But why would someone lend a twenty-something a quarter million dollars unless they expected him or her to get rich?
They expect him to be able to pay it back--over a period of many years. Being able to pay off a quarter million dollar loan over time doesn't make you rich, although it might be one of the things that prevents you from being rich. Ask anybody with a mortgage.
They aren't all that bright: in one survey it was found that 58% [nih.gov] cheated during medical school.
I teach them. They are that bright. You can't get through medical school by cheating. The study you cite used a very broad definition of cheating, including leaving out quotation marks in citing a published result, and only providing a reference to the source (which is still something that will get a student in a quite a lot of trouble if they are caught at it). Only 2% acknowledged cheating on an exam question.
Another issue is that from the standpoint of evidence-based medicine, nobody really knows just how much of the placebo effect is due to power of suggestion. The placebo effect also includes such factors as regression toward the mean--which is another way of saying, "A lot of things get better over time on their own."
The older medical literature suggests that the suggestion component is quite strong, but some modern studies indicate that except for subjective complaints such as pain, placebos don't really do much. But placebo studies are not conducted the way they once were. At one time, it was considered OK to lie to a study subject. Modern ethical standards require that the subject be fully informed of the possibility that they may receive a placebo. So were the older studies wrong, or is the placebo weaker when a patient suspects that they may be receiving a placebo?
Have you considered that, although it's no better than placebo, it might be better than nothing?
But is it reasonable for a patient to pay money for a placebo? And since placebos probably work best if the patient believes they are effective treatment, the doctor is in the awkward position of deceiving (or at least acquiescing to the deceit of his patients). Do you really want your doctor lying to you? Moreover, the fact that a drug or treatment is not better than a placebo does not necessarily mean that it is without harmful side effects.
Some doctors try to have it both ways; they'll prescribe something ineffective, but cheap and relatively harmless (perhaps a "homeopathic" treatment, which is really just water), and tell the patient, "Some patients say this helps them, although medical science can't explain why it should work. You might try it and see if it works for you." All of which is absolutely true, but a little less baldly stated than "This is worthless crap, but if I hadn't told you that, it might have made you feel better by the placebo effect."
After one night on it, I stopped it and made another appointment with the doctor. To say I had a bad reaction would be an understatement. I'd describe it as extreme anxiety with hot sweats and other wonderful symptoms. Cut to a few years later, I start reading in the news about "unreported" side-effects of Paxil and the drug maker being forced to issue updated clinical notes. Now the warnings [medicinenet.com] list all these things.
All drugs, old and new, produce bad reactions with some people. The choice of whether to prescribe a new drug or an old one is not an easy one. The new drugs often will offer some real advantages, but it is not always clear whether the advantages justify the cost. Moreover, rarer side effects often only become known after a drug has been widely prescribed, because clinical trials usually involve just a few thousand patients
They aren't all geniuses, but medical students are very bright. You need quite good grades in college (in non-gut courses like organic chemistry) and strong scores to the MCATs even to get in, and the amount of information that they are expected to master in medical school is enormous.
The perception is that doctors should be like doctors were before a medical license became a ticket to becoming a millionaire. There was really a time when a successful doctor might have the nicest house on the block, but not also a nice house in St. Lucia and a nice house in Aspen and a nice apartment on the Gulf Coast.
The days when an MD was a royal road to riches are long over. Medical care is not getting cheaper, but most of the money is now going to the insurance companies rather than the doctors. It is still a well-paid profession, on the average, but keep in mind that doctors start making real money fairly late in their careers, often with perhaps a quarter million dollars in debt from educational and other expenses.
On the positive side, my experience with medical students suggests that now that an MD is no longer a guarantee of wealth, the medical profession is once again actually attracting people who feel a genuine calling to relieve suffering and heal the sick.
This seems to be a particularly idiotic attempt to "spin" what was actually said. There is nothing at all in the statement about Sony intentionally introducing programming obstacles.
It is quite obvious that Hirai was explaining why Sony chose a powerful, if more difficult to program for, multiprocessor architecture over a simpler, less powerful architecture. Sony wanted a platform that would have enough power to sustain itself for 10 years. So they did not consider it to be a major detriment that developers would not immediately be able to unlock to full power of the architecture, because much of that power was intended to allow the console "room to grow."
