the remainder. Not that citations are magic indicators of truth mind you.

      He also had no references and didn't really make any reasonable attempt to actually support the central thesis, which was: "a. biological differences exist. b. differences exist in representation. c. a a causes b". Kind of a tricky one to argue since things have changes so much in the last 60 years or so, a far far faster timescale than could be explained by innate biological differences.

      There are many much more detailed takedowns that have been written in the comments on this very site. The TL;DR of them is that the arguments are pretty much all ones which have been hashed over many times before (here included). Even the supposed "4 supporting scientists" can be more or less categorised about "ignored the content, complained about the comments", "broadly disagreed", "broadly agreed" and "nothing relevant or support either way, probably did not read", which is hardly a ringing endorsement.

      Oh and what's the thing with the fetishisation of a partly[*] finished PhD in systems biology being taken as an almost magical talisman of credibility on an unrelated area of biology by many posters here?

      What we have had is that anyone pointing out that rather inconvenient fact is modded down, called a liar or accused of simply not reading it. So, rather than getting the "logical" discussion that the supporters claim to be so keen on, any dissent is met with a solid wall of screeching. I welcome downmods to prove me right on this one too!

      [*] Nothing wrong with bailing, more people ought to, frankly.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re: Higher quality of truth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Almost everything you wrote is incorrect and proves the GP post and the article splendidly...also you joined this tread only after the Google case was mentioned....pathetic arshole

    4. Re:Higher quality of truth by theCoder · · Score: 2

      He also had no references and didn't really make any reasonable attempt to actually support the central thesis, which was: "a. biological differences exist. b. differences exist in representation. c. a a causes b".

      I'm not surprised he didn't have any references or make any attempt to support "a causes b" because that's not actually in Damore's document. Instead, he wrote (paraphrased) "a might be a contributing factor in b". And frankly, it's a stretch to assume that if a and b are both true (something you don't seem to dispute) that a doesn't play any role in b.

      I'll quote from the section "Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in techâ" [emphasis mine]:

      I'm simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don't see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there's significant overlap between men and women, so you can't say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.

      [again, emphasis mine]

      If you have categorical evidence that biological differences between men and women play no part in their preferences and that those preferences play no part in people's career choices, I suggest you post it.

      Though to be back on topic, that evidence would probably do little good. And my introduction of facts will probably only harden your position. So I guess all hope of rational debate is lost.

      --
      "Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
    5. Re:Higher quality of truth by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I'm not surprised he didn't have any references or make any attempt to support "a causes b" because that's not actually in Damore's document. Instead, he wrote (paraphrased) "a might be a contributing factor in b".

      If (a) is not a contributing factor in (b) then the entire document is pointless because it's all about the case where a causes b. Trying to weasel word it as "oh I only said *might*" is a foolish game.

      And frankly, it's a stretch to assume that if a and b are both true (something you don't seem to dispute) that a doesn't play any role in b.

      Then why tas tech participation by women so much higher a scant few decades ago, far too short a timespan to be explained by innate differences because those change on evoloutionary timescales.

      [again, emphasis mine]

      Yesh well done, you've quoted the parts where he tries to weasek word it to abdicate responsibility for his claims and ignored the rest of the document where he takes it as a given and "dscusses" it a lot.

      It doesn't matter what he says about what he's saying. t only matters what he actually said, and you're intentionally ignoring that.

      If you have categorical evidence that biological differences between men and women play no part in their preferences and that those preferences play no part in people's career choices, I suggest you post it.

      There's categorical evidence that women of equivalent skill are rated less highly, and are less likely to be offered a job in the first place. But, before you start playing games, no I'm not going to post the link yet. You see I have the feeling that you're going to try to tear the reference apart. While that's fine in and of itself, you haven't extended the same throughness to the references in the manifesto. If you do that, I'll post links.

      And my introduction of facts will probably only harden your position

      One problem: they're not facts.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:Higher quality of truth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then why tas tech participation by women so much higher a scant few decades ago, far too short a timespan to be explained by innate differences because those change on evoloutionary timescales.

      You are clearly biased or believe everyone else has not been living in the same time as you do. Female participation in tech has been terrible ever since "tech" was mainstream (since the 80s at least, the 90s for sure). Males went to it despite all the social negative stigma of "nerding" (which partly explains why women didn't). You're probably thinking way further back when the computing wasn't even a field and those "computers" had more in common with telephone switchboards than today's tech, but it would intellectually dishonest to call that "tech field" or even assume that the jobs in that time have anything at all to do with the tech jobs of today. Or that distribution in that small group of people has anything to do with the tech field today.

    7. Re:Higher quality of truth by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      Trying to weasel word it as "oh I only said *might*"

      Only if by "weasel words" you mean "what Damore actually said" rather than "what some people I disagree with said".

  56. No surprise if you study how people think by techdolphin · · Score: 1

    This no surprise for cognitive scientists who study how people think. If you state what people believe, and then refute it with facts, most of the time people just defend their incorrect beliefs more strongly. Restating a person's false belief is not the best way to change a person's mind.

  57. Re:The science is not settled by Thing+1 · · Score: 0

    Your GPS? You mean, "your Loran++". Certainly, it's been tested and found to be better than Loran at identifying your location. Has nothing to do with a globe, or satellites.

    You're absolutely correct. I used to believe as you do, but then I learned new information -- your links are the old information, and won't work. So, good efficiency on your part.

    --
    I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
  58. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Computers are based on logic. Have you performed experiments with OR, AND, XOR gates yourself?

  59. Re:The science is not settled by Thing+1 · · Score: 1

    Yes but you could build a bridge across a stream in your yard if you needed to. There are countless books and resources describing exactly how to do that. If you wanted to launch a satellite? You'd have to go through gatekeeper NASA; you can't get there yourself. And I realize I'm in the minority on this site, which itself is dwindling to the minority in terms of activity.

    --
    I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
  60. Re:The science is not settled by Thing+1 · · Score: 0

    If 100 of the vaccinated died because of an outbreak of something they were supposed to be vaccinated against -- does this really support your argument that vaccination protects? Puta que pariu!

    --
    I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
  61. Re:The science is not settled by Thing+1 · · Score: 1

    Okay, sure: polio was dwindling when they released the polio vaccine which had the simian virus attached. They knew it, and decided to release it anyway. Now we have a soft-tissue cancer epidemic. See Dr. Mary's Monkey: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L...

    --
    I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
  62. Re: The science is not settled by Thing+1 · · Score: 1

    You have no clue how scientism works these days, apparently. What about those Monsanto-purchased reports that say the mice don't have tumors, the day before they start developing them?

    --
    I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
  63. suprised? by gravewax · · Score: 1

    hardly surprising, despite all the information available to them they choose to believe conspiracy theories and lunies, why would you think presenting them with science and facts would change people with such fucked up logic and thought processes.

  64. Why prayer works by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 0

    Repetition does play a key-role, obviously, in enforcing lies. Just look at the mechanism of "prayer". This has been known for a very long time to work.

    There's a mechanism in your brain(*) that filters out all the incoming sensory stimulus and only presents items that are deemed important to the conscious mind.

    So for example, while reading this you're probably unaware of your weight on your chair, the ambient sounds in the room, What you see outside the screen, and so on. The feel of pants on your legs goes unnoticed, but if a bug starts crawling up your calf it's immediately presented to your conscious mind for action.

    It's well known that if you purchase a new car you suddenly start noticing other cars of the same model as you pass them (when you didn't before), and women who purchase a style of dress start noticing other women wearing that same style.

    It's thought that this is part of a goal-seeking mechanism in the brain. Tell the mechanism your goals and it automatically filters out anything unrelated to that goal.

    This is how prayer works. We live our lives awash in information that might be relevant to our personal goals, but most of it is ignored by the RAS unless we program it with these goals.

    Prayer allows people to identify and set these goals in their mind, so that you start noticing the relevant opportunities. Pray to God for a miracle, and later you notice something comes along that helps you through your problem. Prayer works, God answers, hallelujah!

    Repetition is important, but simply setting clear goals is often sufficient to get help from the almighty.

    (*) In the Reticular Activation System, but there's some disagreement as to where it actually resides

  65. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The sun orbits the flat earth, spirits and "miasma" cause disease, there's no such thing as microbes...

  66. Re:The science is not settled by Thing+1 · · Score: 1

    Why? Seriously! If you think the default government-obedient citizens are vaccinating -- then only the non-complliant children will be infected, and will infect other non-compliant children.

    If you don't think vaccines work, then you'll agree that non-vaccinated children might infect vaccinated children. Which means, where'd your fucking argument go, if you don't think vaccines work!

    --
    I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
  67. so the campaign was poorly done by superwiz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1st thing people learn in clinical psychology is that you cannot reach the patient if you don't accept their world view. You can only navigate in their world view because any attempts to challenge it will sound very similar to what they have already heard multiple times when they were challenged on their world view. And by reminding them of how they reacted to it last time, the memory is reinforced. Anyone creating a marketing campaign should have known this.

    --
    Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    1. Re:so the campaign was poorly done by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      How do you take someone between two such completely opposite worldviews? And when you're doing it with public messaging, how can you prevent massive collateral damage to the rest of society in the process?

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    2. Re:so the campaign was poorly done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well, you don't do it with public messaging. A PM campaign will only reach your supporters and the uncommitted - committed opponents will react badly if at all. That doesn't mean it's useless - reaching the uncommitted is still worthwhile.

      As to "how do you do it?" - you show them that it works. If you'd asked anyone in the Republican party, 10 years ago, whether their party would be the one to put a Russian-backed fascist in the White House, and they would have stared at you uncomprehendingly. But look at them now. They've seen that fascism works.

    3. Re:so the campaign was poorly done by superwiz · · Score: 1

      Calling Trump a fascist is straightforward unmitigated antisemitism. In fact, it's not even avert anti-semitism. Implying collusion between Trump and RF government (after all intelligence sources have stated that no such collusion existed) is overt antisemitism. Calling Trump a Russian-backed President is therefore an overt antisemitism. Even if you try to claim that you meant something other than collusion by saying "Russian-backed", you definitely reached for this ambiguity deliberately.

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    4. Re:so the campaign was poorly done by superwiz · · Score: 1

      How do you take someone between two such completely opposite worldviews?

      You don't antagonize them, for starters. How do states market lotteries? Buying a lottery ticket is against one's self-interest. It's a tax on not knowing math. And yet people can be marketed to. How did they convince everyone that talking about presorting their own garbage is chic (aka "recycling")? Fear is not the only motivation. And it's a very poor motivation for people who have already been gilt-tripped on this particular subject (ie, the ones who have an extensive set of memories of dismissing these fears).

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    5. Re:so the campaign was poorly done by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      Calling Trump a fascist is straightforward unmitigated antisemitism.

      Except Trump isn't a Jew, you idiot.

    6. Re:so the campaign was poorly done by superwiz · · Score: 1

      Except Trump isn't a Jew

      He is a loving and supportive father of a daughter who converted to Judaism. He is the 1st President to have more Jewish grandchildren than non-jewish ones. If you say that hete of Jews is not a necessary part of being a fascist, then you are belittling the tragedy of Holocaust to the point of being antisemitic.

      you idiot

      I am not.

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
  68. Re:The science is not settled by Thing+1 · · Score: 1

    For your second paragraph, look into the history of the US Vaccine Court. Kangaroo-court indeed.

    --
    I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
  69. How valid is the study? by RobinH · · Score: 1

    Let's say the study worked like this... you identified anti-vaxxers with a poll. You then tell them they're part of a study (you have to) and you give them pro-vaxx documents and then you give them another similar poll to test their attitudes. Chances are they can figure out what's going on. The very idea that someone is trying to figure out the best rhetoric to use to change your mind is going to make you skeptical of what they're saying.

    --
    "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
    1. Re:How valid is the study? by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      OR better yet, identify them as antivaxxers with the poll and force them to travel through ebola infected areas while asking them if they would like to be vaccinated before they travel.

  70. Re:The science is not settled by Kjella · · Score: 1

    It would not be shocking to learn of newly-identified problems with vaccines, particularly in newer formulations. Though it would be shocking indeed to learn of problems worse than polio, measles, mumps, rubella, etc. because we know that without vaccines those will kill and maim large numbers of people every year.

    The problem is that it's a kind of tragedy of the commons, it's pretty hard to create anything without any side effects to anyone. People can die from anaphylactic shock after a bee sting. So if everyone else around you are immunized you have a rather massive herd immunity which makes it unlikely that you will be infected. If you're the only anti-vaxxer you'll do great, you avoid the possible side effects and in all likelihood the disease itself. If a lot of people start believing it the herd immunity is gone and you'll have an epidemic. A parallel would be the military and pacifists, if people were coming to kill you would you really let them? Or did you just take the moral high ground knowing there's a lot of non-pacifists who'll get their hands dirty for you fighting for your freedom while you're way behind the battle lines? The troll in me wants to place them at the front lines, you can shoot or be shot. Then we'd see how many are truly pacifists when they can't hide behind others.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  71. Re:The science is not settled by gweihir · · Score: 1

    So you actually believe only Science that you have verified yourself? That is pretty stupid. Because it means you basically cannot belief anything scientific. Even only verifying basic math and very basic physics takes a lifetime. I take it you also verify every CPU down to the transistor-level before you use it? Oh, wait, you will have to verify transistors first. Pretty tricky and expensive for the ones used today.

    The actually scientific approach is to build up a good body of basic knowledge, verify a random election of it, and then do plausibility checking on the statements scientists in the relevant fields make about things. Incidentally, scientists do lie and they do fake experiments. Reviewing papers has taught me that. But in the harder sciences, it is pretty hard to get away with this in the harder sciences and make it a scientifically accepted fact. It is relatively easy in areas that few scientists care about and that have little impact on the rest of the scientific field. These lies usually only get discovered when somebody tries to build on the claims and finds out they do not actually hold up.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  72. Re:The science is not settled by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    'd rather air (sic) on the side of caution. When my children are adults they can decide for themselves if they want to take that poison.

    Please do so. Hopefully they will die from one of the childhood diseases that vaccines can prevent, and end the spread of your genes.

    Now as for the article stating:

    What seems to have happened was that the pro-vax campaign was taken by anti-vaxers as just another attempt to lie to them.

    Paranoid personality disorder is almost impossible to treat, because (1) paranoid people take anything, even coincidences, as evidence that someone is out to get them in one way or another, and (2) they believe their paranoid delusions are validation of their inner self, and any attempt to point out the contrary is just more proof that their paranoia is justified.

    It doesn't have to make sense, because we're dealing with people showing signs that in any other situation would be seen as a break with reality, but because of "we must give equal weight to all opinions, even the totally batshit crazy ones," you're evil if you try to do so in this case, again reinforcing their delusions.

    Can anyone who isn't an anti-vaxxer deny these people are showing signs of mental illness?

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  73. The problem with this is attribution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Such prosecutions can't succeed without credible attribution.

    Prove that person that got harmed really caught it from, or because of, person who was unvaccinated, and that it wasn't the fault of the vaccine company for providing the person who got harmed a defective vaccine. (In many cases, vaccines are only ~95% effective or lower.)

    Still, I'd love to see such prosecutions attempted.

  74. Re: The science is not settled by gweihir · · Score: 1

    This is a long-term thing. In the short-term Science can and has been be manipulated. As I said, you are clueless.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  75. Re:The science is not settled by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

    You most certainly can do experiments yourself to prove that vaccinations work (the current topic). The same primitive techniques that Louis Pasteur used didn't die with him.

    Given your ignorance of stuff you should have learned in high school but didn't, perhaps it's a good thing that you're in the minority.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  76. Re:The science is not settled by bsolar · · Score: 1

    And who says that "erring on the side of caution" means *not* vaccinating them? For that to be true would mean that the risk of vaccination is greater than the risk of contracting the disease the vaccination protects from. Since the risk of vaccination is statistially very well known and *very* small, erring on the side of caution means going with the vaccination "just in case".

  77. Re:The science is not settled by gweihir · · Score: 1

    It would not be shocking to learn of newly-identified problems with vaccines, particularly in newer formulations. Though it would be shocking indeed to learn of problems worse than polio, measles, mumps, rubella, etc. because we know that without vaccines those will kill and maim large numbers of people every year.

    And that is just my point. It requires a really huge problem with a vaccine in order for it to be worse than what it cures. That means the main risk-management part of the science has been settled long ago. And it is the risk-management angle the anti-vaxxers are attacking. (Without understanding it...) Details may evolve, but they are, you know, details.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  78. Re:The science is not settled by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    Computers are based on logic. Have you performed experiments with OR, AND, XOR gates yourself?

    Obviously the only logic they're familiar with is NOP :-)

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  79. Re:The science is not settled by bsolar · · Score: 1

    Actually no, not all of them might have had that choice available depending on their condition. This is the reason herd protection is so important and the reason *everyone* able to get vaccinated should do so: to protect those who cannot on top of themselves and their family and friends.

  80. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Found the flat earther!

  81. Re:The science is not settled by IcyWolfy · · Score: 1

    So, would I want to be one of 8000+ dead, unvaccinated, or one of the 100 dead vaccinated.
    I would rather take the latter odds.
    Nothing in life is 100% guaranteed. Mitigating risk by taking vaccines helps by mitigating the risk to any given individual. It doesn't nullify it.

    I would personally accept the risk of being the unfortunate 1 in a million, who die because the vaccine was not effective on my specific physiology.

         

  82. medical science is a lie by strstr · · Score: 0

    the anti vaxers are smart. they pick up on the lies. they know medical professionals lie to promote their businesses. it's a business not medicine. this has resulted in medicine science being mostly entirely fraudulent propaganda, statements made by the medical profession without facts or scientific basis.

    I have knowledge that vaccines are mostly a for profit system. doctors like them because so many visits to their offices are forced by pro vaccine legislature backed by billions of dollars in profits. they like to use a psychological warfare tactic to disarm the public who feels wronged by the profiting and forced medical procedures.

    the same issue effects psychiatry. psychiatry is largely debunked by the industries own medical science but you never hear about it from them. they profit off abducting healthy children and adults into mental hospitals, for profit group homes, where mental health care is not provided only forced medication injections.

    take a look at these four sites. even the United Nations special Reporter on health and torture is asking the United States to stop. http://www.psychrights.org/ http://www.madinamerica.com/ http://www.mindfreedom.org/ http://www.cchr.org/ http://www.wayneramsay.com/

    the medical science behind psychiatric drugs proves the drugs cause severe brain damage, induce psychosis and mental disorders, prevent recovery, induce suicides and homicides, cause 25 years of life expectancy to be reduced, kill between 1 in 3 and 1 in 2 within 17 years of the neuroleptics, kill 500,000+ elderly alone yearly, do not treat any mental disorder but serve to tranquilize and chemical lobotomize only, etc. yet the standard practice when you sit down in front of any psychiatrist, MD, school counselor, or end up in the ER is for them to prescribe a drug to you knowing it won't help. sickening. maddening.

    http://www.trumpsweapon.com/

    1. Re:medical science is a lie by strstr · · Score: 1

      not everyone has autism but you cannot always measure the damage. you cannot always tell when a brain disorder is caused of varying degrees. it may not be noticeable but it's still damage. even people with TBI have this problem. the test results all come back normal but the person does have TBI. one cause is detection methods for TBI is not very good, cannot see cell death or cable breaks because MRIs are not high enough resolution.

      the medical industry is using this flaw to say the vaccines do not cause autism because they lack high enough resolution MRIs/ tests. a before and after shot of the brain would show the vaccines are causing damage only once the new high resolution scanners were designed and deployed.

      only one hospital in the world has a scanner that might do: Pittsburgh University, they call it HD fiber tracking.

      the military has classified scans that work even better but those will never even be disclosed to the public. they use those scanners for surveillance and mind control weapons like #NSAESP.

      be careful when someone denies the truthfulness of these kinds of articles. from what I know environment plays a large roll in the damage being done to humans, our cells, and DNA. EMF exposure is also playing a roll in autism.

      the university of San Diego also recently confirmed the cause of autism is largely environmental..

    2. Re:medical science is a lie by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      HAHAHA "trumpsweapon". Griffen also has "obamasweapon" pointed to the same site. It's impossible to take anything you might say seriously when your a fan of someone like Todd Giffen, who out-crazies Alex Jones.

    3. Re:medical science is a lie by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      the anti vaxers are smart. they pick up on the lies. they know medical professionals lie to promote their businesses. it's a business not medicine. this has resulted in medicine science being mostly entirely fraudulent propaganda, statements made by the medical profession without facts or scientific basis.

      If this were to be the anti-vaxers' motive, then why is there still an anti-vax movement in countries where medicine is socialized?

  83. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "We see the same from scientists who study nutrition. One decade we're told that all fat is bad, and it must be removed from our diets"

    As with much of your post, this never happened to the extent you pass it off as, as least from a large concensus view. In terms of modern science, fats have always been considered essential to the human diet, and that's been reflected in the large percentage that is considered to make up your daily dietary intake. Anyone with a basic understanding of biochemistry and biology knows this, unless you want to severely restrict cell and nervous system formation and maintenance, and that knowledge has been around for over half a century, at least.

    The debate has been over the amount above the basic requirements and the type of fat intake. That's evolved as our understanding of biology increased, particular with disease processes, esp cardiovascular.

    Much of your post, as with the fat issue, is pure, inflated BS where you take a failing and pass it off as encompassing everyone and everything in a field. It's like one person mutinied and now everyone on the ship deserves to be blown up. No wonder you don't trust squat; you can't even evaluate the validity of the sources or review the literature appropriately. Don't pass off your piss poor understanding of science, debate, and data as contempt of entire fields instead of representing a poor reflection of yourself.

    Furthermore, something being wrong once does not encompass the entire validity of the process. And the process is one of constant improvement, review, and restudy, something that is severely lacking at almost any other level of human evaluation. Some climate scientists being wrong in the past because of reason A because no one was looking at reason B doesn't mean the entire field is wrong 40+ years after further research and advancement. The very basis of the fields is one of reviewing past wrongs in order to learn and make a more accurate model.

  84. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can't teach critical thinking here in the US. You'll be called a 'liberal'.

  85. Re:The science is not settled by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    Fucking moron. No vaccine is 100% effective. Nobody claimed it was, so you're just another straw man with a head full of straw instead of brains.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  86. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    A big mistake was making Al Gore the spokesman for climate change. That unnecessarily politicized the issue. Back in 2007, most Republican presidential candidates agreed that climate change was a serious issue that need to be addressed. That would never happen today. They don't want to be accused of "agreeing with Al Gore". For Republican politicians, it is a toxic issue, and has become an ideological litmus test, so facts and evidence no longer matter.