I use the streaming quite a bit. I'll wait for Blu-ray disks to arrive in the mail, but there are plenty of older titles available in DVD quality. The often-imperceptible improvement in quality is not worth waiting for mail delivery of the physical disk. Aside from the limited streaming catalog, the major negative is the unavailability of DVD extras.
It is obvious that streaming is not going to completely replace physical disks in the short term, and there is no indication of Netflix discontinuing its physical disk delivery program. But I think that Netflix's vision of online delivery gradually replacing disks is accurate, and they are wise to establish themselves as the leaders in this area.
To be honest, I don't care about the "consensus", because we know that Scientific progress works by overturning dominant paradigms, especially where problems exist with those paradigms (I'm drawn to the theory of Epicycles as an example, but there are numerous others). With respect to the IPCC, fully 20% of those who signed the report were Climate Scientists! You may also note that Scientists who dissented from the IPCC view (invited reviewers) had their opinions remove from the report. The IPCC is a political body, plain and simple
One again, we see typical denialist rationalization--cherry-picking one bit of data you can attack and ignoring the rest. The IPCC is hardly the only scientific review body to validate the theory of global warming. Every major independent scientific organization that has reviewed the evidence has come to the same conclusion. This includes the US National Academy of Sciences, established by Abraham Lincoln as an independent review body to advice the nation on critical matters of science. Members serve pro bono, are elected by the current membership solely on the basis of major scientific achievements. It is not beholden to any political organization. The same can be said for the Royal Society of London, which dates back to the time of Isaac Newton, perhaps the oldest and most respected scientific academy in the world.
Your notion that science progresses by "overturning dominant paradigms" is yet another example of denialist cherry picking. The logic is idiotic: "Scientists occasionally change their mind based on new evidence, so I can presume that any current scientific view that I don't like must be wrong."
Of course, the truth is that we remember revolutions in science precisely because they are so rare and unusual. Most of the time, even when there is a major shift in scientific understanding, it incorporates much of the previous model. Newton's Laws of motion and gravity were overturned by Einstein--but you can still successfully fly a rocket to the moon using them. Our understanding of motion and gravity may change again in the future, but that doesn't mean that you can safely stand in front of the barrel of a gun in the faith that the physics that says that bullets can kill you will be overturned sometime in the future. There have been major advances in physics and climate science in the century since Arrhenius figured out that CO2 warms climate, but that basic principle remains valid, even though there have been major advances in our knowledge of the atmosphere and the physics of the CO2 molecule.
But perhaps what should concern you more is not that these people aren't trained in statistics, yet are forming theories based on dubious statistical methods - you should be concerned that their studies are generally not replicable, because they do not publish all of their data and code (methods).
This is a mistaken understanding of what replication means in science. Scientists almost never attempt to repeat somebody else's experiment exactly--rather they carry out a different experiment that should, if the conclusions are correct, yield similar results. Only in rare instances where the results conflict does one attempt to repeat somebody else's experiment exactly. When checking another scientist's conclusions, I make it a point to avoid using their code, because that carries the risk of repeating their errors.
It is because multiple research groups, using different methodology, have reached similar conclusions regarding climate change that multiple scientific reviews, both from the International Panel on Climate Change and from independent academies of top scientists such as the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London have agreed that the conclusions are robust, and that global warming is a genuine threat and the consequence of human CO2 emissions
A silly and specious argument. Lots of "actual scientists" hype the data to get research money, just like lots of politicians have used the issue to drive public/tax/energy policy. This romantic notion of the "noble climate scientist toiling quietly in pursuit of the truth" simply flies in the face of facts. They're more than happy to abandon the "truth" if it advances their personal agenda or the level of funding they get. That's why the issue is so tightly coupled with politics - that's where the $$ is.
Retreat to conspiracy thinking when the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly against them is another hallmark of the denialist. Very often, denialists insist that scientists they disagree with are driven by pecuniary motives. Of course, this is fairly ridiculous in the case of global warming, where we have just had 8 years of an administration hostile to the concept of global warming, and presumably receptive to funding research that would disprove global warming, if any could be found. In addition, the existence of well-funded lobbying groups opposing global warming indicates that there is plenty of industrial money available as well.