  87. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Assuming equal populations of vaccinated vs un-vaccinated, that's a dramatic decrease in mortality. Maybe 80x resistance to a disease in real-world, non-laboratory conditions isn't good enough proof for you. So I propose an alternate theory: belief in vaccine efficacy decreases mortality rate by 80x.

    Sure, they're not perfect. Flu vaccines are nowhere near as effective as many other vaccines. Think about that. We consider a vaccine which only causes an 80% reduction in morality to be 'not very effective'.

  88. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 2

    Still no. People still have a difficult time finding all those studies that claimed global cooling.

    --
    Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
  89. how would a war on stupidity by mspring · · Score: 1

    ...look like to be effective? Some carrot and stick approach? Or we just need to let Darwin do it's job over generations?

    1. Re:how would a war on stupidity by Tailhook · · Score: 1

      It looks like the GULAG system the Soviets operated. You set up a bunch of primitive labor camps and fill them with whomever fails to conform with your wishes. You keep the zeks on a starvation diet and work them to exhaustion. Those that don't die from these conditions are retired to the surrounds after 20 years or so, but not permitted back into populated areas.

      It's been done before so you have a working model to draw on for your needs.

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
    2. Re:how would a war on stupidity by mspring · · Score: 1

      Too much "stick". What would be your "carrot"? Or are you saying there's nothing which can be done?

  90. Re:The science is not settled by bsolar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If 100 of the vaccinated died because of an outbreak of something they were supposed to be vaccinated against -- does this really support your argument that vaccination protects?

    Sure: not providing 100% protection doesn't mean not providing protection at all. Claiming the opposite would be ridiculous and we all don't apply such a standard in other cases, so why applying it to vaccines?

    As example, using seat belts definitely do *not* save 100% of those who have a car accident, but we consider them an effective protection still.

  91. The science is settled by IcyWolfy · · Score: 1

    Vaccinations are not 100%.
    Nothing is 100%, and to assume that is even a possibilty is folly.

    Plenty of people cannot obtain vaccines, and rely on herd immunity. The very young, the very old, those with immunity-compromising diseases.

    One family was sued (and lost) precisely because her child, caught measles, and infected (and killed) two children who were too young for vaccines.

    In France, there were less than 10 cases of measles a year, no deaths; when the rate of vaccination fell to 98%, there were over 4500 cases in a single year, many deaths, and then spread through the unvaccinated population across Europe within months, killing many infants.

    In Utah, one unvaccinated person returned from Europe, and then promptly exposed over 1000+ people to the Measles virus, those unvaccinated, (mostly children), were hospitalized and suffered brain damaged from the disease.

    Neither option is without risk, but the risks of not vaccinating far outweight the risks of vaccinating.
    And the risks of not vaccinating do not place yourself in danger, but affect thousands of others you are near.
    If we are to allow non-vaccination as an option, everyone who is un-vaccinated must pay for the health-care and hospitalization of everyone who subsequently catches the disease from communication they caused, directly and indirectly. Those unable to be vaccinated due to disease or age, would be exempt. People must take personal responsibility for the effects their actions cause unto others.

    1. Re:The science is settled by Ihlosi · · Score: 1
      People must take personal responsibility for the effects their actions cause unto others.

      In what Utopia does that happen and how do I get there?

      In the real world, real people usually don't take that kind of responsibility, unless it affects them financially or can land them in prison. If there are no consequences to them, they just don't care what happens to others.

  92. Re: The science is not settled by bsolar · · Score: 1

    You mean, the science has been *bought* by big pharma a long time ago.

    You don't need much science to accept the validity of vaccination: everyone knows that once you get measles you become immune to it, assuming your immune system is functional and you survive it. There is no way to accept that and discredit vaccination since they operate on exactly the same principle.

  93. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Trusting a medical opinion because the person giving it is a celebrity is not critical thinking. Trusting someone because they're a celebrity is how you got Trump as president. And people continue to trust celebrities even after they've been caught in lie after lie after lie. Why? Because even if we did invent a vaccine against stupidity, they would be against it because they're stupid.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  94. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anti-vac trend can also be considered a form of critical thinking.

    More critical, less thinking. Same as a teenager.

    With responsibilities comes more thoughts, less critics. That's when teenagers become adults.

  95. Re:The science is not settled by Mkkby · · Score: 1

    Science is never settled. Science is corrupted by politics and money. Science leaves out important caveats. Conclusion -- science is no more trustworthy than your taxi driver or janitor. Make up your own mind when it comes to your health and well being.

    If science is trying to bully people to get a point across, then obviously they haven't made a strong enough case. Try for full disclosure instead of lies. Many vaccines are only partially or slightly effective. The UNSPOKEN hope is herd immunity. When you leave out this important information, you are committing a fraud and this perpetuates the myths.

    I will NEVER TRUST a pharmaceutical company, politician or news reporter. Once you lie, trust is nearly impossible to get back.

  96. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You may most certainly launch a satellite. It just requires a lot more knowledge than building a bridge in your yard.

    Keep in mind that the Engineers (launching a Satellite is not an experiment, so it is not Science) at NASA are not born there, NASA hires them. That means they have to be qualified, and to be qualified, they'll have to have learned enough to launch a satellite before applying.

    There is nothing beyond a lot of learning and work that separates these other people from you. If you don't know how to do it, you just need to spend some more time in a quality library (big University, not public reading library) where they have books that push the boundaries of learning. My Alma Mater's library is open to the public, come on over.

    Of course, if you had someone who could explain a little of it to you at a time, you might pick it up faster; but, in theory you could learn it all independently. That's how the original rocket makers did it.

    And no, you are not a minority on this site. You are in the majority. Over half of the population comes up with ideas that are below average, and even the average person would know that if NASA held all the secrets of rocket flight, SpaceX wouldn't exist, nor would the first rockets; because, the first rockets were launched by Germany.

    The mechanics behind immunization are equally as clear, but continue to think you're being persecuted while you are actually persecuting your children. Have you seen a polio child? Go google it and do an image search. Measles? Go google it and do an image search. Mumps, Rubella, Diptheria, Pertussis, Tetnus, Hepatitus B, HPV, Rotovirus? Go google them. These are diseases that you can easily avoid by vaccination.

    If you think vaccination is bunk, keep in mind it was created by the same man that Pastuerized your milk, which used to spoil each day beforehand. He reduced the mortality of Peripural Fever (an infection at childbirth), he was one of the 3 people responsible for discovering microorganisims, proved germ theory to be correct, found the relatinship between molecular chemistry and crystal assemetry, as well as discovering and describing the chemical basis for racemic structures. He disproved the concept of spontaneous generation of life, and our debt to him is huge.

    But hey, if you're not going to vaccinate, then don't be a bigot! Stop washing those hands, stop buying milk from the store (and the things made from it), get a doctor that doesn't wash his hands to deliver your child, and avoid most forms of medicine. Be true to your ideas, or we will laugh at you for being "true" to anti-vaccination but then crying foul when your get a doctor who doesn't prescribe to the basics of germ theory.

  97. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because everyone else in the world is against you... honestly how statistically likely do you think it is that thousands of scientists research spanning a century are a conspiracy. By all means keep that delusion and apply it to everything else in life, you will quickly go insane because you think you live in the matrix.

  98. Same old ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "People tend to mistake repetition for truth."

    Politicians, bigots, climate change deniers, and any number of people with conspiracy barrows to push have known this for years.

    Say it often enough, say it loud enough, and it becomes the truth.

    Sad when reason, data and evidence are Trumped by bigotry and prejudice.

  99. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    Perhaps voting rights should be contingent upon demonstration of minimal critical thinking skills. Kinda like how you can't get a driver's licence if you cannot demonstrate you can drive.

    How quaint. This series is devoted to people with drivers licenses who cannot drive. Can't park without hitting another car and driving off. Can't stay in their lane. Routinely step on the gas when they want to brake. Can't see, but won't get glasses. Have totaled many cars. Who are afraid of driving in traffic. Who cut everyone off. Who stop in the middle of intersections. Who make right-hand turns from the innermost of 3 lanes. Who don't understand what traffic signals mean. Who talk on the phone while eating and doing their makeup in the rear-view mirror while driving (that one was a real estate agent who claimed she could multitask, but missed stop signs). Who thought the maximum speed limit was just a suggestion, and you could go as fast as you wanted. Who somehow got their license and have never driven since because they KNOW they can't drive.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  100. vaccines do cause damage regardless of the lies by strstr · · Score: 0

    not everyone has autism but you cannot always measure the damage. you cannot always tell when a brain disorder is caused of varying degrees. it may not be noticeable but it's still damage. even people with TBI have this problem. the test results all come back normal but the person does have TBI. one cause is detection methods for TBI is not very good, cannot see cell death or cable breaks because MRIs are not high enough resolution.

    the medical industry is using this flaw to say the vaccines do not cause autism because they lack high enough resolution MRIs/ tests. a before and after shot of the brain would show the vaccines are causing damage only once the new high resolution scanners were designed and deployed.

    only one hospital in the world has a scanner that might do: Pittsburgh University, they call it HD fiber tracking.

    the military has classified scans that work even better but those will never even be disclosed to the public. they use those scanners for surveillance and mind control weapons like #NSAESP.

    be careful when someone denies the truthfulness of these kinds of articles. from what I know environment plays a large roll in the damage being done to humans, our cells, and DNA. EMF exposure is also playing a roll in autism.

    the university of San Diego also recently confirmed the cause of autism is largely environmental.

    1. Re:vaccines do cause damage regardless of the lies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not that long ago, a study revealed that the changes that cause autism were present 6 months before the onset of symptoms, utterly destroying any credibility of the vaccines cause autism theory, as has every other study.
      Anti vaxxers are dangerous, stupid people who society needs to isolate, and let them die of the diseases they refuse to help prevent.

  101. Re:The science is not settled by Mkkby · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    So-called settled science is rocked by new discoveries LITERALLY ALL THE TIME.

    Just a few short years ago, astronomers thought they knew everything. Big bang from a point source, expansion, stop and maybe contraction.

    Now it's completely different. Big bang happened everywhere at once. Accelerating expansion. Missing 90% of matter. Unknown *fudge factor* dark matter/energy. Might as well call this ether, as poorly as it's understood.

    Much of science is really just zealotry or religion in it's ability to tolerate dissent.

  102. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1, Informative

    Climate scientists were right then, but it's because most of them were ignoring the global cooling bullshit:

    http://physicstoday.scitation....

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  103. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I see you subscribe to "Post Hoc Ergo Proptor Hoc".

  104. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    A big mistake was making Al Gore the spokesman for climate change. That unnecessarily politicized the issue. Back in 2007, most Republican presidential candidates agreed that climate change was a serious issue that need to be addressed. That would never happen today. They don't want to be accused of "agreeing with Al Gore". For Republican politicians, it is a toxic issue, and has become an ideological litmus test, so facts and evidence no longer matter.

    I call that BS. Way before Al Gore became the spokesman for climate change republicans were already steering away from it because... lobbying. This is an article from the Guardian from 1997, called "Who Killed Kyoto?": https://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/Guardian.html

    So way before Al Gore ran for president, or he did his movie/documentary, or whatever...

  105. Re:The science is not settled by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Well said.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  106. Re:The science is not settled by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Same here. Statistical optimization is not perfect (you can still get hit, even with a low probability), but it is a whole lot better than the alternatives. Especially when you take into account that a lot of dangerous things are optimized this way, because that is the main approach to risk-management.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  107. How could you use a computer to post that? by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

    Did you do the experiments yourself?

    How did you dare to use a computer to post that? Computers rely on scary atomic and quantum physics and contain toxic chemicals. How do you know they are safe to use if you haven't verified the science behind them by doing the experiments yourself?

    Even worse, they also emit electromagnetic radiation. It's well known that gamma rays are electromagnetic radiation too and even experts say that they are dangerous. So please, until you have done the experiments yourself to confirm that computers are safe to use please stay away from them. You aren't just risking your life but your electromagnetic emanations may also risk the lives of others too.

    1. Re:How could you use a computer to post that? by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      When I was in school (in the 1960's) two kids in my class had withered limbs from polio, because vaccines were only just introduced and many kids had not had them.

      Today, if you go to Pakistan or Nigeria, you will see many kids with withered limbs from Polio because mad Muslim clerics oppose vaccination as the work of the CIA and support the murder the health professionals involved.

      Yes, I have been to Nigeria and seen this for myself.

      Even if he has not done the experiment himself, there are many millions people that have seen this, though possibly not in Backwoods, KY.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    2. Re: How could you use a computer to post that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I remember correctly, unfortunately the CIA did use vaccination programs in some countries to gather intelligence. A dumb idea they have agreed not to repeat in the future after pressure from the international community. .

  108. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    Perhaps voting rights should be contingent upon demonstration of minimal critical thinking skills.

    So you're an elitist then. How cool and edgy. You advocating for a return to only property owners being able to vote, while you're at it?

  109. Re:The science is not settled by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Indeed. While vaccination is pretty much irreversible, getting maimed or killed by the things you typically vaccinate children again is also pretty much irreversible. And once they are sick, it is too late for vaccinations.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  110. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Uberbah · · Score: 2

    The main problem is that in the 1960ies and 1970ies, Global Cooling was a threat.

    No, it wasn't. Stop parroting memes based on FUD & bullshit.

  111. Re:The science is not settled by gravewax · · Score: 1

    yes it does support the argument. Vaccination is not perfect, no one ever claimed it to be. Vaccination has a very high success rate and does far less damage than the diseases it is protecting against and for it to be successful you need to ensure all those that can be vaccinated are. The Anti Vaxxers risk everyones lives by breaking down the herd immunity. I would be fine for them to do this if they were happy to go live on an isolated island somewhere. Most should be put in jail for change child abuse or attempted murder as that is really what they are doing.

  112. Re:The science is not settled by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    Science is never settled.

    When was the last time you jumped off a cliff or skyscraper to test the theory of gravity?

  113. Vaccination card to cross international borders? by Latent+Heat · · Score: 1

    Back in the day (the early 1960's?), a person had to get a stuff-ton of "shots" to travel to Europe. Today, it is hard to understand regarding Germany and Italy as being that level of "Third World", but you have to remember that was barely 15 years after the WW-II devastation.

    How about "to reenter the U.S. after leaving it, you have to be current on the measles and other vaccines?"

  114. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The main problem is that in the 1960ies and 1970ies, Global Cooling was a threat.

    You'd think for all the times science deniers trot this out they'd have found something to back up their delusion by now, but, being a delusion, there really isn't anything to support that claim. They all point to one news article written by the same media they claim to be dishonest and unbelievable. Why don't you do yourself a favor and produce some published research that claims global cooling was a threat and has the data to support it. Try to do it before one of us dies.

  115. Re:The science is not settled by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    Science is never settled.

    Ah, the "scientists were wrong before, therefore they could be wrong against vaccines now" wankery. Problem; the ideas about spontaneous generation et cetera were replaced by superior ideas backed up by research and testing. Not the hand waving bullllshit employed by anti-vaxxers.

  116. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, it's annoying when your kids question you all the time, and I feel for teachers who have to deal with everyone else's kids... but maybe we ought to stop with the Santa and Tooth Fairy and all the other 'cute and harmless' lies we tell kids.

    If it wasn't hurting critical thinking in the past, there's no reason to believe it's hurting critical thinking today. What is hurting critical thinking is teaching to the test and turning schools into social indoctrination camps.

  117. Yet, kids still die every eyar. by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

    It's a little over 100 a year dead (and another 2000ish hospitalized or severe effects) as self reported by doctors to the CDC VERS voluntary system which the CDC says is underreported by up to 90% (but mostly the more minor cases)

    We need to put more more into tests to determine which children we shouldn't vaccinate. We know now for sure that there are blood pressure drugs that you just shouldn't give to certain people with certain genetic markers.

    We have to do this because just for Diphtheria alone, we were losing 15,000 children each and every year.

    But it has interesting parallels to the death penalty. In the case of vaccination, we are giving the state the power to mandate actions which kill about 100 random children per year so it will save about a quarter million children per year.

    In the case of execution, we don't want to give the state power to kill people because some of them have been shown to be innocent and we find that horrific.

    And in 1984 the government was actively advancing the position that anti-vaccination data should be censored for public health reasons.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  118. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Our cat pushes stuff off the counter to check the theory of gravity all the time.

  119. We Use the Wrong Language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We use the wrong language on vaccine deniers. Here's what we need to be saying:

    "There's a secret, and Big Pharma and Big Medicine doesn't want you to know about it. You can be completely immune to [Smallpox/Measles/Diphtheria/whatever] and it's easy! But with just one low cost immunization, Big Pharma can't sell you a lifetime of drugs to treat your symptoms! The conspiracy is vast but the Truth Is Out There! Now can I interest you in some healing Tibetan Shaman crystals? How about a miracle magnetic bracelet?"

    The sad part is that deniers need a message that is 180 degrees reversed from the message everyone else needs.

    1. Re: We Use the Wrong Language by Brockmire · · Score: 2

      Throw in the word "homoeopathic" somewhere to grab some more holdouts.

    2. Re:We Use the Wrong Language by Pentium100 · · Score: 2

      Go for emotion:

      This year, X children died from [preventable disease] (picture of a child in hospital, picture of people carrying a small coffin). If only they were vaccinated, they would still run round and play instead of laying dead. (interview with a crying parent who says he has killed his child by not vaccinating him). (interview with another crying parent who says that his child was unable to be vaccinated, contracted the disease from some intenionally-unvaccinated child and died).

      Another way you could do this would be to compare anti-vaxxers with Nazis. Interview some anti-vaxxer who says that if his child is not immune to diseases, then he should die. Or someone who says that he would rather his child died than became autistic. And if his child is ever diagnosed with autism, then the parent will kill him to preserve the intellectual and racial purity.

      People respond to emotion better than facts. Just like infrequent-but-big tragic events like plane crashes may make people consider aircraft to be less safe than cars, even though, if you reported every fatal car crash in every country (like they do with airplane crashes), you would need multiple channels to be doing that 24/7, just to keep up.

    3. Re:We Use the Wrong Language by not+flu · · Score: 1

      Not taking the other side seriously will just make them respond in kind. Thinking and acting like this is why anti-anti-vaxxers have no impact.

  120. Used to be hard to get the flu vaccine by Latent+Heat · · Score: 1

    Let's say my work environment exposes me to an international population that crosses borders at regular intervals within the year, and there is a lot of pressure to not take any days off over large multi-week intervals -- to play-through-the-pain as it were. Whatever vaccine there is, inject me with it!

    Over the course of my career, I remember a time when I had to lobby really hard to get my health care provider to give me, not in a high-risk group (not a small child, old person, or health care provider) the flu vaccine. Standing in front of a phalanx of coughing, sneezing people or being required to meet face-to-face with same coughing, sneezing persons, many who just got off a plane from parts of the world where flu epidemics are bred, this didn't count as "high risk."

    This has changed -- these days there are at-work stand-in-line-to-get-your-flu-shot clinics staffed by volunteer nurses to give the flu shot to anyone who flashes their employee health-insurance card or a 10 dollar bill. One year a lady in line behind me forgot her health insurance card and I just pulled a 10 out of my wallet and handed it to the nurse -- not out of altruism but out of self interest and "herd immunity."

    I got a vibe that earlier on, "they" didn't really want non high-risk people vaccinated for flu on account of the vaccine-risk vs flu-risk tradeoff. The memory of the "Swine Flu" scare was such that the Swine Flu was the Comet Kohoutek of pandemic flu but the vaccine was blamed on killing people through Guillain-Barre Syndrome as some mysterious auto-immune reaction to the vaccine. I got a severe scolding from a speech-therapist colleague on a collaborative research project, "You got the flue vaccine? You haven't seen what I have seen of paralyzed people coming into my clinic for swallowing therapy in the aftermath of the flu vaccine!"

    Now, the vibe is the flu vaccine is perfectly safe and everyone who wants it should get it.

    Long story short, the flu vaccine is a bad example of "something that is good for you and entirely irrational to pass up." There was a time within my work career when others than crazy new-age-ie medically ignorant people had vaccine skepticism.

    1. Re:Used to be hard to get the flu vaccine by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Anecdotal evidence is nice to point out directions to investigate. It is not useful to actually prove anything.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  121. Nobody like to teach it by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    because it doesn't seem practical. You generally teach critical thinking with English and humanities courses. But more and more we're cutting back on those because of expense. Sure, you can teach critical thinking in math & science to the smarter kids, but it's not the smarter kids you're worried about, is it?

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Nobody like to teach it by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      You generally teach critical thinking with English and humanities courses.

      No, what they teach in English and humanities courses is critical analysis,
      an aspect of post-modernist philosophy having little to do with critical thinking itself.

  122. Re: What's said is that scientists discredited sci by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A big part of the problem is how the results a presented. Sometimes that was due to scientists. Sometimes that was due to journalists. For example: no credible scientist was claimimg that cities would be submerged. Temperatures increasing, certainly. Sea levels rising, yes. Increased chances of flooding in coastal areas, sure. But submerged cities, well the closest thing that I have heard to that are a handful of Pacific islands at high tide. Even then I seem to recall increased erosion being the dominant factor.

    Of course, the simplification of data is a more mundane and significant problem. Amongst each other, scientist tend to discuss how confident they are that results fall in a particular range. Journalists like to fall back on a singular number. The more sensational they want the story to be, the more likely they are to choose one of the extreme values of the range.

  123. Watch Vaxxed for the truth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A CDC whistleblower proved that the CDC knew about the link between MMR and autism and did everything they could to bury the evidence. He was the guy responsible for the destruction of the evidence. He called out to an "anti-vaxer" to tell him exactly which documents to request in a freedom of information request to get the documents out before they were destroyed forever.

    My friend's son was a perfectly normal and talkative little boy before his SECOND MMR vaccine. After the injection he had a seizure. The doctor said it's perfectly normal and not to worry. He was forever changed that day, and was later diagnosed with autism.

    Issues like these are why I cannot take the "mythbusters" seriously. They are willfully ignorant and are a danger to society.

  124. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Politicizing any issue is the best way to ensure no progress is made. I see you are still helping do that.

  125. Re:The science is not settled by ArylAkamov · · Score: 1

    We continue to call it the theory of gravity because we are always open to changes if new evidence is found. Hence, science is never settled.