Moreover, the accusation of financial interest fails to explain why review committees of independent, elite societies such as the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Academy of London, comprised of scientists from many different fields, most of who receive their funding from sources that have nothing to do with global warming, have concluded that global warming concerns are valid.
I asked you for the name of the scientist and a link to a press release or publication documenting the alleged announcement that it was "the hottest October in history" based on the faulty data.
You responded with a link to Climateaudit, a denialist site that is somewhat notorious for claiming credit for all corrections of climate data, regardless of who actually found the error first. They also have in the past accused climate scientists of making "claims" that they did not actually make. The article that you reference does not appear to contain either the name of the scientist who made the alleged "announcement," or the alleged publication or press release. Second-hand accusations on denialist sites such as climateaudit do not qualify as citations.
My point earlier was that the data should have been well vetted for and all of this shit done before reaching the public eye where "scientists" will prop it up (for either "camp") in the evidence of the month club.
Rapid open reporting of raw data makes it possible for scientists to get a head-start on analysis, and to some extent heads off claims of denialists that scientists are hiding data that would prove that global warming is not occurring. Moreover, such errors generally reach the public eye not from climate scientists "propping it up" as evidence (because genuine climate scientists realize that data from a single year is not evidence of much of anything regarding long-term climate change, and are particularly cautious of drawing conclusions from raw data that is subject to revision and correction), but rather from global-warming denialists trumpeting the correction to the media in hopes of undermining public confidence in the conclusions of climate science.
"if this is wrong that maybe it is all wrong". for sure not true, however i would say "if this is wrong something else might be wrong". oh, right! just like last year when they announced that it was the hottest October in history only to find out that the data was copied over from September. it would have passed, if it were not for those pesky "denialists".
Really? So which climate scientist "announced" that it was the hottest October in history based upon this quickly-corrected error? Please provide the name of the scientist and a reference to the scientific publication or press release in which the alleged claim was made.
Also please explain how whether or not a single October was or was not the hottest on record is relevant to the question of whether there is a long-term multi-decadal warming trend.
Again, this is a prime example of denialist rationalization--obsessing about trivial, irrelevant errors as an excuse for rejecting conclusions based upon a huge mass of data, and validated by scientists review by the world's most renowned elite scientific academies, such as the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London.
How about refuting skeptics (a much better term than "denialists") with reason instead of dogma?
"Skeptic" can reasonably be applied to those who make rational objections. But those who persist in repeating long-refuted strawman arguments such as
Events in a system as complex as a global ecosystem follow a simple one cause, one effect model?
or
your implication that the climate never changed before humans began releasing CO2
which mischaracterizes climate science and climate models to such a gross and obvious extent that it is clear that the person making the argument is immune to rational discussion, can justly be referred to as "denialists" or "cranks."
The term "denialists" is applied to those who irrationally deny accepted scientific fact. One encounters denialists in pretty much any area of science--there are evolution deniers, germ theory deniers, moon landing deniers, relativity denialists, etc.
For example, in the case of global warming, the fact that global warming is occurring, that it is due to human CO2 release, and that it poses a major threat has been reviewed and validated by independent elite scientific organizations worldwide, including such long-standing independent scientific societies as the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London. This is a level of consensus that is virtually unparalleled in science. Those who reject this knowledge, based upon obviously fallacious arguments are justly referred to as "denialists."
If their data was wrong under their nose once in a ridiculous manner, it could have been wrong all along or in different ways.
This is a prime example of the sort of rationalization that passes for denialist reasoning. When confronted with a huge mass of evidence supporting an unpalatable conclusion, they cherry-pick any error, no matter how small or irrelevant to the conclusion, and insist "if this is wrong, then maybe it is all wrong." Since in any human endeavor, there are always errors, it is always possible to rationalize away any conclusion that you prefer not to confront.
This is of course quite typical. The data in question is real-time, raw data. In most scientific enterprises, such data is kept private by the researchers until it can be cross-checked and validated. But in climate research there is a level of openness and public access that is almost unparalleled in science, with even preliminary data publicly available. Of course, the actual scientists know that such data is subject to revision and do not base important conclusions upon it. So the error has no impact on the conclusion that there is a long-term decrease in Arctic ice due to global warming. But that won't stop denialists from talking about it as though it invalidates everything.