  126. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you keep saying that mercury based preservatives (now removed) were good for us, maybe we'll believe Bin LAden had something to do with 9-11 too! Don't let the scientific facts of mercury being bad and 9-11 being a controlled demolition stop the propaganda meisters! Hitlary could still become president !!! ae911truth dot org

  127. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What has Usain Goring, the Klimate Primate, got to do with vaxx vs anti-vaxx. Nothing apart from sponsored pseudo-scientific fud.
    Big Pharma OWN your doctor and health provider network. Just as 1 in every 10,000 Toyotas, Mercedes Benzes or Teslas is going to be a lemon, 1 in 10,000 vaccinations can "go wrong". This is just the nature of such things.
    That said, it really sucks if YOU buy that specific Toyota, Mercedes Benz or Tesla. And more so if YOUR kid is that ONE in 10,000. You can dump the car lemon, you have the child until they die. I personally know of one such extremely tragic case, so the pro-vaxxers should just shut up and admit to the reality of the stats.

  128. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by avandesande · · Score: 1

    Santa and tooth fairy? It's glowing panels that fill them with bullshit.

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
  129. Who cares about vaxxers by avandesande · · Score: 1

    It's like someone being wrong on the internet, just ignore them

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
    1. Re:Who cares about vaxxers by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      It's like someone being wrong on the internet, just ignore them

      Except you can't because they're putting you and others in danger because they are breaking the herd immunity. Some percentage of people cannot be vaccinated (allergies), for some other percentage the vaccine also does not stick so retain limited immunity despite vaccination. Having everyone else vaccinated means that the density of those people is too low to allow for an outbreak.

      Not if you have anti-vaxxers running wild though.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:Who cares about vaxxers by avandesande · · Score: 1

      Either we have laws about vaccinations or we don't. Enforce them or not. Arguing with idiots is a fools game.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
  130. Re:The science is not settled by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2

    For the record, I hate the phrase "the science is settled", because it's utter nonsense. Science is never settled - that refutes the nature of the scientific method itself, in which everything is subject to questioning. History is replete with "common scientific knowledge" being not just modified, but occasionally completely overturned. Cosmology is filled with such examples, many of which are in the past century. The discovery of plate tectonics is another example. To think modern science is beyond such reproach is the height of arrogance.

    That being said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. To date, as far as I'm aware, the common research cited as evidence for the link between vaccinations and autism have been rather thoroughly debunked in the wider scientific and medical communities. In some cases, there were even some very damning conflicts of interest found with the original researchers and the topics of study. The typical defense? "Conspiracy theories", which of course are impossible to disprove.

    Childhood diseases and widespread outbreaks were a very real, very tragic part of life not so many generations ago. I think part of the modern anti-vax movement works simply because the past few generations haven't had to deal with the result of NO vaccinations. Moreover, it taps into a common need of people to find something to blame for life's tragedies. No one wants to be told that sometimes, unfortunate things sometimes happen because of factors we simply don't yet understand. So, a convenient boogieman is invented. Powerlines cause cancer. Vaccinations cause autism. And so on...

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  131. Monoculture is a threat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its fine to non vax. Monoculture can wipe a species. Let the ones who decide to vax, the non vaxers non vax, and the genetically endangered take the needed precaution. Its life, so everyone is gonna die at some point. We just dont need you pretending it will be on nice terms. Vaccines kill also.

  132. In other news... by Kjella · · Score: 2

    ...more evidence of evolution doesn't change the opinion of people who don't believe in evolution. More evidence of Holocaust doesn't change the opinion of Holocaust deniers. Some people refuse the axioms of the scientific method, they've decided what the truth is and will ignore or alter the facts to preserve their belief. To the paranoid, everybody is out to get you and only pretending otherwise. To the conspiracy theorists, if it contradicts the theory it's part of the conspiracy. Also if it's not working, you're not doing it right or it's not a proper implementation of your ideology or religion. And if nothing else works call it fake news and muddy the waters as best you can, if the signal doesn't support your case bury it in noise.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  133. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by PoopJuggler · · Score: 2

    If that's true, it's just more evidence that the right is a plague on this country, and planet. Seriously, pride over planet? Grow some fucken balls.

  134. Re:The science is not settled by PoopJuggler · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately they won't die because modern medicine is pretty good, they'll just get crippled and become a burden to society.

  135. Re: What's said is that scientists discredited sci by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So why don't you stop fucking politicizing it, dipshit?

    Like you literally said the problem, then proceeded to emulate the problem. You're either trying to make people not believe in it, or you're so stupid and partisan that you'd rather score insults.

  136. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    If that's true, it's just more evidence that the right is a plague on this country, and planet.

    So? Politics is a fact of life. Are you ok with destroying the planet as long as it is someone else's fault? Advocates of climate action knew (or should have known) that using a partisan politician as their champion would have a strong negative effect on building consensus and actually getting anything done.

  137. Vaccine by meglon · · Score: 1

    Too bad we can't come up with a vaccine for stupidity; talk about a huge market need with that one.

    --
    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  138. Re: The science is not settled by Brockmire · · Score: 1

    At no fucking time was it ever considered known. "Theory" is right in the fucking name. It's a best guess model simplified for something hardcore complex that happened billions of years ago. There's tons of examples of debunked science based on new discoveries, but don't go acting like anyone ever thought The Big Bang was a solved mystery.

  139. Re:The science is not settled by dbIII · · Score: 1

    For the record, I hate the phrase "the science is settled"

    Don't worry about it, the phrase is really just a polite way to ask someone to stop lying. Science is a process as you say.

  140. Re:The science is not settled by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Go talk to your Grandad about polio.
    My parents never learned how to swim because the public pools were closed in case they were a vector spreading the large number of polio cases in the area.

  141. Damn - posted on the wrong comment by dbIII · · Score: 1

    GP poster it looks like I put my comment in the wrong place and it was not aimed at you.

  142. Re:The science is not settled by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Consider that Wakefield, the guy who pushed the "Thimerosol causes autism" line, was running a scam and has a patent on a different preservative.
    That puts it in a different category to your examples doesn't it?

  143. Re:The science is not settled by dbIII · · Score: 1

    And who says that "erring on the side of caution" means *not* vaccinating them?

    Epidemiological studies.

    I didn't die of measles but some kids my age did. My parents didn't get polio but a lot of kids their age did.

  144. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What the fuck. Polio was still killing up to 350,000 people are year well into the eighties. It wasn't until the vaccine was heavily pushed into developing countries that the numbers plummeted to the near eradication we have today. Where the fuck do you get your misguided lies from?

  145. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 0

    I call that BS. Way before Al Gore became the spokesman for climate change republicans were already steering away from it because... lobbying.

    Wrong and wrong. Republicans tended to be more opposed to action than Democrats, but there used to be support on the right. Cap-and-trade was a right wing idea (but maybe not a very good one). Also many Democrats opposed action, especially from industrial states like West Virginia and Michigan ... and yes, West Virginia and Michigan were once Democratic states.

    Now let's talk about lobbying. Liberals tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to blame every Republican issue on "lobbyists" and "big money". That is nonsense. Sure the Koch Brothers and Exxon spent money undermining action on climate change, but it is mostly a grass roots issue. Working class people see it as just another issue where ivory tower intellectuals are pushing them down, and Al Gore is not going to appeal to these people. You might want to try actually talking to some Republicans.

  146. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    holy shit, how could anyone possibly cite that piece of conspiracy theory dribble as a source for anything except a joke! thanks for making it easy to laugh at you but really you need a serious reality check if you take that sort of book as a source of information.

  147. Incompetence does not mean success is impossible by gurps_npc · · Score: 1

    Look, erasing false myths is hard. If it were easy, it wouldn't be a problem.

    Just because the three methods tried all failed does not mean another is possible.

    Often these attempts are based on seriously flawed reasoning.

    The anti-vax meme is not based on science, yet they attempt to combat it with science. They tried charts and facts. The anti-vax people have already been exposed to a ton of science. If that worked, we would have no problem.

    Similarly, mere pictures of sick children do nothing. It can't compete with the many many bullshit lies people tell.

    They don't need a chart, or fact, or even a picture of a sick kid. I would try an angry mother sobbing about her dead kid. Or a re-enactment of the scumbag Wakefield's first lie, and how many ways he made money on it. With him laughing at the idiots that fell for it.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  148. Re:The science is not settled by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

    Why is that? You can launch a satellite yourself. As far as I know, NASA can't actually launch one for you but there are several companies, from multiple countries, who can though. Or you could build yourself a rocket. Several amateur efforts have gotten rockets into space, and there is at least one effort going on now to get one into orbit.

    If you want your own visual proof the planet is round you can get it with a high altitude weather balloon. High school students regularly launch those.

  149. Re: What's said is that scientists discredited sci by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    *I personally know of one tragic coincidence.

    FTFY.

    Unless you're not talking about autism. There are a handful of actual risks with vaccines. But they're all listed on the paperwork Walgreens make you sign beforehand.

  150. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Solandri · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As someone who grew up in the 1970s, I can assure you the climatology talk which filtered out to the general public back then was about whether or not we'd enter another ice age.

    The explanation given in your link (that the mass media was hyping global cooling, but climate scientists were publishing papers about global warming) doesn't really help. It just confirms the belief that the mass media will hype whatever they want rather than report accurately.

  151. Going about it the wrong way by Solandri · · Score: 2
    I think we're going about this the wrong way. These are scientist (or scientist types) trying to convince regular people with science. That's a huge hurdle to jump because not only do you have to do a data dump on them of the scientific research on vaccines, you have to convince them (or teach them) about the scientific method and statistics so they can grok that data dump.

    Instead of trying to teach these people a new way to think, reach these people via the way they already think. They're into the anti-vaxx stuff because:
    • Anecdotal evidence. They hear a story about how McCarthy's kid was diagnosed with autism after getting a vaccine, and jump to the conclusion that one caused the other. Their primary motivation is fear. So rather than trying to fight fear with reason, use fear to sway them to the statistically correct decision. Deluge them with anecdotes of kids who didn't get vaccines and died or went blind because of measles. etc.
    • The allure of a conspiracy theory. These folks are the "government is trying to mind control the people" type. Their primary motivation is mistrust of authority. So simply cast the anti-vaxx movement as an alternate authority figure. Start a new conspiracy theory about how McCarthy is using this whole anti-vaxx thing to make money.

    Back before GPS navigation became ubiquitous, I read that men tend to navigate using road names, women tend to navigate using landmarks. So I started giving directions with both road names and landmarks. I got a lot of comments from people that they really liked my directions. There's no reason to limit ourselves to just one method of teaching people.

    1. Re:Going about it the wrong way by Bartles · · Score: 1

      It's not about science. Stop praying at the altar. Some people will never accept it, even if they accept science. The harder you push, the harder they will push back.

    2. Re:Going about it the wrong way by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

      A big part of the problem is that when you talk to someone who is blindly pro-vaccine or even a typical Doctor, they usually show themselves as clueless about the subject. All they can do is repeat the "recommendations" without having any knowledge of what's behind them.

      So it's not a very convincing experience for the anti-vaccine people they are talking to. If you don't know what you're talking about, but try to come across as if you do, you hurt your side's credibility. Once someone has talked to dozens of people who are that way, then they naturally start to form a stereotype about them.

      Personally, I've done the research. I wasn't vaccinated as a child to follow the official "schedule" and my kids aren't either. I have a family history with negative vaccine reactions, so we've learned to be extremely careful. We've had some vaccines, but, for example, you're way more likely to have a negative result in the United States than a positive one from getting the polio vaccine, so we won't be doing that one. If we lived in many other countries where Polio is still an issue, that'd be different.

      For my kids, it's a simple matter of the odds of serious damage/death from getting a specific vaccine vs. the odds off damage/death from the disease from not getting it. If you don't actually look at the statistics (and almost no one does, for some reason), then you're just a blind follower, on either side of the issue.

      And before you start trying to lecture me about herd immunity, you should first research what percentage of the adult population which were immunized as children have had the required boosters and what percentage have had their immunizations wear off. The answer may shock you. When's the last time you had a full set of boosters yourself?

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
  152. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    It hasn't helped that climate science, for example, has been wrong so often.

    Don't confuse the findings of climate scientists with the outpourings and antics of climate activists. Scientists do change their minds over time as new data comes in, while activists, being the kind of people described by this study, remain stuck on hysteria. They are like that on every subject of controversy.

  153. Ars Technica = worse pay for play FAKE NEWS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The entire model of the dreadful site Ars Technica is pay-for-play. This means the outlet offers its services as a public facing propaganda outlet to any corporation with a large PR budget- and the 'articles' on the site are litterally written by the PR departments (after a very large amount of cash trades hands).

    While many pseudo tech sites online are corrupt to a large degree- this site has no non-corrupt aspect. A little while ago Monsanto had a giant advertorial on Ars Technica disguised as an internal article attacking anti-GMO folk. Attacking with 'science' of course.

    The drug companies are the most ruthless on the planet. And vaccinations have become their 'go to' cash cow. Each new widely promoted vaccine makes BILLIONS of dollars a year- and a good chunk of the profits go into the pockets of the key politicians who have the power to effectively mandate the vaccine.

    What scum like Ars Technica and Slashdot will never mention is the horrifying scandal of the 'flu vaccine'. The biggest money maker by far and the most useless and pointless vaccine even when correctly 'designed'. But a couple of years ago, WHO (the ultra-corrumpt UN medical division) screwed up entirely and made a 'guess' for that year's flu virus that was 100% wrong. Within months it became apparent that the vaccine targeted a strain of flu that was never going to appear in the Human Population. From a science point of view, this meant the vaccine should have been scrapped- destroyed.

    However, this would have meant a loss of more than TEN BILLION dollars. So the UN advised that the vaccine still be used, with the excuse that by doing os the ordinary population would be GROOMED into expecting a yearly flu shot. Every vaccine damages a certain percentage of people that take it- and some of the side effects are life changing. When the vaccine is provably helpful, social engineers claim the ends justify the means. But in this case no-one could be helped by the vaccine. Yet WHO still demanded governments force it on their populace.

    Rolling out a useless vaccine meant the drug company execs could still afford to hire high profile pop stars for their kids' birthdays that year- all that really matters in the end. But every medical worker I've met refuses to take the vaccine anyway, so certain are the flu like symptoms it always causes. But who cares, eh- Clinton loving Slashdot tells you that only fools doubt the words of their masters. But then again Clinton has been the greatest cause of premature death in places like Libya, with the full approval of the 'editorial' staff of Ars Technica- so we can certainly see how pro-Human these people really are.

  154. Re:The science is not settled by swillden · · Score: 1

    I see you are non-rational. Okay, there's no point in talking to you.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  155. Re:The science is not settled by swillden · · Score: 1

    Okay, but that's not what you said.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  156. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm going to disturb the echo chamber a little. There is a link between vaccinations and autism. It has been proven.

    What has been found is that women who give birth to children with ASD have had at least one fever during their pregnancy. It doesn't take much of one, only about 1 degree of fever, but that fever has major effects on brain development in the unborn child.

    You ask what that has to do with vaccinations? Fever is a side effect of almost all vaccinations. So, the side effect, the unintended consequence, of vaccination is causing autism. Here's a link to the study.

    http://www.nature.com/mp/journ...

    It will be interesting to see how many people here will refuse to believe the study. The claims of many to believe science will vanish when science contradicts that which they have an emotional attachment to.

  157. Re:The science is not settled by swillden · · Score: 1

    Consider that Wakefield, the guy who pushed the "Thimerosol causes autism" line, was running a scam and has a patent on a different preservative. That puts it in a different category to your examples doesn't it?

    Not really. Though it is unfortunate that he caused so much research effort to be invested in disproving his theory, rather than more productive purposes. And it's obviously very unfortunate that it fed the anti-vaxxer movement.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  158. Re:The science is not settled by gweihir · · Score: 1

    I would suggest that this seem so to you due to a problem on your side.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  159. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you were better at evaluating risk, you would realize that erring on the side of caution would mean getting your children vaccinated.

  160. Herd Mentality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    maybe they showed them how much money is paid out yearly to settle vaccine injury claims by the government.

    or maybe they told them that big pharma pays 2 billion USD per year to settle lawsuits on regular drugs

    or maybe they showed them the actual scientific studies that show vaccines are safe, where the control group and the variable group are the same (less 1 vaccine)

    maybe they told them that the entire vaccination schedule is not studied for safety and that vaccines are studied individually

    (like comparing 2 pack a day smokers to 3 pack a day smokers)

  161. Just more evidence... by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

    ..that you can't fix stupid.

  162. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Blaming Al Gore doesn't make sense if what you say that republicans agreed prior to that. Why do republicans get to have good ideas but democrats just make it politicized?

  163. Re:The science is not settled by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

    You're probably just trolling, but it wouldn't be a bad thing if someone stabbed a needle through your eye and twirled it around a few hundred times.

  164. Re: What's said is that scientists discredited sci by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This, we can only hope that the internet brings some fragmentation in the information sources.
    truth is like poetry, most people hate poetry.
    People want a thrilling story, not the boring truth. Would it help if the story is brought differently?

  165. Re:The science is not settled by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

    You need several pounds of lead projected through your head and the head of everyone related to you (just to be sure).

  166. Heavy Metals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ingesting heavy metal particles causes autism. This is well-accepted.
    Many (non-US) studies are finding significant heavy metal contamination in vaccines.

  167. Re:The science is not settled by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

    Someone really needs to take an axe to your face, and the face of every one of your relatives. Leave you on the front lawn as an object lesson for what happens when you don't vaccinate.

  168. Re: The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Vaccinations take place in childhood not pregnancy.

    So the pregnancy fevers are not caused by vaccination.

  169. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nope - there was one - ONE - paper that thought that it was possible, that got taken out of all proportion, who's findings are still being used today to support anti-global warming denial. The problem is that the basic premise of that paper has long since been proved wrong - (that global temperature will follow the sun's activity/output directly, as we headed into a period of low activity which would therefore lower the global temperature, causing global cooling - the fact that such activity has happened and the global temperature has INCREASED (thanks to a basic 'greenhouse effect') debunks it completely.)

  170. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doh - *global warming denial. Serves me write ( ;) ) in trying to edit my text in a hurry...

  171. Re:The science is not settled by dbIII · · Score: 1

    And it's obviously very unfortunate that it fed the anti-vaxxer movement.

    It started the fucking anti-vaxxer movement. I'm not sure why you are commenting when you don't even know that much. With an ID that low I thought you'd be old enough to know about it from when it was news.

  172. Same with religion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nuff said.

  173. That's because by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most vaccine science is junk science. Go look at any studies and see for yourself. Here's one example, directly from Merck's website. http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/g/gardasil/gardasil_pi.pdf

    Notice on Section 6.1 / Page 4, they use saline as the placebo in only one study. The control for the other FIVE controlled studies is Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate (AAHS). It seems to me if they wanted to remove any doubt, they would stick to saline instead of using one of the controversial vaccine components as the placebo for the control group.

    But wait, there's more. On pages 4 and 5, they have the results for mild reactions from the Saline and AAHS-controlled studies broken out separately...until Page 6, where they get into the more serious and the severe options. Then hocus pocus, the Saline and AAHS results are grouped together. Any 6th grader trying this level of shenanigans would get an F or an I for this project. Yet all of of you jackasses just line up and call this rubbish "science".

  174. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Polio, are you fucking kidding? Here's the CDC Pink Book...guess what, in the last 37 years, all but 8 cases of Polio in the United States were CAUSED BY THE OVP VACCINE. The term for it is "VAPP", meaning Vaccine-acquired Paralytic Poloio.

    Source: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/polio.html

    "From 1980 through 1999, a total of 162 confirmed cases of paralytic poliomyelitis were reported, an average of 8 cases per year. Six cases were acquired outside the United States and imported. The last imported case was reported in 1993. Two cases were classified as indeterminant (no poliovirus isolated from samples obtained from the patients, and patients had no history of recent vaccination or direct contact with a vaccine recipient). The remaining 154 (95%) cases were vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP) caused by live oral polio vaccine."

    You might want to check your facts before you spew such rubbish. Here's another fact about Polio for you.

    "An increasing number of industrialized, polio-free countries are using IPV as the vaccine of choice. This is because the risk of paralytic polio associated with continued routine use of OPV is deemed greater than the risk of imported wild virus"

    "IPV does not stop transmission of the virus"

    source: http://polioeradication.org/polio-today/polio-prevention/the-vaccines/ipv/

    Indeed, the IPV causes humans to shed the virus via stool. The most extreme case is a man who was vaccinated with the IPV 30 years ago and is still shedding the virus in his stool. Pretty much proving it actually is sanitation that stops the spread of disease.

  175. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    This series is devoted to people with drivers licenses who cannot drive. Can't park without hitting another car and driving off. Can't stay in their lane. Routinely step on the gas when they want to brake. Can't see, but won't get glasses. Have totaled many cars. Who are afraid of driving in traffic. Who cut everyone off. Who stop in the middle of intersections. Who make right-hand turns from the innermost of 3 lanes. Who don't understand what traffic signals mean. Who talk on the phone while eating and doing their makeup in the rear-view mirror while driving (that one was a real estate agent who claimed she could multitask, but missed stop signs). Who thought the maximum speed limit was just a suggestion, and you could go as fast as you wanted. Who somehow got their license and have never driven since because they KNOW they can't drive.

    And it's in Canada you say? Not New Mexico?

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  176. Re:The science is not settled by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    So-called settled science is rocked by new discoveries LITERALLY ALL THE TIME.

    It really isn't.


    Just a few short years ago, astronomers thought they knew everything. Big bang from a point source, expansion, stop and maybe contraction.

    Now it's completely different. Big bang happened everywhere at once. Accelerating expansion. Missing 90% of matter. Unknown *fudge factor* dark matter/energy.

    1922 (when dark matter was first hypothesises) was not a few short years ago. If you spoke to actual scientists, and not mass media popular science reports (which have to be massively simplified), you would know that's simply not true.

    Might as well call this ether, as poorly as it's understood.

    No, the ether made actual predictions which turned out to not happen, so it was disproven. Plus you're taking something (dark matter) which physicists will readily admit as being poorly understood at best and using it as an example of settled science being overturned.

    That's silly because dark matter has never been settled science.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  177. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by mean+pun · · Score: 2

    If that's true, it's just more evidence that the right is a plague on this country, and planet.

    So? Politics is a fact of life. Are you ok with destroying the planet as long as it is someone else's fault? Advocates of climate action knew (or should have known) that using a partisan politician as their champion would have a strong negative effect on building consensus and actually getting anything done.

    • This assumes a level of coordination among advocates of climate action that is simply not there.
    • This assumes that anybody else would have been able to escape the incessant smear job of the anti-climate-change lobby.
    • The left still assumes that people are intelligent enough to see through the relentless propaganda aimed at people like Gore, Obama, and the Clintons. Recent developments have shown that was too optimistic, but what's the alternative?
  178. Re:The science is not settled by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Thimerosol wasn't used in vaccines 100 years ago, so your claim is impossible.