Explain how that works, then. I'm not an anti-vaxxer, but pretend I am. If I don't get my kids vaccinated and they come down with something nasty, how is that dangerous to your kids who did get the vaccine and are thus protected from it?
Vaccination does not provide absolute protection to an individual, just reduces the likelihood of infection. A large part of the protection afforded by vaccination occurs on a population basis, and is the result of reducing the frequency of infection low enough that the illness cannot propagate through the population and dies out instead of becoming epidemic.
There are also some kids who have immune conditions that prevent them from being vaccinated, and who are often at elevated risk of severe harm if they do happen to get infected.
Why not? It's not like she could spread a disease to the other kids; they're all vaccinated!
This is very ignorant. Vaccination greatly reduces the risk of catching disease, but like nearly everything else in this world, it is not completely infallible. Moreover, there are some children with genuine medical conditions (as opposed to fantasy fears of autism) that preclude vaccination. In many cases, these are children who also have elevated risk of long-term harm if they do contract a vaccine-preventable illness.
As far as I understand the issue was a potential issue/fear with the COMBINED MMR vacination. Offering 3 single vacinations, would have reduced the incidence of unvacinated children and saved a lot of real infections.
While there is strong evidence for the safety of the MMR, there is no such evidence for 3 separate vaccinations. It would not be unreasonable to imagine that it might carry triple the risk of a combined vaccination. And since some vaccinations would have to be delayed to do this, there would be the additional risk due to extending the window of vulnerability to infection.
Measles and Mumps don't necessarily do lasting harm, didn't kill me, given the choice of autism or measles i'd rather have measles than be autistic.
You sound like the 90-year old woman insisting "smoking didn't kill me." But of course all the people that smoking did kill aren't around to contradict her.
By the way, measles can cause encephalopathy and severe brain damage, as well as death. Are you sure that you'd rather have that than be autistic? Many autistic people have led productive, rewarding lives. Moreover, there is strong evidence that the MMR does not cause autism, so you are basically trading an imaginary risk for a real one.
Go ahead blame parents for believing the Autism meme but also blame the health care providers unwilling to provide a relatively low cost alternative.
There is no rational reason to expect that 3 separate doctor visits and 3 separate bottles of vaccine, to no established medical benefit, should be as cheap as a single visit and a combined vaccine.
And some are against innoculations in general, believing vaccinations are short-sighted, saving people now at the expense of future generations becoming more susceptible to the diseases. As well as starting an arms race with the diseases -- the diseases develop resistance, and you have to change the vaccine. Instead of becoming less lethal and less disabling over time, diseases become angrier.
Diseases don't get "angrier." Polio isn't more angry, and it is not "resistant" to the vaccine--just virtually eradicated (and it would be completely eradicated if not for irrational antivaccine fears). Yes, you can reduce future susceptibility to disease by letting the disease kill off everybody who is susceptible today, but what is the advantage? I suppose that if we were expecting civilization to collapse then there might be some sort of advantage to instituting that sort of brutal eugenics program to breed a population that will be more resistant to disease at some day in the future, but that hardly makes sense in a technological culture where vaccines are available.
You are painting with too broad a brush. All anti-vaccine people do not have autism fears. Some people just don't want the government to dictate the shots that go into their children. The government isn't always right. Be thankful that people are fighting for right to choose what you do with your children.
Yeah, that nasty government, telling people that they can't make child porn with their own children, or expose them to deadly, disabling diseases because of irrational fears of vaccination. Thank god there are people fighting for the right to do whatever you want with your own children.
When you were a kid, they didn't make a point of telling you, "You could die or suffer permanent brain damage from this disease." It was unavoidable, so why scare the kid? Just cross your fingers and hope he comes through it OK. Better to get it early, because the risk rises with age.
Did I say I am not going to get them vaccinated *or* did I say I wanted to wait until they had their own functional immune systems.
This is illustrative of the degree of medical ignorance behind the antivaccine hysteria. The very fact that vaccines work in young children (and the medical evidence is unequivocal that they do) proves that have functional immune systems.
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They expect him to be able to pay it back--over a period of many years. Being able to pay off a quarter million dollar loan over time doesn't make you rich, although it might be one of the things that prevents you from being rich. Ask anybody with a mortgage.