    Thimerosol still hasn't been invented. The product you're thinking of is called Thimerosal.

    To be clear I know that there is abundant evidence that Thimerosol, in the quantities used in vaccines, at least, does not cause autism or any other problem, and that even though vaccines aren't risk free, not vaccinating is vastly more risky. But to say that all possible concerns about modern vaccines were laid to rest 100 years ago is ridiculous.

    That is not the claim. The claim is that we knew 100 years ago that it was safer to vaccinate than to not vaccinate. This is not to say that we should not engage in risk reduction, but only that there is no logical basis for not vaccinating. Nothing in the statistics suggests it — quite the contrary.

    It would not be shocking to learn of newly-identified problems with vaccines, particularly in newer formulations. Though it would be shocking indeed to learn of problems worse than polio, measles, mumps, rubella, etc. because we know that without vaccines those will kill and maim large numbers of people every year.

    Which is why "should we research improvements in vaccines" is a question completely orthogonal to "should we vaccinate", at least at this point. If there were any evidence of vaccination being worse than not vaccinating, then we could go ahead and have one argument in the context of the other.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  179. Re:The science is not settled by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Vaccines don't always work, which is why herd immunity is critical. If you don't get exposed, it doesn't matter if the vaccine failed — but that still depends on it working for your neighbors, which in turn depends on them actually getting vaccinated.

    You must understand this by now, you've been around long enough to have been exposed to this information, why didn't it take?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  180. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Whibla · · Score: 3, Informative

    The main problem is that in the 1960ies and 1970ies, Global Cooling was a threat.

    No, it wasn't. Stop parroting memes based on FUD & bullshit.

    It may not have been a threat but it was certainly reported as being a threat (source: my memory of reading articles in serious papers and magazines - albeit I was doing that reading in the 80's).

    However, it was not 'considered' a threat in the same way, or to the same degree, that AGW is 'considered' today.

  181. What incentive is there to get vaccinated? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not being vaccinated, if everyone else has been, is a rational course of action. Why run the risk of side effects (of whatever probability) if the herd immunity of everyone else will keep you safe?

    This leads to a tragedy of the commons, where more and more people will opt out of vaccination until that herd immunity breaks down.

    There's no easy answer. Mandatory vaccination? I cannot think of a worse violation of the sovereignty of my body than that.

    Penalties for failure to be vaccinated? Random stop and "Vaccination papers, bitte" in a public place? Denial of services, fines, imprisonment for non-conformists? Also creepy.

    The best way would be to educate and incentivise uptake. Get vaccinated? You get a tax refund. Your kids get to go to the good school. Other kids invite them over for playdates. Your friends don't ostracise you, like they would if you drink and drive, or don't recycle.

  182. Evolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Natural selection always finds new ways of pruning the tree of life.

  183. It called attention to ALUMINUM ADJUVANTS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Big Pharma vaccine pushers: 'These industry funded studies show that adults do not develop autism when given single doses of vaccines, which no longer are made with mercury in the form of thimerosal.'
    Concerned, thoughful vaccine skeptics: 'Obviously that does not begin to address the issue of infants receiving many times the safe dose of aluminum, which you are now using as an adjuvant in nearly every vaccine, nor the cause-and-effect nature of aluminum overdoses and brain inflammation, nor the recent research showing that some cases of Autism appear to be the result of brain inflammation. '
    Big Pharma Vaccine pushers: 'Antivaxxers like you cannot be reasoned with!'

    Brainless, credulous liberal twits: 'Tuberculosis and measles are back! The outbreaks are among nonvaccinated people! It's all your fault, antivaxxers!"
    Thoughtful conservatives: 'Thanks for pointing out that Somalis and other immigrants are arriving unvaccinated, often with active tuberculosis, measles and other communicable diseases, and that these people often fail to vaccinate their children years after arriving. Had we limited immigration years ago, less of this would be happening."
    Brainless, credulous liberal twits: 'Racists like you cannot be reasoned with!'

  184. I guess this is how we avoid Idiocracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stupid people taking themselves and their spawn out of the gene pool.

  185. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The term "vaccine" appears nowhere in that study.

  186. Re: The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A knitting needle tracing a Spirograph pattern on the back of the skull through the eye socket? Neat!

  187. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you actually have kids? Because you don't seem to have the remotest idea of what it involves,

    In most cases, it's precisely "showing them where they've made errors" that engenders the fear of being wrong. You need to pick your times to teach those lessons. "Total, uncompromising honesty" is the sort of battle plan that simply will not survive first contact with the enemy.

  188. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by not+flu · · Score: 1, Informative

    Perhaps it's just me not paying attention to American celebrity culture, but across the pond it sure sounded like the vast majority of celebs were on the side of Hillary.

  189. So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cant we just stop caring, and let the stupid people not get vaccinated, and then weeded out?

  190. Re:The science is not settled by not+flu · · Score: 1

    No new vaccines have been created since about a century ago? Formulas for old ones haven't been changed? Vaccines need to be evaluated for safety individually. And not holding vaccine manufacturers responsible for harm caused by their products like you would any other medicine is not condusive to making their safety evaluations foolproof.

  191. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I call that BS. Way before Al Gore became the spokesman for climate change republicans were already steering away from it because... lobbying.

    Wrong and wrong. Republicans tended to be more opposed to action than Democrats, but there used to be support on the right. Cap-and-trade was a right wing idea (but maybe not a very good one). Also many Democrats opposed action, especially from industrial states like West Virginia and Michigan ... and yes, West Virginia and Michigan were once Democratic states.

    Now let's talk about lobbying. Liberals tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to blame every Republican issue on "lobbyists" and "big money". That is nonsense. Sure the Koch Brothers and Exxon spent money undermining action on climate change, but it is mostly a grass roots issue. Working class people see it as just another issue where ivory tower intellectuals are pushing them down, and Al Gore is not going to appeal to these people. You might want to try actually talking to some Republicans.

    Are you freaking kidding me? Did you read the article from 1997! 20 years ago, way before Al Gore went on campaign, one of the biggest problems was lobbying and by that time GOP was already dancing by that tune. You can't miss it, it's chronologically impossible for GOP to be politicized before Al Gore goes on campaign... you know, cause and effect, and effect can't come before cause?

    Practice your reading skills and chronology awareness and do the math....

  192. Not to worry by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    Not to worry- as soon as their children get sick and die from some easily-preventable disease then maybe they'll get a clue.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  193. Re: What's said is that scientists discredited sci by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You might get a lemon car but in case of van you are the lemon.

  194. Re:The science is not settled by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    Paranoid personality disorder is almost impossible to treat, because (1) paranoid people take anything, even coincidences, as evidence that someone is out to get them in one way or another,

    THIS ^^^^ times a billion. Any attempt to help them do or learn anything is immediately viewed as "trying to get over on them" or fool them so you can then take advantage of them.

    It can be something as innocuous as showing them how to use the TV's remote control- that will be seen by them as a you trying to gain their confidence so you can (later) screw them over somehow.

    My first wife was a genuine paranoid, and I can tell you from experience that interacting with a paranoid is a game you CANNOT win no matter what you do...because anything you do will be cast in the light of you trying to take advantage of them in one way or another.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  195. Re:The science is not settled by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    "The science has been settled" says the scientism expert. Did you do the experiments yourself?

    Found the imbecilic doubter.

    But since you asked, yes, I have done some of those experiments myself way back when I was in school, and they all proved out to be true.

    Even better is the proof of their efficacy, as seen by the drop in the kinds of diseases that vaccines treat.

    But that's just some whacky coincidence in your world, right? Maybe it's the chemtrails were actually responsible for the drop in diphtheria, polio, etc etc.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  196. Why isn't parent +5? by swb · · Score: 2

    This is exactly right.

    You could lay some of the blame at people's credulity and some kind of willful desire to believe alternative opinions because they're alternatives, but the bottom line is that the volume of manipulation and misinformation aimed at the public is relentless. Advertisements, sales and marketing, public relations, politicians -- the list of people with agendas and no regard for anything like the truth is endless.

    And unfortunately this list includes traditional authority figures generally associated with agenda-neutral factual truth.

  197. Re:The science is not settled by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    Okay, sure: polio was dwindling when they released the polio vaccine which had the simian virus attached.

    No, polio was dwindling because of the chemtrails that NASA started spreading after they got the secret formula from Bigfoot and Marilyn Monroe (who were hiding out in Elvis' secret Martian Moonbase on Jupiter).

    Get a brain, moran!!!

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  198. Re: The science is not settled by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    What about those Monsanto-purchased reports that say the mice don't have tumors, the day before they start developing them?

    Logically speaking, that's true: they had no tumors the day before they started developing them.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  199. Re:The science is not settled by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    Though it is unfortunate that he caused so much research effort to be invested in disproving his theory, rather than more productive purposes

    NO. His bullshit "studies" literally started the anti-vaccine movement. They didn't exist before he started his program of lies and disinformation.

    He did it with malice aforethought to make money, and due to the prevalence of stupid fucking people it succeeded far beyond his wildest dreams.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  200. Carlin quote by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”

      George Carlin

  201. Re:The science is not settled by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    You have a point, but there are so many cases of people who refuse to take their kids to the hospital until it is far too late, instead depending on alternative medicine and prayer, that there's a good chance at least some will be removed from the gene pool.

    They serve a useful function - a warning, like the Titanic.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  202. Game Theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here's the problem. As kooky as the anti-immunization crowd may seem there is a certain logic in their actions when looked at as a game. The probability of a negative reaction to the vaccine is very small, but not zero. The probability of contracting one of these diseases is also quite small as long as everyone else is getting the vaccination (herd immunity). So it comes down to what you believe these probabilities are, and since they are admittedly very low there is a lot of room for error. For example if the probability of a negative reaction is 1/100K but the probability of contracting the disease is 1/1 million, you are 10x more likely to have a negative vaccine reaction than contract the disease. What these numbers really are is not as important as what people believe they are.

    As long as you believe that most other people are getting the vaccination it makes completely logical sense to avoid the vaccination. Yes, of course if enough people think like this we lose herd immunity for the people who "really need" it, but if you are behaving completely selfishly, you don't care. To effectively combat the anti-vaccine crowd you need to convince them that the odds are in their favor to get the vaccine.

  203. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You touch upon the point. If you are an anti-vacciner and you believe herd immunity exists, then you likely believe the probability of a negative reaction (non-zero) is greater than the probability of infection. Of course if enough people believe this, herd immunity is lost and the infection rate skyrockets. It becomes apparent that the probability of infection is suddenly higher than the probability of negative reaction to vaccine. In such a case the likely result is a lot of non-vaccinators become vaccinated until such time as people believe that the probability of infection is once again lower than the probability of negative reaction and the cycle repeats. This will always be difficult to combat because fundamentally they are making a logical decision, even if they don't really know why.

  204. Re:The science is not settled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ah, but if you assume that everyone else is getting vaccinated there is a huge incentive the "cheat" and not get vaccinated. In a hypothetical world where your child is the ONLY one not vaccinated, and 100% of the remaining population is vaccinated, the probability of infection for most of these diseases is zero. The probability of a negative reaction to the vaccine is small, but not zero. In such a case the logical decision is to "cheat" and forgo the vaccine and rely on herd immunity. Of course at some point when enough people decide this the infection rate skyrockets and the probability of contracting the disease will exceed the probability of a negative reaction. The reason this trend will remain difficult to combat is because it makes logical sense on an individual basis.

  205. Vaccines don't work. They cause many diseases. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The CDC reported a measles outbreak in a 100% documented vaccinated population.

    Historical trends show that deaths caused by childhood illnesses had already
    declined as much as 90% before vaccine programs were ever initiated.
    Evidence indicates that an improved standard of living, better
    nutrition, and increased sanitation, caused this drop in disease, not
    vaccines

    1. Re:Vaccines don't work. They cause many diseases. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good point. Also, I have not missed a single vaccine shot when I was a kid, including my 2 siblings but I still did get a chickenpox 12 years ago, so vaccines in my opinion is not effective and is just snake oil.

  206. Re:The science is not settled by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

    Our public schools are there to teach and to protect children. Children who do not have the basic vaccine for measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, mumps, polio, chicken pox, etc are not allowed to attend school. The protection of the entire class from a child whose parents don't believe in vaccinations raises that's child to be an infectious carrier of one of the mentioned illnesses.

    We can protect our children, not we can't protect idiots.

    --
    Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
  207. Jesus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These studies should always include the correlation with a belief in god and/or holy scripture.

  208. Mirrors Global Warming Zealots! by VirtualJWN · · Score: 0

    Same bias shown by Anthropomorphic global warming crowd! No evidence dissuades them! In this case, the vaccine packaging itself warns of the same side effects people protect their children from. Not so with climate zealots. The true way to combat disease isnt thru chemicals, it is mechanically killing them. Royal Rife discovered UV microscopy almost 100 years ago to image virus and bacteria alive in culture. Then using radio waves and resonance he could essentially cause the organisms to harmlessly explode. He identified numerous causes of disease and could cure many. Problem was drug industry and GE with their electron microscope. Which only looks at dead cells but was a cash cow for decades. MIT "discovered" UV microscopy a couple of years ago. So maybe once big pharma buys up all patents on that we can get true cures for illness not just symptoms. Nah! More money in chemo and opiate pain mgmt!

    --
    "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke
  209. Re:The science is not settled by dryeo · · Score: 1

    The problem could be in the future where vaccinations are being used for less harmful diseases and suddenly it turns out that the filler is worse then the disease. As a possible example, a vaccine against the common cold that turns out, long term, to have a 1% mortality rate.
    All vaccines need to be tested to make sure that they work as advertised, namely reducing the mortality/crippling rate of a disease rather then people just hand waving and saying that all vaccines including those not yet invented are 100% safe.

    --
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  210. Re: The science is not settled by not+flu · · Score: 1

    That's weird, I could've sworn I got vaccinated this year and I haven't been a child in decades. Not that I am pregnant but there's no reason a pregnant woman couldn't get vaccinated.

    Granted, this isn't the link people usually think of (if they think at all) when talking about the link between vaccination and autism.

  211. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Wycliffe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just as 1 in every 10,000 Toyotas, Mercedes Benzes or Teslas is going to be a lemon, 1 in 10,000 vaccinations can "go wrong". This is just the nature of such things.
    That said, it really sucks if YOU buy that specific Toyota, Mercedes Benz or Tesla. And more so if YOUR kid is that ONE in 10,000. You can dump the car lemon, you have the child until they die. I personally know of one such extremely tragic case, so the pro-vaxxers should just shut up and admit to the reality of the stats.

    Yes, the reality is every once in a while a child has a really bad reaction from a vaccine but the reality of the flip side is A LOT worse. I don't know how accurate your 1 in 10000 number is but that sounds like REALLY good odds to me. Before vaccines, 1 in 3 kids didn't make it to adulthood. Which odds would you rather have for your kid? A 1 in 10000 chance of dying from a vaccine or a 1 in 3 chance of dying from not getting a vaccine? Sure, because most people are vaccinated today, your odds are a little better than 1 in 3 even if you don't get a vaccine but it's still not as good as with getting the vaccine. When the odds of complications exceed the odds of catching the disease, that's when we discontinue the vaccine. That's why no one gets vaccinated for smallpox anymore except for a few soldiers going to a few high risk areas.

    As a data person, the one thing I wish that the pro-vaccine people would start doing is listing the odds of complications of the vaccine right next to the estimated odds of catching the disease. I think some antivaxers might respond to that if you said "odds of bad reaction 1/10000, current odds of catching disease 1/1000, historical odds of catching the disease 1/100, odds of dying if you catch the disease 1/3"

  212. Settled science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The laws of thermodynamics are really only up for dispute in the most abstract sense. The germ theory of disease has definitely won out. Plate tectonics is solid. The big bang has blown away competing theories.

    So yeah, there is settled science.

  213. Repetition mistaken for truth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do not hammer a nail into your head.
    Do not hammer a nail into your head.
    Do not hammer a nail into your head.

    And so on and so forth.

    Gets popcorn.

  214. Re:The science is not settled by not+flu · · Score: 1

    That is not the claim. The claim is that we knew 100 years ago that it was safer to vaccinate than to not vaccinate.

    Sure, 100 years ago you were vaccinating against smallpox, the ultimate low-hanging-fruit for vaccination. Vaccinating against smallpox now would surely be less safe than not vaccinating! And that is the issue, since vaccines actually aren't completely free of side effects you should not vaccinate for every possible disease against which a vaccine exists, only the ones that you are at a high enough risk of actually getting to offset the real but not very high risk of side effects. Implying this is not the case is so obviously wrong that it only adds fuel to the anti-vaxxers' flames, so please stop doing it.

  215. Re: What's said is that scientists discredited sci by ScepticalScribbler · · Score: 1

    Or we should all not vaccinate to avoid the 1 in 10 000 bad vaccine vial. Really?

  216. Re:The science is not settled by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    since vaccines actually aren't completely free of side effects you should not vaccinate for every possible disease against which a vaccine exists, only the ones that you are at a high enough risk of actually getting to offset the real but not very high risk of side effects.

    Very high? Citation needed. It only has to be infinitesimally riskier to not take the vaccine before you should be vaccinated.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  217. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by dddux · · Score: 1

    Indeed, we should teach kids critical thinking instead of filling their heads with fairytales.

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
  218. All the BS of the world at your fingertips by quax · · Score: 1

    Back when the Web was created it was thought to bring on a new age of enlightenment.

    The creators of the Web and Internet were highly educated and enlightened individuals, who suffered from a confirmation bias, since most of their immediate peers shared their level of sophistication.

    A first reality check came when the AOL and Compuserve crowds invaded the Web.

    Now we have a full on self re-enforced vicious circle as the ignorance feeds on itself in an ever more connected world.

    Unfortunately, ignorant and uneducated people are far more numerous, not even trained in the most basic skills of discerning the truthfulness of information.

    Inevitably scientific facts will be drowned out.

  219. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

    I'm OK with fairy tales... so long as their adult authority figures present them as stories and not fact.

    As I told my kids, "Santa's a fun story, enjoy it. Play along and you also get extra presents under the tree".

  220. Re:The science is not settled by swillden · · Score: 1

    And it's obviously very unfortunate that it fed the anti-vaxxer movement.

    It started the fucking anti-vaxxer movement.

    No, it didn't. There were anti-vaxxers before that.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  221. Re:The science is not settled by swillden · · Score: 1

    That is not the claim.

    It was the claim, go back and read it.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  222. Re:The science is not settled by swillden · · Score: 1

    His bullshit "studies" literally started the anti-vaccine movement.

    You're wrong. HIs BS massively increased it, but there were anti-vaxxers before.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  223. Better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Associate anti-vaxxers with pedophilia.

  224. I'm very confused, perhaps you can help by holophrastic · · Score: 1

    This seems to have become a pseudo-religious issue, which is absurd in a free-country.

    For the record, I vaccinate the hell out of my family -- cats and dogs and birds included. My puppy drinks from every puddle in the dog park, which is value in-and-of itself.

    But I would never say that anyone, myself included, should be forced to take a given vaccine!

    Think about it. As Slashdot readers, how many science fiction (and non-fiction, and actual history) have we read about faulty vaccines (or propaganda or security patches, or feature updates) pushed to unwitting masses only to create more peril and doom?

    There's got to be a line drawn between "educating and encouraging" and "obligating and forcing". I think that line-of-invasion is quite correctly drawn at the skin. Invasive is invasive, mind body and spirit.

    A parent's simply got to be able to make their own educated decision about whether or not their children should be subjected to something. That freedom, as an adult and as a parent, is paramount to freedom.

    Of course we're talking here about a population that includes dumb adults and irresponsibly parents. But hasn't that always been the price of freedom? Simply put: that everyone gets that freedom?

    How long until there's a vaccine that you think is unsafe? Would you want to be forced to take it? To give it to your children? Would you want to explain to them why you're giving them something that you think is terrible? And what about the vaccine that's 99% safe, and seriously injures the other 1%? Would you want someone else to draw that line for you?

    In this case, we're definitely fighting against stupid people. 100% Agreed. But they are actually the ones fighting for our future right to be smarter-than-the-system.

    1. Re:I'm very confused, perhaps you can help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well said. Thanks for your enlightening post. I also don't agree on forcing something to someone unless the receiver can opt-in or opt-out.
      It is like Windows 10 with its forced updates and forced telemetry where you are left with NO CHOICE.

  225. Need to work on the vaccines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some still are directly associated with developmental disorders such as autism

  226. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by rhazz · · Score: 1

    It's not always about the celebrities. Just look at the food guides that have been issued by many governments over the past 50 years. They are highly affected by lobbying of the food industry. This was much worse in the past relative to today, but I remember being floored when I learned that it wasn't 100% based on nutritional science.

  227. Pro-disease. Call a spade a spade. by Maritz · · Score: 1

    Anti-vax = Pro disease. End of fucking story.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  228. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by rhyous · · Score: 1

    The only difference to the Global Cooling hype and the current Global Warming hype is one has the internet to spread it rapidly, the other did not.

    And yes, there was a big deal about global cooling, hence the sci-fi books in the late 70's and early 80's about global cooling.

  229. Re:Critical thinking should be taught from the sta by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Critical thinking involves looking for the best information and making your own decisions based on it. Giving up one trust chain and randomly adopting another isn't critical thinking.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  230. Re:The science is not settled by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    However, we have some scientific conclusions that we haven't changed in forever. Obviously, if things started falling up, we'd take another look at gravity (a short one, of course, since we'd all be dead within minutes).

    We know some things to an extremely high confidence level, and these things are almost never changed. We believe other things with a low confidence level, and they change frequently.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  231. Re:The science is not settled by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Thimerosol wasn't used in vaccines 100 years ago, so your claim is impossible.

    At least in the First World, we don't need thimerosal, and we generally removed it from our vaccines. This didn't stop the anti-vaxxers.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  232. Re:The science is not settled by dbIII · · Score: 1

    I've certainly never heard of them. Citation please.

  233. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I agree Al Gore being spokesperson politicized it further, but Republicans supporting it is completely rewriting history . Republicans have been vehemently opposed for decades.

  234. Re:What's said is that scientists discredited scie by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    It may not have been a threat but it was certainly reported as being a threat

    In a news magzine. Not a science magazine, much less peer-reviewed journals.

    So, FUD & bullshit. Just like I said the first time.

  235. Re:The science is not settled by not+flu · · Score: 1

    You appear to have skipped over the word "not" in "not very high".