I teach them. They are that bright. You can't get through medical school by cheating. The study you cite used a very broad definition of cheating, including leaving out quotation marks in citing a published result, and only providing a reference to the source (which is still something that will get a student in a quite a lot of trouble if they are caught at it). Only 2% acknowledged cheating on an exam question.
Another issue is that from the standpoint of evidence-based medicine, nobody really knows just how much of the placebo effect is due to power of suggestion. The placebo effect also includes such factors as regression toward the mean--which is another way of saying, "A lot of things get better over time on their own."
The older medical literature suggests that the suggestion component is quite strong, but some modern studies indicate that except for subjective complaints such as pain, placebos don't really do much. But placebo studies are not conducted the way they once were. At one time, it was considered OK to lie to a study subject. Modern ethical standards require that the subject be fully informed of the possibility that they may receive a placebo. So were the older studies wrong, or is the placebo weaker when a patient suspects that they may be receiving a placebo?
But is it reasonable for a patient to pay money for a placebo? And since placebos probably work best if the patient believes they are effective treatment, the doctor is in the awkward position of deceiving (or at least acquiescing to the deceit of his patients). Do you really want your doctor lying to you? Moreover, the fact that a drug or treatment is not better than a placebo does not necessarily mean that it is without harmful side effects.
Some doctors try to have it both ways; they'll prescribe something ineffective, but cheap and relatively harmless (perhaps a "homeopathic" treatment, which is really just water), and tell the patient, "Some patients say this helps them, although medical science can't explain why it should work. You might try it and see if it works for you." All of which is absolutely true, but a little less baldly stated than "This is worthless crap, but if I hadn't told you that, it might have made you feel better by the placebo effect."
All drugs, old and new, produce bad reactions with some people. The choice of whether to prescribe a new drug or an old one is not an easy one. The new drugs often will offer some real advantages, but it is not always clear whether the advantages justify the cost. Moreover, rarer side effects often only become known after a drug has been widely prescribed, because clinical trials usually involve just a few thousand patients
They aren't all geniuses, but medical students are very bright. You need quite good grades in college (in non-gut courses like organic chemistry) and strong scores to the MCATs even to get in, and the amount of information that they are expected to master in medical school is enormous.
The days when an MD was a royal road to riches are long over. Medical care is not getting cheaper, but most of the money is now going to the insurance companies rather than the doctors. It is still a well-paid profession, on the average, but keep in mind that doctors start making real money fairly late in their careers, often with perhaps a quarter million dollars in debt from educational and other expenses.
On the positive side, my experience with medical students suggests that now that an MD is no longer a guarantee of wealth, the medical profession is once again actually attracting people who feel a genuine calling to relieve suffering and heal the sick.
This seems to be a particularly idiotic attempt to "spin" what was actually said. There is nothing at all in the statement about Sony intentionally introducing programming obstacles.
It is quite obvious that Hirai was explaining why Sony chose a powerful, if more difficult to program for, multiprocessor architecture over a simpler, less powerful architecture. Sony wanted a platform that would have enough power to sustain itself for 10 years. So they did not consider it to be a major detriment that developers would not immediately be able to unlock to full power of the architecture, because much of that power was intended to allow the console "room to grow."
I use the streaming quite a bit. I'll wait for Blu-ray disks to arrive in the mail, but there are plenty of older titles available in DVD quality. The often-imperceptible improvement in quality is not worth waiting for mail delivery of the physical disk. Aside from the limited streaming catalog, the major negative is the unavailability of DVD extras.
It is obvious that streaming is not going to completely replace physical disks in the short term, and there is no indication of Netflix discontinuing its physical disk delivery program. But I think that Netflix's vision of online delivery gradually replacing disks is accurate, and they are wise to establish themselves as the leaders in this area.
One again, we see typical denialist rationalization--cherry-picking one bit of data you can attack and ignoring the rest. The IPCC is hardly the only scientific review body to validate the theory of global warming. Every major independent scientific organization that has reviewed the evidence has come to the same conclusion. This includes the US National Academy of Sciences, established by Abraham Lincoln as an independent review body to advice the nation on critical matters of science. Members serve pro bono, are elected by the current membership solely on the basis of major scientific achievements. It is not beholden to any political organization. The same can be said for the Royal Society of London, which dates back to the time of Isaac Newton, perhaps the oldest and most respected scientific academy in the world.
Your notion that science progresses by "overturning dominant paradigms" is yet another example of denialist cherry picking. The logic is idiotic: "Scientists occasionally change their mind based on new evidence, so I can presume that any current scientific view that I don't like must be wrong."
Of course, the truth is that we remember revolutions in science precisely because they are so rare and unusual. Most of the time, even when there is a major shift in scientific understanding, it incorporates much of the previous model. Newton's Laws of motion and gravity were overturned by Einstein--but you can still successfully fly a rocket to the moon using them. Our understanding of motion and gravity may change again in the future, but that doesn't mean that you can safely stand in front of the barrel of a gun in the faith that the physics that says that bullets can kill you will be overturned sometime in the future. There have been major advances in physics and climate science in the century since Arrhenius figured out that CO2 warms climate, but that basic principle remains valid, even though there have been major advances in our knowledge of the atmosphere and the physics of the CO2 molecule.
This is a mistaken understanding of what replication means in science. Scientists almost never attempt to repeat somebody else's experiment exactly--rather they carry out a different experiment that should, if the conclusions are correct, yield similar results. Only in rare instances where the results conflict does one attempt to repeat somebody else's experiment exactly. When checking another scientist's conclusions, I make it a point to avoid using their code, because that carries the risk of repeating their errors.
It is because multiple research groups, using different methodology, have reached similar conclusions regarding climate change that multiple scientific reviews, both from the International Panel on Climate Change and from independent academies of top scientists such as the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London have agreed that the conclusions are robust, and that global warming is a genuine threat and the consequence of human CO2 emissions
Retreat to conspiracy thinking when the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly against them is another hallmark of the denialist. Very often, denialists insist that scientists they disagree with are driven by pecuniary motives. Of course, this is fairly ridiculous in the case of global warming, where we have just had 8 years of an administration hostile to the concept of global warming, and presumably receptive to funding research that would disprove global warming, if any could be found. In addition, the existence of well-funded lobbying groups opposing global warming indicates that there is plenty of industrial money available as well.
Moreover, the accusation of financial interest fails to explain why review committees of independent, elite societies such as the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Academy of London, comprised of scientists from many different fields, most of who receive their funding from sources that have nothing to do with global warming, have concluded that global warming concerns are valid.
I asked you for the name of the scientist and a link to a press release or publication documenting the alleged announcement that it was "the hottest October in history" based on the faulty data.
You responded with a link to Climateaudit, a denialist site that is somewhat notorious for claiming credit for all corrections of climate data, regardless of who actually found the error first. They also have in the past accused climate scientists of making "claims" that they did not actually make. The article that you reference does not appear to contain either the name of the scientist who made the alleged "announcement," or the alleged publication or press release. Second-hand accusations on denialist sites such as climateaudit do not qualify as citations.
Rapid open reporting of raw data makes it possible for scientists to get a head-start on analysis, and to some extent heads off claims of denialists that scientists are hiding data that would prove that global warming is not occurring. Moreover, such errors generally reach the public eye not from climate scientists "propping it up" as evidence (because genuine climate scientists realize that data from a single year is not evidence of much of anything regarding long-term climate change, and are particularly cautious of drawing conclusions from raw data that is subject to revision and correction), but rather from global-warming denialists trumpeting the correction to the media in hopes of undermining public confidence in the conclusions of climate science.
Really? So which climate scientist "announced" that it was the hottest October in history based upon this quickly-corrected error? Please provide the name of the scientist and a reference to the scientific publication or press release in which the alleged claim was made.
Also please explain how whether or not a single October was or was not the hottest on record is relevant to the question of whether there is a long-term multi-decadal warming trend.
Again, this is a prime example of denialist rationalization--obsessing about trivial, irrelevant errors as an excuse for rejecting conclusions based upon a huge mass of data, and validated by scientists review by the world's most renowned elite scientific academies, such as the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London.
"Skeptic" can reasonably be applied to those who make rational objections. But those who persist in repeating long-refuted strawman arguments such as
or
which mischaracterizes climate science and climate models to such a gross and obvious extent that it is clear that the person making the argument is immune to rational discussion, can justly be referred to as "denialists" or "cranks."
The term "denialists" is applied to those who irrationally deny accepted scientific fact. One encounters denialists in pretty much any area of science--there are evolution deniers, germ theory deniers, moon landing deniers, relativity denialists, etc.
For example, in the case of global warming, the fact that global warming is occurring, that it is due to human CO2 release, and that it poses a major threat has been reviewed and validated by independent elite scientific organizations worldwide, including such long-standing independent scientific societies as the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London. This is a level of consensus that is virtually unparalleled in science. Those who reject this knowledge, based upon obviously fallacious arguments are justly referred to as "denialists."
This is a prime example of the sort of rationalization that passes for denialist reasoning. When confronted with a huge mass of evidence supporting an unpalatable conclusion, they cherry-pick any error, no matter how small or irrelevant to the conclusion, and insist "if this is wrong, then maybe it is all wrong." Since in any human endeavor, there are always errors, it is always possible to rationalize away any conclusion that you prefer not to confront.
This is of course quite typical. The data in question is real-time, raw data. In most scientific enterprises, such data is kept private by the researchers until it can be cross-checked and validated. But in climate research there is a level of openness and public access that is almost unparalleled in science, with even preliminary data publicly available. Of course, the actual scientists know that such data is subject to revision and do not base important conclusions upon it. So the error has no impact on the conclusion that there is a long-term decrease in Arctic ice due to global warming. But that won't stop denialists from talking about it as though it invalidates everything.
Vaccination does not provide absolute protection to an individual, just reduces the likelihood of infection. A large part of the protection afforded by vaccination occurs on a population basis, and is the result of reducing the frequency of infection low enough that the illness cannot propagate through the population and dies out instead of becoming epidemic.
There are also some kids who have immune conditions that prevent them from being vaccinated, and who are often at elevated risk of severe harm if they do happen to get infected.
This is very ignorant. Vaccination greatly reduces the risk of catching disease, but like nearly everything else in this world, it is not completely infallible. Moreover, there are some children with genuine medical conditions (as opposed to fantasy fears of autism) that preclude vaccination. In many cases, these are children who also have elevated risk of long-term harm if they do contract a vaccine-preventable illness.
While there is strong evidence for the safety of the MMR, there is no such evidence for 3 separate vaccinations. It would not be unreasonable to imagine that it might carry triple the risk of a combined vaccination. And since some vaccinations would have to be delayed to do this, there would be the additional risk due to extending the window of vulnerability to infection.
You sound like the 90-year old woman insisting "smoking didn't kill me." But of course all the people that smoking did kill aren't around to contradict her.
By the way, measles can cause encephalopathy and severe brain damage, as well as death. Are you sure that you'd rather have that than be autistic? Many autistic people have led productive, rewarding lives. Moreover, there is strong evidence that the MMR does not cause autism, so you are basically trading an imaginary risk for a real one.
There is no rational reason to expect that 3 separate doctor visits and 3 separate bottles of vaccine, to no established medical benefit, should be as cheap as a single visit and a combined vaccine.
Diseases don't get "angrier." Polio isn't more angry, and it is not "resistant" to the vaccine--just virtually eradicated (and it would be completely eradicated if not for irrational antivaccine fears). Yes, you can reduce future susceptibility to disease by letting the disease kill off everybody who is susceptible today, but what is the advantage? I suppose that if we were expecting civilization to collapse then there might be some sort of advantage to instituting that sort of brutal eugenics program to breed a population that will be more resistant to disease at some day in the future, but that hardly makes sense in a technological culture where vaccines are available.
Yeah, that nasty government, telling people that they can't make child porn with their own children, or expose them to deadly, disabling diseases because of irrational fears of vaccination. Thank god there are people fighting for the right to do whatever you want with your own children.
When you were a kid, they didn't make a point of telling you, "You could die or suffer permanent brain damage from this disease." It was unavoidable, so why scare the kid? Just cross your fingers and hope he comes through it OK. Better to get it early, because the risk rises with age.
This is illustrative of the degree of medical ignorance behind the antivaccine hysteria. The very fact that vaccines work in young children (and the medical evidence is unequivocal that they do) proves that have functional immune systems.